Vonage is a flat-rate phone service that uses your Internet broadband connection, a technology known as voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP. In a review of VoIP services, Wired Magazine ranked Vonage at the top. "Setup is quick and painless -- five minutes, tops -- and call quality is clear even while you're downloading video." Once you sign up, you plug your broadband router into a home network and use it with any standard phone. You receive a 10-digit phone number for incoming calls and also can use features such as caller ID, call waiting and voice mail. In select areas you can transfer your existing phone number. Unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico) and Canada is $24.95 per month, or you can order up to 500 minutes for $14.99 per month. Small businesses can receive unlimited calls for $49.99 per month, or up to 1500 minutes for $39.99, or get your own toll-free number with 100 free minutes for $4.99 per month. Vonage also offers international calls starting at 3 cents per minute. An alternative service is Skype, which offers free calls via your computer to anyone else in the world who has the free Skype software, or about two cents a minute to make calls from your computer to regular phones.
Vons offers online ordering and grocery home delivery in the San Fernando Valley, Orange Co, Inland, San Gabriel Valley, West L.A., South Bay, Temecula, San Diego, Oxnard, Ventura, as well as Henderson and Las Vegas, Nevada. You receive the same prices and Vons Club specials found in your local store. If Vons doesn't yet deliver to your area, check Peapod, Safeway or our online grocer guide. Delivery fees: Range from $3.95 to $9.95 depending on the city and your order amount.
What can't you find
at Walmart.com? Founded by Sam Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1950 as Walton's Five and Dime, Wal-Mart today accounts for 2 percent of the U.S. gross national product (no kidding). Its online store carries more than 600,000 products, more than twice what you will find in any Wal-mart mega retail store. The selection includes electronics (cameras, computers, digital imaging, video, car audio, phones, portable audio), videos and DVDs, CDs (all varieties, but none with explicit lyrics), books, toys & video games, automotive supplies (car audio, cleaning, etc.), home decor, kitchen stuff (appliances, gadget, utensils), home office supplies, furniture, bed & bath, lawn & hardware (power tools, patio furniture, etc.), clothing, jewelry, shoes, health & beauty products (cosmetics, medications, vitamins, etc.) and baby toys and supplies. Thank goodness Wal-Mart provides a great search engine. Returns: 15 days on computer hardware and components; 90 days on electronics; 45 days on music, movies, video games and software (unopened); 45 days on books. You can return any item purchased online to any Wal-Mart store. Sales tax: All states with sales tax. Shipping: Books are $2.97 per order plus 97 cents per item; CDs are $1.81 per order plus 97 cents per item; DVDs are $2.01 per order plus 97 cents per item; videos are $2.90 per order plus 97 cent per item; jewelry and watches are $2 per order plus 97 cents per item; other shipping charges vary by weight. If an order has multiple items, such as books and CDs, you are charged the highest per-order fee and then 97 cents for each item. Wal-mart now also ships select gifts and other items to APO/FPO addresses.
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The Wall Street Journal covers the financial world more thoroughly than any publication. It has an online offer that allows you to subscribe for $119 per year, which includes the weekend edition delivered on Saturday. The Wall Street Journal is also available in an audio version via Audible that you can download and listen to on an MP3 player. Or subscribe to the Wall Street Journal Online for $9.95 per month or $103 annually. Finally, you can subscribe to both the print and online editions for $155 per year, with an additional four weeks free. Where's George? is a site with a database that contains the serial numbers of more than 40 million dollar bills. Type in the number on your bills to see if they've been entered, and then add your own data. The idea is to track the bills as they travel the country. Many people write wheresgeorge.com on the bills they enter so that others will be directed to the site. You also can ask to be alerted by email whenever one of "your" bills is entered. So far, more than 2 million people have registered. Canadian residents can track their dollar bills at Where's Willy?. Where's My Refund? is a database maintained by the IRS that allows taxpayers to check the status of their refunds. It includes records of nearly 100,000 people who are due refunds but haven't gotten them. Typically these checks came back to the agency as undeliverable. Enter your name and Social Security number to see if you have money coming to you, then update your address with the agency. Alternatively you can phone 800-829-1954. The site is not available for most of December as the IRS prepares for the next year's filing season. Wild Games offers more than 150 online games for Windows, including action, arcade, puzzles, sports and words. Its most popular games are FATE, Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, Polar Bowler, Scrabble, Diner Dash, Polar Golfer, Mah Jong and Family Feud. The selection also includes Age of Castles, Airstrike 2, Alien Shooter, Bookworm Deluxe, Digby's Donuts, Genius Move, Ice Breaker, Memory Loops, Mortimer and the Enchanted Castle, Poker Superstars, Polar Bowler, Real Jigsaw Puzzle, Snowy: Space Trip, Subway Scramble, Time Breaker and Word Buzz. You can try the games online for free, but they often have time or other restrictions. If you like the game you can download it for unlimited play. Most cost $19.95, although Wild Games has clearance games for as little as $5.99 each (offered when you check out) and two-game packages that start at $27.99 (offered on home page as "special offers"). You can purchase a backup of any game on CD for $7.95 plus shipping.
Where's George
Where's My Refund
Wild Games
Wine.com, founded in 1998, will deliver any of more than 14,000 wines and champagnes to your doorstep or as gifts to others -- state law permitting (see Shipping, below). It also stocks gift baskets and gourmet foods and wine accessories. Wine.com offers several wine clubs that make great gifts. You can search by keyword, type of wine, price, region or winery name. The site includes a tutorial to help beginners learn more about the art and science of wine. "The more you know about wine, the more you'll enjoy it," says Rich Bergsund, the CEO of Wine.com, and he's right. Returns: 30 days, subject to 25 percent restocking fee. All wines that are 10 years or older are purchased at your own risk, per tradition. Wine that is damaged in transit can be exchanged. Sales tax: California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington. An excise tax will be charge for orders to Louisiana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada and Wyoming. Shipping: Standard shipping for wines starts at $8.95 per order. Shipping for other items varies by weight. Because of state laws that are designed to protect the monopolies of in-state alcohol distributors, Wine.com can only ship wine to select states. See the site for the most up-to-date list. Wine.com can ship food and products other than wine to all 50 states. It does not ship to post office boxes or APO/FPO addresses. An adult signature (age 21 and older) is required by law for all wine orders.
Everyone could use a little privacy. This downloadable Windows 98+ software removes traces of documents you've opened and photos you've viewed on
your computer. XBlock, a division of Facetime, erases the digital footprints left behind when you surf, such as your browser's history and cache. It destroys "hidden files" that for whatever reason you may not want someone to see. It erases chat files. It detects whether spyware has been loaded onto your machine, including stealth programs such as Gator, CoolWebSearch, 180 Search Assistant, Huntbar, Cydoor, ISTbar, WhenU-Desktopbar, New.Net, IEPlugin, BargainBuddy, MoneyTree, Ezula, Twain-Tech, BonziBuddy, OverPro, KeyKey, Stealth Keyboard Logger, Surf Spy, Net Spy, PC Spy, Spector, Hacker Whacker and others. To use our exclusive 25 percent off coupon code, enter it during checkout and then hit the "update" button. It applies to any product that XBlock sells. XBlock offers a freeware version with limited features to give you an idea of how the program works. Yahoo! Games is an online game site that offers more than 200 popular downloadable games, including many that include free trials (typically they allow you to play for 30 minutes). Most games on the site are priced at $19.99 each. Categories include Holiday, Puzzle, Word, Card, Board, Arcade and Other. The selection includes Cake Mania, Family Feud, InSpheration, Puppy Luv, Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, Wheel of Fortune, Spacebound, Bejeweled 2, Magic Match and Diner Dash.
Yahoo! Games
Yahoo! Personals allows you to search for love online. Search by gender, age and location to narrow your search, then browse the ads. You must become a member to respond to ads by email or instant messaging but you can post your own ad free. You also can take a free If you want to find better matches more easily, take the free personality tests and rank your matches according to who best matches your choices. A Yahoo! Personals membership is $24.95 per month, $49.95 per quarter ($16.65/month) or $74.95 for six months ($12.49/month).
Founded in 2000, Zinio sells a wide variety of magazines in digital format, including Car and Driver, Macworld, Computer Shopper, Home Theater, Sound & Vision, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Architectural Record, Alternative Medicine, Spa Magazine, Metropolitan Home, Country Living,
eWeek, Macleans, Black Enterprise, Harvard Business Review, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Foreign Policy, Premiere, FHM, Playboy, Flying, Boating, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, Science, Sporting News, Golfweek, Seventeen, Cosmo Girl, Islands, Saveur, Elle, Redbook, Woman's Day and National Geographic. It offers free sample issues of a number of titles so you can see the amazing reproduction (you must first download the free Zinio reader). You can purchase single copies or subscribe as you would with a print magazine. One advantage of digital, besides not missing any issues that are lost in the mail, is that you usually receive the new issue a few days before you would by post. Past issues are also kept in a folder in your account so you can browse or do full-text searches at any time. Zinio also sells digital versions of many college textbooks.
Zip.ca is an online DVD rental club for residents of Canada. It charges members $10.95 per month to have one DVD out at a time (up to two per month), $18.95 per month to have two at a time (up to five per month), $24.95 to have three at a time (unlimited), $24.95 to have four at a time (up to 11 per month) or $36.95 for six (up to 16 per month). Its stock includes Action & Adventure, Anime & Animation, Children & Family, Classics, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Foreign Language & International, Gay & Lesbian, General, Horror, Independent, Music & Musicals, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Special Interest, Sports, Television and Thrillers. DVDs ship from: Ottawa, Ontario. Shipping: Zip.ca pays the postage for a certain number of DVDs per plan, after which customers are charged $2.49 per title.
ZoneAlarm is the pride and joy of Zone Labs, a leading creator of security software that protects PCs from hackers, spyware and data theft. ZoneAlarm comes in a variety of flavors, and you can buy its products individually or as part of a suite. You can purchase any of its products online and download them immediately. Or download the free trial versions and try before you buy. The basic ZoneAlarm firewall is free to individuals and charities.