East of NYC - The Buzz

Recommended Website: The Green Palate Experience

Not long ago canvas magazine shuttered its doors after about two years in circulation.  We were a fan of the publication and its take on local healthy cuisine, arts and a whole slew of other themes.  They've transformed their site into The Green Palate Experience which is now showcasing "their take on grapes, grains, brews & bites."  Put this on your bookmark list and be sure to check them out from time to time.

Recommended Website: Big Apple Sports Bites

If you're a local sports fan, then we can recommend you going over to Big Apple Sports Bites, a hub of news from the local area's sports teams.  This site is a great way to keep on top of things on a daily basis, especially if you don't have the time (or energy) to follow each of your favorite teams during their normal schedule.  The site is updated daily with a fresh take on some of the area's most exciting content.

Recommended Website: Eating Long Island

Although just launched, we have a feeling that Eating Long Island will be around for a long time to come.  With a focus on only restaurants and bars on Long Island, this site will serve up some great reviews and some tips on where you must visit, and where to avoid as well.  Since they don't have a developed database of restaurants available at their disposal, you may notice that they're linking to ours.  This is a great resource that we hope that you'll use in conjunction with East of NYC.

Recommended Website: Sit or Squat

On a friend's Facebook status, we were pointed to this new website (still in "beta" form,) Sit or Squat.  We've all been in the situation where we need to "go" and haven't the foggiest idea of where to do so.  Now you can see bathrooms wherever you are, since the framework of the site is built over the Google Maps API.  As time goes on, you and everyone else on the internet will be expanding the different bathrooms available, so there will soon be bathrooms all over the place that you will be aware of.

As soon as we saw that you can access the site over your iPhone or Blackberry, we realized that this will be a huge success.  Here's to finding a place to sit....or squat.

Recommended Website: Brooklyn Baby

Brooklyn is a large borough that is now inhabited by more strollers than ever before.  Resources that you can actually use to stay relevant on things to do with your kids are few and far between (besides East of NYC, of course,) but we may have found the one that you'll want to use.  Brooklyn Baby is the brain child of Alison Lowenstein, who has contributed to Time Out New York Kids, among other popular publications.  She's published City Baby Brooklyn and soon she'll be coming out with a new book entitled City Weekends which will be available in March 2009.  Be sure to look out for it when it arrives in a book store near you.

Recommended Website: LongIslandWineCountry.com

As you are probably aware, Long Island is home to some of the finest wineries in the country (and in the world.) Living and visiting here means that we're in the unique position to actually be able to hop in the car, take a 2-hour maximum trip and sample some of the most interesting and unique wines on the very land that they are produced. Since 1999 Long Island Wine Country has been arranging public tours as well as corporate tours of the East End's favorite wineries. On a public tour you can make your reservation on their luxury coach bus and receive VIP tastings at several vineyards, walking tours and more.

October 5th, 2008 is a special day for LIWC. The Harvest Fest is taking place and will include wine tastings, grape pickings, lunch, wine making demonstrations and more. There are multiple pick-up spots throughout NYC and Long Island. Details on the event can be found here. This is sure to be a good time.

Sign up for their newsletter and you'll receive up to date information on all that is happening in the LI Wine Country area.

Recommended Website: Golf on Long Island

At one point we contemplated placing a golf section on this site that would serve as a guide for local courses and the golfers that frequent them. Tonight I found the resource that will allow me to not have to take all of that time to configure that new page. Although golf season might be winding down as we're heading towards fall and the colder weather, two avid golfers have taken it upon themselves to compile a great website that details some of the local courses that make Long Island such a great destination.

On Golf on Long Island you'll find write-ups on Nassau County and Suffolk County courses alike. Phil and Rob, the two contributors to the site are looking forward to showing you what's out there (and there is a lot of golf to be played on this island.)

Recommended Website: Stuck in Customs

While waiting for our bags to clear customs on our recent journey, we remembered a website that we had frequented a lot in the prior year. Stuck in Customs is a blog by Trey Ratcliff, a businessman and world traveler who takes you along on some of his amazing travels all over the globe. The process that he uses, HDR (High Dynamic Range Imaging) photography, is a digitally altered picture that brings together multiple long exposures of the same scene for beautiful colors and textures. Trey's works have won multiple awards all over the globe for his creativity and skill (not to mention the 250,000 hits his site gets every month.)

**Above image is taken from the Stuck in Customs blog.

Recommended Website: Map My Run

When you spend time running outside, it can often be difficult to know for sure exactly how far you've gone. Now, that is a thing of the past. With Map My Run you'll be able to chart your routine with an easy to use guide which consists of little more than google maps and a few clicks of your mouse. Use this when you get back from running or to plan ahead so that you don't run into any dead ends.

Recommended Website: hotspotr

hotspotr is a unique web 2.0 service that we discovered 2 years ago when it was in its infancy stages. Now widely popular and having added thousands of hotspots, you can find wifi hotspots broken down by State, town and city.