greenumbrella.com
Companies sell extended service plans for just about everything these days – from iPods and cell phones to big screen TVs, washing machines and everything in between. When you buy an extended service contract, you're betting your new gadget will break within the next three years & the cost of fixing it will be higher than the price of the warranty. The seller of the warranty is betting it won't. The odds vary. You beat the house if you pay $200 and run up against an $800 repair. They win if nothing goes wrong & they've pocketed $200 of almost pure profit.

One way to potentially pay less and possibly stack the odds a little more in your favor is with "umbrella" coverage. GreenUmbrella.com offers all-in-one extended plans for $9.95 a month that covers all your new gadgets or household appliances for three years. Green Umbrella covers an unlimited number of major brand home appliance products per customer, there are no deductibles and there are no fees for in-home repair or replacement service. Consumers can register multiple products up to 30 days after purchase at no additional cost. More than 50,000 coverage eligible products are listed on the site & right now, they're running some specials allowing you to register anything you've purchased in last calendar year. Arguably, the more items you register, the more valuable the potential service. There are some caveats: they don't cover cell phones and they don't cover accidental damage.

walletpop.com
If there's one money saving/deal-finder site you want to have book marked, especially in this economy and during the height of holiday shopping season – it's walletpop.com. The site offers up daily money saving tips and advice, uncovers information for finding the best online shopping deals and hidden coupon codes and even dishes out helpful financial advice and planning. Walletpop had live-bloggers station at malls during Black Friday and will be staying on top of the best Cyber Monday deals.

servicemagic.com - Find qualified contractors online.

Old way: Crack open the Yellow Pages and look for help.
New way: Log on and have qualified businesses contact you.

I tried it and was AMAZED how quickly I got a call back from a potential handyman. Literally within 60 seconds of submitting my online request. Think of it as eBay for services. ServiceMagic.com has a database of 52,000 prescreened contractors and other types of home service professionals, such as plumbers, electricians, landscapers, maids, on and on. With a few clicks of the mouse you have multiple (qualified/screened) contractors competing for your business. Simply typing in your zip code and the desired service. I couldn't believe how many results instantly got for refinishing kitchen cabinets. The service is FREE. They make their money by generating leads for the service providers.

www.yapta.com - Yapta.com: Short for "your amazing personal travel assistant"
You book your airline ticket, prices drop ... But it's not game over! Plug in your itinerary into Yapta.com (before or after you book) and it will alert you if/when prices drop. All major airlines offer what is called the "guaranteed airfare policy," which means you're eligible for a refund if the fare price decreases. When you get your itinerary, just email it to Yapta at flights@yapta.com. It's literally just a matter of forwarding what the airlines send you. Couldn't be easier. Even after deducting any change fee levied by the airline, if your $400 round trip ticket is suddenly $275, you might have $50+ bucks headed your way. (Yapta only sends an alert if the savings are more than the airline's rebooking fees, and claims 19% of purchased flights qualify.) Travelers can call the airline to claim their travel credit themselves or pay $15 to have Yapta do it.

DMAchoice.org – junk the junk mail.
A new Web site lets you keep unwanted come-ons from piling up. DMAchoice.org, the Direct Marketing Association's site, lets consumers pick and choose what they want and don't want to receive in their mailboxes. By logging on to the site for free, consumers can indicate their preferences by business name or entire categories, such as credit card offers, catalogues or magazines.

www.howstufworks.com

Recently read about how a baby monitor was picking up a feed from the Space Station. What a shock that would be. How Stuff Works explains this kind of thing. An award-winning, unbiased site it does what it says it does and explains how stuff works. The baby monitor mystery is all about TV & Radio satellite frequencies. The code is cracked here: Howstuffworks "Why is a baby monitor picking up video of the space shuttle?"

truveo.com
If you haven't discovered this yet, you're going to thank me. Think of it as Google, but for video. It's the leading video search engine, so you can find whatever video you're looking for -- from all video sources across the web -- news networks, YouTube, MySpace, etc. It's incredibly well organized & suspect will soon be a household name along the lines of Amazon, Google, and iTunes. No more aimless surfing.

Funnyordie.com
The award-winning web site started by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay brings in over 3 million visitors per month and has become one of the top destinations for comedy on the web. FunnyorDie.com put itself on the map a little over 18 months ago when McKay's 3-year-old daughter Pearl became a star in her own. Pearl starred with Will Ferrell in the site's first video: "The Landlord" and it pulled in more than 60 million views. FunnyorDie.com has expanded to become a repository of professional content created by top comedians, including Judd Apatow, Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") and the comedy troupe Human Giant. Their videos are mixed with (the less popular) viewer-submitted videos, which can remain on the site if they are rated highly enough.