Written by Gina Trapani

Cloud computing means you can store your data in web applications and access it from any browser, anywhere—but that doesn’t mean you don’t need a backup plan. Safeguard your data when a storm’s a-brewing in the cloud with these tools.

Next time your favorite web site is down or you’re locked out of an account, make sure you’ve got the crucial info you need where you can get to it: on your computer.

“But I don’t need backup if my data’s in the cloud,” you say. “Big companies with lots of servers are better at backup than little old me could ever be.” That’s true, but cloud computing does come with risks. Depending on an external service to host, update, and maintain the software you love and the data you need is both the cloud’s advantage and disadvantage: you’re putting your stuff on computers you don’t control at a single point of access (or failure). Companies get shut down or bought, accounts get locked up, servers (and you) go offline. If you store your email, photos, documents, contacts, bookmarks, and journal entries in the cloud, there are easy ways to back up all that information from popular online services to your computer. You know, just in case.

Back Up Your Gmail

Your web-based email account at Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live Mail or elsewhere is probably the place you create, store, and exchange your most important data in the cloud. If your webmail supports POP (and Gmail does out of the box, Yahoo and Windows Live if you pay for their premium service), then “backup” to your computer is simply a matter of downloading new messages on a regular basis. Update: Apparently Windows Live Mail does offer POP for non-premium accounts. Thanks PatriciaBrinston!

Command line geeks who want to automate the process, see how to back up Gmail with fetchmail. Otherwise, you can fire up a desktop email client (like Thunderbird, which stores your mail in standard mbox files) and simply download your messages every month or so. Alternately, check out the previously-mentioned Gmail Backup utility. If you’re willing to fork over a few bucks a month, BackupMyMail supports Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts and also offers a free trial.

Back Up Your Flickr Account

Lots of people who use popular photo-sharing service Flickr simply upload photos already on their hard drive to the web site, so they’ve already got their images on their computer. However, if you post photos from your cellphone to Flickr, or have a local hard drive crash and want to restore your photos from the service, a few utilities will help you do so. Folks comfortable on the command line should check out Dan Benjamin’s FlickrTouchr script. It downloads the original size of all the photos in your Flickr account and saves them to folders based on your set names. FlickrTouchr does not save videos or other photo meta information. Here’s more on how FlickrTouchr works.

For a graphical Flickr backup solution, check out the free and Java-based FlickrEdit app. Browse your photos in FlickrEdit’s interface, check the ones you want to back up, and save them to a folder on your computer using the “Backup selected” button on the bottom right hand side of the window. Unlike FlickrTouchr, FlickrEdit can back up your contacts’ photos, your favorite photos, or any subset of your photos depending on which you choose. It also embeds meta information into the photo’s IPTC header. Unlike FlickrTouchr, you’ve got to manually page through the photos you want backed up from FlickrEdit which can be time-consuming if you have more than a few hundred in your account.

Back Up Your Google Docs

If it’s the documents, spreadsheets, and presentations that are piling up in your Google Docs account that you want backed up, check out the free, Windows-only GDoc Backup (original post). The utility exports all the documents you have to your desktop in one fell swoop, and it does it smartly: it only downloads the document if it doesn’t exist on your computer or has an older date.

Mac and Linux users should check out the geekier Python script, GDataCopier (original post). It requires futzing at the command line, but since it’s a script, you can set it to update your backup copy with new or updated documents on a regular basis with cron and forget it.

Back Up Your Twitter Account

If your tweets are more than just ephemeral toots of the moment, you want a backup copy of them on your computer. Twitter only makes up to 3,200 tweets available for download on a given account, so if you’re approaching that number there’s even more reason to start saving your stuff—because it won’t be available from the Twitter web site proper.

Command line lovers can use this clever method to download their tweet XML via cURL. Alternately, web application Backup My Tweets does just that and lets you download your tweets in HTML, PDF, or JSON format, with a gotcha: you have to tweet about Backup My Tweets in order to use the free trial. We posted about tweet backup solution Tweetake, which outputs your tweets in a CSV file, but be warned: Tweetake requires you enter your Twitter username and password on their site, which isn’t the most secure option the Twitter API offers. (Don’t enter your Twitter password anywhere other than Twitter.com itself; if you do to use a Twitter-related service, change it immediately afterward.) For more Twitter archiving options, check out the social media experts’ picks over at ReadWriteWeb.

Back Up Your Facebook Account

Facebook backup utilities are scant compared to the glut of Twitter apps out there, but Social Safe is an Adobe AIR application that gets the job done. Social Safe costs $3 right now—so not technically free, but also not much more than a fancy cup of coffee—and it backs up your Facebook profile, friends list, photos, and photos that others have tagged with your name. (That last part is especially useful when your high school friends have gotten on the service and added class pictures with you in them.) Social Safe does not, however, back up your Facebook status stream, comments on your updates, or your wall posts, which was pretty disappointing what with it not being free.

Back Up Your Blog (Tumblr, WordPress, and Others)

You put a whole lot of time and effort into keeping up your blog, and you don’t want server downage, a database blow-up, or a host lockout to wipe out your posts. While the best method of backup for your blog depends on what service you use, here are a few options for the biggies.

Tumblr users should check out this handy tumble-log backup utility, which sucked in and spit out 272 of my tumblelog’s posts in a flash. Folks hosting their own WordPress installation should check out the WP-DB-Backup plug-in, which emails you or saves regular backups of your blog’s database. I personally have restored my blog using output from this plug-in, but my fellow editor The How-To Geek had a bad experience with the plug-in. He recommends backing up your web server with rsync and a regular mysqldump command.

If your blog is hosted at Blogger or another service, you can use a web site copying utility to spider its pages and save them as HTML to your computer. For more on how to do that on the Mac or PC, see the previously posted Ask Lifehacker: How Do I Back Up My Blog?.

You can also mirror an entire web site to your hard drive using the hackable command line tool wget. Similarly, a well-formed cURL command can back up your Delicious bookmarks.

Did we miss any of your favorite cloud data backup services? How do you keep control of your important files while still enjoying the benefits of the cloud? Tell us in the comments.

Written by Alex Vo

Hayao Miyazaki‘s last three films (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle) platformed in America to mild success. For his 10th and latest movie, Ponyo (the story of an ocean goldfish and her quest to become human), Disney will be granting it a more confident, nationwide release this Friday. Frankly, the more opportunity America gets to see a Miyazaki movie, the better: they expertly breach multiple genres and fulfill the visual promise of hand-drawn animation. But they also feel deeply personal. Always directing from his own scripts, Miyazaki can take any story and mold it to his likeness, creating across 10 films a thematically consistent, rich and rewarding universe. This week’s Total Recall explores the career of Hayao Miyazaki, animation’s grand auteur.

9. Howl’s Moving Castle

The film begins with a meek hat girl falling in love with a charming wizard and then being transformed into an old woman by a jealous witch. This is Miyazaki’s lowest-rated movie (still insanely high at 86 percent), but let’s not think for a second he’s slipping in his late period. Howl’s Moving Castle is his most challenging work, a patient movie with a purposefully diffused narrative. Even if you’re confused by the plot (and it gets pretty weird in spots), it can be enjoyed for its stunningly baroque artwork and playful sense of mystery and wonder. Richard Nilsen of the Arizona Republic was bewitched: “The world it gives us to live in, for a couple of hours, is pure magic. It is one of those places we might wish never to leave.”

8. The Castle of Cagliostro

The first film in Miyazaki’s three-decade career, The Castle of Cagliostro is essentially a genre movie, an action/noir set in the canon of the long-running manga and anime series, Lupin the III. Miyazaki recreates the hero as a more humane, sympathetic thief than previous incarnations, while retrofitting the film with his more tactile interests: European architecture and creative flying vehicles. And like most genre flicks, production time was extremely limited (only four months!); it uses rough-edged animation that makes the action feel raw and kinetic, with a plot that breathlessly bounds forward. As Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central puts it, Cagliostro is “a light, irreverent slapstick exercise with a healthy share of nifty gadgets and derring-do.”

7. My Neighbor Totoro

Two young girls are transported to the countryside to be closer to their sick, hospitalized mother, and while there they meet several fantastical woodland spirits. And that’s about it. In My Neighbor Totoro, Miyazaki frees himself from the heavy plotting presumed necessary to hold children’s attention. Instead, he enthralls viewers young and old animating the smaller moments of everyday life, hoping the audience shares his (and his two protagonists’) curiosity in exploring their world. Most movies don’t treat adults with this much respect; seeing it in a movie designed for kids is simply remarkable. Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures calls it “a warm and friendly story that just made me feel good after watching it.”

6. Castle in the Sky

Castle in the Sky is set on an alternative version of Earth where all of mankind’s cities once were skybound and have long since crashed to Earth. Save for one: Laputa. Its existence has entered into legend but a young boy continues to believe and his encounters a girl with a mysterious crystal sends them both onto an adventure towards its location. Light in theme and symbolism compared to Miyazaki’s other movies, Castle in the Sky is his most accessible effort: a nimble, entertaining piece of work pieced together with the manic energy of a Saturday morning serial. Channel 4 agrees: “Miyazaki’s flying contraptions are a sight to behold, rivaled only by the film’s epic sweep and nonstop parade of action set-pieces.”

5. Princess Mononoke

A cursed warrior-prince falls in love with a girl raised by wolves who has vowed to protect her forest (and the spirits within) from a local mining colony. After a long string of lighter fare in the mid 1980s and early 1990s, Miyazaki comes roaring back with Princess Mononoke: a startlingly violent, angry treatise on Miyazaki’s strongest obsession (man’s effect on natural ecology), with a finale that borders on pessimistic. If Terrence Malick and John Woo combined forces to make a cartoon, you’d get something like this. “It’s big and breathtaking, and it knows how to use music and silence in enthralling ways that make the characters in our animated films seem like empty-headed chatterboxes,” states Peter Brunette of Film.com.

4. Spirited Away

Having explored virtually every timeless aspect of youth across his long career, for Oscar-winning Spirited Away, Miyazaki tackles a contemporary dilemma: early disillusionment and cynicism. A spoiled ten-year old girl is transported out of modern Japan, into a bathhouse that hosts a revolving number of spirits and monsters where she must pass several tests in order to return home. Every moment in the bathhouse teems with detail and characters, representing stunning visual maturation for Miyazaki that he would carry over into Howl’s Moving Castle. Spirited Away “is a trip, in the literal, metaphorical and indeed lysergic senses of that word” states Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir.

3. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Upon release, Miyazaki’s second film was infamously chopped up, dubbed, and renamed Warriors of the Wind. It’s become widely available within the past few years and now we can see it for what it was meant to be: a big, imaginative epic, and an early catch-all for Miyazaki’s primary concerns (pacifism, nature, sweeping action, and deeply-characterized female heroes). It’s remarkable that he was able to pin down his general M.O. by the time of his sophomore effort, with the 1980s aesthetic (parts look like Yes album covers) giving the film a stark, ominous presence. Nausicaa “is in some ways a grim and serious film, but it mixes a sweet optimism into its horror-filled lessons,” wrote Tasha Robinson of the A.V. Club.

2. Porco Rosso

Miyazaki’s most romantic movie stars his most decidedly unromantic hero: an Italian Air Force pilot transformed into a cynical anthropomorphic pig. Porco Rosso hangs out inside a remote island in the Adriatic Sea, scuffles with local pirates, and discusses life and love with his would-be romantic interest, a lounge singer named Gina. Set during the years after World War I, Porco Rosso is Miyazaki’s soaring tribute to that period’s adventurous spirit: aerial battles, submarine shootouts, honor-saving duels and fistfights. And it’s his funniest movie to boot. “Animator/fabulist Hayao Miyazaki pays homage to Hollywood’s wartime adventure films in this masterwork built around the adventures of a high-flying pig,” writes Robert Pardi over at TV Guide.

1. Kiki’s Delivery Service

In the world of Miyazaki’s fifth film, witches are real and, at age 13, they ceremoniously leave home to find a town unoccupied by another witch. Teenage witch Kiki, cheery if insecure, settles seaside in a city called Koriko and begins an air courier service. The film is beloved for its warm characters and metaphors on growing up (adolescence drains Kiki of her powers, and it’s a test of courage and faith to get them back), but extra praise should be lavished on its design. Koriko is a lively, bustling amalgamation of several European locations, effectively creating a city as a secondary character. James O’ Ehley, one of the Movie Gurus, muses, “With so much nasty and unpleasant stuff floating around in contemporary culture, something as good-natured as this comes as a surprise.”

Take a look through the rest of our Total Recall archives. And don’t forget to check out the reviews for Ponyo.

Finally, we leave you this video for the song “On Your Mark” by Chage & Aska, directed by Miyazaki:

Collected by Smoont

Written by Mac Carey

So, just how popular is IKEA? It’s estimated that 10% of living Europeans were conceived on an IKEA-produced bed. It’s time you learned a little more about the company, its reclusive owner Ingvar Kamprad (who may or may not be worth more than Bill Gates), and his continuing quest to install flat pack, streamlined fixtures across the seven continents.

1. It All Started With a Car

The inspiration for IKEA’s design philosophy came when taking the legs off of a chair to fit it into a car. IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was so irritated by the experience that he developed the concept of flat pack design. The novel packing method had a twofold appeal: it allowed easier shopping for urban Europeans who depended on public transportation, and it also lowered the company’s shipping costs dramatically. But the store wasn’t an immediate success. IKEA floundered in Sweden for thirty years (THIRTY YEARS!) before finding an international audience.

2. The Company Had Some Dark Secrets

While we’ve written about IKEA cloaking itself as a charitable institution, that isn’t the blue and yellow über-store’s only dirty secret. While Kamprad today is known as a frugal billionaire who drives a ‘93 Volvo, eats at middle-class restaurants, and outfits his home entirely in affordable IKEA products, his legacy is tainted by his past involvement with pro-Nazi organizations. Between 1942 and 1945, Kamprad joined, fund-raised, and recruited members for a fascist, Nazi-sympathizing group in Sweden. The news only came out in 1994, when his personal correspondence with fascist Per Engdahl was released to the public. Kamprad immediately apologized for his involvement and claimed it was the biggest regret of his young life. He also wrote to every Jewish employee on his staff to issue a personal apology.

Of course, none of this stopped the information from being a point of controversy when the store first arrived in Israel, but the world seems to have forgiven him. Today IKEA is one of the only international companies to spread to both Israel and Arab countries. In fact, the store is so popular in the Middle East that three people were trampled to death at the store’s 2004 grand opening in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

3. The Dining Tables Were Too Small for a Turkey

The beginnings of IKEA in America were inauspicious, with European compact efficiency conflicting with America’s “bigger is better” creed. In the 1980s, for example, many customers bought vases, mistaking them for water glasses. They were also wary of a dining room table that couldn’t hold the girth of a full size Thanksgiving turkey. IKEA’s designers only changed their mindset in how they approached American design after the head of US operations made a stunt of it: He handed out t-shirts to Swedish designers that declared “size matters.” They apparently got the message.

4. The IKEA Catalogue Is Bigger Than the Bible

The IKEA catalogue was and is the company’s greatest weapon in its arsenal. A 300-page missionary text, it goes out to over 180 million people in 27 different languages. Each year, there are more copies of the IKEA catalogue printed than the Bible. A bit of a cult following has also developed around the catalogues, with earnest readers on the lookout for hidden messages in the pictures, such as running references to Mickey Mouse and weird, obscure books on the bookshelves.

5. It’s a Hipster Hangout

Despite early stumbles in America, twenty years later, the store has so ingrained itself into our society that a trend amongst urban hipsters is to host dinner parties at the stores. A meal of lingonberry jam and meatballs at the cafeteria for the host and guests, and the living room displays make perfect venues for a round of Taboo and Pictionary. A blog posting chronicling the first party in Sacramento led to a string of copycats across the country. So far, IKEA management doesn’t seem to be complaining.

Written by Manolith

So the worst has happened. You’ve lost your job, your account’s in overdraft, and you’re kicked out of your apartment. Or maybe you’ve just arrived in a new town with nothing but what you’re wearing. What do you do? Many people are now facing this strangely hobo-era dilemma these days. It really is something to consider, since most of us don’t keep that three month’s worth of salary in our savings accounts like the financial guru’s say we should. You’ve got to move quickly if you want to get back on your feet and fix this mess. No worries though, these 15 tips should help get you on your way.

Have Friends? Couch Surf.

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While this may seem like common sense, many guys have a huge problem with admitting the fact that they’re technically homeless to their friends. One major hurdle to get over is your own pride, admit you’re in a crap situation and ask if it’s cool to crash on a friend’s couch for a while. Just don’t become the guy on the couch, since this will inevitably annoy anyone.

No Friends? Hostel It.

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At this point we’re seriously hoping that you are in a city, and not some rural area. If you’re caught in a city with no friends or family to provide safe harbor then you need a place to stay, cheap, and stat. Hostels are the ideal answer to this problem, assuming you’re lucky enough to get in one while there’s a bed open. Some are free and some cost a few bucks, and it’s basically like hanging out in some other guy’s college dorm room, but it’s a bed and it’s co-ed. Maybe you can turn this into a good situation?

Find Friend(s) To Stay With.

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It’s time to get creative. Have enough cash for some dollar PBR’s at the local bar? This could go really well, or horribly wrong, but you need to shack up for the night and you’re out of dignified options. Look at it this way, it’s this, a park bench, or the shelter. How far do you want to take your “homeless” status? This option is typically available whether you’re in a city or in the sticks, and I hear the cougars are like temporary pets.

Switch Carriers, or Get a Pay-As-You-Go Cell Phone.

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You need to have a cell phone, but if you are effectively homeless, you probably stopped paying your cell phone bill before you stopped making your rent payments. But, you need to have a number where people can contact you, what with looking for jobs and bouncing from couch to couch. If your credit isn’t  wrecked, most phone shops will have deals to get you on a cheap phone plan with instant service – sometimes with no money down. If you can’t snag one of these deals, there’s always the pre-paids,which you can get away with for less than $50 in most cases. That is if you can scrounge up the funds, and  you’ll have to be more regimented with tracking your call time.

Win Some Money.

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You’re likely about to run completely out of cash at this point, so you need to do something to have at least enough to eat and pay for bus fare. Possibly the most overlooked source of randomly free income: bar contests. Whether it’s beer pong tournaments, darts, pool, or trivia, if you get your game face on and hit it to win it, you can get through an entire night on free beer and walk out with cash winnings. There’s usually a bar doing something every night of the week and if you play your cards right you could hit each one in cycle. Couple this with the possibility of getting picked up by a cougar and you’ve got several bases covered.

Do Odd Jobs.

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During the day you’ll have a lot of hours to fill, so you should try to make it productive. You may rake in enough spending cash each night at the bar to afford a pack of smokes and lunch, but you’re not making any headway. Take up some odd jobs as you find them; someone always has some yard work that needs doing, a car that needs washing, maybe help with moving furniture. There’s always something, though it may not pay much, and that ten bucks can make the difference between clean and dirty clothes for a job interview. Who knows, you might even luck out again cleaning a cougar’s pool.

Eat For Free.

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We take for granted just how much we spend eating every day. You can get by without actually spending any of your randomly earned spending cash on food, you just need to know where to look. You can start by hitting up the grocery stores for the free samples, run a circuit and try as many of each sample as you can, and it’s enough to get you through to lunch time. Later you can hit up other stores and graze the bulk-candy bins or the DIY trail-mix aisle. Don’t just count on hitting the same grocery stores though, since they’ll catch on if they see you too often. Bakeries constantly toss perfectly good gourmet food in the trash just for being a few hours old. A little dumpster-diving never hurt anybody, just don’t get caught, and don’t get your clothes dirty. And if you think you are “too good” for dumpster diving, there’s always food banks and soup kitchens.

Clean Clothes.

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Anyone who’s ever lived in a dorm or an apartment complex knows about the laundry room. Laundromats are no different, and more often than not a guy can walk in and find a machine with a cycle left paid for. If not, you don’t need to spend your cash on something like running water through clothes, look for some quarters. A good spot to find them are wishing-well fountains, and there’s no shame in pocketing the big coins unless you’re a Goonie. Once you’re back at the laundromat it’s just a matter of what’s available. Try accidentally mixing your clothes in with someone else’s. Several cheesy romance movies were based on this maneuver during the 80’s, so don’t be shy.

Urban Bathing.

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You can’t run around smelling like you’re homeless. If you have to spend a couple of days couchless, without hostel, and failed to score a cougar at the bar, then you need to take care of that BO. Since gyms, the Y and just about anywhere else with showers in the city have gone members only, use some of the money you’ve scrounged to get some deodorant and soap, and start scoping out fountainheads and waterspouts. Garden hoses can also come in pretty handy. In a secluded area you can manage a full shower without anyone noticing, and along with freshly washed clothes nobody will be able to tell you’re actually on the down & outs. You’ll never get hired looking and smelling like a bum.

Search For Work Constantly

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Most libraries are still free, so make use of them when you can and get online. Use sites like Craigslist to find job listings in the area and contact every single one of them. This is why you have a cell phone, they’ll have a number to call. Don’t limit yourself to just the city you’re in, either. Amtrak or Greyhound tickets can be reasonably cheap, and since you’ve already been surviving this long technically homeless, you shouldn’t worry too much about the short time you’ll have to fend for yourself in a new town if a job offer takes you there. You never know what you may find in online classifieds, just remember you’re there for jobs, not casual encounters.

Stay In The Loop.

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Just because you’re in the dumps doesn’t mean you can’t keep in touch with your friends, family, and the world in general. Using the same library computers you searched for jobs on, you can also hit up social networks like Twitter and Facebook, handle your usual daily email load, and even watch the latest videos on YouTube. This way when you come back out of your slump, you’ll be caught up on what the rest of the world was wasting their time doing. It could even be like you never left.

Find Transportation.

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If you were a driver before, odds are you aren’t now. Pedestrian life can be surprisingly efficient once you get the hang of it, and if you don’t get the hang of it you’re going to be in a very confusing world. Spend some time walking around, getting used to the city from a different point of view. Unavoidable costs of the buses and subway systems can cause a hefty dent in your spending cash, so get used to walking as much as you can manage. If this situation becomes a bit more long-term than you thought, it may not be a bad idea to see about picking up a bike for $20.

Stay Healthy.

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So what do you do when you end up feeling queezy a week after the night with that cougar? You don’t have health insurance anymore, or any money, so you’re going to need a free clinic. You should stop off at your local internet connected library again, and visit an online directory to find out where the free clinic is in your area. It’s an easy thing to overlook, but you don’t want to need of a doctor and have no idea of where to go for help.

Get Some New Threads.

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You can wash your clothes and get away with wearing just about anything you can find while you’re doing it, but you need more than what you’ve got on your back. People forget about Goodwill stores, where you can walk in and easily pick up some fairly awesome sport coats, shirts, ties, slacks, just about a whole wardrobe for under $30. If it takes a while to finally get that job interview, you’ll want to strut into that office wearing something that’s going to get the right kind of attention.

If All Else Fails.

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Let’s face it. You’re here now, aren’t you? You were probably here yesterday, and you’ll be here tomorrow. All you really need is the Internet. With the amount of wifi signals around town now, you could probably live a pretty decent little life with your dog and a pawned laptop. There’s no shame in it, after all, it’s pretty much how you spend all your time now anyway. All that house around you is kinda going to waste, isn’t it? Always look on the brighter side of life, the recession’s bound to end someday.

Written by Nick Mokey

By now, we’ve all heard that money’s tight, that we’re on the end of the verge of financial apocalypse, and that everyone will have to cut back. But don’t start lining your shoes with cardboard and cooking beans over a garbage fire just yet. Stripping out luxuries may be one way to stretch your dollars, but for the careful shopper, being frugal need only mean looking a little harder to find deals, and the Web can take a lot of effort out of the process.
We’ve rounded up 10 of our favorite deal-hunting Web sites, where you can find everything from sales and discounts to coupon codes, daily specials and even outright free stuff.
What’s the catch?
No matter which sites you end up using, keep in mind that deals come and go faster than Michael Jackson’s fortune, so you’ll need to make a habit of checking every day – sometimes multiple times a day – to score the best stuff. They call it bargain hunting for a reason, and you’ll need to be in the right place at the right time if you want to bag a buck or two

FatWallet
Consider FatWallet the mother of all money-saving sites. It combines a deal forum, coupon search, and in-house cash back program, making it a one-stop destination for all things bargain-related. Though it specializes in online deals and sales, you can also use FatWallet for comparing other purchases too, like seeing which gym offers the cheapest membership, which car company offers the best rebates to combine with the government’s new cash-for-clunkers program, or where to find cheap lobster.

SlickDeals
You’ll never find a group of more stingy, clever or well-researched folks than the Internet dwellers at SlickDeals, which makes it one of the best user-driven communities out there. Every day’s list of hot bargains comes directly from the community, and they’re rated up and down based on the same collective hive mind, so you don’t have to cut through much clutter to find the primo deals. A string of comments on every deal can also help you find other coupons and offers to stack on top of existing offers, or steer you clear of products and stores that aren’t quite as great as they’re made out to be.

RetailMeNot
Plenty of sites offer coupon codes, but RetailMeNot organizes them into one of the most intuitive directories we’ve found. Just enter a site (like Amazon.com) and RetailMeNot drums up a list of active codes. Since restrictions and expirations make some codes more reliable than others, the site even ranks them based on success rate, so you don’t even up wasting time with codes that haven’t worked for other people.

Ben’s Bargains
Ben’s own slogan, “Where ghetto dogs come for the lowdown on deals,” sums up this site nicer than we ever could. The front page offers a no-nonsense list of recent deals with photos, a popularity meter, and trackers for hot items like the Nintendo Wii and Apple iPod. It may not be the prettiest site you’ll ever find, but for spotting deals, not many can beat it.

Woot
Technically, it’s an online retailer, but Woot qualifies for our list thanks to unique selling format, community atmosphere and, well, 99 percent of the stuff it sells it an absolute steal. Woot runs on a deal-a-day format with only one item on sale per day, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. You’ll find everything from flashlights to fire alarms cropping up on the site, but even when the product disappoints, Woot’s spiced-up product descriptions usually never fail to elicit a smile. Just don’t buy when you’re in a hurry – shipping can sometimes take ages.

Twitter
Yes, Twitter is better for more than just announcing to the world the last thing you ate or saw on the subway. Many companies are beginning to use the site for last-minute daily deals. That means deals on flights from JetBlue and United, deals on car care kits from Amazon, and if you’re in Portland, deals on pizza and cocktails from Candy. Googling the name of an establishment or company with the search term “twitter” remains the easiest way to find whether a favorite establishment is sending out deals, until Twitter’s own search engine improves.

CheapTweet
Twitter offers so many deal-related feeds, it can be hard to keep tabs on them all. For those who need a hand, CheapTweet aggregates many deal-related Twitter accounts, and incorporates a rating system to send the best to the top. Unlike tweets from actual companies, most of the deal appearing on CheapTweet come from third-party Twitter accounts dedicated to tracking bargains, like “CouponCabin,” “ShopItToMe,” and “Freebies4mom.”

Craigslist
The original Web-based replacement for classified ads still can’t be beat. You can use it to find items new and used, commission one-off unique items, find services, and even barter for things you don’t quite have the cash for. And in a down economy, you can feel good about putting cash directly into the hands of other people who need it, rather than feeding corporate giants.

Kashless

Craigslist and Freecycle both offer amazing lists of items other folks are giving away entirely for free, but Kashless aggregates both into one seamless feed of no-catch freebies. It also adds some unique extras, like sharing listings on Facebook and Twitter (“This free fridge would be perfect to convert into a kegerator!”) and even real-time text notifications when items you’re looking for are posted. Having scored free firewood, air conditioning units and hot tubs on Craigslist before, we can safely say there’s a bounty out there.

TotallyFreeStuff
You probably spot offers for free samples all day long on billboards, newspaper ads, TV commercials and other mediums, but what if you wanted to look at them all in one spot and find some stuff you actually wanted to try? TotallyFreeStuff posts everything from free stuff you sign up for online, to items you buy at a store in mail in rebates for, and contests to win the really big stuff. You’ll have to cut through some junk to find the stuff with the fewest catches, but it’s one of the most comprehensive listings out there. And hey, it’s free.

Written by Jeff Rosenberg

On 20 hours ago My cousin Jordan is starting his freshman year this coming August. He just got his roommate assignment and sent this over to me the other day. Check it out.