MONET – When a French gallery decided to think light years outside of the art box for its new exhibition, it came up with this original and divine website celebrating the legendary Monet, father of impressionism and painted water lilies.

As soon as you enter the site of Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, Paris, you will hear the soft piano tones that instill a calm atmosphere, making you feel as if you’re strolling in Monet’s famous garden on a lazy afternoon. Choose between exploring the painter’s work or learning about his life in the site’s amazing digital experience. I explored both. It was captivating.

By the way, if you will be in Paris before January 24, 2010, be sure to visit the Grand Palais to see Monet’s art masterpieces, up close and (almost) personal.

How Many Friends Do You Know? – How close are you (really) to all your friends on Facebook? If your friends list is under 80, there’s a good chance you’ll score high on this cool quiz. Then again, if you’re one of those users with 500+ facebook friends, get ready to sweat.

Once the quiz begins, you will be presented with random photos of your friends, and you will have to quickly type in that friend’s name. This is a lot of fun, and kind of puts the literal meaning of ‘friend’ in perspective…

Wake Up the Box 2 – Your aim is to wake up the sleepy cute box, but it’s challenging. You have to cleverly use the objects around it and make them affect each other in the right way at the right time, so these can push, pull down or throw the sleeping box. That is where physics comes in…

For more addictive games and updates, visit our I ♥ GAMES page and stay ahead of the online game curve!

For those of you who haven’t fully explored it yet, AllMyFaves offers a whole page dedicated to a most important subject: Education. Suitable for curious souls, students of all ages, teachers and homeschooling parents, the Education page aims to provide a comprehensive resource for practically every field related to learning, teaching and research, both in and outside the classroom.

Thus far we’ve been getting great feedback on the Education page, and we’re delighted students and teachers across the country are making use of the top resources this page has to offer. Take Writings on the Wall, an edu blog of an English teacher (Mrs. Brill) for example. Mrs. Brill introduced the AMF Eduction page to her students as a “favorite homework helper.” Speaking of teachers, AllMyFaves also has a Teachers Mini Faves page available, listing the very top teacher resources the Web has to offer. These include a myriad of tools from classroom technology aids and educational videos to lesson plans, educational blogs and visualization tools for the classroom.

Whether you are a teacher, a pupil or an academic student, the Education page has something for everyone. A world of knowledge awaits you!

This is a picture of the Teachers Mini Faves. Would you like to create your own Mini Faves page? It’s free! Join All My Faves and start customizing your own visual page.

Motherboard.tv –  Keeping track of technological advances is rather easy; quick headline-skimming on TechCrunch, Wired or any major newspaper these days will do that. But one aspect of technology that is often difficult to track and explore is tech’s cultural dimension. Dell’s Motherboard offers just that, in the most professional, engaging and alluring way possible.

According to their About page, Motherboard is “an online video network and community focused on the exploration of the nature and culture of technology, as viewed through the lenses of curated editorial content, community, and dialogue.” Tap into original content videos covering a plethora of topics including film + video, music, art + design, gaming, environment + the body, and ‘wonderful.’

Among seemingly infinite informative delights, you will find all the hottest topics buzzing around the Web right now, such as the Gap logo conundrum, or check this video showing the solution to the mysterious bee shortage in the US. Each video is accompanied by superb textual content, which makes any session on Motherboard a most enjoyable didactic experience.

YouTube Instant – If you like losing control every now and then, or if you like to let someone else take the Wheel for you, YouTube Instant is for you. As you may know, Google  recently came out with the instant search feature. This sparked computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh from Stanford University, CA to create a YouTube-based site built on the ‘instant’ concept of Google’s.

Finding videos on YouTube Instant is easy. Simply type in the name of the artist, song or any other key word, and the site will automatically start playing the first (and probably the highest rated/most viewed related) video. I feel this instant project is a bit too aggressive, as it leaves very little to no control over the selected videos in the hands of the user. To give an example, see what happens when you type in just one letter in the search box (I typed in ‘J’ – see screen shot below). In addition, the number of related videos on the right seems too limited in my opinion.

Although the design aims for a light and informal look and feel, it’s a nice try, nothing more. I’m a bit annoyed by the thought I don’t really have much say over the videos someone else is selecting for me. Since I’d like to remain in control in terms of the content I consume, I’ll continue exploring videos on the good old formal YouTube.com, and on the All My Faves Video page, thank you very much. On the other hand, I realize I am a bit conservative in my views; try YouTube Instant for yourself and see if you enjoy it more than I did.

Unhear it – I remember this one time in the very last week of my senior year in high school, I was in the middle of my final exam in history, and as I was trying to formulate an answer to one of the questions on the exam, I couldn’t help but repeating the same song in my head: Boney M’s cover of Rivers of Babylon. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a cool song and the 1970s wouldn’t have been complete without it. But being unable to get rid of this tune in such a crucial moment as that of a final exam, well, you get my drift.

The point of this personal anecdote is to bring Unhear it to your attention, a cool site that offers what I so direly needed that day in high school: a get-rid-of-that-song-in-your-head solution. How do they do it? Well, they make users “‘unhear’ songs by hearing equally catchy songs.” The idea is a great one, although you end up with a new catchy song that might be the new god-damn song in your head you’ll wish you had gotten rid of…

Experience Project – If you feel your life has thrown you into an unusual situation (positive or challenging), there’s now a caring interactive community you can share your story with, get feedback and find the strength to march on with confidence. Experience Project is “a comfortable and supportive place for individuals to share and connect with others around the things that matter to them most.”

To give an example of the touching stories you will find on Experience Project, read The Life Of An Army Girlfriend, which many women all across the US can identify with. Visit groups of specific themes or explore over 24 categories of interesting, poignant experiences people like you and me go through. There are also a Confessions section if you wish to get that load off your chest (and mind), and a Q&A page.

In short, the Experience Project is a most inviting venue to help people cope with their situation, or for you to make use of the cushioned support of the site’s community to deal with yours.

Holycool – A must RSS, the holycool.net blog features nothing short of the absolute coolest products one can find and buy online today. Created by the lovely Dee, Holycool truly stands out from any other design blog I’ve seen recently. Its unpretentious attitude, simplistic design make way for beautiful content and product finds that are genuine, spot-on, and each review post tells you right up front how much that cool product costs and where you can buy it.

Below are a couple of awesome products I haven’t seen or read about anywhere else.

Fred & Friends’ Yumbots Robot Cupcake Molds:

Eco Reminders Wall Stickers (by Hu2 Design):

LipDub.in – The site’s name pretty much sums its concept, but in case you need a more detailed description, here it is: “LipDub.in combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song.”

To see an example of what users do on LipDub.in, see the two videos below; the first from Poland, Lip -dubbing Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough; the second from the UK, doing Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

Mural Locator – Helping users locating beautiful murals worldwide, Mural Locator focuses on the entire gamut of wall paintings, including both classics and contemporary wall art of urban environments. Seeking to share murals with us and help to archive the history and importance of murals, Mural Locator is on a mission that has aesthetic, historical and cultural values, and we salute to that.

Here is a special mural that caught my eye. Can you guess where it is located?

Dating Fails – Provocative at times, this Cheezburger blog is here to accentuate awkward, dumb and weird moments in the context of dates and relationships.  This blog is quite new, so there aren’t many entries in the blog’s archive as of yet. To get you going, see the short video below of a Break Up Win, rather than fail…