http://www.ridethecity.com/ 

so you upload songs from your computer to your muxtape page (up to 12 songs, none larger than 10mb) and then you have a mix, and a url, to share. if you already have one you could add your link below in the comments.

you can see lifehacker’s feature on the site here.

just click once on the title to Play or Pause.

http://muxtape.com/

i like that there’s nothing to download, just open the link and input your time. i think i originally found this through lifehacker.

good for breaks, or making sure you leave for work in exactly 10 minutes.

http://theinsomniacsociety.com/timer.html

so bought tickets to san francisco and BA using farecast and was really happy with them. was pretty sure i wouldn’t be able to afford the last minute tix to california (on thanksgiving weekend no less,) but after a search on their site, playing around with the numbers i realized that i could.

when you’re ready to buy they redirect you to the site of the airline with the deal you want (in my case, jetblue.com & us airways) which is better really, because then you can see even more time options.

they also show you the price history of the tickets you’re trying to buy and make predictions whether you should buy now or wait because the price will drop. (www.yapta.com will guarantee the price won’t drop when they say it won’t and will refund your money if it does.) but i liked using farecast to browse dates/times/prices.

http://www.farecast.com/

dear pandora, please fix that.
love, tess

meanwhile, i’m going to suggest a fantastic! new app i’ve been loving.

i’d like you to meet deezer.
deezer is a european based music player/site that allows you to make playlists from songs you can choose from searching, their top ten international lists, or that from music of your own that you’ve upload.

so in the same way you can play your refined pandora playlists from any computer you can play your playlists, (of songs you’ve just found, or songs of your own that you’ve uploaded) from anywhere. and my personal favorite: you can play them as many times as you’d like in whichever order you want. like a portable customized web player. tre bien.

http://www.deezer.com/

so sometimes you just need a website. maybe you’re searching for a job, selling a lot of furniture, trying to make an online shop, or hawk your services as a dogwalker/fishing guide/piano teacher. note: if you’re looking to create a blog, this is probably not the best tool to use, try blogger, or word press or typePad if you’re fancy.

having an online location- a link to anyone in email that doesn’t require them to open any attachments is essential. especially if you’re offering something visual (and you really should be,) as a place anyone can find your info on the web. even if this is only a bit of info about yourself, your contact info, & a picture (optional, but highly recommended- so we know you aren’t a convict and can recognize you when we bring fido to the dog park.)

google pages is a great temp to permanent solution that requires no purchases (no domain/image hosting-which you really shouldn’t have to pay for anymore anyway,) but i do suggest buying a domain name you like- as soon as yesterday. you can always forward that domain to your google page and then just give people your domain as a link.

here is a single page site i created as an example of how you can use google pages as a job search resource.

http://tess.evans.googlepages.com/

if you have a google account you already have a google pages site set up: http://pages.google.com/

you download the extension which will allow you to browse, or stumble upon, cool websites. you can also bookmark using your account by starring pages.- you can always minimize the stumble upon toolbar in your browser when you really need to get work done and stop playing on the internet.

fair warning: there are many many hours to be whisked away stumbling upon.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

when you’re sick or your netflix are out, you can still stay in bed and watch tv. even if you don’t have a tv.
network players are nice because they’re higher quality and more reliable than pirated(?) videos sites. even though they have (short) commercial breaks. right now i love:

on nbc:
30 rock: http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/video/episodes.shtml
Heros: http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/episodes.shtml

the CSIs on cbs(hey!):
http://www.cbs.com/innertube/player.php

i like brothers & sisters, greys anatomy, and the new private practice on abc:
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

and that you can watch the simpsons (and 24, if you’re into that) on fox:
http://www.fox.com/fod/player.htm
(but am sad they no longer play standoff- is that show cancelled?)

yes, i may have an addiction to tv, even though i don’t have a working television.

www.hopstop.com is my favorite new york resource website. (it also has versions for boston, chicago, san francisco, or washington dc.) hopstop gives directions using public transportation. when you aren’t sure how to get there you can just put in the address (or cross street, or landmark) including the borough, and hopstop it.

you can use “more street walking/fewer transfers” when its nice out, and when it’s sleeting and freezing you can opt for “more transfers/less street walking.” you can also choose whether you’d like to use buses and subways or just subways or just buses or just walking (my favorite semi-recent development.)

you can also chose ‘advanced options’ and opt out of a notoriously bad train. but hopstop does take into account service changes from MTA and will alert you when they’ve given you a route that includes services changes. (amazing!)

(the website also has pda, voice, and sms options)

one, two, three… lots.

this is google pedometer, you can trace any route and they will tell you how many miles you walked/ran, and even (if you want,) how many calories you burned. and then you can save the route as it’s own link (like the link in the image above,) which i like to put in my calendar… my google calendar, of course.

these maps kind of remind me of the kids in family circus:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

pandora is a free online music source that allows you to stream music of your choice- you can pick ’stations’ based on a band, or a particular song- and then you guide the station by giving thumbs up or down (which will cause the player to move to the next and not play that song again.) you can also bookmark songs/albums/artists (yes!) to download later.

the site was based on the music genome project which analyized all type of music on everything from melody to instrumentation, to lyrics (and much more.)

http://www.pandora.com/

and that is pretty much exactly what goodreads does; you can even import in lists from amazon that you’ve saved. all for free.

the only feature that goodreads doesn’t yet have is a recommendation system based on your ratings (like netflix and amazon): dear goodreads, that would be perfection. lovingly, tess

http://www.goodreads.com/

here is a bookshelf i made of ‘book-covers-i-love’ in the ‘covers’ view: eye candy!

*the newest version also shows cd release dates

hopefully this will help eliminate seeing in the paper that your favorite band is playing tonight… to a sold out show.

http://www.iconcertcal.com/

it’s great if there is a website you want to keep up with without checking to see if it’s been updated- the updates are highlighted for you as soon as they’re made. (sketch blogs that aren’t regularly updated- ahem!, a friend’s blog who lives abroad and posts sporadically, or news sources on real world stuff- if you’re into that.)

my favorite feature is that you can star posts for follow-up or reference, like you would emails, as opposed to bookmarking all the articles individually. that and i also like making folders for different kinds of feeds (friends, sketch blogs, design sites, etc.)

i really like the blog design*sponge, but their website is just a little too crowded for me- so much so that i stopped going there. now i catch d*sponge through google reader, which still shows the all images in the posts- but not the ads/sidebars/etc.

pictured: design*sponge’s post on paola serrao: http://designsponge.blogspot.com/2007/08/paola-serrao.html

here’s google’s run-down on reader: http://www.google.com/help/reader/tour.html

if you already have a google account (and you should,) you can get started there or here: http://www.google.com/reader/

this is one of my favorite recent finds:

it’s a browser that allows you to play and download music (for free!) from websites- you can play them in the browser as though you’d already downloaded them- fast forward, pause, rewind- and then use songbird to download the ones you want. i owe a lot of recent favorite music finds to this gem.

(they’ll even suggest music websites you can use as starters- don’t forget to send me a mix cd of all the free! new music you find)

http://www.songbirdnest.com/