Webware

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just a memory, the holiday season is in full swing. For those of us who like to be organized when we hit the stores, creating a shopping list is really the best way to go.

Unfortunately, though, there aren't many services that do a great job at creating those shopping lists. Too often, they provide very simple functionality. Realizing that, I've compiled a handful of services that do perform well for anyone looking to get organized this holiday-shopping season. In this list, you'll find a few sites and a few iPhone apps to check out.

Let's get started.

Get your shopping on

Amazon Shopping List Not to be confused with the company's Wishlist, Amazon's shopping list helps you keep track of all the products you want to buy.

Overall, Amazon's Shopping List is useful. It's not the best service in this roundup, but it if you're looking for simple, one-click experience, Amazon's tool provides it. That said, I should note that you can't simply add any product on Amazon to the list. Unfortunately, I could only find items that could be added in the grocery, beauty, gourmet food, and health and personal care pages. Even then, not all the products listed in those categories were capable of being added to the shopping list. It was a little disappointing. But if you're a heavy Amazon customer who shops in those categories, try it out. If not, there are some better services out there.

My Amazon shopping list needs more products!

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Boxedup Boxedup is one of my favorite services in this roundup. It makes it quick and easy to find products anywhere from the Web and add those to a shopping list.

When you start using Boxedup, you'll need to download a Boxedup button that's added to your browser (I was using Firefox, which it works well with). From there, simply go out to any online retail site and click on the Boxedup button when you want to add the item to your shopping list. Upon doing so, it's added to your Boxedup list for later viewing. You can also add items to your profile right from the Boxedup page, but to be quite honest, that's not how the service was designed and that functionality is a little suspect. Regardless, having the option to add content to your list from just about anywhere on the Web is fantastic. Boxedup works quite well. Check it out.

Boxedup helps you add content from just about anywhere.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Now that the holidays are upon us, many of us are considering what kind of food we'll be making. Sure, we might start out with the turkey on Thanksgiving, but what about desserts or appetizers? Finding help from online resources is certainly welcome.

That's why I've decided to take a look at several recipe sites. If you're getting together with family over the next month to celebrate a holiday and you plan to cook, this roundup is for you.

Get your cooking on

AllRecipes All Recipes is one of the best places to check out holiday recipes for your family. You can either click on a specific holiday you're planning to cook for or you can sift through its many recipes for regular days. It's a nice site.

The first thing that struck me about AllRecipes was its design. Finding recipes is quick and easy. Plus, thanks to a handy navigation pane both in the left sidebar and in the header, I was able to drill-down into what I was looking for without much trouble. Since I was searching for holiday recipes, I started there.

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection. And thanks to the option of choosing recipes based on ratings (the top-20 tab was my favorite) or when they were added to the site, I was able to find recipes that matched what I was looking for. I really liked AllRecipes. It's well-designed and its recipes are great.

All Recipes helps you find the good stuff.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Chow Chow might be best known for providing information on good eating around town, but the site also has a nice selection of recipes.

Chow's selection of recipes won't be as big as other services in this roundup. (It's not dedicated only to recipes, after all.) But what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in an outstanding selection of really good recipes. What's best about Chow is the way in which you choose recipes. You don't have to just search the site to find what you're looking for. You can find options based on ingredients, the type of cuisine you're in the mood for, or based on tags that are placed on all recipes. You can also pick which course you want to make a meal for.

When I used the site, I found that many of the options were right up my alley. Since I eat Italian food often, I was quite happy with the site's selection. Try out Chow. I think you'll like it. (Disclosure: Chow is owned by CBS Interactive, the parent company of CNET.)

Chow has numerous recipes worth trying out.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

(Credit: Twitter)

In observance of Good Friday, a New York church has been Twittering the story of the Passion--the biblical tale of the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. This means that subscribers will receive 140-character updates coming from a set of Twitter accounts run by people playing characters in the story.

Trinity Wall Street is an Episcopal church in Manhattan's Financial District that live-streams its services on the Web, encourages members of the congregation to send video e-postcards to friends and family, and produces its own podcasts. The church's thinking behind offering a Twitter feed of the Passion is to offer a way to bring the day of observance into modern life and technology: While Good Friday is one of the most important days of the church year for many Christian denominations, there are plenty of devout Americans who don't take the day off from work.

But edgy interpretations of the Passion are nothing new. This is the same subject matter depicted in "The Passion of the Christ," the controversial Mel Gibson movie from a few years ago in which the dialogue was presented in the languages of the time without subtitles.

Also worth noting this week: a Passover haggadah depicted in the form of a Facebook news feed.

For the second year, YouTube on Friday unveiled a holiday feature that lets users create hosted video cards to send to friends and family. Users can select this option from any YouTube video, or from a special page that houses selected community videos and links to a user's own clips.

There's also an option to make a more personalized greeting straight from a connected Webcam. For now, only one video can be attached to a given greeting card.

When users are finished picking a video for use in a greeting card, they can choose from a handful of themes that house the video player, then add up to 230 characters of text and send the complete card to up to 25 e-mail recipients.

According to YouTube's company blog, more than a million of these greetings were sent out last year, before the feature disappeared in January.

Turn any YouTube video into a greeting card for the holidays.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Web sites that promise to pay for your old gadgets look bright around the holidays, when every extra dollar can count toward new gifts or even utility bills. But are the services worthwhile? How much can you earn?

We examined nine services that pay for your unwanted digital wares. These are among the newest options to help keep electronics waste out of landfills, while uncluttering your closets.

Click on this image to see what seven services quoted to pay for 11 used electronics.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CBS Interactive)

We looked up what each service said it would pay for working iPods, PDAs, laptops, gaming consoles, and more, with cables but lacking their original boxes. For dead devices, some offer a pittance, or will connect you with willing recyclers and charity recipients. Our chart (at right) shows what each site claims it pays for specific equipment. Keep reading for highlights of the trade-in services.

We can't yet vouch for the start-to-finish experience of mailing in products to these companies. Those that find your equipment in worse shape than you estimated will downgrade the trade-in value.

If you only need to offload an old phone, look out for our upcoming comparison of sites that specialize in refurbishing and recycling handsets, including Cell for Cash, Simply Sellular, and ReCellular.

Animoto, a company that creates videos from a user's photos and music on-the-fly, announced Tuesday that it has added new features to its software that will turn its videos into online holiday greetings.

According to the company, the new holiday feature will use a snowscape to set the scene for the greeting and with the help of its new text feature, users can add captioning to detail events.

In order to create the holiday videos, users can upload photos using Animoto's service and click the "Santa" button, which turns the video into a holiday greeting. A new holiday genre will be added to Animoto's music library so users can pick the holiday song they wish to have played during the video.

Animoto's service is stellar. I've used the site to create videos on a number of occasions and each time, the videos are unique and attractive. The site allows you to upload images and choose music, but its Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology, which acts as the director and editor, will do the rest. That said, creating videos on the service can be a little pricey and unfortunately, Animoto didn't share holiday generosity with its new offering.

Full-length videos cost $3 and annual subscriptions to create an unlimited number of full-length videos will cost $30. Any video that is 30 seconds or less will be free. Animoto claims all of the videos will be DVD-quality and can be viewed on HDTVs or projectors.

(Credit: Animoto)

Do the halls of malls give you a case of the jingle hells? You could kick back for a 20-minute break from rampant consumerism to learn more about the toxic mess it makes of the planet.

Fun, right? Actually, it is with The Story of Stuff. It's a short, friendly movie covering the ABCs of consumer culture. The sky may be falling, but we can prop it up, the film suggests.

The Story of Stuff was produced by Free Range Studios, makers of the Meatrix. That entertaining, animated diatribe against factory farming has attracted more than 15 million viewers. The studio's (Grocery) Store Wars parody has been seen by some 10 million people.

Released just several weeks ago, The Story of Stuff has already enjoyed 416,760 unique visitors. Its makers hope that Stuff might similarly leave a lasting impression that spurs people to rethink their role in a pollution-based economy.

Sure, call it eco-propaganda. Yet, the facts in Stuff are well-researched and cited.

Writer and host Annie Leonard is an environmental activist who has spent two decades touring dumps and factories around the world. The Sustainability Funders and Tides Foundation provided funding.

The first chapter is embedded below, or check out the full 20 minutes at StoryofStuff.com.

Evite added mobile capabilities yesterday to speed up the party-planning process. Its QuickVite features let you send invitations in one step from an e-mail account or mobile phone, and handle RSVPs the same way. Of course, you can also juggle the details at Evite.com.

This could help to make managing a party less exhausting. Even picking a design for an online invitation can waste time, especially for a last-minute get together. For instance, Evite offers 57 templates for cocktail parties alone, not to mention options for dozens of events from anniversaries to weddings.

In one step, you can plan a party and invite people via e-mail and text message.

(Credit: CNET)

The painless sign-up process requires adding mobile numbers for yourself and friends. But it was weird that Evite didn't prompt me to add names already in my address book--a big drawback if you want 50 of your closest pals to join you on that free dinner cruise that takes off in a few hours.

You can ask QuickVite to send event details to your own phone to check who's coming or ditching. Alerts can ping you when folks reply or when a party you're attending changes. Thoughtfully, however, Evite does not set those alerts by default, so you won't be bombarded by text messages on your handset unless you ask for them.

Among some drawbacks, though, I'd like Evite to offer better integration with maps, as MyPunchbowl does. Improved integration between QuickVite and the rest of Evite features would be nice. I wish I could turn a QuickVite into a regular Evite later, in case I wanted to use the mobile invitation as a save-the-date notice, and then flesh out the details of a party when I had more free time.

Still, this is a step in the right direction for Evite, which is adding QuickVite to Facebook. A mobile application that Evite is building could very well add some of the pieces I found missing in QuickVite. In September the company added a send-to-phone capability allowing people to access party details on their handsets.

Evite manages more than 450,000 invitations every month. It's owned by IAC Search & Media, the parent of the Ask.com search engine and Bloglines feed reader.

(See more party-planning services here.)

If a holiday season free of wrapping paper and ribbons is on your wish list, there are many options for giving presents without touching anything but a computer and credit card. Services that can be ordered and received online also can be more eco-friendly than physical presents. Of course, you could always funnel funds directly into someone's PayPal account, but where's the fun (for you) in that?

Netflix offers gift subscriptions from $9 for one month of movie rentals to $108 for one year. GreenCine's rental certificates for indie film buffs start at $44 for two months.

eMusic ($30 for 3 months and up), Rhapsody (starting at 50 songs for $35), and iTunes ($15 and up) offer gift subscriptions for audiophiles. Want to help a friend move their music collection into this century? The mail-in service Riptopia charges about a dollar for each CD it digitizes.

Bibliophiles can order $50 cards worth of electronic books from Audible that are ready for most MP3 players as well as the new Amazon Kindle (although Sony Reader users must shop at that brand's store).

Residents of virtual worlds including Second Life, Habbo Hotel and Maple Story can purchase virtual gifts for avatars. Console gamers can hook up with each other with an xBox Live subscription.

People who like to go places in the real world might appreciate memberships to nearby museums or gifts in their honor to public radio and television stations. Amateur astronomers can get gift certificates between $15 and $100 to Slooh (review here), which lets you control powerful mountaintop telescopes.

For your touchy-feely friends, SpaFinder certificates starting at $50 can be claimed at one of more than 4,000 spas. In downtown San Francisco, $70 per month buys 60 minutes of chair massage through Zubio, whose reservations are all managed online. Of course, you can always buy gift cards through massage therapists near your gift recipient, or find low-priced package deals through their local massage school. Most yoga centers and gyms sell gift certificates just in time for New Year's resolutions.

People who would rather stuff than tone their bellies may eat up gift certificates to restaurants, or a $49 annual subscription to a site like Rouxbe that includes Web-based cooking classes. (also here).

Family focus

For unlimited online storage of so many holiday snapshots, a one-year Pro subscription to Flickr costs $25, while SmugMug charges $35. For $300, Phanphare pledges to store someone's lifetime of photos and videos. Apple fans might want an annual .Mac subscription for $100, or $180 for five folks.

To bring the genetic profiles of your ancestors into the picture, DNA testing kits through Ancestry.com (more here) Genebase or the Genographic Project (more here) start around $100. The Story of My Life service invites people to upload an autobiography for free, and then charges a dollar per megabyte to safeguard that story, purportedly for the benefit of future generations into eternity.

Getting around

To help somebody who can't afford to jet home for the holidays, many airlines offer gift certificates as well as the option to donate frequent-flier miles. Now that the Zipcar car rental by-the-hour service has merged with archrival Flexcar, there will be more vehicles from which to choose in some two dozen cities. Drivers who want to ditch AAA for its eco-unfriendly reputation may prefer the roadside service of the Better World Club, which even offers help for stranded bicyclists.

The greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere from all that driving and flying can't be taken back. At least carbon credits from Native Energy, Carbonfund and TerraPass, and LiveNeutral offer the opportunity to donate to alternative energy projects.

Each year, some 41 pounds of credit card offers, catalogs and other junk mail arrive in your mailbox, according to 41pounds. This service charges $41 for five years of slaying junk mail before it reaches your door. One-third of that price will be donated to one of 36 nonprofits of your choice. Similarly, GreenDimes' junk-mail-busting gift cards start at $15, including 10 trees planted in honor of the giftee.

News hounds and bookworms who want to save trees will find the New York Times fully free online, with the Wall Street Journal expected to follow, but you'll still need to pay Salon to read its articles without ads (its annual Premium subscription often throws in several printed magazines, like Wired).

If you prefer e-greetings to paper cards, one dollar buys your friend a MokuGift animated e-card of a furry creature planting a tree. Meanwhile, the donation supports the planting of a real-world tree through Sustainable Harvest (also see Tree Nation).

In the name of someone who has everything, you can make charitable contributions to people around the planet. Changing the Present offers gift registries to cover such causes as disaster relief, HIV research or minefield cleanup. Alternative Gifts International, Heifer International, Mercy Corps, and Seva are among the groups offering the chance to pay, say, $20 for a flock of chicks for a far-flung farm. Facebook also offers a bunch of gift-giving apps.

The nonprofit Kiva enables you to support a startup in another country with a loan of as little as $25.The new MicroPlace from eBay is similar, but with a $100 entry loan. ModestNeeds will hook you up with someone in the United States who seeks a hand with some painful bills.

Proceeds for the auctions at Bidding for Good, an eBay alternative, go to charities. Tickets for travel packages, as well as for sports and other shows are among the items that leave no objects behind.

A LinkedIn membership may fit the bill for the job seeker or wedded-to-the-job type who lives and breathes social networking. Options include $20 for a Business account, $50 BusinessPlus, or $200 for Pro. For someone who could use a personal assistant, you could give a gift subscription to Ask Sunday. Whether helping to change a doctor's appointment or find an elephant for a wedding, this concierge service is priced monthly at $29 for 30 requests or $49 for 50 requests. Do My Stuff (more here) connects people with others willing to run all kinds of errands including those that must be done in person, such as picking up dry cleaning. Gift cards start at $10, with prices for services determined by bids made by potential assistants.

Any small business owner should back up their data away from the office, but you probably know some who don't. They may thank you later for your initially snoozeworthy offer to pay for online storage. Popular services include Mozy for $5 per month, Carbonite for $50 per year, or xDrive, which costs $10 monthly per 50GB.

(See also Getting cash for crashed gadgets as well as CNET's green gift guide and holiday guide.)