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Each edition of The Cheatsheet is designed to help bring you up to speed on one tiny part of our popular culture - Books, Film, Music, Web, Television, and the general Zeitgeist.
Development of the web moves at a frightening pace. Every day new terms and sites are tossed around the media and the watercooler – Bebo, Tagworld, Trulia, Bloglines, Fonality, Zimbra, to name a few that were popular yesterday. With the constant flow of new services and ideas it’s hard to know what will be around tomorrow, and easy to feel overwhelmed.
In the opinion of The Cheatsheet the best judge of which new sites deserve your attention is simply – “Will this site make my life easier or better?
With that as our guide, we offer up 5 sites that can make life just a little bit better.
Booking Buddy: Check in for the Best Prices in Air Travel
www.bookingbuddy.com
Searching on-line for flights has become a way of life, but when you want to chance your luck over five or six of the best-price sites - like Expedia, Orbitz and Cheaptickets - the problem is basic: data entry.
Which is where Booking Buddy comes in, a once-only portal that gives instant access to all the other travel websites. Users simply load up Booking Buddy and input all travel details. Then you navigate to eleven one-hit buttons for the most popular travel sites: Expedia, Orbitz, Ultimate, Cheaptickets, Kayak, Travelocity, Cheap Air, Priceline, Hotwire, Travelation and Farecast. A drop-down menu featuring most airlines’ direct websites completes your search options.
If you’re looking for more than flights, Booking Buddy also has buttons for hotels, cars, cruises, vacations and ‘deals’.
Rotten Tomatoes: Entertainment Critics Separate the Ripe from the Rotten
www.rottentomatoes.com
Critics – can you trust them? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing you can trust is 30 critics. Or maybe 40.
Which is where Rotten Tomatoes comes in, a movie lover’s dream of a website that conveniently pulls together the nation’s – and, indeed, the world’s – reviewers onto single pages and gives a film a total percentage score.
First you select your film, then hit ‘Reviews’ and you’re presented with the ‘Critics Tomatometer’, which rates the movies based on every critic’s review scores. Recent examples include The Heartbreak Kid (30%), The Kingdom (53%), The Game Plan (30%) and Michael Clayton (88%). The loaded page also includes a single quote from a plethora of reviews, and from there you just hit the ‘full review’ button to be taken to that publication’s on-line source for the full gory details. The site is also a portal to more extensive information: along with credits, photos, trailers and other details about your film of choice, there’s also a link to screening times in your neighborhood. And if DVDs and Games are more your thing, there are links to those releases too, as well as news, forums and charts.
Pandora: A Virtual DJ Plays the Music You Didn't Know You Loved
www.pandora.com
The problem with radio is the DJs. And the music. And the adverts. Well those problems are over with Pandora, an on-line ‘radio station’ that puts you in the driving seat.
The site uses what the creators call a ‘Music Genome’ to predict exactly what type of music you want to hear. They’ve captured the essence of music, assembling hundreds of musical ‘genes’ - including harmony, rhythm and melody – to determine precise musical identities.
Visitors to the site start by creating a music channel, usually based on a single artist. Once Pandora has found a song by that artist, during playback the Genome system analyses the track and finds something similar to listen to next. The result is an endless stream of music catering to your exact musical tastes, each song’s details, including album art, displayed in the play window. From there, you can click for more info or vote the song in or out of your music station.
With your perfect station assembled you can opt to share it with other Pandora listeners, or link to it via your Facebook page to present to the world your own virtual mix tape. If you’d prefer to listen without a PC, a multi-room system is available for the home, and a mobile service is also available for Sprint subscribers.
Mysimon: Every day is sale day with this online shopping portal
www.mysimon.com
Shopping in the mall is so 20th Century: what today’s sharp shopper is doing is buying their goods on-line. The problem is, with the hundreds of thousands of on-line retailers, finding the best price is almost as hard as finding your car in a parking structure.
Which is where mySimon comes in, a single portal that gives you access to an incredible array of on-line retailers – regardless of what you’re shopping for. You simply start by inputting the product name into the search bar, from computers and electronics, to home furnishings, music, books, concert tickets… just about anything. Up pops a picture of your product, and from their simply hit the ‘Compare Prices’ tag for a clear read-out of exactly how much each retailer is charging for the product, as well as a star-rating for the retailer’s performance.
To avoid being stung by any hidden charges, mySimon lets you input your zip code too, which enables the site to quote a price including delivery and tax. Once you’ve located the cheapest – and most reliable – retail source, it’s a single click to be lead directly to their site to place your order.
Coffee Geek: An Eclectic Brew of Hot Ideas for the Coffee Lover
www.coffeegeek.com
For some people a cup of Joe in the morning is a habit: for others it’s a religion. The type of beans, roast, filters and brewing machines available keep serious coffee lovers up later than a midnight espresso, and helping to feed their addiction is the labor of love that is Coffee Geek’s website.
For obsessives, there are daily news updates and features - like the no doubt fascinating 2007 Canadian Coffee & Tea Show Report – info-heavy forums, plus extremely detailed how-tos and guides, covering topics like ‘How to make a shot in the dark’ and ‘Roasting coffee with a popcorn popper’.
At the site’s no doubt racing heart, however, is a database of reviews, details of the very best equipment to buy for the perfect cup. Whether you’re looking for a cheap drip machine or a high-end cappuccino maker, Coffee Geek’s reviews section has every item rated and reviewed. Combined with numerous detailed reports from other coffee obsessives, you’ll have no problem filling up caffeine-induced sleepless nights way into the early hours.
Coming Next Time: Sorting through the Social Networking Mess
