Last time I wrote about some useful websites that Time listed in their Top 50 websites for 2008. Here’s a few more that I thought were also useful and/or entertaining:

Wikitravel

Wikitravel is just like Wikipedia–except that it’s about travel. It’s basically people writing about places they know about, giving information and tips so that other people who are planning to visit the place will make the most of their visit and avoid common pitfalls.

Mint

If you’ve ever used a financial management software such as Microsoft Money or Quicken, then you know the value and convenience they give you come tax time. Make it an online tool, throw in some analysis tools and you have Mint, an online tool that downloads your financial data from your different bank, credit card and financial accounts and gives you a summary of your cash flow and expenditures. Of course, since it’s online, your financial data and login information will need to be saved in a server somewhere, so regardless of the built-in security there will always be some amount of risk involved.

Ffffound

Have you ever seen a photo or a picture that made you say “wow” or “that’s interesting?” Well head out to ffffound.com and you’ll see a whole site full of these unique pictures/photos that were submitted by different people. If anything, it’ll help you get by a slow afternoon at the office

FreeRice

Here’s a win-win situation: improve your vocabulary while helping stamp out world hunger. How? Go to freerice.com and play the vocabulary game: the site asks you to pick, from a number of choices, what is the correct definition of a word. For every correct answer, the U.N. donates 10 grains of rice.

Kiva

You don’t always have to give away money to help other people. At kiva.org, you can lend your money instead for entrepreneurs in developing countries to use. You get paid back and you help somebody!

While waiting to get my breakfast sandwich yesterday, I passed the time watching one of the morning shows that they were showing in the cafeteria tv. They were doing an interview with a lady who (I presume) was from Time Magazine and they were discussing Time Magazine’s picks for the Top 50 Websites of 2008. I caught a few of them before my sandwich was done, and it interested me enough to go to Time’s website and see the rest of the picks. Some of them turned out to be pretty useful and/or entertaining enough, so I thought I’d share them here.

GasBuddy

A lot of people already know about this website, especially last year when gas prices were over four dollars a gallon, but for those who haven’t seen this website: it pretty much tells you where the cheapest gas is. Enter your zip code, pick a gas grade (regular, mid-, etc.) and it will tell you where the cheapest station is. It, however, relies on information from volunteers, so if your area has lots of volunteers, you’ll have more accurate information.

Howcast

If you’re the type who hates reading manuals but responds very well to audio-visual instructions, then this is for you. As an added bonus, it throws in some humor so the how-to videos are entertaining as well

TripKick

You can get ratings for hotels, but how do you know if you’re getting a nice room? Sure, you’ll know what amenities you’ll get, like beds, cable and wi-fi, but you wouldn’t necessarily know if your room has a nice view or which rooms are beside noisy vending machines. This is where TripKick comes in–it supplies these little tidbits that sometimes make the difference between an extra-special stay or a vacation made in hell.

Zeer

Ever wondered how much nutrition you’re getting from what you eat? Just type in the name of the packaged food (say, “Planters Dry Roasted Nuts”) in Zeer and it will display the nutrition label.

MapJack

A nice alternative to Google Street View and Microsoft Live Search. Worth trying if only for the sharper and “like-you-were-actually-there”  photos.

When we bought our house four years ago, it also came with some of the basic home appliances like cooking range, dishwasher and microwave. Some of the other stuff though you had to buy on your own, like the refrigerator, washer and dryer. As anybody who’s bought any major (or minor, for that matter) appliance will tell you, these things have an uncanny ability to act up or break down just when the warranty has just expired. This is what happened to our washer. One day, out of the blue, while I was about to start laundry, it decided that it wasn’t in the mood for washing and flashed this cryptic “F DL ” message while beeping incessantly. No matter what buttons you pressed, it still kept beeping and flashing the error code.

So out came my first line of defense: the washer manual. Straight to the troubleshooting section I went, only to find out that “F DL” means some sort of “door locked” malfunction, and that to fix it I should check the door assembly. Duh! How can you check the door assembly when the door is locked? To be honest, I never really expected much from the manual but I figured it was worth a shot.

So my next line of defense, as any IT professional worth their salt will turn to, is the Internet. I submitted my plea to the almighty Google, and it responded by giving me links to a few discussion groups and blogs dedicated to appliance fixing and washer/dryer how-to’s. It took me all of 30 seconds to realize that this was not an isolated incident (which made me feel a little better actually), and that this sort of thing has happened to a lot of people who, like me, had based their washer purchase on the manufacturer’s good reputation but ended up frustrated and disappointed. It wasn’t difficult to find a discussion thread dedicated to the dreaded “F DL” problem, and I soon found one post that had a credible-sounding solution to the problem. Even though the solution involved taking out the washer’s control unit and soldering some apparently loose joints, I wasn’t too worried. We had electronics classes in high school and besides, I’ve always been tinkering with anything that plugs into an outlet (whether or not it was meant to) ever since I was a kid. What did worry me was the fact that the dryer was stacked on top of the washer, and it would take at least four guys to bring down the dryer.

So for a few times we had to do laundry at a friend’s house, until we hosted an informal dinner party and I finally had enough manpower to take down the dryer (and no, I generally don’t make my guests carry dryers but this was a clothing emergency). The next night I took out the control unit and soldered the loose joints as instructed. Although I was a bit skeptical I proceeded to reassemble the parts, and when I turned on the washer it worked!

For a few weeks, that is. After a while it started giving the “F DL”–and then a new one, “F 11″–error code. It wasn’t a big deal at first, because you could get around it by hitting “Cancel” then starting again (sort of like rebooting Windows). But it got to a point where even “rebooting” it won’t even work, so I went back to the Internet and found a tip to slam (yes, slam) the door. As weird as it sounded, I tried it, and it surprisingly worked. We were able to do our laundry relatively hassle free for a few months, until last week when even the “slamming door” technique wouldn’t work.

So off I went to see Dr. Google again, and this time I found another discussion group (I can’t believe how many people are complaining against this washer and the manufacturer doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it!). One of the posted solutions seemed barbaric, but it got a lot of positive responses. What the author said to do was while the washer is beeping and displaying the “F DL” error, give the top right corner of the washer a good hit (yes, hit) of your fist. He went on to say that you might get an “F 11″ error afterwards, but just hit Cancel then Start, then you should be fine.

Now slamming the door is one thing, but hitting it? It brought back childhood memories of tv sets with bad reception that instantly got better with a good slap on the side (come to think of it I still do this from time to time). But at this point I was out of other options (short of calling in the repair guy, but that would be tantamount to surrender) so I decided to try it anyway. All I can say is, God truly works in mysterious ways. It worked right off the bat, and not only that, it also did the “F 11″ error as described in the post and true enough, I just press Cancel then Start and I’m good to go again. One of the responses to the post best describes my reaction:

“Unbelievable! We spend $1,000 on our machines, and have to beat it up to start it! gggrrrr”

My thoughts exactly. But hey, for now it beats going to the laundromat!

It never ceases to amaze me how much technology has improved our lives, most especially my generation’s. Twenty five years ago in the Philippines, news about a far away loved one was always a month delayed, because that’s how long it took a letter to arrive from another country. Oh sure, you can make a phone call-if you’re willing to wait ten years, which was how long it took to get a landline in those days. The lucky few who did have landline phones made a killing charging neighbors/customers who borrowed their phones to make their own phone calls.

When my father worked in Saudi Arabia in the 80s, we would send letters to communicate. More frequently it was the handwritten kind but every now and then we would spend the extra time and money to send the audio version: state-of-the-art cassette tapes. Whichever way you did it, it still took the same amount of time: one month.

Nowadays it seems if you can’t get something in an instant then it’s too slow or unacceptable. Whether it’s email, IM or text messaging, whatever you want to say can be heard halfway across the world and by as many people as you want–all in a split second. So my father, who literally lives halfway across the planet, can ask me what I had for lunch and he would have had his answer before I even started on dessert.

As fantastic as instant communication is, even more life-altering is the world wide web. Any information is literally at your fingertips. Looking for a phone number? Go to whitepages.com. Need directions to go somewhere? Go to mapquest.com. Need to know the meaning of a word? Go to dictionary.com. It’s a phonebook, map and dictionary, all rolled into one, and much, much more.

But if I had to pick the single most paradigm-shifting web site for me, it would have to be Google. Not only can you find information that you’re looking for, but you can also find information about things you never even thought to look for before! Take yourself, for instance. Before Google, had anyone thought of searching themselves on the net? Unheard of. But nowadays, “googling yourself” is such a common concept that it’s almost a prerequisite before dating someone.

When I tried to google myself, one of the topmost hits was a profile on LinkedIn. Wow, I thought, a lot of people must be viewing my profile. When I followed the link, I was puzzled for a while at the information, until I realized that it was a different Jon Zafra! Apparently, in Spain I am an IT Project Manager in a big pharmaceuticals company. Interesting, I thought. Maybe I’m in the wrong continent.