I'm really using this page to applaud products or services which I think have been exceptional, and to provide some recommendations on making the Web easier to use.

Products

Domestic

I'm not sure if it counts as a product or a service, but full marks to Interior Designers Guild in Winchester who designed and built our new kitchen. At the end of the day they scored over the others for commitment, flexibility, innovation, [compatibility] - in fact pretty much everything including price (value for money).

For contacts, and more kitchen related comments see Projects

For prams and other baby products you can't do much better than Bebe Confort. They're made in France (to UK specification) and to my mind they're much better designed and built that your bog-standard types like Mamas & Papas, and they're no more expensive either.

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Services

A big tick to Olivers Baby Care in Oliver's Battery for informed, helpful advice and great service.

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Web-Related

Search engines

Usually I'm looking for something which is UK specific: maybe a particular shop, or a product or service I want to use. There's nothing more annoying than searching for, say, car insurance; and being faced with a list of fifty American firms who only insure cars in the US. I therefore tend to use the UK AltaVista site (http://uk.altavista.com) which can be tailored to search UK sites only when I'm looking for something  specific. AltaVista has the added advantage that you can search for phrases (e.g. "Badger brewery") so that it only returns sites which match the whole phrase, not hundreds of sites that match one word only. Similarly, AltaVista allows you to highlight specific words or phrases which must be included in the result, such that a search for '+Leica digital camera' doesn't return every other kind of digital camera as well.

For information, where I'm not bothered by the source, I'll use a web-crawler like Google (www.google.com).

Contacting people

For telephone numbers try the BT site at www.BT.com/phonenetuk/. It works well for both individuals and businesses, though it can get a bit overloaded if you're looking for, say, 'NatWest Bank' in 'London'.

For postcodes go the the Royal Mail site at www.royalmail.com. They have an excellent postcode finder (you put in the address) which also works in reverse. There's also a handy gadget for calculating the correct postage for a letter or parcel, but you do have to know what the thing weighs first.

Incidentally, once you know a postcode, you can get a map of the local area from MultiMap. Just head for their site at www.multimap.co.uk, type in the code, and Bob's your Uncle.

Travel

If you're going by train, you can't beat the Railtrack site for its on-line timetable www.railtrack.co.uk. Watch out if you're crossing London, though- they will include connections across London by tube.

For flights I tend to use BA since they have the most flights into and out of Great Britain. Their site at www.britishairways.com also includes links to the frequent flyer program and special offers.

Finance

Interactive Investor (www.iii.co.uk) provides an easy to use portfolio service where you can put in your investments (PEPs, pensions, etc.) and get a daily valuation report. They also have historical performance data, and chat rooms for specific shares.

I've yet to find a convincing on-line banking service. When I do I'll switch over. In the meantime I'm using Egg (www.egg.com)for cash savings (simple and straightforward) and NatWest OnLine (www.natwest.com), which was a bit glitchy to start with, but seems to be more reliable these days.

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