Finding Resources

First, clarify why you’re looking for resources, so you know what kind of resources you need, and then figure out how to find them.

Why search?

Know

Search: Shaanxi Xinda forfeits game

NBL 5 fouls 1 throw

What is NBL? How is it different from and related to CBA? What does “5 fouls 1 throw” mean?

Learn

E.g., tips for using ChatGPT

Create

Build a project

Do

Remove watermarks from PDFs

What categories of resources are there?

• News and information
• Knowledge and skills
• Assets and files
• Tools and software

How they relate to your purpose

A way to think about it

Think from the perspective of the type of resource you’re looking for:

• Which type of medium is the knowledge most likely attached to?

  • Web pages -> Google / Zhihu / Sogou WeChat article search / niche communities (e.g., PKMer) / curated link directories (e.g., Design Navigation - The Best Design Websites)
    • How to find communities or link directories: search xxx必逛的网站 / websites xxx should visit
  • PDF documents
    • -> Google xxx filetype:pdf / inurl:baogao/xxx, and you can further use Similarsites.com - Easily Explore alternative websites
  • Academic papers
    • Domestic
      • CNKI
      • Wanfang / VIP
    • International
      • Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/
      • Sci-Hub Sci-Hub: 将知识带给每个人
      • Web of Science Web of Science
  • E-books
    • Chinese
      • Jiumodiary
      • zlib
      • Wuming Books | A nice e-book website (book123.info) — personally recommended, you can download directly from here
      • WeRead
        • Direct search
        • Full-text search
    • English
      • zlib
      • manybooks
      • pdfbooksword
  • Video tutorials
    • Bilibili
    • YouTube
    • NetEase Cloud Classroom
    • Khan Academy
    • ……
  • ……

Assets and files

Video assets

• Free stock photos
• 4.2 million+ Stunning Free Images to Use Anywhere - Pixabay - Pixabay
• Free Stock Video Footage HD 4K Download Royalty-Free Clips
• Mixkit - Awesome free assets for your next video project — a handy way to download from YouTube: add 9x before youtube

• SaveTube - Best Online Video Downloader ( 4K, 8K, FHD, 1080p, HDR )

Searching for HD assets: search YouTube for “4K” + topic, then filter by resolution, or find some 4K channels

Audio assets

• 4.2 million+ Stunning Free Images to Use Anywhere - Pixabay - Pixabay

Image assets

• Google search imagesize:
• Free stock photos

Icon assets

• iconfont - Alibaba Vector Icon Library

Tools and software

• Guohe Boke - A clean corner of the internet (ghxi.com)
• Appinn - Sharing free, compact, practical, fun, green software (appinn.com)
• Some Telegram channels (please judge the risks for yourself)

General approaches

• Cloud drive search engines
• Google search Best site xxx
• Zhihu / Bilibili

General tools

• Google Advanced Search
  • Can use helper scripts (hand-rolled)
• Search Engine Jump script