Coordinates: Sidewalk e-mail, http://www.sidewalk.com

Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. To get our daily dose, we subscribe to Ditherati, a five-day-a-week email that highlights a quote by a high-tech executive and frames it with subtle commentary. One recent email (titled "That's Redmond Jargon For 'Screwed' ") highlighted this quote, in which a Disney executive describes negotiating with Microsoft: "I felt like we were being, you know, leveraged."

Coordinates: Ditherati, http://www.ditherati.com

Sidebar: 8 Web Tools We Can't Live Without

Most of the Web sites we can't live without serve up ideas, analysis, or in-depth information on topics about which we care deeply. But there's another category of sites that have worked their way into our everyday life. We think of them as Web tools: sites designed to perform specific functions or to solve specific problems.

For example, we can't live without online dictionaries. To get a fast definition of a word, we consult Dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com). Reference works that are searchable on the site include Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Jargon File, The Elements, Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary, Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary, and The CIA World Factbook. The site also links to other online dictionaries and language resources that we can't live without, including Roget's Thesaurus (http://www.thesaurus.com) and Bartlett's Quotations (http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett).

If you're still having trouble with the meaning of a word, try OneLook Dictionaries (http://www.onelook.com). OneLook is not an online dictionary. Rather, it's a specialized search engine that queries nearly 450 online dictionaries, all of them hosted by other Web sites. When the search for a word has run its course, OneLook supplies links to definitions and to the home pages of the relevant dictionaries.

Other tools help you reach people. Just because we spend lots of time on the Web doesn't mean that we can live without snail mail or the telephone. The U.S. Postal Service's Zip Code Lookup and Address Information site (http://www.usps.gov/ncsc) helps eliminate some of the headaches that are associated with ordinary mail. Do you know a street address but not the zip code that goes with it? Did you forget the postal abbreviation for a state? Before you head to the mailbox, head to the Web.

There's a similar troubleshooting service for the telephone. Do you have an area code but no idea which area (and thus which time zone) the code applies to? Do you have an international number but not the country code that goes with it? Just go to 555-1212.com (http://www.555-1212.com) before you dial the phone, and you'll find the information you need.

Another part of the telephone experience is the Yellow Pages -- perhaps the most underrated networking tool in business. Say you live in Boston and need the Yellow Pages for Boise, Idaho. Don't call your phone company: You'll wait weeks for a Yellow Pages, and you'll be charged a fee for it. Instead, point your browser to BigBook (http://www.bigbook.com), powered by GTE's SuperPages service. The site offers listings from more than 5,000 Yellow Pages directories. You can search by keyword, company name, or type of business. Once you find an address, you can click on it to call up maps and directions.

Enough about headaches. What about a challenge that we all face -- the pursuit of lifelong learning? Learn2.com (http://www.learn2.com) is "the ability utility." It offers step-by-step instructions -- or "2torials" -- on a wide array of activities, hobbies, and tasks. The skills taught in its nearly 200 tutorials range from the mundane (how to change a flat) to the truly eclectic (how to make stained glass). Learn2.com is produced by Panmedia Corp., an online-development outfit in Sausalito, California that works with companies like Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Bain & Co. Log on and load up -- on learning.

Associate Editor Gina Imperato (gimperato@fastcompany.com) still spends way too much time on the Web.