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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gotodaily_coupon_codes.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”236″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /Before you make a purchase online, a quick search of GotoDaily’s list of discount codes and printable coupons could save you some money on anything from apparel to electronics. The listings are updated daily, and users can add deals they’ve found and remove codes that don’t work. Search by keyword or shopping site URL. The site’s blog also highlights good deals, like this a href=”http://blog.gotodaily.com/2008/10/21/last-minute-saving-tips-2008s-halloween-coupons-deals/”roundup of specials just in time for Halloween/a. If you register, you can also create shopping and wish lists and subscribe to updates on bargains at your favorite stores. More like a href=”http://www.retailmenot.com/”RetailMeNot/a than a href=”http://beatthat.com/”BeatThat/a, it’s another great weapon in a smart shopper’s arsenal. Here’s more on how to a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/become-an-online-power+shopper-303213.php”become an online power-shopper/a. emThanks, Andy!/em/p div class=”related”a href=”http://www.gotodaily.com/”GotoDaily/a/div br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/idrive_logo.jpg” width=”184″ height=”85″ align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”left” /Windows/Mac only: With two gigabytes of free online storage, IDrive offers a cheap option for remote backup of critical files for your computer. Download the client for Windows or Mac, select the files you want to keep backed up, and IDrive will automatically begin uploading them to the company’s servers over an SSL-encrypted connection. Then it will monitor your computer for changes to files and folders and connect every ten minutes to update your backup. You can also set a bandwidth throttle to make sure you aren’t choking your internet connection during the workday. Looking for more remote backup options? a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-faceoff/battle-of-the-online-backup-services-298573.php”Check out our feature comparison guide/a for a list of available services with free trials. IDrive Basic is a free Windows or Mac download with 2GB of storage. IDrive Pro offers 150GB of backup storage for $4.95 a month or $49.50 a year. emThanks, a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5064688/online-storage-feature+by+feature-comparison-chart#c8409647″PetrinaGabulous/a!/em div class=”related”a href=”http://www.idrive.com/”IDrive/a/div/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/real_estate_sign.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”203″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /br iframe src=”http://digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=http://digg.com/business_finance/Top_10_Real_Estate_Search_Tools” align=”right” frameborder=”0″ height=”82″ scrolling=”no” width=”55″/iframeThe good news is there are many, many resources for searching, pricing, and comparing a new home or apartment. The bad news is that, for someone just Google-ing, say, “search homes Los Angeles,” there are a ridiculous number of loudly-advertised choices. Today we’re compiling the most down-to-earth, actually-helpful search and comparison tools, with all kinds of mashup maps, pricing data, neighborhood reviewers, and other stuff you should really know before you make that huge leap. Read on for ten tools that help you find a new place to park your life. emPhoto by a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sercasey/248457195/”Casey Serin/a./em/p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”10. Skip the grocery store stalking at stronga href=”http://www.uhaul.com/boards/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=4″U-Haul’s Box Exchange/a./strong/h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/boxes_scaled.png” height=”155″ width=”200″ class=”right” align=”right”Paying for cardboard moving boxes can feel like paying for, well, fresh air or water, but hounding every grocery store and big-box retailer for weeks is no fun at all. Once you’ve settled on buying into new digs and moving, hit up this forum and see if anyone in your area has stuff to unload. No luck there? Pay less for good-quality boxes at a href=”http://www.usedcardboardboxes.com/”UsedCardboardBoxes.com/a, which is exactly what you might think it is./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”9. Make listings browsing easier with stronga href=”http://roost.com”Roost/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/roost_01.png” height=”172″ width=”210″ class=”right” align=”right”Launching a real estate search site takes a bit of guts these days, and a unique anglemdash;which Roost has both of, for the most part. The big-box search interface is a lot cleaner than most of its info-crazy competitors, and the site has pitched itself as having rigorously accurate listings. We can’t say from experience if that’s true, but if you live in or near an area it covers (and they’re adding more regularly), it’s kind of like the Yahoo to Zilllow’s Google searchmdash;good for a fresh take on your searching./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”8. Find the equivalent of your favorite neighborhood at stronga href=”http://neighborhoods.homethinking.com/”Homethinking Neighborhoods/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/neighborhood_compare.png” height=”149″ width=”210″ class=”right” align=”right”Homethinking, a site that nominally helps you find the “most remarkable” real estate agent for a certain area, has a pretty nifty feature that compares neighborhoods across cities in a conversational mannermdash;so it tells you that D.C.’s U Street Corridor is kind of like the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn’s Park Slope. A good number of our readers found the a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5063969/homethinking-finds-a-neighborhood-youd-like-in-a-new-city”results a little if-y/a, but Homethinking includes user-submitted “reviews”mdash;actually complaints and critiquesmdash;on each match’s page. So if you doubt the veracity of a neighborhood transposition, see what someone who made the move, or knows the streets, has to say. You might just find the guide you’re looking for./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”7. Scope out potential neighborhoods at stronga href=”http://realestate.yahoo.com/neighborhoods”Yahoo/a/strong and stronga href=”http://www.city-data.com/”City-Data.com/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/yahoo_neighborhood.png” height=”150″ width=”220″ class=”right” align=”right”As with so many purchases, pricing isn’t everything when it comes to buying or renting. Yahoo Neighborhoods lays out the demographic averages and charts across a nicely graphical landing page, while City-Data.com is a Census geek’s dreammdash;one huge page for nearly every area of the country, with crime, housing, school performance, and pretty much anything that’s been collected and stored. A fire-sale home is no deal if you feel like an alien in your neighborhood./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”6. Compare buying vs. renting by region at stronga href=”http://hotpads.com/search/#lat=37.6790386010976lon=-97.312608897686zoom=12listingTypes=sale,newHome,rentalloan=30,0.0642,0″HotPads/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/buyvsrent.jpg” height=”157″ width=”220″ class=”right” align=”right”Type “buy,” “rent,” and “calculator” into Google, and you’ll get a fair number of similar tools to do the math. Search site HotPads, however, puts that decision in perspective by having you figure out what you can afford in a sidebar calculator, than filtering search results to show just those spotsmdash;color-coded for rental or purchasemdash;that you can swing. In other words, it makes a two-step, copy-and-paste procedure into a streamlined search. After all, a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5056421/why-renting-makes-more-sense-than-buying”buying isn’t always better than renting/a./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”5. Find an apartment with a href=”http://craigslist.org”strongCraigslist/strong/a feeds./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/craigslist_feeds.jpg” height=”150″ width=”170″ class=”right” align=”right”If you live in an area with active interest in Craigslist’s classified ads, you can do a lot better than praying those back-of-the-weekly printings aren’t already taken. As Adam explains in his a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/apartments/hack-attack-apartment-hunting-101-176670.php”Apartment Hunting 101 guide/a, the true advantage for those on the renter side are the customized RSS search feeds available. Set up searches for neighborhoods, features (”cats allowed”), pricing, and lots of other features. Better still, you can get at them from your mobile with a href=”http://www.lifehacker.com/software/bloglines/choosing-bloglines-for-your-mobile-device-134053.php”Bloglines’ mobile interface/a or Google Reader’s a href=”http://www.google.com/reader/m”phone version/a, which is perfect when you’re spending a weekend afternoon sussing out the best pads./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”4. Travel through Craigslist for-sales on stronga href=”http://www.mapskrieg.com”MapsKrieg/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/mapskrieg.png” height=”157″ width=”210″ class=”right” align=”right”Craigslist’s RSS feeds will get you the most up-to-date info in your browser or mobile, but it helps to see exactly where the rentals and homes are up for grabs. MapsKrieg, a spiritual successor to the (seemingly defunct) a href=”http://housingmaps.com”HousingMaps/a, simply plots all of your local Craigslist posting for homes, apartments, and rooms onto a nearly page-wide Google Map, and lets you click through to the ad. Simple, effective, really useful./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”3. Take a broader view with stronga href=”http://trulia.com”Trulia/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/trulia_heat_map.jpg” height=”145″ width=”179″ class=”right” align=”right”Trulia offers a different take on real estate search than many of its number-centric peers. Nearly everything you can pull up on the sitemdash;and there’s certainly a lotmdash;can be instantly mashed into a Google Map. You can certainly look up individual homes or sales, but the “Stats Trends” menu is where the unique stuff is. “Heat maps” that show prices going up or down, a Google-like “trends” page for an area, andmdash;be still our geeky heartsmdash;you can map any RSS search feed a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/google-earth/see-real-estate-listings-in-google-earth-219008.php”onto Google Earth/a. If your choice is between neighborhoods rather than specific homes, Trulia’s a wise stop on the way to a decision./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”2. Plot your home-tour attack at strongGoogle Maps/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gmaps_realestate.png” height=”173″ width=”220″ class=”right” align=”right”Unless you’ve specifically checked it out, you might not know that Google Maps can inherently show you homes for sale wherever you search. Pulling data from the a href=”http://www.google.com/base”Google Base/a project, GMaps can understand searches like “Duplex near Wooster, Mass.,” or let you refine a regional search by bedrooms, bathrooms, and price. It’s not the most advanced search tool on this page, but if you’re looking to get directions or plan a weekend home tour, you’re already there./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”1. Do your pricing research at stronga href=”http://zillow.com”Zillow/a/strong./h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/zillow_crop.png” height=”160″ width=”220″ class=”right” align=”right”Some might remember the media feeding frenzy over Zillow when it opened in early 2006, mostly because the site was only intermittently accessible for the first few weeks of existence. Now that it’s scaled and settled down, it’s become the de facto standard for looking up, comparing, and finding out as much about a home as you can without a stakeout operation. It pulls in a whole heap of data to give you a “Zestimate” about a home’s value, rather than relying on simply tax records or proprietary databases. Combined with its text-operated a href=”http://www.zillow.com/webtools/labs/ZillowMobile.htm”mobile version/a and a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/real-estate/find-your-bosses-home-value-with-zillow-and-yahoo-188543.php”Yahoo Maps integration/a, Zillow’s probably the best place to start any search or hint of real estate interest, if only to send you on a mission for even more data./p pGot another tool that helped you make your biggest purchase ever? Found a better version of one of our ten tools? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/mint.png” width=”189″ height=”166″ align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”right” /Personal finance webapp a href=”http://www.mint.com/”Mint/a came out on top of our recent a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5063159/battle-of-the-web+based-personal-finance-apps”battle of the web-based personal finance apps/a. Want more options? Check out the a href=”http://lifehacker.com/396507/five-best-personal-finance-tools”five best personal finance tools/a./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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Web site CarZen holds your hand through choosing the right new car based on a laundry list of needs, features, and more. The site’s CarConsult tools asks you a battery of questions—from price and size to extras and usage—to help you narrow down the perfect car for you. You can even filter results to cars that fit well in tight spots or that comfortably seat drivers over six feet tall. While the recommendation engine is clearly CarZen’s biggest draw, it also offers buying and negotiation advice, fuel economy tips, and more. Even if you don’t click through for a quote once you get your recommendation, it’s still a worthwhile tool for measuring your needs against your options.

The photography enthusiasts at weblog Photojojo detail how to use a vintage manual-focus camera lens with your DSLR camera for a fraction of the cost of newer auto-focus lenses. There’s not really much to it—just buy yourself an adapter ring and go hunting for a vintage manual-focus lens on eBay and you’re good to go. As an added bonus, it may even improve your photography:

Using manual focus on those old lenses will slow you down a little. Not too much, just enough to make you think about your shot. You feel more connected to your camera and to the process of shooting.

If you’ve ever given this a try, let’s hear how it worked for you in the comments.

Domestic weblog Divine Caroline puts together a handy chart to help you keep your fruits and vegetables fresh by knowing the proper storage procedure for each perishable. It’s a nice cheatsheet for those of us who don’t know which fruits are ethylene producers or which veggies should stay in a paper bag. Photo by phoosh.

In the wake of Mint leaving beta and Quicken Online dropping its subscription fee, there’s never been a better time to start using a web-based personal finance application. What’s more, the current financial turmoil probably means you’re more motivated than ever to get your finances in order. So with that in mind, we want to know: Which web-based personal finance application is your favorite? Cast your vote below.

Which Web-Based Personal Finance Tool is Best?
( polls)

Since our beloved poll system doesn’t let us include links inline, here are direct links to the sites listed above:

• Mint
• Quicken Online
• Yodlee
• Wesabe

If web-based isn’t your calling (or you want to learn a little more about some of the options above), check out our Hive Five Best Personal Finance Tools for a look at a few desktop alternatives.

While Wall Street gets its rescue plan in order, the News Tribune says it’s time for you to create your own personal bailout plan—by building up your cash, freezing your credit, and “laying off” expenses you don’t really need. The Tribune advises:

Do what you can to have at least three to six months of cash to cover bills, in case of a job loss. “Nothing you do financially will help you sleep better at night than knowing you have money tucked away for a rainy day,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. But pay attention to where you put your savings. If you buy a U.S. savings bond now, for example, you cannot cash it in for 12 months.

Has your savings plan changed in light of the recent “financiapocalypse”? Tell us how in the comments, and see also some of our own advice on how to batten down your hatches in this bad economy.