Really Useful Sites for Really Busy People
Kim Zetter
Sure, the Web has all the info you could want. Whether it's time-sensitive data like flight-delay reports or stock quotes, tech-related updates like the latest hardware drivers, or trivia like Tom Glavine's career ERA, everything's waiting for you on the Internet. There's only one catch: Who has time to search for all that information?
Much of the Web's best data is buried deep in a site or hidden on pages cluttered with links or distracting, flashing ads. The true value of the Net comes when you can get the information you want fast--preferably in less than a minute.
We dug deep into Web sites to uncover 50 destinations that help you get things done and that can provide important information quickly (including some PDA applications and cell phone services). So you want info fast? Read on.
TECHNOLOGY TIPS & TRICKS
Decipher Computer Terminology
Ever wonder about the meaning of all those error messages you get while accessing Web pages? Webopedia takes the mystery out of the messages in its Quick Reference section. You can also find out to which country a particular domain extension belongs or learn the function of TCP port numbers--and much else. Additionally, the site's general search engine pulls up definitions for any tech term.
Shop for a Web Host
Web hosting companies come and go daily. So how do you know your host will still be in business the next time a prospective employer tries to access your online resume? The Web Host Magazine and Buyer's Guide site reviews hosts in the free, budget, and premium categories, and includes tips to help you avoid getting ripped off.
Start a Discussion Mailing List
It really is a small world when you can bond with people on any continent. Yahoo Groups offers numerous groups for membership, or you can create your own and invite others to join. Read postings via individual e-mail messages or daily e-mail digests, or view them at the Yahoo site.
Take a Poll for Your Group Events
Evite, which has been around for a while, is still the easiest and cheapest way (it's free) to organize a social or club event and send out e-mail invitations. But it also lets you conduct an online poll. Group members can vote anonymously, and results are tallied and e-mailed to you after the closing date.
Update Your Drivers
Drivers are essential to the smooth operation of your PC and peripherals, but companies are updating them all the time, often rendering the new devices you purchase inoperable without the latest versions installed. Drivers Headquarters' $30 Driver Detective (see Consumer Watch, November 2002) inventories the drivers already installed on your machine and downloads updates when vendors make them available.
Search Google in a Flash
Download and install the Google Toolbar, and you can run searches through your Internet Explorer browser without going to the Google page first. The Google Toolbar not only lets you search the Web, but it also helps you search the page you're currently viewing, highlight and unhighlight your search terms on that page, or pull up Google's cached version of the current page. It even translates foreign-language pages.
Fight Viruses for Free
Symantec's free online virus-scanning service is no secret, but the number of people who still don't know about it surprises us. You should already have antivirus software installed on your PC; if you don't, you can scan your system from this site. The scan takes 10 to 20 minutes to uncover malicious code on your system, though it won't fix infected files.
SMARTER SHOPPING
Comparison Shop While on the Go
You're buying a gift for Dad when you see a camcorder on sale. With a Wireless Application Protocol-enabled phone, you don't have to leave the store to check prices at other retailers; instead, use the phone to comparison shop through PriceGrabber's Web site tailored for wireless devices. (Note: PriceGrabber operates PCWorld.com's shopping tool.)
Find the Best Online Price for Books
Whether you're looking for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, the book page of BestWebBuys will scour online bookstores to help you find the best price for new and used titles.
Evaluate Products Before Buying
You may think the world of Bose speakers, but what does the world think of them? Before spending $3000 on a home theater system, discover how past purchasers view the item you're contemplating. ConsumerReview compiles opinions on everything from cars to golf clubs, and each review includes a summary and lists of a product's strengths and weaknesses.
Track Your Package Deliveries
Need to know where that late package from Amazon or EBay is hung up? Packtrack offers a single site for tracking packages from 56 carriers, including Airborne, FedEx, the United States Postal Service, and UPS. Type in the tracking number, and the site tells you where your package was last seen.
Monitor Auctions Across the Net
Expand your auction choices beyond EBay with the BidXS auction search engine. BidXS culls listings from more than 500 auction sites, including EBay, to find the best deal on South Park lunch boxes or whatever else moves your mouse. You can also run searches on your wireless Net-equipped Palm.
Stop Telemarketers From Calling
Everyone is annoyed by them, but few people take action against them. We're talking about telemarketers who call at the dinner hour to hawk their wares. The Direct Marketing Association has an online form to get your number off telemarketing lists. This won't silence all calls (non-DMA marketers will still ring), but it should reduce the number of solicitations.
Learn About Product Recalls
Let's face it: They just don't make things the way they used to. If it's not exploding gas tanks, it's killer playpens or toxic strawberries. Find out what products have warranted recalls or safety warnings at the FDA's alert archive. The site also includes a link for safety information on medical devices.
NEWS & SPORTS
Get News Streamed to Your Desktop
Instead of surfing for your news, have it come to you, with the free Desktop News ticker. Download the program, choose from a number of channels--including ABC News, CNN, ESPN.com, InfoWorld, and Salon--and Desktop News will stream headlines to you. Click a headline in the ticker to open the full story in your browser.
Read Global News in One Place
If you want an overview of international news, Google aggregates articles from more than 4000 sources worldwide (including TV and radio Web sites) and organizes them on a clean page, under subject headings.
Read or Subscribe to a Magazine
Tired of trying to find the magazine you want on a crowded newsstand? Then Magazineboy.com is the site for you. Lists of more than 1600 magazines in a wide range of interests are organized in categories and subcategories. Links take you to the magazine's Web site or to deals on subscriptions.
Follow Basketball Scores on Your Desktop
Don't let work get in the way of play--download ESPN's free Bottomline sports ticker to get current scores and breaking sports news on your PC. Click a news headline or score to get in-depth coverage or statistics behind the scores.
Get Sports Scores on Your Palm
If you're as anxious as the next sports fan to know when Brett Favre throws another touchdown pass or when the Lakers win another game, ESPN's download for wireless Web-enabled Palms will put you in the action with dynamic scoreboards that tell you a game's current standing.
Read Sports Pages From Out of Town
SportsPages.com aggregates links to hundreds of sports sections and columnists around the country. Follow out-of-state teams or sign up for the Daily Link ($12 a month) to receive e-mail containing the best sports journalism of the day, including profiles and exclusives from reporters' notebooks.
Sign Up for Sporting Events
Registering for marathons and bike races can be time-consuming and difficult if they're out-of-town events. Active.com lets you search and register for myriad sporting events--from turkey trots to triathlons. What's more, the site's Training Bible link lets you plan and track your training progress online.
MIND YOUR MONEY
Check a Stock Price
Lycos's Quote.com is one of the best services for streaming real-time NASDAQ quotes to your desktop because it includes market statistics and links to company news and broker records. Quotes for stocks on other exchanges are delayed unless you pay for a subscription. May the market be with you.
Estimate Tax Payments
Quicken, one of the most trusted sources of tax software, offers a tool from TurboTax that helps you calculate self-employment tax payments. Also included are tools to find your tax savings from home mortgage interest and to help figure capital gains.
Manage Your Roth IRA
Confused by all the rules about tax-exempt Roth IRAs? This site offers the most comprehensive tutorial we've seen. Called Roth IRA 101, it has everything you need to know about Roth accounts presented in manageable bits. The tutorial includes basic rules for opening an account, handling a spousal Roth IRA, and phasing out a Roth. Read it online or print sections that pertain to you.
Calculate Mortgage Payments
Before you buy a house, check out SmartMoney's mortgage calculator. The tool can determine your monthly mortgage payment and help you figure out the benefit of prepaying a mortgage. Worksheets help you calculate the housing price that you can afford, and to weigh the benefits of buying over renting. Put a roof over your head without losing the farm.
Determine Profits From Stock Options
Employees at many companies still have stock options that they're hoping to exercise when the market bulls resume their charge. Although a free membership is required, MyStockOptions.com offers all you need to know about such options and includes a handy calculator to determine the value of your options after taxes.
Plan Your Finances
Though other sites help you sort out your financial future, I Hate Financial Planning uses humor and jargon-free language to take the pain out of the task. It's especially good for beginners. Track weekly expenses, inventory assets for insurance records, or calculate your net worth with the site's forms, which are available online or in printable PDF versions. A QuickPlan takes you through the steps necessary to reach financial goals. The forms are free, so you have no excuse.
Find Out If You Won the Lottery
It's no substitute for a solid financial plan, but it might be worth a try. If the lottery bug has bit you, Yahoo's lottery page has the info you need, with links to results from 39 states, plus Spain and Germany.
TRAVEL WITH LESS HASSLE
Track Flight Arrivals and Departures
Looking for arrival or departure information for a flight whose number you don't know? Flight Arrivals is the one-stop spot to get real-time arrival and departure data for flights and airports around the world (although not every airport is listed). Choose an airline and airport, and get data on flights in your specified time frame. The site's info is updated every 4 minutes. Wireless access will be added soon.
Learn the Baggage Rules for Your Airline
Every airline has different policies for baggage limits, lost-luggage reports, and itinerary changes, but the details are often buried in small print on a Web page or an airline ticket. One Travel's " Rules of the Air" tool provides a place to get all that info quickly. The site lists only U.S.-based carriers, so not all airlines are covered, but the tool is simple to use and the data is easy to read.
Reserve Airport Parking in Advance
Book discount airport parking before you arrive at a terminal, by using the DiscountAirportParking site. The parking lots, at 54 U.S. airports, are located a few blocks or a few miles from the terminals but offer shuttle service. A recent search found parking for a three-day weekend at San Francisco airport lots for $37 to $52.
Find a Radio Station for the Road
Why waste time scanning the radio dial for your favorite tunes while you're on the road, when Radio-Locator can help you find a station that plays music you like? You can search for stations throughout the United States or the world by geographical region, radio call letters (in the U.S.), or format (pop, heavy metal, talk radio). You can also download a list of stations for any region to your PDA, using the free AvantGo software.
Get Weather Reports Worldwide
Weather.com can deliver travel weather alerts to your Web-enabled cell phone. Just input your itinerary and get alerts for cities across the globe. Alerts arrive via e-mail or wireless text messaging two days before your departure and 3 hours before takeoff.
Look Up What Shots You Need
Before embarking on a trip to another country, get health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC lists needed vaccinations, water precautions, and other health advice you should consider before you depart.
Learn a Foreign Language
You may not be able to learn a foreign language on the fly, but through the www.travlang.com site you can master a few crucial words to help you ease through the airport in Paris, find a hotel room in Istanbul, or avoid an international incident in Moscow. Though its many pop-up ads can be annoying, the site has words in 80 languages, and by using a free audio program you can hear pronunciation for some of them.
Obtain Foreign Visas
Travisa's online visa application page can help you obtain visas to more than 160 countries and expedite your passport renewals. Not every country will let you apply online, but the site provides a postal address and phone number for embassies that require conventional mail or in-person applications.
LEISURE, LIFESTYLE, LAUGHS
Find a Concert Near You
For info about musicians touring your area, there's no better tool than the concert search engine at Pollstar. You can search by artist, city, or venue to find dates for concerts (rock, pop, jazz, blues, and more) around the world. Listings are updated daily with color-coding to indicate newly added or changed appearances.
Track New CD Releases
Every Tuesday, record companies bring new music CDs to the market--often with little fanfare for artists who don't merit a publicity campaign. Ice Magazine provides an extensive list of CD release dates each month for performers of all genres, from Busta Rhymes to Michael Bolton.
Stay on Top of DVD Releases
If you're looking for information on when new DVDs will be available at your local store, The Digital Bits keeps track of those dates in its Upcoming Cover Art section. The site also posts news about upcoming DVDs, reviews new discs, and answers frequently asked questions about the DVD format.
Get Movie Listings on Your PDA
Moviefone lets you check show times and purchase advance tickets on your PC. But it's also great for getting such services through your Web-capable Palm VII (or Palm V with an OmniSky wireless modem installed) or through certain Net-enabled phones. Search movies by title or location, read reviews, get driving directions to the theater, or buy tickets--all while you're on the go.
Download Free Music
Don't let the demise of Napster get you down; you can still obtain cost-free and copyright-free tunes through your PC. Audiogalaxy's Satellite is one of the best file-sharing programs for getting legal music--it accesses more than 800,000 music files and offers several download settings. Note: The free version of this program contains the Gator adware plug-in.
Find Out What's on TV
There is never a TV program guide around when you need one. Well now with TVguide.com you can get program listings easily through your PC. Just type in a zip code and your method of TV service (cable, satellite dish, or broadcast antenna), and you'll get listings of programs showing in your area. And when you come back, the site remembers your choices.
Locate Ski Runs
Hankering to ski this year but don't know where to find the best runs? SkiMaps.com offers trail maps for resorts around the world, plus information about lift-ticket prices and accommodations. It includes maps for snow regions in countries such as the United States, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and even Australia. How about a Down Under winter wonderland in July?
Reserve a Campsite
Arrange a cross-country camping trip by using www.reserveamerica.com to reserve tent grounds or a cabin in any of more than 100,000 campsites across the U.S. At this site you can also apply for canoeing permits, as well as hunting and fishing licenses, and the site includes a handy camping checklist and trail maps to help you plan activities once you arrive.
READY REFERENCE
Read E-Book Classics
Nothing promotes the Net's "information wants to be free" philosophy quite like Project Gutenberg. The site offers free downloads of more than 6000 electronic books in ASCII format, an eclectic selection ranging from fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm to the writings of Winston Churchill and William Shakespeare. A worldwide network of mirror sites ensures you'll get your downloads quickly.
Make an International Phone Call
Type in the country you're calling from and the country you wish to reach at the EmbassyWorld search engine site, and it will tell you what you need to dial to place that call. The site also links to 700 residential and business phone directories, with the relevant directories listed on the results page.
Calculate Postage
Don't go postal over long lines at the post office. Avoid the crowds and the window that closes just as you reach the head of the queue by calculating postal rates (including overseas mailings), looking up zip codes, or purchasing stamps--by going to the Postal Service's site. Stamps arrive in three to five business days with a $1 fee for shipping and handling. You can also preorder commemorative stamps before they're available at post offices.
Research Public Records
Every state has different rules about what records the public can access. The www.searchsystems.net site offers links to thousands of records, categorized by geographical region and subject. You can find links to records about foreclosures, professional state licenses, property reports, missing-person databases, and college alumni lists, among others.
Sort Out Valid Health Concerns
Some pretty far-fetched stuff can make its way into your in-box, so check the facts before you join the rumor mill. The CDC's list of hoaxes can help you determine what you should take note of and what you should ignore. Poisonous perfume samples sent through the mail? That's just a hoax. Ditto those reports about tainted Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Take the Guesswork Out of Foreign Postal Addresses
Postal conventions vary widely from country to country. Wondering if you should place the street number before the apartment number, or vice versa when you're mailing a package to Italy? The Columbia Univerisity site's guide to international postal addresses sorts out confusing postal rules, codes, and abbreviations.
Kim Zetter is a contributing editor for PC World.
Bookmarks: Manage Your Favorite Links
You know you bookmarked a terrific site about composting food scraps. But that was three months ago, and now you can't find it in the unwieldy mess of your Favorites folder (in Internet Explorer; Bookmarks in Netscape).
Both Internet Explorer and Netscape let you organize links by creating folders and using some simple sorting functions. But to get the most from your links, your best option is a bookmark management program.
Compass is easy to use and lets you trade bookmarks between browsers ( www.softgauge.com/compass). The $25 program also lets you search for a link by URL or title, and finds duplicate bookmarks to help streamline your list.
The $25 Powermarks is more versatile, though less intuitive ( www.kaylon.com/download.html). Besides having features like those in Compass, it lets you annotate bookmarks, allows you to search for links using keywords, tells you when a bookmarked page has been updated, and searches for dead links. You can also set up a free NetSync account to make your bookmarks accessible from any Net-connected PC.
Among free programs, the graphics-based Visual Marks manager lets you view bookmarks either as text strings or as thumbnail screen shots ( www.6bytes. com/visualmarks.html).
Download Our Favorites
Don't waste time bookmarking each of our favorite timesaving sites. We've created a special file to automatically add all the links in this story to your Favorites or Bookmarks browser folder. Find it in the Downloads section of PCWorld.com.