I see now that the YouSendIt link that I picked up came from Nick Denton's latest blog startup, LifeHacker. Credit where it's due, I suppose, but to be honest LifeHacker doesn't yet seem very impressive to me. Obviously you're not going to earn my nerdmiration by penning phrases like "the software that’s closest to making BitTorrent usable". Bah! The fact that some XP-only tricks aren't designated as such, and that the site has already begun repeating itself (via unnecessary "review" posts) isn't encouraging.

The problem here is that existing Gawker tech site, Gizmodo, has been getting its brains beaten out by rival Engadget for months now. I've got no idea how their traffic compares, but Engadget is faster to post stories, covers more items, and has considerably more technical depth. I still love Gizmodo's snappy writing, but it's just not a go-to tech blog. I guess LifeHacker is supposed to flesh out Gizmodo's missing bits, but so far it isn't providing a very compelling justification for its existence separate from Gizmodo.

If you still have a technical itch that needs scratching, though, you'd do pretty well to visit these sites (plus the aforementioned Engadget):

• Hack-A-Day - infrequent updates, but if you're as intent on electrocuting yourself as I am, this is the place to start.
• TheBroken - nothing much other than episode downloads are currently available, but updates are pending. For a while, though, its message boards were an amazingly friendly resource for 14 year old aspiring hackers. I mean that in a good way.
• Digg - Collaborative nerd news filtering. It's getting pimped pretty heavily by TheBroken's Kevin Rose and his orbiting array of TechTV castoffs. It's not bad, but I'm not completely sold on it quite yet.
• Dan's Data - I've mentioned it in passing before, but this site isn't just about magnets and rubberband guns. It's also about belittling audiophiles. Oh, and tech stuff.

Finally, I would normally mention LearnToHack -- it doesn't live up to its domain name, but it is a decent way to learn how to subvert various types of websites, mostly through manipulating HTML and javascript. Unfortunately, it looks like one of their students just completed his thesis...