Links to other Websites I have found useful or entertaining over the years.


Lighting Technology - Manufacturers & Distributors.

Website Description
Bulbs, Lamps and Tubes Direct You'll see this one linked to from quite a number of pages on this website.  Contrary to appearances - I've no affiliation with this company!  I am however a happy customer of theirs many times over.  Over the years this has been one of my first ports of call when I'm looking for anything.

 

Lighting Collections and Enthusiast Websites.

Website Description
Candlepower Forums This is where I learned a good portion of my initial knowledge about both fixed and portable lighting in the 21st century.  A very, very busy discussion board with a truly mind-boggling amount of knowledge, including a good deal of it from right at the heart of the industry.

If you need a lighting question answered - go here first!
Don's Lighting Info Centre This place has been around forever...If you enjoy losing hours to reading up on how things like discharge lamps work, or how to (properly) dim fluorescent lamps, here you go!  I Lost DAYS to this site back when I was first getting into lighting...
English Streetlights Online A fellow collector - albeit specialising in street lighting equipment.  Aside from just collecting them, he's also got an extensive database on this website documenting survivors of yesteryear which are still in use today across the country.
Kilokat's Antique Bulb Collectors Website and Discussion Board This must be one of the largest collections of historic lighting equipment in the world.  Not to mention the knowledge to go with it - there's a link to a discussion board linked to the website itself there as well.
Lamptech If there's any one website out there which this one owes its existence to - it's this one.  Run by a fellow enthusiast this very professional website contains a huge amount of very, very well written information on the evolution of discharge lighting through the years. 

Recently this has also branched out from discharge lighting to also include some information on incandescent and semiconductor lighting.

In addition to the data itself, there are also items such as historic lamp catalogues, and technical videos.
The LED Museum This was the first real place where I saw flashlights being properly reviewed from the point of view of the end user - and was what inspired me to create my own reviews. 

 

Automotive Interest.

WebsiteDescription
Autoshite Aside from triggering profanity filters around the world, making it nigh on impossible to post links to it from any other forum...This has to be the single forum I've seen with the widest appreciation for all sorts of cars - both awful and otherwise. 

The variety and depth of knowledge on here is mind boggling too.

It's also one that really bucks the trend of forums tending to by a dying breed, in that this particular one as of early 2021 anyway is absolutely thriving. 

This is where I'm the most active online these days, closely followed by the French Car Forums.

French Car Forums A friendly and active forum for all things relating to the French car marques.  There's a very useful Wiki page linked to from the landing page there too.
Fusion Fabrications Metal fabrication specialists based just outside Moreton, Oxfordshire.  This is the company who made up the custom aluminium fuel tank for my Invacar and were an absolute pleasure to do business with.  They specialise in custom aluminium tanks (including fuel tanks), full stainless steel exhaust systems, inlet manifolds & plenums, race spec exhaust manifolds and tubular turbo exhaust manifolds. 
Headline MK An engine reconditioning company based just outside Milton Keynes.  Provided me a very professional and reasonably priced service when I needed a pair of cylinder heads checked over and skimmed.
Lada Spares UK If the parts you need for your Lada exist, these guys know where to get it. 

Huge thanks to them, my sanity would have run out several times over when I was running these cars if it hadn't been for these guys.  There's also a forum attached to the site, though it's pretty quiet these days.

Practically Classics A completely unofficial forum loosely associated with the Practical Classics magazine.
Qarecar Replica Tax Discs A source of really decent quality replica UK vehicle tax discs for years between 1961 and 2014.  These are always a nice finishing touch for any vehicle at a show.  Three types of disc are included - a standard one, one containing a QR code (which you can configure) to link to any details of the vehicle, and one containing a for sale note.  There are options for both a digital only or printed service available.
Retro Rides A forum with a focus on "retro" cars - though I do sometimes struggle to figure out *precisely* what that actually means...Though by the very meaning of the term Retro I guess it continually changes from year to year...
The Garage Based in Wolverton these guys have been my first choice now if I'm looking for tyres or getting brake work done I don't have the time to handle myself.  Professional, polite and efficient every time I've been there.
Two Wrestlers Garage My go-to place generally for MOT work for my vehicles.  A proper old-school garage.  Only downside is that - because they're good - that they're also busy, so it can take quite a while to get vehicles booked in for work.
UK Saabs A very active UK based forum for Saab enthusiasts.  While the forum us UK based there are a lot of regulars from around the globe - so don't feel that you can't ask a question just before you're from abroad.

 

Photography.

Website Description
Imagex Located in the centre of Bicester these guys are my go-to for all film processing and a good deal of buying too.  Their stock of vintage hardware is truly dangerous if you're into older cameras as well - and most of their stuff is really reasonably priced. 

If they don't have what you're looking for they almost definitely will know who will have it and where to find them.

Nik & Trick Looking for a mail-in service which can handle just about any sort of film you're likely to come across?  These folks can most likely sort you out.  They stock some really oddball and interesting films as well - if I'm shooting 110 this is where I generally order it from. 

 

Webcomics.

WebsiteVague Summary
Freefall Freefall takes place on a recently terraformed planet called Jean.  The main characters are the crew of the Savage Chicken: Sam Starfall, a kleptomaniacal captain, his robot sidekick Helix, and an anthropomorphic Red Wolf engineer, Florence Ambrose.  Chaos ensues.
Nine to Nine, Swords and Sausages Two furry comics run by the same author (seriously...how can you manage running TWO comics at the same time?!?) which always put a smile on my face.
Savestate This comic follows the misadventures of siblings Kade and Nicole...Which sounds fairly normal until you realise that their day to day lives include a possessed plush toy (named Ness, who thinks she's far less harmless than she really is), and Harvey...Who is a ghost rabbit...Thing...and a self-proclaimed elder god and destroyer of time.

Sounds like a normal day at the office to me.

Sequential Art Very well drawn comic, depicting the trials and tribulations of the struggling artist and those around him.  Including but not limited to a collective of hyper-intelligent (and hyperactive) squirrels whose genius while always well-meaning, is sometimes a little...misguided.
The Whiteboard A massively long-running very vaguely paintball related comic.  The main character is 50% airsmith, 50% mad scientist...and only nearly accidentally ended the universe once.

I've been following it pretty much daily since 2006, and it still makes me laugh.

xkcd I really don't need to introduce this one do I?  If you've even a few atoms of geek in you (and I mean that as a compliment), there's plenty here that will make you smile - and/or question our position in the fabric of the universe itself.

 

Vintage Electronics & Computer Restoration.

WebsiteDescription
Calmira II Probably THE most useful piece of software I've ever come across as far as making a Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 more pleasant to use.  It is quite simply, a Windows 95 style taskbar program...done very well.  It makes multitasking absolutely immeasurably less cumbersome.  Fantastic bit of software.
Caps Wiki I've found this website to be quite handy on a couple of occasions in that many pages contain information not only on the capacitors that often fail in old computers and such, but often also information on other often far harder to identify components that are damaged in the vicinity of the leaking capacitors.
UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Forum Whether you're new to bringing back to life things like old radios, televisions or computers or have been doing it for years, there's no question that there's probably someone over here who has information that will be of value to you.
WinWorld A HUGE repository and museum of vintage, abandoned and pre-release software.  I first discovered this when I was looking for a disc image to replace a corrupted Windows 3.11 install disc.  The resulting digging unearthed a plethora of software that I thought I had lost long, long ago!  Both useful and endlessly interesting if you're into playing around with old computers.


This page last updated on 26th October 2023.


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