Pets can make absolutely wonderful travel companions. The process of finding pet-friendly accommodations, however, can be a less-than-wonderful experience. Fortunately there are several websites that specialize in helping your little Rover or Fluffy enjoy your vacation along with you.

Reviews of our three favorite:

Continue →

The increased affordability of excellent prosumer digital SLR cameras, such as the high-end Canon 1D Mark III and the affordable, new Nikon D500, has helped create a surge in the number of excellent photos being taken. And nowhere is that more apparent than on the popular photo sharing website Flickr.

The number of suberb photostreams—collections of photographs published by a single user—on Flickr easily stretches into the hundreds. Here’s a look at eight that, for whatever reason, grabbed our fancy today:

Continue →

Almost everyone knows Amazon.com for its bargain deals on books and electronics. Amazon is also a good source for discount groceries. We like their DRM-free MP3 store (even more than iTunes). And we love their Amazon Kindle. But Amazon also has a surprisingly large selection items that defy categorization, from the odd to the downright wacky.

Here’s our look at some of the weirdest items for sale on Amazon and the solution they provide to some of life’s most common problems:

Continue →

It probably isn’t feasible for you to drive an all-electric vehicle, grow your own organic food or power your house entirely off of solar panels. That’s okay. It can make a big difference to the planet when of people take small steps towards reducing their carbon footprint.

Like using a more environmentally-friendly website host.

Website hosting is a surprisingly electricity-intensive (and thus surprisingly polluting) enterprise. A single website server can produce as much as 12.5 tones of CO2 each year. It is estimated that by 2020 the website hosting companies will be as polluting as the airline industry!

Fortunately, there are a variety of green website hosts. We’ve found several that offer as good a service, for as cheap a price, as the regular polluting hosting companies provide. Here are our three favorites:

Continue →

If you are reading this post we presume you are single and contemplating an entry into the world of online dating. Our unbridled advice is: Go for it!

Think of it this way: If you were looking for a job you’d conduct your search online. When looking for a gift or for tomorrow’s weather forecast or for a used car you search online. So why not when looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend?

So, got for it! And start by choosing the online dating site that will work best for you. The internet hosts dozens of dating sites but only a handful of them are worth joining.

Spot Cool Stuff has gone through all of the various online dating site options and found the four that are most likely to bring you to that special person you seek.

Check out the full reviews or, if you are the impatient sort, skip ahead to our conclusions:

Continue →

If you are like us you buy a lot of gadgets. Which means that you, like us, have a lot of old gadgets you no longer use filling drawers and cluttering closets. Sure you’ll sell the higher value ones on eBay—or think about selling them on eBay, maybe, possibly, someday—but often it doesn’t seem worth the hassle. And what about that long outdated laptop or camera that won’t even turn on anymore? Throwing out your old electronics isn’t a good option, not for your wallet and not for the planet. (Do you know how long it takes a toxic battery to decompose in a landfill?)

Continue →

TrafficSwarm and LinkReferral are two of the best amongst the dozens of traffic exchanges websites. The basic premise of all of them is the same: You sign up for a free account, register your blog or website link, and in exchange for clicking on the links of other members’ they will click on yours. It is there, though, that the similarities end. Which service is better, TrafficSwarm or Link Referral? Read on . . .

Continue →

Time was that it was difficult to hear music that didn’t make it onto your local radio stations. Which is to say, it was difficult to hear the vast majority of music available.

Not so today. The internet is the great music equalizer. If you are looking to expand your musical horizons, or simply hear a cool tune you’ve never heard before, here are eight of our favorite sites. Though some have pay options, each site can be enjoyed free of charge:

Continue →