the contemporary shopping lifestyle

With “web 2.0″ making the transition from targeting the tech savvy to the mainstream, there are an increasing number of tools available online that are not only free, but are often times more intuitive and feature-filled than their offline counterparts. With the economy struggling, everyone is looking for ways to cut costs without sacrificing their current lifestyle. Below are five of my favorite free tools. The only requirements: an email account and a high speed internet connection. Each also adds a bit of freedom by giving you the advantage of being able to access your account online from any computer in the world.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

What it does: office productivity suite
What it replaces: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
Where to find it: http://docs.google.com/

While not as feature-rich as its Microsoft counterpart, Google does have several unique offerings in their office suite. Being web based allows for document collaboration (much better than emailing several copies of a file back and forth), the ability to create surveys with spreadsheets, or the option embed YouTube videos within presentations. Advanced users will want the ability to run macros or other features within spreadsheets. Most of the time downloading the free Open Office as a supplement to Google Docs solves these problems without costing you a penny. We’ve been using the Google Docs / Open Office combo as a company for a while now and haven’t had any occurrences arise where we needed Microsoft Office to do something.

Mint

What it does: personal finance management
What it replaces: Quicken
Where to find it: http://www.mint.com/

Mint takes personal finance management to the next level. It securely syncs with all of your bank accounts and credit cards to automatically classify all of your expenses in categories like food, bills, entertainment, etc. It then uses that information to create a budget for you and track spending. You can compare your finances to other people in similar situations, and even have Mint send you text messages or email alerts when you have a low balance in your account or a credit card payment is due.

Pandora

What it does: music player and recommendations
What it replaces: iPod/iTunes
Where to find it: http://www.pandora.com/

If you do most of your music listening from your computer than you will be happy to make the switch to Pandora. Pandora has almost every single song from every single artist classified in a way that matches your music preferences to only the songs that they know you will like. Started in 2000, the Music Genome Project has classified music by more than just genre. They analyze the unique “genes” of each song. From their website “Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony.” To truly be appreciated Pandora is the type of thing that needs to be experienced. I documented my personal experience with Pandora over on my blog with a post entitled Pandora Knows Me Better Than I Do.

Hulu

What it does: television and movies from FOX, NBC, and more
What it replaces: Netflix subscription, DVD sets, DVR
Where to find it: http://www.hulu.com/

There is one caveat to Hulu - the programming is still relatively limited and you’re at their mercy in terms of episode selection. I’d say about 60% of my favorite shows are represented on Hulu. Some shows (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have nearly all of the episodes online, while others (The Simpsons) only have the most recent episodes. Nonetheless, it has changed my TV viewing habits. No longer do I need to turn on the TV on Sunday @ 8 PM or set my DVR - if I miss an episode of The Simpsons I know I can just catch it the following day on Hulu. The movie selection is still in it’s infancy. You’ll always be able to find a movie to watch, but you aren’t going to find all of your favorites quite yet. Full screen picture quality is very good - not as good as a DVD but better than an analog TV signal from a TV tuner card.

Google Reader

What it does: RSS news reader
What it replaces: newspaper and magazine subscriptions
Where to find it: http://www.google.com/reader

RSS is still not a mainstream technology, but that’s changing rapidly. Nearly every major newspaper, magazine, and blog now offer at least one RSS feed for free. With free and simple software like Google Reader, anyone can cancel their newspaper and magazine subscriptions and not miss a thing. See our RSS Explained: the free technology that will change your life for more information and detailed instructions for how to get started with RSS.