Every year people summarize for us what made this year special or what was the "best of the year." The Internet Tutor is no different in that respect. Here is my second annual "Best Web Sites" awards.

I choose the Web sites from my huge "favorites" listing on my Microsoft Internet Explorer browser (the equivalent of Netscape Navigator's "bookmarks"). Final selections are determined by the number of times I recommend a particular site throughout the year.

Here they are in reverse order.

10. RocketMail is the best free Web-based e-mail. With RocketMail you can check your e-mail from any computer attached to the Internet and stay a bit more anonymous than an e-mail address from a regionalized Internet service provider.

9. Internet Movie Database is the best place to find out about any movie or video old or new. You can read reviews, casts of characters and much more at this one site.

8. Medical Reference Library is ideal for people wanting to know more about their body, health, diseases, ailments and things related to the medical establishment. You may want to check your symptoms here before making a doctor's office visit.

7. Edmund's Automobile Buyer's Guides is the complete resource to researching, negotiating for and purchasing a new or used car or truck. You can see all the manufacturer specifications and dealer costs for every vehicle-invaluable when negotiating your best price.

6. News.Com bills itself as "Tech News First." I recommend that anyone seriously interested in keeping up with the latest advances of the Internet check this site regularly. I certainly do.

5. CNN Interactive and USA Today are two sites I always give together for news. They both have basically the same extremely current general and sports news information. It is just a matter of preference as to the one you will like.

4. PC Webopaedia is the ultimate resource for researching anything related to computers or the Internet. If someone asks me about a computer-related acronym or subject that I don't already know, I turn to PC Webopaedia first.

3. The Weather Channel has the best (and I believe most accurate) weather reporting on the Internet. Unlike some other weather-related sites, you can find more rural locations listed here and they have the best weather satellites.

2. ZDNet Software Library made it to number two this year and number one on my list for finding and downloading software. My oldest son visits this site very often to get the latest computer games.

1. Yahoo! is the grand champion this year and has the most requested topics all in one place.

In addition to being the best Web directory and general topic search engine, Yahoo! has a plethora of other sections that are also "best-of-class." Included on the Yahoo! site are Stock Quotes, Maps, People Search (white pages), Yellow Pages and Chat.

It is easy to see why Yahoo! has again been awarded the Internet Tutor "Best Web site of 1997."

Finally, while this is certainly not a comprehensive list, it does represent the types of commonly-requested information that the Internet is so good at providing and you may want to bookmark these sites for yourself.