WITH MILLIONS OF SITES VYING TO SUCK AWAY YOUR VALUABLE TIME, WE FIND FIVE WEBSITES THAT ARE ACTUALLY USEFUL. 

Did you know that there’s actually more to the Internet than social networking sites and video streams?
Yes, believe it or not buried deep beneath a cyber wasteland of online gaming and message boards lie a cornucopia of valuable resources that can actually help you in your real life.

Below are just five of these useful sites that can help you solve your daily woes.

Njection.com

Driving around Winnipeg often means one thing – keeping your foot hovered over the brake pedal as you near a speed trap.
Whether it’s a red light camera or a police car with a radar gun in semi-clear view, we’ve become accustomed to safer driving, especially in areas that have postings.

Going to another city, however, can create a problem. Signs for speed trap areas aren’t always visible, and the last thing you want is to be caught going over the limit across the border.

To avoid racing into a speed trap, visit njection.com before you hit the border. Using their Speedtrap mapping system (which incorporates the Microsoft Live Maps web application), the webmasters, along with a network of posters across North America (and in some international markets), offer tips on locations of speed traps, their type, the level of enforcement and any reports on speeding tickets.

Also available on the site are forums for car buyers and a calendar of events such as auto shows.

 Yousendit.com

We’ve all been there. Either we’re trying to send Aunt Millie 20 photos of our new daughter or we’re trying to get a slide show to a client in Toronto for a presentation that is just a couple hours away. Both scenarios present a problem – either your email box or theirs won’t accommodate the 10 MB file that you’re trying to send.
For those who are stuck in either of these situations, or similar ones, yousendit.com is the solution to your concerns. Acting as an independent FTP site, yousendit.com allows you to upload files up to two GB in size with a paid membership, and 100MB for free. Both yourself and your intended destination receive email alerts once the data is uploaded, and will be available for a few days.
The one draw back is that you will receive a number of “special offer” emails from the YouSendIt company, but hitting the delete button on one of these hits is better than doing it for a message from the dreaded System Administrator.

Gethuman.com

While many bosses are worried about their employees wasting time posting messages on Facebook, what can devour even more useless ticks off the clock is being on the phone, trying to maneuver your way through an endless sea of automatic voice prompts.

So unless your fingers are really in need of some exercise, click over to gethuman.com to get the goods on finding the quickest route to reach an actual person. Listing most major corporations Stateside, gethuman gives you the simple (at times) touchtone trail to reach out and touch someone. Each company also gets a letter grade on their ease of use and some listings also include email addresses.

Gethuman.com is the brainchild of Paul English, a consumer advocate and entrepreneur based in Boston. As his profile describes, “Paul created and funds the gethuman project out of his own frustration in trying to obtain excellent customer service.”

While the listings are for US-based offices only, you can try their discussion forum to get Canadian tele-maps.

Winnipeggasprices.com

 Have you ever driven up to pump some gas into your car, then driven five blocks only to see that another station is offering a lower price?

In what is probably the most frustrating part of Winnipeg’s driving, gas stations are keeping their posted prices varied, especially in the wake of rising fuel costs, in an effort to attract as many customers as possible.

So how can you stay ahead of the curve and know the hot spots for cheap gas? The answer lies at Winnipeggasprices.com. The local affiliate of GasBuddy.com, a North American network of cheap fuel watchers, gives updated reports by its group of scouts who report in from across the city, giving regular updates on posted gas prices and the discounts each station offers. With listings giving both streets and regions, you’re sure to find the best place to get your fill in your neck of the woods.

Askachef.com

Sure, lasagna with Caesar salad is a great meal, but having it three or four times a month can get really old, really quickly.

If you’re looking to spice up your meal selections, click over to askachef.com. Utilizing a number of culinary experts from across the globe, this site offers hungry surfers a number of options to enhance their current menus.

The website includes question and answer features that can help you get the most out of your own cooking techniques, recipes that will cover every meal and course and even a couple instructional videos that you can view on your laptop while preparing dinner.