The first and quickest way to start is to simply use your status update feature to announce to all your friends that you have something to sell or that you are looking for a specific item. This is quick, easy, and painless. However, the audience is limited to your friends and you may not have too much success, particularly if most of your friends live hundreds of miles away and you are trying to sell a refrigerator.

The next place to go is the new or used Facebook Marketplace. This site was launched earlier this year and allows you to find items for sale or to sell your used stuff. The site is powered by oodle. Stefan covered oodle at length in his March 2009 article Oodle – Another Craigslist, But Slightly Better. To list items for sale, you have to allow Marketplace permission, like other Facebook applications. The site has four primary categories: items for sale, housing, jobs, and vehicles. Beside each category is a small “+ post” button for you to add a post.

Marketplace is as easy to use as Craigslist, and to me, easier than ebay, since you don’t have to bid and wait. Via the Facebook interface, you can comment and ask questions about the items up for sale. When you go to the main screen and begin browsing, you can set your location and search area to limit the distance you want to search. You may find a deal 500 miles away, but shipping costs or a trip to pick it up may make it less cost effective. Once you select your location, a section of the resulting page will show you pictures and a brief description of the latest items listed for sale.

If you choose to browse one of the four categories, the page comes up in classical Facebook interface style. The “type your status here” bar is replaced with a “Post in ___” bar (fill in the blank for the category). You are also provided a choice to “post” a listing or “find” an item.

From the main page, if you have clicked the “+ post” button beside a category, you are given the choice to “sell it” or “give it away”. Curb alert! Also from here you can post requests for items by clicking on the “ask for it” button.

You just can’t find what you are looking for in the Marketplace? Hunt up one of the Freecycle groups. If you’ve never heard of Freecycle, let me explain – at least a little. Freecycle groups exist in many locations and through various internet channels. Freecycling is simply giving away things that you would normally throw away or donate. A large majority of items are clothing related, but I have gotten some decent video games and books through Freecycling. Many people don’t have time or enough items to hold a yard sale, they don’t think the stuff is worth much money, they don’t live near an organization’s donation location, or they just don’t want to throw it away, so they list it through a Freecycle group.

Freecycle groups are accessible through Yahoo, Craigslist and Facebook, among others. On Facebook, simply go to “Groups” and in the “search Groups” box, type in ‘freecycle’. Numerous groups will come up and you can browse for one in your area. Join the group, and you will get status updates when items come available.

Some groups, like those on Yahoo, are set up to send an email alert every time something is listed. Be forewarned if you live near a metropolitan area, you may get swamped with emails regarding items you are not interested in. You may want to establish a separate email account tied specifically to the Freecycle group or you may want to use email filters set for a particular item you are needing. If you use a Facebook Freecycle group, your wall may end up being flooded with status updates about items as well, so you may want to turn these off and just go look at the offerings when you are looking for something in particular.

Yard Sale groups on Facebook are another way of finding good deals. Yard sale groups are relatively unexplored and there are only a few out there. Like the Marketplace, you buy and sell, but like Freecycle, this is done through a Facebook group.

I really like this concept, particularly if you have a group of friends who live relatively close to one another, but you just don’t have time to hold a yard sale or time to go to yard sales on Saturday morning. You can start the group, advertise via your status, and start a small local network of friends who can buy, sell, or trade items.

Do you have any other creative ways to use Facebook to find good cheap stuff?

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There are some amazing deals to be had through this site. For me, the problem is that I often forget to check the site everyday. It only takes a second and you never know when that must-have item is going to come up and you’ll finally be able to afford it! In trying to find some way to track W00t better, like a Google widget or desktop app, I stumbled across Wootalyzer. But beware, it is free, it is incredibly easy to use AND it tracks far more than W00t’s one day sales. There are other sites that do the same sort of thing – every day!

Let’s get started with Wootalyzer before I get into these other sites. Here’s how it’s done. Go on over and download the Wootalyzer installer. Install is a snap with an ordinary one-click type install. Here’s how it gets weird. It’s even easier to use than it is to install.

Once it’s installed you are presented with all the documentation that you will need to use this application effectively. I’m serious – take a look!

That’s all there is to it! Really, how else could I say that?

Next, you are given the option to choose basic user mode or a power-mode that people who have shopped the one-day-sale sites would find more useful perhaps. I wouldn’t know, since I don’t use them that often. That’s the point of getting the program.

I do know what a woot-off is, however I don’t know what a BOC is and I can only guess that they use the word monkey to mean something other than a real monkey. So I went with the regular mode.

Okay, so that’s a pretty sweet deal at W00t!. I don’t really need a recording studio (or do I?) so I’ll pass on that one. However, this shows you how the thing works. Clicking on the View Item button takes you to the page that has all the details about the equipment. The field that reads In Stock tells you whether they have more of the item or not. As you can see there are still some of these in stock. Clicking on the Buy Item button takes you directly to that item’s checkout page so you can seal the deal. The clock looking area is just that – a countdown clock to let you know how long the deal is valid for.

What I think is amazing is the button that reads Woot! When I clicked on it, my shopping universe expanded!

Did you see that? Under the General/Tech category there are all these other sites with timed deals as well! You should recognize at least 3 or 4 of them, such as eBay, Amazon, Buy.com, and Newegg. I went through and each one has a pretty decent deal on it. Maybe not something I need right now, but I’ll keep checking!

Under Other there are two categories that could really get me into trouble. One is DiamondShark and the other is ChronoShark. As you might guess, the former is for jewelry and the latter is for watches. I like to buy my wife jewelry and I have an unhealthy obsession with watches. Check this out:

See that? A Lucien Picard watch that retails elsewhere for around $900. Is it a knock off? I don’t know. But it would be worth checking out.

With Wootalyzer, you can set alarms with sound for different items, so you know when a new item is on, or when it’s about to run out. This is just a shopaholic’s dream.

At first I thought Wootalyzer would help me to save money, but if I keep spending on all these other great sites as well, it’s a less-than-zero sum game. I’m sure I would overspend. That doesn’t mean you will. You probably have a stronger will than I do. Or will you succumb to the world of low-priced products as well?

Wootalyzer

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Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming popularity of Ebay, the field isn’t anything like it used to be. I originally had a bit of a niche in the antiques business thanks to my Ebay powerseller account and my trusty and rare mobile internet device, and therefore I had a major advantage over the old-school antique dealers. Today, you’ll find that 20-30% of the people attending antique auctions are now Ebay sellers, and these days everyone has mobile internet access.

Because of the growing competition and difficulty to draw out decent profit from those antique purchases, I turned to buying direct from stores going out of business. These are often auctions as well, but they are a whole different breed. With antique auctions, the people attending are usually there for a very select type of item that was advertised, such as Hummels, Steuben art glass or Waterford for example. At auctions where stores are going out of business, it’s a completely different ballgame. Many specific items are not advertised and when you go, you pretty much get what you get. This is still an area where the technically savvy person can create a very sweet niche for themselves. I eventually turned to writing and editing as a primary form of income – but buying up surplus for cheap is definitely a promising money-making venture. So, let’s get to a few online resources and tools that will give you that competitive advantage.

Buy From Business Liquidation Companies

Before you get into this business, it’s important to understand the various forms of inventory cutbacks businesses go through. Before they’ve gone as far as bankruptcy, many businesses try to save the company by turning excess assets into cash so they can pay down debts. This is called liquidating assets, and there’s an entire industry built on helping companies liquidate their assets – including vehicles, electronics, household goods and more. You name it – it’s probably being liquidated somewhere. The way to make money as a reseller (that’s you), is to buy up huge lots of liquidated assets (surplus) at about 30 to 40 percent under retail. Then, turn around and sell them to your customers at retail (or if you really want to do well – offer 10 to 20 percent discounts to your customers on Ebay or your online store).

Where do you find these liquidations? Online, of course. Go to the surplus inventory section of Business.com and you’ll find a long list of liquidation companies where you can buy pallets of goods. Now, keep in mind we’re talking pallets and truckloads here. These businesses are used to dealing with brick-and-mortar stores that will buy a truckload of these surplus items at a time (which can cost tens of thousands of dollars) – so only take this option if you’re very serious about starting such a business. Startup costs are high – but your potential profit is tremendous, especially in the area of surplus electronics. For example, at that Business.com page, I found Discount Wholesalers, where you can buy pallets of surplus electronics at 35% discounts or more.

A downside to the liquidation industry is that there are also scam artists throughout who will send boxes filled with returns or otherwise non-working items. Just check out any online feedback available on them or check with the Better Business Bureau, but when you do find a legit one – hang on to it and run because not many people have the courage (or money) to invest, so if you do, you’ll be rolling in profits.

Buy Your Products From Auctions

Unless you’re a licensed auctioneer or a liquidation firm, the odds of success by contacting a business directly that’s facing bankruptcy in order to purchase their assets directly is slim to none. The bankruptcy or liquidation process usually involves a law firm that contracts out the asset liquidation to large firms or auction companies.  This article has already covered the liquidation route, but what about buying those “going-out-of-business” goods at auctions? The biggest problem I had when attending auctions is that you had to go to the location and register to buy so you could sit in the audience and hold up your bidding number. Well, with the Internet the world of auction buying has completely changed. You can now sit in your pajamas, in the luxury of your own home, and take part in these auctions live. I’m going to cover the top four resources you can use to locate and take part in these auctions. These are the most effective resources to purchase going-out-of-business merchandise.

The first, and in my opinion the best, live auction website is BidSpotter.com.  When you first go to the site, you’ll see that you can choose from three main auction categories – antiques & collectibles, agriculture & construction and industrial & commercial.

For businesses that are going belly-up, you want to go for industrial & commercial. When you view the listings page, you’ll notice auctions for businesses of all types.

Now, something to keep in mind when you search through these is that just because the auction is for something like a bakery doesn’t mean there won’t be anything useful there. These auctions sell off everything the business used – and many times these are items that are not even related to the particular industry. This is why it’s the best way to get awesome deals – you may be competing with bakery business owners or tool machine shop owners – so when electronics, computers or other items you’re interested in come along, you can bid low and often win. The experience is pretty cool too – it’s like being right there at the auction in person. Here, I am attending a toy auction going on in South Dakota (I live in Maine).

Two tips if you decide to try this. First, call the auction house early and register to bid so you’re ready when the auction starts. Second, don’t take your time when bidding starts – bid fast! There are people sitting around waiting for you, so when you sit there thinking, it gets very annoying for the people who are actually there. Be a courteous online bidder and the auction house will love it when you virtually attend.

There are a couple more sites that also offer live online auctions like this, and by using all of them you’ll increase your chances of finding the going out of business auctions that suit your needs. LiveAuctioneers is the next one, and in my opinion it seems to feature more auction listings than any of the others I’ve seen.

There are a lot of categories and the chances are very good that you’ll find the sort of auction that you’re looking for. All of these are live – just find the scheduled auction and be online when it takes place.  Another one of the best live auction sites to locate bankruptcy auctions is definitely iCollector.com. This is another site with a constantly updated stream of upcoming auctions.

What makes this site special is that you can find auctions from all around the world. For example, at the moment there are live auctions scheduled and listed for Spain, Canada and Switzerland as well. While this particular site is weighted a bit more toward antiques and collectibles, you can find closeout auctions here as well.

Have you ever taken part in a live auction online, or have you ever bought liquidated items to resell before? Share your own experiences and insight in the comments section below.

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Did you know that in the United States of America, you could be fined up to $15 million for selling recalled items? According to Fox News’ article, New Government Policy Imposes Strict Standards on Garage Sales Nationwide, that could, indeed, happen.

Don’t live in the grand old U.S. of A.? It stands to reason that this law may be coming to a yard sale near you, anyway. Internationally speaking, large countries can set the standard that other countries follow, with respect to law.

So, how do you know if you have a recalled product? Fortunately, a lot of countries’ governments have websites to help you identify hazardous items. That’s what this article is for!

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

The CPSC is the federal commission behind the crackdown on selling recalled items in white elephant sales. Although the law may be hard to comply with, due to the sheer number of recalled products, at least they try to help.

At the site you can search on products, see latest product recalls in the United States, or even send a complaint about a product. More specifically, the CPSC has a handbook to help you out. You might want to download a copy of the 24-page Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers. Warning, it’s a PDF file.

Recalls Australia

The rest of these sites aren’t a whole lot different in content than the CPSC, however, it’s important to list them as MakeUseOf has a lot of viewers from these countries as well.

That being said, Recalls Australia provides some services to help you stay on top of recalls. They provide an email subscription service that provides you with daily alerts about categories that you are interested in. Maybe you’re a parent and want to get daily updates on toys. This would be a good service.

Also, you can subscribe for customized RSS feeds that are updated hourly. Moreover, they now provide advanced search options, so you can narrow down to a product that you are researching. Well worth the time for our Australian friends.

UKRecallNotice

It seems odd that this site appears to be independently run. The United Kingdom’s official recall site seems to be the Trading Standards Institute, however the page dealing with recalls is sadly lacking useful tools. That would be why the UKRecallNotice site is far more popular, according to website statistics.

UKRecallNotice relies on updates from the Trading Standards Institute as well as from searching newspapers. From there, they categorize the notices, making recalls easier to find. They also have an e-mail list that you can join to get the daily recalls.  Hopefully, they’ll branch into providing an RSS feed as well. That’s always nice.

Health Canada

My home country’s site leaves a lot to be desired as well. Note the lame logo. This particular page does have search capabilities, but is limited to consumer products. What does that mean?

Well, apparently it means anything but vehicles, food, drugs and health products, and pest control products. Because we know what a hassle it is to have information like this all in one place. Note the Canadian sarcasm.

To my friends in India, being one of the largest groups of our readers, I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to find a good product recall site for there. I don’t know if it’s because I’m searching in English or not, yet if you know of one, please share it with the rest of the readers in the comments.

I urge all of our readers from ANY country to share their country’s product recall site in the comments. Obviously, I can’t include all the countries but with you adding links, we can compile a good list. Perhaps this list might one day save someone’s life. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a part of that?

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Confused yet? Fret not, things are about to get much simpler.

I stumbled onto Bodega a couple of days ago and it got me wondering what the heck it was. Something like AppFresh, perhaps? But the description said, “Your neighborhood store.” What on earth could that mean? It wasn’t until after I downloaded it, only did I realize that it was an App Store for Mac (or call it Mac Apps Store). Something like that anyways.

Bodega takes the iTunes’ App Store and translates that idea for Mac applications. In other words, it’s a centralized Mac application store – a place to be exposed to new and interesting Mac apps.

I can’t help but be impressed by the design of Bodega. It even looks like a store. Hold and move the app around your screen and the signboards swing about! Alright, let’s take a short tour and I’ll show you how to use it.

As soon as Bodega launched, you’ll be presented with its Featured apps of the day as seen in the screenshot above. There will also be sections dedicated to showcasing New Releases, Shopkeeper’s Picks, Top Free/Paid Downloads. The Featured page is a fantastic way to be exposed to and try out new apps.

Click on a category from the list on the left and you’ll be presented with apps, laid out on shelves. Very shop-like. Click on an app and it will be lit by a spotlight.

To find out more about the app, either click on its label to switch between the name, price and rating. Or you could double-click on the app to be brought to its dedicated page where you can read more about it and view some screenshots.

If you see an app you like and if it’s free, click on the Download button and Bodega will retrieve it for you. No additional browser windows need to be opened. You can view the download process in the Applications page. Downloads are automatically saved in your Downloads folder, naturally.

If you happen to like a commercial app and decide to buy it, everything can be done within the app itself. In this example, I chose HoudahSpot and clicked on the Buy Now button. Bodega opened up the Houdah Software Store page and allowed me to complete the transaction without leaving the application.

Besides being an App Store, Bodega also keeps track of the apps you always have on your Mac. It will detect installed applications and then check to see if they’re up to date.

All in all, I consider Bodega to be a work in progress. It doesn’t feature enough apps to challenge the big boys like MacUpdate. It is a fantastic idea and I’d love to see it boom. If you’re a developer, submit your app to be featured in Bodega.

Where do you go to get your Mac apps?

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Plenty of websites offer these online coupons and promotions for online consumers to take advantage of. However, what if you don’t have one of those pesky little codes? There’s no need to worry about looking for where to find them or paying full price with this list. Here’s some websites that may help you save a little bit of money the next time you shop online simply by typing in a code.

RetailMeNot

Covering more than 30,000 online stores and currently offering over 150,000 online coupon codes, RetailMeNot is one of the best sites on the Web for the online shopper.

A strong community helps separates the good codes from the unreliable, so there’s no need to hassle through what works and what doesn’t. The ones retaining high success rates are your best bets.

Read more about RetailMeNot in the MakeUseOf Directory.

CurrentCodes

CurrentCodes offers tons of online coupon codes and is updated frequently. Its huge database covers hundreds of popular online stores and you can find the codes you’re looking for easily by browsing by merchant, alphabetically, or by category.

The website lists everything out plainly, providing the code, a short description of the offer, and the expiration date.

CouponCabin

With thousands of active online coupons and deals available, CouponCabin is a great place to snag a discount online. According to the website, it searches consumer emails, forums, blogs, merchant sites, and newspapers for any coupon codes from online retailers.

Covering just about every store out there, CouponCabin has got a lot of publicity over the years and remains one of the best sites on the Web for getting a deal when shopping online. Be sure to try out searching for coupons locally by zip code and signing up for their weekly newsletter.

Ebates

A vast supply of rebates and coupon codes to over 1,000 stores are at your fingertips on Ebates.

Sort through all of them by store, category, or what kind of deal is being offered, like codes for free shipping, money off, and free gifts. The cashback shopping website makes it simple.

WebbyPlanet

Incorporating some 15,000 stores and over 100,000 coupon codes, WebbyPlanet is another great place to start saving.

The website’s online discount shopping directory allows users to search and shop for items at discounted prices.

In the MUO Directory, more information about WebbyPlanet is available.

Coupon Chief

With coupon codes for both products and services, you can potentially save a bundle by searching Coupon Chief.

Like RetailMeNot, the website invites its members to comment, rate, and validate the codes, so you won’t find any expired coupons here.

Coupon Chief will even pay you back. They’ll share 2% of revenue earned from purchases made with any online coupon you submit.

Learn more about the website in the MUO Directory.

Buxr

Buxr is a social bargain hunting community. The website’s members share hot shopping deals, including those elusive coupon codes, and they’re all voted on by the community based on hotness.

New deals are found and posted everyday, making Buxr a unique but effective site to locate a good discount and save money.

Coupon Cowgirl

Coupon Cowgirl rounds up all the best coupon and promotional codes for its visitors.

Browse the website by store, category, and search for codes providing money off, percent off, or free shipping coupons on your online purchases.

Be sure to check out the site’s luxury brands and cowboy steals pages for more shopping deals.

Savings.com

Search for the best deals and coupon codes at Savings.com. The website’s members vote for the best ones, covering brand-name and recognizable merchants to lesser-known online stores.

Savings.com’s lengthy and well-written About Coupons page also provides readers with pretty much everything you need to know about coupons.

CouponSmarter

With coupon codes to most leading U.S. online stores, it’s just click and save with CouponSmarter.

The website claims to be the world’s largest coupon source, searching merchant sites for discount offers that can save you up to 30% or more on your online purchases.

Looking for more? MakeUseOf’s Directory of Apps has got the scoop on FatWallet, WoW-Coupons, Tjoos, and RatherBeShopping, four more great websites where you’ll find additional discount codes. We’ve also previously covered websites for grocery coupons, bargains, and saving money when shopping online.

Where do you go to save money when shopping on the Web? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit : Online Coupons

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For anyone who has struggled through trying to get tickets for a popular show, it becomes apparent very quickly that the odds are stacked against you.

You may be under the illusion that if you sit online, or on the phone, with Ticketmaster the very moment that tickets go on sale, that you have an equal and fair chance of getting tickets as everyone else. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

That’s why I’ve listed 4 sites to serve as alternatives if you’re desperately looking for that concert ticket which is unavailable anywhere else!

How to Get Tickets Despite the Ticketmaster Monopoly

The truth is, the event ticket market is stacked higher against you than a Vegas casino. A venue that accomodates 20,000 wild fans can sell out in about the time it takes for you to log into your computer. While Ticketmaster has the appearance of fairness in that ticket sales start at exactly a certain time (usually on Saturday), sales take place through so many outlets that available seats can disappear in minutes.

To make matters worse, while you may think that the moment the clock strikes 9 a.m. on Saturday that you have a chance to get the best seat, think again. Before the tickets even go on sale, entire batches are claimed by the artist’s own organization, corporate sponsors, season pass holders and others. At least 20% of available seats are already gone by the time the doors open for sales. Even worse, professional “scalpers” who have contacts within organizations such as the National Associate of Ticket Brokers, are somehow able to grab up the best seats in the house long before you ever pick up the phone to make that call.

However, never fear – just because Ticketmaster says that all seats are sold, you still have options. We’ve already covered a few cool applications like Roosterfly, which lets you compare event ticket prices, or FanSnap, an app that lets you search for available event tickets. However, I wanted to review 4 of the best websites to get awesome seats at popular, hard-to-get-into shows.

TicketCity – If You Can’t Beat Em, Join Em

Because of the fact that so many groups and organizations have access to the best seats before you do and you really want to get good seats for the show (especially after Ticketmaster has sold out), your best bet is to track down and purchase tickets on the secondary market — since that’s really where all the best seats are. It’s a dog-eat-dog market even involving corruption and bribery, in some cases.

Brokers (essentially scalpers) use inside connections to garnish huge blocks of tickets for sale on the secondary market. Case in point is TicketCity. Randy Cohen, CEO of TicketCity, told BNET in an interview:

We have relationships and contracts with people and venues. Through our relationships, we’re able to get tickets.

TicketCity covers just about any sort of event you’d probably be interested in including sports, theatre and concerts. There’s even a large button to click if you’re interested in selling your own tickets to TicketCity! There are also ticket specials in select locations and a 200% money-back guarantee. This is obviously one of the “big dogs” of ticket brokerages.

RazorGator – For Hard-to-Get Tickets

Another major broker of event tickets is the very popular site RazorGator. It even touts itself as the place to go when you’re dying to get popular tickets and can’t find them anywhere else. How does RazorGator get these rare tickets? Wouldn’t you like to know?

RazorGator is a pretty cool site, and it covers more event types compared to many other sites. Where else could you get tickets for a rodeo, Cirque du Soleil, and a Nickelback concert all in one place? You get a 100% money-back guarantee and there’s even another section of the site called “Fan2Fan Exchange” where fans can either exchange or sell tickets. Sort of like a third market for ticket sales.

Fox World Travel Tickets – Travel & Tickets Go Hand in Hand

Fox World Travel is a travel agency based out of Wisconsin that eventually realized that a large majority of what their clients wanted to do when traveling included obtaining tickets for shows, games or other events. The agency entered the world of ticket brockerage at their site, where you can find tickets for just about any kind of show.

This is only one example, there are lots of other travel sites out there that offer access to tickets, so make sure to hunt them down. In fact, ask a local travel agent in your area - they likely have access to blocks of popular even tickets as well.

TicketsToGo – Small Can Be a Good Thing

Were you ever in a situation where you were dating a girl you really wanted to impress, and she said something along the lines of, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go see the Lion King on Broadway but they’re sold out for months!” Now, how cool would it be to have a buddy who you could call on your cellphone and say, “Hey, dude… could you hook me up with a couple of tickets to the Lion King?” Well, at TicketsToGo, you’ve got that dude to call.

At TicketsToGo, you place an order for a show and even if it’s officially sold out, this independent broker will access a “a large network of professional suppliers” to locate an available ticket for you. You’re surely going to pay a lot more for it – but at this point, when you’re dying to see the your favorite band or singer, and completely bummed out that there aren’t any seats left, does it really matter, if it means you can get in the door? Definitely use TicketsToGo as the last option, but at least it’s an option that you have.

Have you ever had any success getting hard-to-get tickets? What resources do you use? Share your insight in the comments section below.

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However, when buying a new laptop, there are always several questions to ask yourself. What size do I buy? Which brand should I get? HP, Dell, Acer, Apple? Reflective versus non-reflective screen? What good is a backlit keyboard? I know, there are heaps to choose from.

Here are 9 sites to help you find a laptop that suits you, your budget and its application. But before you start your hunt, you should read the MakeUseOf Laptop Buying Guide first to know what to look for in a laptop.

Alright, in no particular order, here are 9 great sites to help you on your hunt for a new laptop!

Liliputing

Liliputing has great reviews, has a developing community and reasonable size product database that gives the specification of everything you need to know when comparing laptops. Each laptop is subjected to personal opinions and links to more reviews about a laptop.

Cnet Reviews

Cnet is a very popular site that covers a lot of reviews on a lot of different products from Televisions, Camcorders, Car Tech, Cell Phones to Computers. Finding a laptop is very easy. Just select your budget, manufacturer, notebook type, product line or other options such as RAM, hard drive or weight, and your choice will be narrowed down. When beginning your laptop hunt, you should start off at Cnet.

Notebook Review

Like Cnet, Notebook Review can help you find a laptop that suits your needs. However, there is one advantage. Not only does Notebook Review provides links to buy products online, they also have a database of promotional codes and deals for huge discounts.

ZDNet

ZDNet is another popular site that allows you to search and narrow down your choice of laptops. The specifications that ZDnet provides are good and comparing different laptops are a breeze. Most of the information you find on ZDnet is from Cnet, so you might want to check out Cnet first.

Engadget

Engadget provides some great articles on laptops and on other gadgets. It’s more of a blog so it doesn’t provide you with the comparisons that Cnet and Liliputing provides. However, they provide good images and provide you with their opinion on the device. Their reviews are based on daily and real-life use, something to consider when purchasing a new laptop.

PC Magazine

PC Mag keeps you covered on news, reviews, prices of laptops and computer accessories. Just visit the Laptop compare prices section and you can get reviews, specs and price ranges from different suppliers and online websites.

PriceGrabber

Price Grabber mainly gives you the specification of laptops, their prices and where to buy them. The main aim of Price Grabber is to allow you to perform a comparison between many different products and suppliers. When you have found your perfect laptop, head over to Price Grabber and see where you can pick up a good deal.

Laptop Magazine

Laptop Mag is great because they give a round-up of best laptops for certain group of people. Whether it be students, or for dads. They also publish news about the latest on laptops, when manufactures are releasing products and more. If you don’t know how to do something, then Laptop Mag has some handy tutorials and How To’s which are worth to check out.

Laptopical

Laptopical provides a range of laptops to fit your budget. Although I wouldn’t suggest finding a laptop through this site, but once you have found a laptop that you want, visit Laptopical and have a read what they say.

If you are searching for a laptop, MakeUseOf hopes that you find the right computer for you. If you have any other suggestions for good laptop review sites, let us know in the comments.

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True but she has lots of other important stuff to do like, I don’t know… Um, how about raising my daughter?

We have found a website that helps keep our stockable items in stock!

It even can beat most of the prices you are currently paying – especially if you are buying things in a brick and mortar store. Alice is the help we have been looking for and this handy web service is free! Just the way we like it! Let’s take a look at how she works:

First, you have to sign up for the service and tell them a little bit about your family and what products they/you use. For example, if you add an adult female, tampons become a stockable item or a child under 3 — diapers. The service categorizes items by the person who will most likely use them. So I selected the This is me button next to “Adult male”. Then, I choose an adult woman and a baby. This was easily done by the screen you see below:

Next up is your chance to narrow down products that you don’t use. Everything starts out checked, so uncheck the products you don’t want to see or that you do not care about. For example, if you do not use women’s deodorant or you do not want Alice to track this (ie: you get it somewhere for free or really cheap) than just uncheck the box and continue on.

You knew it was coming… The registration. Fill in your info along with a valid email address and you are on your way to completing the setup process.

Now you should search and add your favorite products. Then you can order what you need online for right now as well as let Alice remind you when it thinks you are running low on a specific product.

Let’s take a look at your products. From here, you see each item represented by a blue duck. To go into one (or remove one) click on the plus sign on the duck.

That takes you to the individual product page and you can find your brands or specific products here. Or simply click “Delete the duck” to remove this item.

When you click “Let’s Go Find Some” you will come to a product page where you can add products, pick sizes and see what discounts are available. See the listing from baby diapers. This is only a small fraction of the 50 items they carry. 17 of them have coupons or savings available.

Next, you can create a custom label, choose how many you order at a time, and you can choose when Alice should remind you to get some more. If a product is out of stock, you can select “Save for future order” and add it to your list. Then you will be notified when it becomes available.

After you are done, you can always go back and add or modify products in one of three ways. You can search, browse or click an item’s place holder.

Well, to me, this service is simply awesome! It helps me out a lot! Do you use a similar service? Do you save money using it? If so, let us know in the comments!

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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So, as I grew up I was shocked to learn that my parents were wrong – you really can get free stuff with no catches! I remember, in college, being offered a free T-shirt just for signing an application for a credit card.  A very good college friend of mine who was working as a movie theater manager once handed my girlfriend and I complimentary movie tickets for absolutely free.

Then a few years later, we stayed at a Howard Johnson’s Hotel, had a miserable time, complained and ended up with a free hotel stay.  Oh yes, some things in life really are free.

Get a Free Hotel Stay With Very Little Effort

The way the story goes, we asked the hotel for a crib and then upon arriving at the hotel, discovered that there wasn’t one reserved for us. We were furious, of course, and we were awake all night trying to make sure the baby didn’t roll her way right off the edge of the bed. We slept in shifts, trying to keep her between us. The next morning, with bloodshot eyes and a huge coffee in hand, I cornered the hotel manager and yelled at him for ten straight minutes. The next day I hopped online and fired off one of the most carefully crafted letters condemning Howard Johnson’s and vowing not only never to stay there again, but also to inform everyone I knew how horrible the hotel chain was. To my surprise, in less than two weeks after sending my letter, we received an envelope from Howard Johnson’s corporate headquarters with an apology and a voucher for a free hotel stay.

Every major hotel chain has a customer service section where you can submit comments about your recent stay. I would never advise anyone to become a habitual complainer – in fact, I’ve heard of folks getting banned from staying at a hotel chain because they complained dozens of times in a row. However, be aware of every nuance of your stay, and if anything is significantly wrong with your room or your stay, complain to the hotel staff (ask for and note their names), and if it’s not resolved, submit your politely written complaint, and you’re almost guaranteed to receive a free hotel stay for your efforts.

Earlier, James offered some great methods to find the best hotel deals. Of course, another perfect way to get a free hotel stay is by choosing a favorite chain and sticking with them to earn loyalty “points.” These work just like frequent flier miles, and they add up quickly. Every now and then, just for electing to stay at the same hotel chain, you’ll build up enough points to stay a night at the hotel for free. One of my favorite rewards programs is GoldPointsPlus.

If you use the system often enough, you get an “Elite” status, which means more points per stay, and more free rooms more often. It’s true – just stay loyal to a hotel chain, and eventually you get a free hotel room with no catch. Now that’s sweet.

You Can Get Lots of Free Stuff With No Catches – But Free Groceries?

Think about it – what’s the one area where families usually spend the most money every week? That’s right – groceries. Now, what if you could start eating out for free, or getting groceries without paying a dime? Sound too good to be true? While you probably can’t get all your groceries for free, what you can do is cut down significantly on your grocery bill by getting some of the more expensive items for free. A few of the best sites for this includes the constantly updated free sample page at the Kroger store website.

And of course, you can’t talk cheap without talking about Wal-Mart, which also has it’s own free sample section on the Wal-Mart website.

Yes, I know – for some reason the free samples are often of “women’s products,” but hey – women need free stuff too, right? And don’t forget to use all of those awesome grocery coupon websites I wrote about earlier to save even more on the groceries you do have to buy.

Eat out for free

Oh, and remember what I said earlier about eating out for free? Okay, it’s really true – you can get a free entree or appetizer at most restaurants on your birthday if you sign up for either a newsletter or for a free loyalty “club” membership, such as the deal from Red Lobster where you get a free “gift” (it’s a free appetizer) on your birthday for joining the “Seafood Lovers Club.”

Just search the web for your favorite restaurants and sign up for their “club” memberships (almost always free), and on your birthday you could eat breakfast, lunch and supper for absolutely free!

Becoming a Free-aholic – It Really Is An Addiction

One of the worst things about getting started down the “free stuff” road is that once you realize you can get stuff for free, it’s easy to become obsessed with looking for “free stuff” opportunities. Trust me, they are everywhere. Unfortunately, the web is also overrun with “freebie” scams and adware/malware filled websites that offer free stuff. MakeUseOf offers a long list of great options for bargains and coupons, like Aibek’s review of Freshbargains,  or the MUO reviews of RetailMeNot and WoW-Coupons. But if you’re looking for not only cheap stuff, but free stuff with no catches, then you’ll need a good selection of valid freebie sites. One of the only directories I check out often is TheFreeSite.

While the site itself isn’t the prettiest design in the world, it really does the trick. There are categories from “Fun Freebies,” to “Family Freebies,” to “Seasonal Freebies,” and everything in between. The offers throughout the site are legitimate and real. Now if you like the idea of getting items for free from folks in your local community who simply don’t want their stuff anymore (there are surprisingly many people like that), then two of the hottest sites you’ll want to check out are GumTree, a popular U.K. based free classifieds site with a huge “freebies” section.

And there’s also the ever-popular FreeCycle.org, where millions of folks across the world are just trading stuff for free every single day.

FreeCycle.org has really developed a worldwide cult following, and if you join up you’ll quickly see why. There’s nothing so cool as being part of a community where folks want to give you something for absolutely free just to keep it out of the world’s landfills. After a while, you’ll find yourself giving stuff that you don’t want away for free too!

Do you have any favorite freebie websites? What are your tricks for getting free stuff? Share your opinions in the comment section below.

Image credit: Adrian Purser

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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What does this mean exactly? Milo is an online service that will search the inventory of major retailers in your local area to advice you of the availability of the product which you’re looking for. In other words, it’s a multi-search engine for shopping.

I was then shocked to see them say that 95% of sales happen at real stores in the real world. That is brick and mortar shops as opposed to somewhere on the Internet. Are you surprised as well?? Crazy, right?

If you have shopped for something in the real world recently, you’ll know that the stores with the cheapest prices are also usually sold out of what you want. And when do you find that out? When you get to the store, of course.

I hate taking pointless trips! And I hate being unhappy even more! What about you?

Enter Milo, which will help you answer these three questions:

1. What’s available at local stores?
2. Which product is the best for me?
3. Where is it cheapest and available in stock?

Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it only searches 21 large chain-stores shown in the picture above. But heck, that’s good enough for me. Let’s try some searches in my hood!

I decided to look for a Nintendo Wii locally. Even this long after its release, it is still an issue to find one in stock. Let’s see what Milo can do for me.

Well, that gave me way too many choices. So, I decided to narrow it down with Wii Console instead and that brought up what I was looking for.

I selected my console which was conveniently the first item and then it loaded up local spots that may or may not have it in stock. And just as I expected, they didn’t

I decided to expand my area and search Manhattan as well but no luck. I could find it online but I wanted it NOW! So for giggles I searched California and what do you know?

That’s really not fair! But hey, Milo saved me a trip to the stores or even a phone call! Milo is currently in beta and only works in the following locations:

• New York
• San Fransisco
• Chicago
• Miami
• Los Angeles

If you try to search another location you will get this cute response.

What do you think? Do you use an online search tool to check for a product’s availability before heading out to the store? Do you shop online? If you do, I suggest checking out 5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money.

Let us know what you think of Milo in the comments.

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Here we go.

eBay Desktop

The official eBay Desktop is an Adobe AIR app which mirrors all the searching, tracking, and bidding functionality of the site, plus filtering features, search history, and my favorite part, real-time updates. It’s refreshing to no longer need refreshing. Enter a keyword and watch the search results update by themselves.

Lastminute Auction

One of my favorite eBay tools is the Lastminute Auction search. Auctions featured here all have current prices under $1 (not including shipping), and all have less than an hour to go. Register to keep favorite categories handy, and you’ve got a good chance here to snatch up a great deal.

Typo Buddy

My new favorite eBay search tool, however, is Typo Buddy. From this site, you can take advantage of human error and hopefully find yourself a steal. When you do an eBay smart search for “Nintendo”, you get all the results with that keyword. What you don’t get are “Nintedno”, “Nintenro”, “Nihtendo”, or many other misspellings. Typo Buddy will find all of them, with the idea that the auctions’ low profile will let you swoop in and pay a lower price for the items.

Unwired Buyer

One more site to mention, not because it’s a search but because it’s a unique tool, is Unwired Buyer, which keeps an eye on your watch list and lets you place bids by phone in the closing minutes.

Not forgetting Nabit, an application which Mark reviewed a couple years back. Follow this link to read all about it. Unfortunately, the developers of Nabit has discontinued its distribution. You might still be able to get a copy of it online.

What’s your favorite way to search eBay? Give us some ideas in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Earning Income from Selling Hot Selling Items on eBay?

At first, it felt almost impossible to make a profit on eBay. I started with a few items from around the house. It was ridiculous what people were willing to buy – but the cheques that came in the mail were very real, and they started to add up. Before long, I noticed those giant eBay PowerSellers with an inventory of hundreds of expensive items for sale. I was curious how they did it. After a few years, I was not only able to learn how they do it but do it myself. The secret is this – you need a source. There are a variety of sources for hot selling items on eBay, including…

• Local auctions
• Local yard sales
• Electronic bulletin boards
• Overstock
• Buying in bulk
• Other online auctions

In this article, I’m going to share the top websites that other PowerSellers hope you hadn’t learned about.

Buying Items at Auction

Finding antiques at a local auction and selling them on eBay was one of the most significant ways that I was able to multiply my sales. In time, I learned how to recognize individual items at auctions that had huge eBay potential – but you still have to be very careful not to overpay for those items or you can lose your shirt. Using auctions as an eBay source is one of the best methods to become a PowerSeller, but finding the best auctions in your area can be difficult. One of the best sites I found to do that is Auctionbiz, which has listings for auctioneers all around the country, from the huge auction houses in the city to the smallest auctioneers out in the country.

Unfortunately, these listings are only available within the U.S., but another great site for European eBay sellers is AuctionGuide, which covers auctioneers from all across the world.

These listings are fairly comprehensive. Just be sure to work yourself up from the cheaper “country” auctions up toward the more expensive city auction houses as you earn more, and as you learn how to recognize the hot selling items on eBay. Also, if you plan to shop at auctions for your eBay merchandise, purchase a mobile device such as a smartphone with an Internet capable browser on it. While you’re at the auction during the preview session, simply visit eBay.com, click “Advanced Search,” and then search through past eBay sales for the items that you see at the auction. Make sure “Show Completed Listings Only” is selected.

This will show you how much the item sold for on eBay, before you buy it. It also tells you how much you should pay for the item without losing your shirt.

Local Yard Sales and Electronic Bulletin Boards

Another great source that I found for items at very cheap prices are local items for sale. These are the deals where you can create a fortune – if you’re diligent and quick to act. Back in February, I wrote an article on an application you can use to search Craigslist for your local area. Whether you use that application or not, Craigslist listings are a constant source of some of the best opportunities for eBay PowerSellers. For example, a recent search for “digital camera” in my area turns up a long list of great deals.

Remember, be smart about how you buy. For each item, search the completed eBay listings. If the Craigslist seller is offering the item at less than what it sells for on eBay, contact them immediately and ask to buy it. Drive over and pick it up so that you can save on shipping costs. The best website out there to look up local yard sales is one that MakeUseOf reviewed before called the Yard Sale Treasure Map – a very cool site that lists lots of yard sales in your local area.

Overstock and Buying in Bulk

If you have enough cash on hand, you can always invest in an inventory. Lots of sellers do this. There really isn’t any secret to it, except that you need to spend a bit upfront. Be careful about scam artists that “cherry pick” their pallets. These items typically come from store closings or overstock inventory. This is a field where reputation is king, and buying locally is your best bet. Just search Google for “wholesale pallets,” and you’ll find a long list of them. One good example is RhinoMart wholesale distribution.

The thing to look for are sites that offer good, clear photos of the pallets, and decent listings of contents. However, in most cases these items were all packaged quickly during store closings - so you simply get what you get. However, in the end you’re paying only a fraction of what the items are really worth, so this is usually one of the best ways to earn some significant eBay income.

Other Online Auctions

If you don’t have a fortune to invest up front, one of the easiest ways to make money on eBay is buying at smaller auction sites and then reselling on eBay. You’ll likely find far fewer items at these sites, but you’ll also find much better deals. A few of these include:

• OverStock Auctions – Auctions of “overstock” items
  
• uBid - Excess Inventory Auctions
  
• GovDeals – Pick up government surplus items at great prices
• ShopGoodwill – The popular “used goods” store is now an excellent Ebay seller source as well

One of my favorite online auction sites is the PropertyRoom Police Auctions, a fairly active website primarily for the sale of items confiscated by authorities.

You can find some pretty impressive deals on PropertyRoom, however competition for those items is getting pretty fierce. For now, there’re still some impressive lots of high quality items available, including computers, cars and jewelry.

The Hottest Selling Items on eBay are Everywhere

As you can see, becoming a PowerSeller on eBay is only a matter of finding a good source of low cost items. When I first started, the hardest part was finding those items. Toward the end of my eBay PowerSeller career, the hard part was keeping up with packaging and shipping. Once you find one or two product sources that work for you, you’ll have no problem making a tremendous income from eBay.

MakeUseOf has written a handful of great articles on eBay tips, be sure to check them out.

Are you an eBay seller? Share some of your own tips and tricks in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Fortunately, the Internet has evolved since then. Today, not only do you not have to put scissors to newspaper anymore, but most of these online grocery coupon sites accumulate manufacturer offers from everywhere and provide them to you in a convenient list that you just select and print in minutes.

Selecting the Best Grocery Coupon Websites

Considering the volume of websites out there that tout themselves as the best money-saving website for groceries, I’ve decided to put together a simple list of sites that are truly the tried-and-true spots that you should check every week to save a fortune on your grocery bill. For starters, MakeUseOf has already covered a number of top coupon websites including:

• GroceryGuide, which lets you find the best grocery deals from stores and malls in your local area
• ShortCuts from AOL, with the convenience of electronically loading all coupons directly to your grocery store loyalty card (no need to carry coupons around!)
• CouponChief, with thousands of retail store coupons. Why buy baby products from a grocery store when you can save $5 off diapers or formula at Diapers.com?

Check out all of MakeUseOf’s grocery resources for other offers and tools for saving money on groceries.

While those resources are excellent, I wanted to put together a definitive guide of grocery coupon websites for other cheapskates out there like me. I no longer bother with using scissors on the Sunday paper – there are much better money-saving resources on line, and they take far less time.

The Big Three

Coupons.com

Every grocery coupon hound should know that currently there are three major resources for most of the coupon deals on the Internet. These are three of the earliest websites that started the online coupon craze, and they are now the three that “feed” most of the offers for other, smaller offshoot websites. If you want the access to all of the deals, it’s best to just go straight to the source. Coupons.com is the first major site you should always check for the best manufacturer coupons. These are mostly non-location specific, meaning they’re available nationally (U.S. only).

Coupons.com is the place anyone should begin their quest, since this is the site that feeds most others. One brief search just now turned up 112 offers to sort through and print.

SmartSource

The next major grocery coupon site that feeds data to other sites is SmartSource.com. The cool thing about SmartSource is that you can type in your zip code and get offers from the local “circulars” that are normally sent inside local newspapers.

It just doesn’t get much more convenient than that. If you click on the “Coupons” tab at the top, you can review nationally offered coupons as well, but the thing that really sets SmartSource apart from the other “big three” is the fact that you can get these offers from local circulars.

ValPak

The final major coupon site that’s been around for quite a while is ValPak. ValPak, like the other two, offers its own list of national manufacturer coupons customized by zip code.

Letting Others Do Your Research

So why don’t people just visit the big three coupon sites and call it good? Because the Internet is so filled with information now, no single website holds all of the best deals. To save the most on your groceries, you’d need to hunt through all three “source” coupon sites, as well as hunt the web for exclusive coupons and offers that are only offered at manufacturer websites and nowhere else. That can take a lot of time and effort. Luckily, there are people out there who love doing this kind of research so much, that they’re willing to do it for you and offer you the fruits of their research.

PPGazette

The Penny-Pincher Gazette is one of those resources. All data at the PPGazette are collected from the three major sites listed above. Membership is free, and every week you can quickly review the best deals (including from local circulars) without having to visit multiple websites to find them.

CouponMom

Another very popular website that I am not ashamed to admit that I visit very often is CouponMom.com. CouponMom is run by Stephanie Nelson who was featured on Oprah, The Today Show and other talk shows, because she offers the service for free as an effort to help stamp out world hunger. By helping people save money on groceries, she’s hoping to encourage people to donate to hunger organizations through her “Cut Out Hunger” initiative.

Her website is easily one of the most comprehensive collections of deals from not only “the big three,” but also many hard-to-find offers from all throughout the Internet. If you choose only one website to visit before you do your grocery shopping, this one should be it.

Unique Grocery Coupon Websites

Sometimes, the standard coupon sites don’t really offer what you’re looking for. Maybe you have different tastes than most people, or you’re more interested in natural products. There are specialized sites that offer coupons for you too, if you know where to look.

Mambo Sprouts

One of those is Mambo Sprouts, a website dedicated to offering you coupons on organic foods.

At last glance, Mambo Sprouts offered two pages of coupons, as well as some cool articles and an entire community section where you can hook up with other folks who are into natural and organic living.

RedPlum

A last site that deserves mention, simply because it’s giving “the big three” a run for their money, is RedPlum.com. RedPlum offers visitors with free exclusive offers based on your zip code.

In other words, if you can’t find it elsewhere, you might find it at RedPlum.  As you can see, the Internet now offers an abundance of opportunities to shave hundreds off of your grocery bill every month. It seems inconceivable that anyone would go grocery shopping without coupons when there are so many free offers out there (free money, basically) available for the taking.

Shop online? Be sure to check out a list of sites by Sharninder to help you save money while staying on your couch!

If you shop with coupons, do you know of any other great free grocery coupon websites? Share them in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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When was the last time you were in a brick and mortar store checking out a book (or a video game) and wondering if it’ll be cheaper to get it online ?

I don’t know about you guys, but this happens with all the time when I’m out shopping.

Just last week, I was at this cool bookshop near my house browsing the shelf looking for a copy of Shantaram (which by the way, is an awesome read). I found it alright but for some reason, I thought the price was a bit more than I thought it should cost. I had my iPhone with me and I could Google the price up but seriously, what’s cool about that?

Instead, armed with my iPhone, I used Snaptell (iTunes Store link).

Snaptell is a cool and free application for the iPhone which uses image recognition to identify photos of books, CD/DVDs and video game covers and tells you their price at various online retailers.

So in my case, using Snaptell, I took a picture of the front cover of Shantaram in the store. Snaptell then uploaded the image to its servers and within a couple of seconds, told me that the book was available at more or less the same price at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as the bookstore I was at. Obviously, I decided to purchase it there and then, saving me a couple of days and shipping costs.

Of course, this is not the only use of Snaptell. Along with a comparison of products’ prices, Snaptell also displays other useful information: it also links to the Wikipedia entry for the product, if it exists; Google Product search results, results from eBay, Half.com and Yahoo search. If you can’t find the product you’re looking for in all those places, I’m not sure you’ll ever find it online.

So, books aren’t really your scene, eh ? Snaptell is an excellent app to have even if you’re searching the back alleys for DVDs of the latest blockbuster or yesteryears’ hits.

Snap a pic and let Snaptell work its magic. Snaptell also helpfully includes links to reviews from IMDB and RottenTomatoes and search results from YouTube. How’s that for convenience ?

Since Snaptell uploads a photo each time to its servers, the application obviously works best over WIFI but the speed is quite acceptable over cellular networks. Also, since you’ll need to take a photo, this will not work on the iPod Touch.

If books, DVDs and games are your thing AND you’re an online junkie like I am, give Snaptell a try and you won’t be dissappointed. Oh, and the Geek cred that you get will definitely be priceless.

Another good article to help you find good buys online is “5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money” which I wrote not long ago.

How do you normally research about the product you plan to buy? Online or physical store? Share with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Tough times like these call for tough measures and while we at MakeUseOf cannot fund a rescue package to revive the economy (yet!), we do try and help you guys in whatever little way that we can.

No, we aren’t going to suggest some tough measures to tide over the bad times. Instead, we’re going to make it easier for you to stretch the reach of your dollar with our selection of 5 online sites which will not only allow you shop from the convenience of your couch, but also help you find good deals online and the most bang for your buck.

CheapStingyBargains.com

A recession is not the best time to upgrade your computer and the good folks here at MakeUseOf have been showing you ways to prolong the life of your computer all this time. However, if you’re really in need of new hardware, make sure you visit CheapStingyBargains to get a good deal.

CheapStingyBargains catalogues and lists discount coupons and special deals from hundreds of computer manufacturers and dealers. The site offers the best deals and coupons for everything from computers to electronics and apparel to home goods.

FreeShipping.org

Don’t you hate it when you checkout an item from an online store only to find out that the shipping costs are more than the total price of your goods !

This is why I always make sure I give Freeshipping does one thing and does it well. It keeps a track of any free shipping offers going on at the 1500 stores on its list.

The next time you’re shopping online, be sure to check out all the free shipping deals that Freeshipping.org tracks.

DealCatcher.com

Dealcatcher is another coupon site that you should visit before making any online purchase. They have a long list of ready to use coupons and track more than 2000 online stores.

The kind of products that you can search for on DealCatcher varies from the usual computer and electronic stuff to apparels, auto accessories, shoes, flowers, cell phones, DVDs and so on. In short, if you’ve got a product in mind, they probably have an online store on their list that can give you a discount for it.

FatWallet.com

The greatest thing about FatWallet.com are the thousands of users who try out the coupons and let everyone else know which coupons are valid and where. The FatWallet community hangs out in the Forum where they share even more coupons and deals which were found elsewhere and generally help each other make the most of their money.

If you’re the cashback kind, there’s good news for you too. FatWallet is one of the few coupon sites that actually gives a cashback to users for using coupons found on their site.

Coupons.com

If you’re the kind who is always on the lookout for a bargain, I’m sure you know how cumbersome it is to go through newspaper coupons, clip and file them. Coupons.com aims to simplify that for you.

On this site, you’ll find electronic equivalent of newspaper coupons that you can print and take to your nearest grocery store for an instant discount.

Are there any other websites that you visit to get the best deals? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The following are a few simple steps how to keep your credit cards safe when shopping online.

Secure Your Computer

The last thing you should ever do is shop online with a computer that’s riddled with spyware or keylogging software.  Some of these viruses and malicious software applications look specifically for transmitted credit card information, so if you buy items with your credit card on a computer that you’re not certain is free of viruses or spyware, you will be placing your credit card information at risk.

The best option is to only shop online using your own computer, and before doing so, take the time to clean up and secure your PC using the latest antivirus and spyware removal tools.

MakeUseOf’s preferred free antivirus softare of choice is AVG Anti-Virus. Check out Mark’s review of AVG here. Many people have claimed that even the free version of AVG detected viruses that Norton missed. Aside from the fact that it’s a great anti-virus program, the key features that specifically protect your credit card information include the fact that it removes malicious tracking cookies from your browser, and it will alert you if any search results contain unsafe websites.  Of course, it also has a very cool front end too.

Once you’ve installed the anti-virus software and cleaned up any of the lingering viruses you’ve got on your PC, the next step is to wipe out malicious adware and spyware that’s lying dormant, just waiting for you to start transmitting 16-digit credit card numbers.

To accomplish this task, there are a number of additional software apps that you should download and install from Aibek’s list of 7 Security Tools You Absolutely Must Have. For starters, to protect your PC, the best apps are Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spyware Terminator.  If you don’t already have these two applications, install them and run them right now before setting another foot in any online store.

Even if you are very careful online, you’re bound to occasionally end up with infected files, such as the ones Malwarebytes found on my own laptop.

You never know which of these infections could put your credit card transaction at risk.  The Spyware Terminator is equally effective at finding and removing spyware from your system.

Think about it, how comfortable would you feel typing your 16 digit credit card number and 4 digit expiration date into the online form if you knew that there was a “Computer Monitor Keylogger” running in the background on your computer? Don’t take any risks, install these software apps and clean up your PC.

Secure Your Browser

Once you know your computer is clean of any malicious software, the next level of security that you need to enable is your browser. There are many different browsers to consider, but for the sake of this article I’ll consider the two most popular, Internet Explorer and Firefox.  If you’ve already installed Spyware Terminator above, then you’ve likely discovered the Web Security Guard add-on in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, which gets installed automatically.

When you’re shopping on any website and you want to make a purchase, you simply click on the Web Security Guard button in the Crawler toolbar, and you’re alerted as to whether the site is reported safe or not.

When you click to “view website info,” the application provides a full report of the source server’s IP and geographic location (city/state) as well as the server visitor load, so that you know you’re not dealing with some fly-by-night operation.

Another great add-on for Firefox that was reviewed by Dave here, is the NoScript app.  One of the most difficult aspects of locking down your browser from running Javascript, Java and other active scripts is that you do want to allow those scripts on some websites that you know are safe.  NoScript lets you open up scripting capabilities for those trusted domains, but blocks harmful scripts from running when you are visiting a brand new website that you aren’t sure you can trust. The warning pops up at the bottom of the screen, and you just click “options” to select whether or not to enable scripts for that site.

At first, as you visit your usual websites, you’ll need to “allow” scripting on those sites. But after a while, you’ll completely forget this add-on is running in the background until you land on a malicious website and it saves you from a script installing anything on your PC that can place your online financial transactions at risk.

Another great security add-on from Aibek’s list of 7 security tools is WOT. WOT stands for “Web of Trust,” and it’s available for either FireFox or Internet Explorer. This is probably one of the best add-ons that you can use to be sure that your credit card information is safe, because the ratings at WOT are based on trustworthiness and reputation of a website. Obviously, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to offer your credit card information to a business that most people rate as untrustworthy.

Ratings are pretty straightforward, with green as very trustworthy, orange as unsatisfactory, and red as poor or very poor reputation.

Use Common Sense When Shopping Online

So you’ve cleaned up your computer, you’ve installed extra security through browser add-ons, what else can you do to keep your credit card information safe online?  Simple – use common sense.  When you’re looking for products to buy online, always make sure that there’s a phone number or some other method to contact someone from the company. Never provide your credit card information through an anonymous online form that offers you no way to interact with a real person.

Additionally, all browsers are configured these days with a notification that you’re on a secure website, meaning the transmitted data is encrypted so that nothing in the “middle” can view the data.  You know that the connection is secure when you see the “lock” icon in the lower bar of your browser.

The examples shown above are Internet Explorer on the left and Firefox on the right.  In both cases you can see the small padlock appear whenever your connection is secure.  Never enter your credit card information into a website unless that padlock icon is at the bottom of the screen.  Otherwise, you’ll be placing your credit card number at risk of getting intercepted as the transmission bounces from server to server through the Internet.

Remember, when it comes to the security of your credit card information online, there’s no such thing as too much security. Make use of all of the tools that are at your disposal and you can guarantee that your online shopping experience will be both fun and secure.

Do you have any methods you use to keep your credit card information safe when you shop online? Share your favorite applications or techniques in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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So what do you choose? The best looking one? The fastest? The most durable? … Which one?

To make it a bit easier MakeUseOf teamed up with Laptopical.com to give you a Laptop Buying Guide for 2009. It’s a quick 20 page guide with an abundance of screenshots and links to video reviews. This guide is intended to help buyers make an informed choice regardless of previous computer knowledge.

Get MakeUseOf Laptop Buying Guide 2009 in PDF format by subscribing to MakeUseOf ‘Cool Websites’ newsletter using the form below (or subscribe to our RSS feed).

The buying guide includes everything from an overview of key laptop perfomance indicators to most popular laptops in early 2009.

Part 2: Introduction: Essential Parts & Choosing The Right Size
Part 3: Most Popular Laptops [Early 2009]

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Other people evidently feel my pain, as a number of Craiglist mashups have sprung up on the Web that take the Craigslist data, and use it in a better way. These Craigslist tools don’t have everything Craigslist does, but they typically help you look at one category or region of Craigslist far more easily and productively.

Here are five of my favorite ways to navigate Craigslist without typing “craigslist.org”.

Craig’s Helper

One of the things I like the least about Craigslist is that it’s limited to a particular place. If I want to buy, say, a bike, I’m limited to only the small regions Craigslist selects for me, unless I’m willing to do a lot of duplicate work.

With Craig’s Helper, you’re able to set how far away from yourself you’re willing to search for a particular item. I’m in Central Virginia, but I can set Craig’s Helper to search Craigslist to Washington, DC, or even to Vegas if I really want that bike. You set a price range, a category, and a distance, and Craig’s Helper parses Craigslist to find only the results you’re interested in and willing to go get. It does the same thing with eBay, and you can choose to search either or both sites.

Craigslist/Zillow

Real Estate prices are frequently skewed on Craigslist, but many people don’t know what to do, what the right price is, or even what they’re looking for. With the Craigslist/Zillow mashup made using Yahoo! Pipes, you can be more prepared.

All you have to do is input a real estate feed from Craigslist, by clicking the “RSS” icon at the bottom of the page when you search for real estate. Then the pipe shows you on a map where the housing options are, as well as the estimated price on Zillow, a users’ guide to real estate. You’ll get a sense of where things are, what’s available, and what the normal prices are – a major leg up for anyone trying to buy real estate from Craigslist.

Typo Buddy

People are notoriously bad at spelling, and notoriously bad at caring about it. With Typo Buddy, you get to use that to your advantage. Say you want an Apple computer. Type that into Typo Buddy, and it searches through both eBay and Craigslist for all the ways people could misspell that word.

Incorrect spelling means fewer people see the listing, which means cheaper prices for you! Since it relies on the stupidity of other people, it works pretty much all the time. I found eBay to have more results than Craigslist, but with some gold to be found in both places.

ByeByeList

Craigslist’s results page doesn’t show you pictures, which is the thing I like least about it. For every listing that sounds remotely interesting, you have to click through to see the picture, only to decide that “in good condition” actually meant “in thirteen pieces scattered about my house.”

With ByeByeList, you can search through the listings on Craigslist, with the pictures on the front page in a more eBay-style look. If there’s no picture, it says so, but for every listing with a picture you’re able to search just like on Craigslist, but see the image right on the results page. Helpful for when “use for parts” means “only if you’re savvy with a blowtorch.”

Weekend Treasure

Who doesn’t love other people’s junk, that they can’t wait to get rid of? With Weekend Treasure, you can do a search for all the garage sales nearby. Though the listings come from more than just Craigslist (a good thing, if you ask me), most of them do seem to be pulled in from Craigslist.

They’re mapped out for you, and each listing provides both an address and a link to the sale site (again, mostly Craigslist). Weekend Treasure suggest searching on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, but there are almost always some listings to be found.

Craigslist is awesome at aggregating material and information, and not so great at displaying it. Using these Craigslist mashups, you can be a better informed, more efficient and more powerful Craigslist user.

Are you a Craigslist fan? Got any Craigslist Tool you like, or wish you’d see?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Below I am listing the most awesome sources of both user and expert reviews you can use when trying to locate the best price and feature overview of the item you plan to buy.

User reviews:

• PriceGrabber offers a huge variety of handy features. You can compare prices, add and view others’ ratings and reviews. The site also has a great search platform allowing you to refine search by any product features and sort results by price or by brand.
• AlaTest offers both expert and user reviews. The best feature I adore is the “Review Analysis” that gives a brief overview of all reviews listed for the product. Here is a sample review summary for Apple iPod Nano:

• PriceRunner offers both users’ and experts’ reviews. “Expert” reviews stand for reviews aggregated from other product review sites (AlaTest, I4u, etc among them). The site also allows users to post video reviews and watch reviews created by other members.

• BizRate is one of the largest resources of user reviews. Overall ratings are represented by cute smiles giving you a quick idea of the item’s reputation.

Expert reviews:

• DigitalTrends provides well-detailed expert reviews in a number of categories: car audio, cell phones, laptops, etc.
• VNunet is another source for good expert reviews.
• CNet provides both expert and user reviews. The best thing about it is that you can find video reviews for almost any product. It also allows price and feature comparisons.
• T3 lists short reviews and summarizes them with “We Hate”, “We Love” and “We Say” points.
• LaptopMag provides mobile hardware and software product reviews.
• HowStuffWorks follows each review with expert ratings, scaling value, performance, usability and features.

• Star-TechCentral starts each review with a handy feature overview.
• PCWorld follows huge detailed expert reviews with user comments. It also offers a brief price comparison powered by PriceGrabber.
• Trusted Reviews offer quite a few high quality photos for each product review.
• TechRadar lists great hardware and software reviews. It also invites users to submit their own reviews and offers a wide variety of product photos.
• EverythingUSB (as the name suggests) reviews all things USB: USB software, USB hardware and USB deals.
• TechTree provides a huge database of expert reviews. The review starts with overall ratings and core features: good and bad ones. The reviews are followed by user comments.

• PCAdvisor provides huge reviews for hardware and software.
• PCMag Product Guides reviews new products, software and service providers.
• TechReviewSource provides long in-depth reviews.
• ComputerActive is a UK site providing short to-the-point reviews.
• PCReview is another pretty cool UK site decorating their reviews with large product images.
• PCAdvisor ends each review with a verdict which usually contains very useful information.
• LordPercy lists well-grounded expert reviews for most recent products in categories varying from software to GPS.

Do you know of any other sources for user and expert user reviews?   If so, please let us know about them in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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So, Where To Buy T-shirts Online ?

Although MakeUseOf is usually centered around free things, you aren’t likely to get a free good looking T-shirt anytime soon. So, get ready to open up your wallet and spend a few bucks as we take a look at great places to buy T-shirts online.

1. ShirtsOnSale

Although this website doesn’t exactly sell T-shirts, it’s definitely the first place you want to go to when you begin buying T-shirts.

ShirtsOnSale is a blog that gathers information about daily T-shirt deals and provides you with a list of great coupons for T-shirt selling websites. Subscribe to its RSS feed and get updates about T-shirts being sold on Woot, Uneetee, Teefury, and Shirtaday. A great blog for those T-shirt lovers out there.

2. Woot Shirts

Shirt.woot is possibly one of the most popular places to get cheap limited time T-shirts. Each day, a shirt of the day is sold for $10 with no shipping fees. If you happen to miss a shirt when it was on sale, fear not; you can still get the shirt for $15 assuming the shirt is still in stock.

Many popular shirts are sold on Woot, and they have limited supplies. So, if you don’t hurry, your new favorite shirt is going to be sold to some creep down the street.

Shirt.woot also has a unique “contest” called the derby. Each Thursday a new theme is released, and Woot members can submit their own designs to the site. Other members vote on the designs, and the top three designs get turned into shirts and sold.

Woot Shirts also has a thing called the Day of Reckoning. Each Monday, the crew takes a look at the shirts being sold and they stop producing the shirts that haven’t been selling. Check out Woot everyday and get the coolest shirt around.

3. TeeFury

This website is very much like Shirt.woot, expect for one thing. Their slogan sums things up “TEE TODAY. GONE TOMORROW.” Be sure to check this website daily if you really want a unique one of a kind T-shirt. It’s a very simple site to look through. Basically, just check the website each day. If you like the shirt, you buy it. If you don’t, you buy it anyway so you don’t regret not buying it.

4. OneHorseShy

Over at OneHorseShy, you don’t have to worry about one T-shirt a day. They have a pretty large stock, and a huge variety of T-shirts to sell. Just browse around for a few hours and find something you like. You can browse the T-shirts by different themes, such as political, geeky, stupid, cool, social, Western, and Asian. The only bad thing about this website is that the T-shirts are a tad bit more expensive (~$20) than the ones from Shirt.Woot or TeeFury.

5. Busted Tees

I personally love the T-shirts over at Busted Tees, mainly because they’re pretty funny and also really simple. This website is very much like OneHorseShy, and so are the prices (though specially discounted T-shirts are cheaper). You can sort the T-shirts by categories, including TV, Internet, politics, wordplay, pop culture, and many more.

You can also buy a variety of hoodies if you’re not that into T-shirts. Busted Tees is just another place to get cool and funny T-shirts.

6. ThinkGeek

ThinkGeek. Every geek has heard of it. I’ll be very surprised if everyone hasn’t shopped there before. ThinkGeek is Geek culture at its best. It’s full of extremely geeky T-shirt designs that you’re all going to love. Categories range from generic geek, gaming, and pop culture to Japanese, IT, and Math. This is the best place to get T-shirts that non geeks will never understand. Get a shirt and show off your geeky side.

7. MySoti

MySoti is the place to buy, sell, and create your own T-shirt. If you’re a designer, you’re going to fall in love with how easily you can make money. Steps for creating your T-shirt are very simple.

A. Choose a product (canvas or T-shirt)
B. Upload your design (SVG or PNG)
C. Create and submit design

You can choose the price at which you sell your design, starting from the MySoti base price. Whenever a T-shirt sells, you will receive whatever markup you put on. For example, if the MySoti base price was $20, and you sell the T-shirt you created for $30, you will receive a profit of $10. Simple, isn’t it? If you want tips on creating a successful design, check out Simon’s post on T-shirt Designs.

Even if you’re not a designer, you can still benefit a lot from MySoti’s unique T-shirt designs. Go out and have fun making and buying shirts from MySoti.

There you have it. Those are my favorite places to get T-shirts for myself and friends. Do you get your shirts from somewhere else? Which T-shirt designs do you like most? Tell me about it in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I have some interesting tips to share with you MakeUseOf readers – just in time for the holidays.

eBay can be great to buy gifts at discounted prices or to sell items to make some money to buy gifts! What a magically time of the year.

Looking for deals? Let’s see what we can do you for…

Check out other eBay’s in your native language or use Babelfish to translate. The wife uses Ebay UK habitually and now thanks to Babelfish she is all into eBay France and eBay Italy. I showed her how to browse over to the foreign eBay sites and do a brand name search.

Then using a little ingenuity we try and pin it down to a category (if you can figure it out great, if not it’s OK. Just a little more clicking around later).

Then we copy the URL from the search page and plug it into BabelFish. We choose the “Translate a web page” option and select the appropriate language – here it is French to English (this will translate the French eBay search page into English so we can understand it). Don’t press the back button on your browser – it will bring you back to the BabelFish page no matter how deep you go into eBay.

Now you have a browser opened with your search translated! Sweet!

2. Use a Sniper app to help you get the lowest price and win a auction at the last possible minute. I have been using AuctionSniper (last minute bid software) now for well over 4 years.

AuctionSniper is not a free service but your first 10 snipes are free so hey close enough! Then if you get your friends to sign up for the free 10 snipes as well, they will give you more for free. You can also go on to purchase “snipes” if you run out. But hey I haven’t run out in years and if I do I will move on to another free/similar service.

The way Auction Sniper works is quite simple. You give them your eBay user name and password and they will automate your bid at 5 seconds before the end of the auction (this is the default and can be changed). This way all those bidding wars don’t start between you and some 12 year old kid in Kentucky.This also gives the highest bidder a sense of winning so they are not closely watching.  This lets you and your sniper swoop in for the win at the last second. Just remember the currency is the website’s default – meaning if you are buying from eBay.co.uk it will be in British pounds, France will be in Euros and if you are hitting eBay.com it will be in US dollars. So don’t think they will be converting your 10 Euros to 10 dollars – dig?

3. How about finding great deals because other users mis-spelled their auction?! Check out Misspelled Auctions

Type in what you are looking for and it will try various popular mis-spellings to get you to a low traffic auction. This is a great breeding ground for deals! Low competition = BIG SAVINGS!

Here is a search for the awesome HTC Touch Pro:

You can see it searched for “tc touch pro”, “hc touch pro”, “tuch pro” and a whole bunch more – and look – we got a hit in the above picture!

Selling stuff? Do your homework first!

4. After logging into eBay you have the option of Advanced Search features. These are an eBay seller’s best friend. The advanced search feature I use most often is the Completed Auctions option. Why you ask?

It’s simple – if you quickly peruse the list of completed auctions for what you are looking to sell you can see at a glance the green prices sold and the red prices did not. You can get a pretty good idea of how much you can get for your collection (of something that meant something to you at one time and would be better off spent on beer money now!).

You can then also click on the little icon next to the auction that brought in the most money and use the “Sell Similar”. This will save you a bunch of steps in setting up your auction.

5. Tips and tricks are all well and good but do you know what helps more than anything else with selling on eBay? Pictures, pictures and more pictures!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words – let’s just say it can be worth a hundred bids here! People want to see what they are buying. Take these STRANGE eBay listings… Do you think they would have sold without images?

.

(Images are linked to the completed auctions..)

Think those auctions were strange? Check out Weird eBay Listings for more!

Also be responsive to questions asked by potential buyers and offer a slew of payment options like Paypal and credit cards.

Do you have any eBay tips or tricks to add? We would love to hear from you in the comments. Just think it might get you that internet fame you have been wanting for so long

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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How do people do it? What’s their secret? How can they go into a store and know exactly what they want? The secret to success during the Black Friday Sale is planning. With limited time and multiple stores to hit, you need to plan beforehand exactly what stores you’re going to go to, and what you’re going to buy. The only problem is that most stores don’t release their black friday ads until the last minute. Luckily, websites like BFads.net can help us make the most of our Black Friday.

BFads is a website that is all about Black Friday ads. Leaked ads are posted on the website and organized in a fashion that is easily browsed by a viewer. Although these ads may not be official, most of them turn out to be accurate in the end. BFads updates several times a day, especially as it gets closer and closer Thanksgiving.

There are many features of BFads that anyone who is going to participate in the Black Fridays sales is going to benefit from. For one, there is a huge list of adscans that you can download in .ZIP or.PDF formats.

Although advertisement scans are all you really need to plan out your shopping experience, BFads makes things more convenient to browse by having a section dedicated to each store and includes all the ads in a typed, easy to search format. Click on the store you like, and browse through the ads. You can sort the advertisements by price; if you’re looking for the best deals.

Another great feature is the ability to add certain items into a ’shopping list’. This is extremely useful if you want a printout of all the things you want to buy, the store they are in, and how much the items cost. It’s also great that you can sent your shopping list with your friends The only downside to this is that you have to register, but that’s free and only takes a few seconds.

Other features BFads include:

• Access the BFads forums and get advice on what items you should or should not buy
• View the store hours of the stores participating in the Black Friday sales.
• Use your phone and view the mobile version so you can look while waiting in line.
• Read guides on what to buy this holiday season in the articles section

In all, BFads is a great website to get ready for the Black Friday rush by going through wide choice of Black Friday ads from different stores such Walmart, Best Buy, Sears, Staples, Toys R Us and many more.

View the ads early, and begin your planning as early as possible. Browse the ads of all the stores and keep track of the ones you like with the shopping list. Use BFads daily, plan what you’re going to do, and wake up early so you can ensure a pleasant Black Friday experience. No more wandering around the store for hours looking for something cheap that you might want. BFads does all the work for you.

So, how many of you are excited for Black Friday? Is anyone going to participate or are they only interested in Cyber Monday? Do you know of any other websites that can help you out on Black Friday? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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How can you make all your friends happy? Where can you find inspiration? How can you think of unique presents?

Luckily we have the internet today that can answer all your questions. Here are 50 resources for holiday gift inspiration:

Take Advantage of General Gift Guides and Wizards:

Christmas gift ideas for her, for men, for kids, for parents and so on.

• My Gift Guide is a social bookmarking site allowing its members to post and vote for gift ideas.
• Gift Girl helps to choose the gift by choosing the occasion, price range, the relation to the person.
• Savvy Auntie has developed a great gift wizard with sleek interface which turns the gift choosing onto real fun.
• FindGift.com offers an easy to use gift wizard that helps to choose a perfect gift for anyone.
• Surprise.com lists gift ideas by category, gift type, the recipient and occasion.
• Wellhaven.com gift ideas for “elderly citizens.”
• Gifts.com has a huge database of gifts for everyone and for any occasion. You can browse gifts by a recipient’s interest, by gender, by occasion, by personality, etc.

Giving the Social Media Way:

Send “actual gifts to virtual places” (remember how Pay Pal works? TigerBow does the same with gifts: send a real gift to an email address).

Earn $100 for Christmas presents by being greedy or needy.

Make all your FaceBook friends happy:

• SocialFlowers.com lets FaceBook members send each other flowers.
• Buy and send music (either in digital or physical format) to your friends via Music Gifts.
• Needdit FB application: send your FaceBook friends virtual Amazon presents.
• Free Gifts – a FaceBook app allowing you to send all your FB friends cute virtual presents.

Don’t forget about your Twitter buddies: Tweet Gift allows to send gifts to fellow Twitters.

Package and Decorate Gifts Creatively

• FTD.com sells professionally decorated gift baskets.
• NashvilleWraps.com offers a huge choice of gift packaging: gift boxes, candy boxes, paper bags, plastic bags, tissue paper, ribbon and bows.
• HarryAndDavid.com allows to decorate your gifts with beautiful towers, gift baskets, floral decor, etc.
• Delightful Deliveries offer a huge range of gift baskets for any occasion.
• Wrap Art offers plenty of unique ideas on how to wrap your gift creatively.
• DunWoodyBooth – creative gift packaging.

Choose Home Decor Gifts:

• Terry’s Village offers home decor, accents, holiday decorations and accessories to decorate your home for an occasion.
• Collections Etc.: unique gifts, home and garden decor, and house wares.
• Demdaco.com offers great home decor gifts ideas.

Let Your Gifts Make Someone Happy & Serve a Good Purpose

• JustGive.Org: the one-stop destination of “charitable giving”:
• Eco-friendly floral options: California Organic Flowers offer a huge range of organic flowers.
• TheFindGreen allows to both find great gifts and participate in a green initiative.
• Allgreen Wedding allows to choose among numerous eco-friendly merchants to buy green presents.
• ChangingThePresent.org offers to make gifts “that make a difference”, i.e. give a present and make a donation at the same time.

Personalize Your Gifts:

• Your Gift Label allows you to create customized labels for spirits.
• PoetryGift.com offers to personalize your unique gifts – love poems and personalized poetry for an anniversary, baptism, birthday, wedding, etc.
• PhotoWorks.com: shares personalized photos and books.
• Scrapblog.com: creates personalized scrapbooks with your photos, video and thousands of creative elements.
• Zazzle allows you to design your gift the way you like it.

Gifts For Reawakening the Spirits:

• Isabella Catalog: books, gifts and other inspirations.
• Do you have Catholic friends? Getfed provides a gift catalog for Catholic gifts, books, bibles, rosaries, artwork and church supplies.
• SimpleTruths.com: corporate gift books.
• Romantic gifts offers to choose among ” 450 love-enhancing items”.

Gift Cards, Greeting Cards, E-cards:

• Current Catalog lists greeting cards and also offers gift wrapping services.
• Gift Zinger offers to choose gift cards with the help of a handy gift wizard (based on the recipient’s gender, age, gift category and occasion).
• American Greetings offers a huge collection of free greeting cards.
• BlueMountain.com offers e-cards as well as beautiful printable cards.
• Plaxo allows you to edit their e-cards and gives helpful editing ideas.
• Invitation Box provides you with the whole wealth of ideas on creating a party invitation.
• LeaninTree.com: greeting cards, e-cards, and gifts for all your needs.

Collectibles and Hard to Find Gifts:

• Go Collect: a huge resource of collectibles – retired or hard to find products. You can browse through existing catalog or order any exclusive collectible.
• CollectiblesToday sells unique collectibles, jewelry and gifts.

Don’t Forget About Your Friends’ Kids!

• OneStepAhead.com offers huge choice of cute gifts for children.
• AnneGeddes.com – designer baby pictures and clothes – “the perfect gifts for new and growing families”

A Few More Gift-Related Tips:

• Check out this last year’s post on how to give both free and useful (life-improving) gifts;
• Learn how to organize your gifts (if you are going to give and receive a lot during the holidays);
• Buy nothing for Christmas and still give awesome presents.

Where online do you do your Christmas shopping? Any unique places you would like to add to the list?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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• NeoK12 – Educational Kids Website that Teaches Your Children (5)

Thankfully, though, there are a ton of ways to find to do computer-like things when you’re not at your computer. Different places are creeping up that will help you read emails, make plans, win bets, find pointless information, and generally do things you’d do on the computer, without it.

I’m going to assume that you have your cell phone with you when you’re away from your computer. With just your cell, and for most of these, any cell will do, you can do many of the things you always do on the computer.

Here are 9 of the many ways you can use a computer with just a cell phone, beyond just accessing mobile sites (which most sites have by now):

Disclaimer: with these products, you will start texting – A LOT. If you don’t have an unlimited texting plan, prepare to see your bills go up more than slightly!

1. Texting, Google-style with Google SMS

You name it, Google SMS can do it with a text message. By sending a text message to GOOGLE (466453) you can find information like restaurant listings, weather, sports scores, calculator, conversions, and the like. Here’s the full listing, from Google, of all the things they can do with your text message.

But of course there are some risks to using Google SMS…..

2. Ask, and You Shall Be Answered

Got questions? Text them to ChaCha (242242). A real-live human being will answer your question in 160 characters, and send you the answer.

ChaCha is great because it’s a real person on the other end, which means you can ask a real question instead of trying to nail down search terms. If you don’t want to send a text message, call 1 (800) 224-2242 (2ChaCha). ChaCha can also send you a random joke or weather information, but the question and answer service is their bread-and-butter. It’s a great way to settle bets, or find answers to the irritating questions you just can’t seem to figure out.

3. Get your Wikipedia On

Wikipedia, in the words of The Office’s Michael Scott, “is the best thing ever.” Trouble is, for anyone who’s tried to use it from a cell phone browser, it’s tough to read. The formatting is bad for a cell phone, and using Wikipedia is much harder. Wapedia fixes that by taking Wikipedia and formatting it in a way that’s much easier to read on your cell phone. It strips away all the unnecessary stuff like the sidebar links, and puts everything into a one-column view that’s much easier to read on your cell phone. For an information-phile like me, Wapedia’s a great way to keep an easy-to-use Wikipedia in your pocket.

4. Go to the Movies

Want to go to the movies? Despite their terribly annoying ads, Fandango’s still the best place to buy movie tickets. In addition to their mobile site, you can use their relatively new SMS service to make buying tickets from your cell phone even easier. Send your zip code and a movie title to FNDGO (36436), and Fandango finds all the results for you. With an increasing number of carriers, you can even buy tickets with a text. Spur-of-the-moment movie craving? You’re all set.

5. Find a Starbucks and some Wi-Fi

I love Starbucks. There’s one on the ground floor of the building where I live, and I may personally be keeping it in business. Odds are, wherever you are, you’ll be able to find a Starbucks just by turning around. If not though, text your zip code to MYSBUX (697289) and Starbucks will show you their three nearest locations. Plus, with more and more Starbucks offering Wi-Fi, you’ll be able to get back on your computer.

Don’t want to go to Starbucks? Send “wifi” and your location to US411(87411), and you’ll get a whole list of free Wi-Fi hotspots nearby. That way, you won’t have to miss your computer any longer.

6. “Hello, Operator?”

Google search, for your voice and phone. Most 411 services are ridiculously expensive, but Goog-411 isn’t. You search Google with your voice, for a business or personal listing, and it connects you for free. You can even request a text message with all the contact info, for free.  Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-6446411). For more, check out Karl’s post.

7. Never Miss a Thing

Let’s say you’re looking to buy something on Craigslist. A boat, say. If you want to know when a boat comes onto Craigslist that’s in your price range, check out Notify.me. Set up notifications for everything from your friends’ Twitter statuses to breaking news stories, and Notify.me sends you an alert every time something matches.

They can be sent to your IM, email, desktop client, or cell phone via SMS. This one’s the one that will kill your texting bill, but if you’re sitting at your computer waiting for something, or just don’t want to be behind, Notify.me is a really useful tool.

8. Never Miss the Important Stuff

So, you’re kind of a big deal. People know you. Sometimes you get important email, even when you’re away from your desk. With AwayFind, you don’t need to worry about missing crucial email when you’re not at your computer. Using AwayFind, you can set up an “Out Of Office” email to auto-respond every time you get email, and include a link to your AwayFind page.

If someone needs to get in touch with you, they can fill out the AwayFind form, and their email comes through to you on your phone. It gets trimmed to one message, and helps you rest easy that if someone really needed to get through to you while you’re on vacation, they could. Plus, it gives you something to check as habitually as you do your email.

9. Buy, Buy, Buy

Let’s be honest: half the fun of the Web is the random, unneeded impulse buys. If you’re away from your computer and decided you’ve just got to have that cool thing you saw this morning, never fear, Amazon is here!

Using their “TextBuyIt” service, you can send a text message with a product name to AMAZON (262966). You’ll get two results from Amazon, with more coming if you reply with a text saying “m”. If you decide to buy something, reply with the result number, and you’ll get a call from Amazon to create and confirm your order. It’s so simple, it’s a little scary.

Who says you need to be at a computer all the time? Just by using your cell phone, you can free yourself from its grip.

Which cellphone numbers or mobile services do you use to grab information off the internet?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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With such a huge product base, simply browsing Amazon has almost become a tedious job. There are the lists of “What’s Hot”, but the interface is more functional than enticing.

Therefore, allow me to introduce Amazon Windowshop.

Simply put, Amazon Windowshop is a virtual portal designed to display “What’s Hot” on Amazon.com interactively. Here, text links and preview buttons are nowhere to be found. Instead you are presented with unique “tabs” that display new and popular music, films, book and games.

This service is very simple to use and can be navigated using just the keyboard. Instead of using your mouse to click links, you are encouraged to select from categories such as “New Music This Tuesday” which, as you may have guessed, displays all the popular music releases, “Bestselling Video Games”, charting that particular month’s sales and pre-orders and even suggests bands/acts you should listen to in their “Music Artists We Think You Should Hear” section.

If, like in the screenshot above, you select the “Bestselling Video Games” section, you will be presented with the top ten best-sellers in that category. Each game will feature its official trailer and plays automatically so be careful if you are checking this out in an environment that wouldn’t lend well to Banjo Kazooie’s catchphrases!

Inside the music sections, you will be treated to a thirty second snippet off a track from that album with the options to buy said album on either CD or digitally from their MP3 store. The book section surprises, it includes a voice-over reading the synopsis of the book but Amazon haven’t yet incorporated their “Search Inside” feature.

Amazon has made use of Adobe’s Flash Player and have also tapped into their S3 service so they can deliver high quality images, video and audio clips quickly to the user. The service is updated real-time and provides complete integration with Amazon’s commerce store meaning if you like what you see/hear/feel/think, you can travel to the product site and purchase to your hearts content. There is no word on whether they will introduce the “Search Inside” service but incorporating it into their Flash interface shouldn’t be too much hassle for their developers.

Currently, Windowshop is only available for US audiences and there are no indications as to whether it will be ported to their worldwide user base. I think the real question is whether Windowshop can be incorporated into Amazon’s main portal, allowing users to choose their own way to browse the store.

What do you think of Windowshop? Do you see yourself using it? Is this the future of Amazon? Or is it just a sales gimmick?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Cooliris’ party piece which is really very impressive, is the endless 3D photo wall. Trust me, after using the 3D wall, regular browsing will never suffice again. Suppose you were searching for something on Google Images, only 20 results will be displayed on a page at any time. By using the 3D wall, you can view all of the results at once.

Have a look at the screenshots below: Search results are displayed as a “wall” and by dragging the slider at the bottom of the screen, you can swiftly browse through all of the photos easily.

Clicking on any one will bring up a larger version and a caption (if any). Also, its source will be displayed at the bottom of the photo, along with a link to that page. Next to that, there is an option to send messages to friends if you manage to find anything you’d like to share.

If you want to sit back and enjoy all the photos, click on the full-screen slideshow icon at the bottom left-hand side then hit ‘Play’. The slideshow icon will change to one which resembles a 3D wall and clicking on it will bring you back to the wall.

Unfortunately, Cooliris will not work on every site with photos, only certain Cooliris-enabled sites like Flickr, Picasa, Google, DeviantART, Yahoo!, SmugMug, Photobucket, Facebook and MySpace. The next time when you’re browsing through your friend’s photo album on Facebook, hit the Cooliris button and you’ll be instantly rewarded with the photos on the 3D wall – no more clicking on ‘Next’.

Cooliris will also work with videos from YouTube. It arranges the videos as it does with photos. Be warned, browsing YouTube with Cooliris is very addictive since it shows you all the search results next to each other. It’s very tempting to just sit there and watch all of them! Granted, YouTube isn’t the same if you can’t read the comments of others or go through the ‘Related Videos’ – two essential features which is missing from Cooliris.

“3D shopping” was implemented in the latest version of Cooliris. A few of the top online shopping destinations like Amazon, Macy’s and Walmart have hopped onto the Cooliris bandwagon and provided their patrons with an easier way to browse through their products. Clicking on a product’s photo will reveal its price, a short description and a link to the product’s page.

In my book, Cooliris is a definite keeper. Assuming that your computer has sufficient processing power and memory to allow Cooliris to operate properly, using should be a pleasure.

Cooliris is available as a plugin for Firefox and Safari on Mac OS X; and for Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows. But that’s not all, Cooliris is now available for the iPhone!

Do let us know how well it works on the iPhone. We’re eager to hear how much Cooliris can improve browsing on a such a small device.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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How do you manage your wish lists? How do you make sure each of your friends and relatives will not be forgotten? How do you organize your own plans?

Let’s see how you can turn into a professional “gift giver” with these web-based wishlists that will help you organize things you want to receive, things you plan to give and thing you dream of but don’t dare to ask for:

BoxedUp has a clear interface and allows for a number of nice features:

• sort your products by Wishlists and by Status (”things I want”, “things I have”);
• add favorite places you like to shop;
• add friends and join communities of like-minded people.

What’s more, the service offers you the chance to create your wishlist flash widget to display at your site or page to let all your friends see what you want to get for the holidays.

GiftHat also has some similar basic features; though it lacks that pretty design of BoxedUp. The tool also lets you import your Amazon wish list.

Like GiftHat, WishListr also provides a convenient importing option (it allows you to import wishlists from Amazon and Delicious).

Your-Wishlist let you add products only from their own database but they have introduced a few fun options. For example, have fun choosing your wishlist theme and graphics.

GiftBoxHome is another good service that among other handy features also allows to set the gift priority.

GifTag offers a handy FireFox addon (which is required to add the items to your wishlist). The extension adds the product page screenshot and let’s you easily organize your multiple wishlists. Besides, it lets you quickly send the gift page to your friend (to make sure your friend knows what you want to receive).

Kaboodle is the most advanced gift organizing tool that also offers a FireFox addon. It grabs the product page information and leaves you almost no work.

It also allows you to sort the gifts by category (my favorite one was “If I Had One Million Dollars” one).

How do you get prepared for the holiday season? Have you already created your wishlist? How do you organize your gifting?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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• Wootalyzer – Alerts You Woot! Super Sales and Other Sites (7)

You might have heard about Woot, but there are others good ones as well. While none of these sites will give you an amazing deal every other day, once in a while there will be some awesome items at dirt cheap prices.

So here you go, one sale a day sites that don’t suck.

(1) Woot

In case you haven’t heard about Woot before, here is a quick recap.

Woot offers one product per day until the item is sold out or the product is replaced at midnight with the new offering. It is the pioneer of the “one deal a day” business model and so far the best one deal a day site on the web. It’s also the most popular one, so whenever it posts some nice item it sells out within the first few minutes.

More about Woot:

- usually sells some computer hardware or electronic gadgets
- charges a fixed $5.00 shipping fee
- very active forum where you can discuss the daily deal with others
- Bag Of Crap (BOC) : read below

In lieu of typical product sales, Woot occasionally offers a $1.00 fukubukuro-like blind grab bag officially called “Random Crap”. Its accompanying picture has lent it the name “Bag O’ Crap” (BOC). The BOC includes dollar store items and may also include significantly more expensive items such as large flat-screen televisions.[6] The BOC typically triggers the flooding of Woot’s servers with thousands and thousands of order requests. The available BOCs typically sell out within seconds

(2) Whiskey Militia

This one is for gear addicts. Whiskey Militia usually lists brand goods at heavily discounted prices, everything from sunglasses and backpacks to snowboards. I don’t have much experience with the site but everytime I compared their daily deal with the cheapest item on eBay their deal would be about 2 times cheaper. So they do offer a bargain deal here.

Some noteworthy features:

- shows item sellout rate and how many left (like on Woot)
- in most cases the item available in different sizes and colors
- multiple images
- max. 3 items per person
- ships internationally
- Whiskey Militia tracker / alert (get notified about new items)

(3) 1 Sale A Day

1 Sale A Day (the link was removed) is nowhere near the popularity of Woot, but that being sad they do post some good deals. Now one thing I really don’t like about it is that there is no indication of how many items were sold and how many are still left. So you can’t really see how fast the item is selling and how hot it is.

Another issue is customer feedback, many people complained that they have never received items or that they weren’t as advertised. You can check those reviews on ResellerRatings.

Update: the 1 Sale A Day site was delinked due to negative feedback from MakeUseOf readers.

(4) Shirt.Woot & ShirtsOnSale

These two are only for t-shirts, nothing else. If you’re a t-shirt guy then make sure you add these two websites to your bookmarks.

Shirt.Woot

The Shirt.Woot is a little sibling of Woot that sells only t-shirts. One item a day at a flat rate of $10 (free shipping).

Shirts On Sale

The Shirts On Sale gives you the straight dope on the best tshirt sales and discounts. They don’t sell anything but only collect bargain t-shirt deals from other sites like Shirt.Woot, Uneetee, The Ryde and Shirtaday.

We will never send you somewhere we aren’t willing to spend our own hard-earned cash — unless they’re offering a deal that’s too good to pass up of course.

Moreover, the site offers plenty of discount coupons (ranging from 5 to 30 %) for some of the most popular t-shirt printers on the market.

The other relatively good one sale a day websites you might want to check out are Steep And Cheap, Shnoop, Yugster and ThingFling

Are you aware of any other sites that should have been mentioned as well? Lets us know in comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Both retailers and resellers (as well as their affiliates) are getting more creative offering easy-to-use web-based tools that update their users of the company news and recent deals.

Here are the four common methods :

Getting Updated via Email

Offering their customers or readers a newsletter subscription option is the most popular way to keep them updated of the site news.

With email alerts you never miss a deal as it will come right into your email inbox. You don’t have to remember anything. All you need to do is just to check your email regularly – which you most probably do in any case.

Do you like receiving plenty of email messages daily? At some point you think you can control that but in reality you end up subscribing to anything that seems useful. Besides, the majority of services maintaining opt-in lists stuff their newsletters with ads and promotions you never agreed to receive.

With email subscriptions I tend to be rather picky choosing those services that either don’t bug me too often (e.g. FreeShipping sends email alerts once per week) or those that allow me to choose the update frequency (RessellerRatings offer to choose between daily and instant alerts).

Some online services go even further allowing their users to track only selected product(s). Both BeatThat and PriceGrabber offer to create watch lists monitoring certain product prices and availability:

This option allows for full control of what you want to track. You will never miss the best deal for the product you are most interested in (example: get alerted only once the product price matches your preferences (e.g. gets below some line)).

Again, that’s a great option only if you don’t mind receiving (multiple) updates to your email inbox. However in this case you of course have more power to control how many messages and how often you are going to receive them.

Getting Updated via RSS Feeds

Most coupon code directories and merchant rating communities maintain a blog where they post the hottest deals allowing you to subscribe via your preferred RSS reader.

With RSS readers your email inbox is kept free from heaps of mail. Besides, with RSS readers your subscriptions are more organized (either by category or based on your personal preferences).

Unlike email newsletters, with RSS readers, you need to always remember checking it out. However, if you’re in habit of checking your RSS subscriptions regularly, that’s no problem for you. Other potential disadvantages are directly connected to your favorite RSS reader: some of them, for example, allow for limited space (e.g. with PageFlakes you are limited to your screen size to avoid scrolling).

Getting Alerted by Your Browser

Some shopping resources develop FireFox extensions that alert you to current deals once you visit the merchant’s website.

The updates are limited to the addon provider’s website database. If you enter an online shop that is not included in the database, you will not see any coupons, offers or price comparisons.

You are only alerted once you enter the merchant’s site: no multiple notifications when you don’t need them, no full email inbox, etc.

Example: PriceAdvance’s FireFox add-on that shows other sellers’ prices for the product you are viewing:

Getting Updated via Twitter:

Twitter has been the hottest social networking service recently. From “What you are doing right now?” concept, it has evolved into the rapidly growing business tool all the potential of which is yet to be explored. Dell , for example, uses Twitter to update their customers of recent deals and limited time offers (see: Refurbished Dell computers).

Due to multiple Twitter clients, this type of offer-tracking is by far the most customizable. With Twitter you can get updates to Google Talk, Jabber, Livejournal, to your FireFox, right to your desktop, mobile phones (if you are in the US, Canada, or UK), etc.

The only disadvantage I can see here is that if you are a Twitter newbie, you will have to learn to use it and choose among hundreds of Twitter clients, the one that best suits your needs – that might take some time but is definitely worth the effort! On the other hand, if you are an active Twitter user, you can’t afford following everyone you would want to; as in the end you will end up receiving hundreds of updates every single minute.

So which alerting method is preferable?

There is no definitive answer, I would say. Here is my personal take:

• I hate receiving hundreds of email messages daily;
• I can’t afford subscribing to all the RSS feeds I would like to;
• I can’t follow more Twitter users as I am already unable to keep track of all the existing Tweets;
• I can’t add more extensions to my FireFox as I already have too many of them installed by now;

So what to do? First, I can choose to stick to only a few really valuable resources (the ones mentioned above) and refrain from tracking any new ones until I am persuaded they are really worth it.

Secondly, like I said, I can stick to customizable services that allow me to set the alert frequency, watched product or merchant.

Last of all, I can keep track of recent hacks to find more better easier solutions: for example, Twhirl allows me be logged in to several Twitter accounts simultaneously – so I can maintain a separate account that tracks online deals and shut it down once I don’t need that.

Which alerting method do you prefer?  Is there any online shopping tool I missed out?   How do YOU keep track of the best online shopping deals?  Share your tips and tricks with us in the comments.

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