I use Amazon's Wish List not just so others know what to get me come birthdays and holidays, but also to track items I'm interested in buying for myself--once the price goes down, that is.

Unfortunately, Amazon won't notify me of price drops. Thankfully, Wish Radar will. This free service lets you set a target price for each item on your Wish List, then pings you via e-mail or text message when one hits it.

I just realized something: Outlook is impeding my workflow! No, not by being slow and bloated--I've accepted that. I'm talking about how it handles attachments.

Specifically, when I click the little paper clip to add an attachment to an outgoing e-mail, I'm automatically directed to the My Documents folder. Well, guess what, I store most of my data in a root folder called, aptly enough, Data.

As you've probably heard by now, Apple just announced plans to ditch DRM for good. That means all songs you purchase from iTunes will arrive on your PC without the usual copy-protection shackles.

However, this doesn't give you carte blanche. Because Apple still encodes songs using the proprietary AAC format, your downloads won't play in many phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and so on.

iTunes does a respectable job of downloading album artwork, but it seems like there's always a few songs or albums that trip it up. In my library, for instance, the software has trouble with various jazz classics.

Fortunately, it's a simple matter to manually add artwork to any song that needs it. For starters, let iTunes take another crack at it: right-click the song and choose Get Album Artwork. If the artwork database was updated since iTunes last scanned your library, you might get lucky.

Common dilemma: You come across a cool Web site you want to revisit later, but how will you remember you want to revisit it later? Sure, you can bookmark it, but then it might get lost and/or forgotten amidst your hundreds of other bookmarks.

Enter Toread, a handy little service that sends bookmarks to your inbox. What's the advantage? Simple: The site stays on your radar. Think of it as an e-mail reminder: "Hey, look at me!"

Back when I was a Palm Centro owner, I used the excellent freeware app MiniTones to turn Brendan Benson's "Spit It Out" into my ringtone. But when I upgraded to an iPhone, I discovered that iTunes charges 99 cents for ringtones--even if you already own the song.

My cheapskate nature doesn't allow for that. (It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing.) So I decided to "roll my own" iPhone ringtone, which turned out to be a fairly easy process.

Most tech-savvy users know how to select multiple files: Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking each individual file. Of course, that can get a little tricky if you're working with a long list and/or a lot of files: It's too easy to mis-click and "lose" all your selections.

That's why I'm loving an undocumented Vista feature: checkboxes. Instead of holding down the Ctrl key, you simply click a checkbox next to each file you want to select.

So long, AIM. Farewell, Yahoo Instant Messenger. See you in hell, Windows Live Messenger. Though I still love to chat on your networks, I don't love your bloated, intrusive, still-non-cross-platform-after-all-these-years software.

Programs like Pidgin and Trillian solve the cross-platform problem, allowing you to sign into multiple networks under a single software roof. But they're still software, and I'm trying install fewer programs on my PC, not more.

By default, Internet Explorer 7's search box taps Windows Live Search--not the least bit surprising given that the latter is Microsoft's baby. Unfortunately... hmmm, how to put this politely... Windows Live Search bites.

The good news is, there's an easy to tweak Internet Explorer so it uses the search engine of your choice. Like, say, Google. Here's how:

It's rare these days that I need to send or receive a fax, but it does happen. However, you won't find a fax machine on my desk--I rely on Web tools for all my faxing needs. Here's how you can do likewise:

• eFax Free I've had the same free eFax number for as long as I can remember. Seriously, it's probably been 10 years. When you sign up for one of your own, you get a randomly selected fax number. Inbound faxes arrive in your e-mail inbox; eFax's software lets you open, view, save, and print them.
• FaxZero Need to send a fax? eFax charges for the privilege (you need a Plus or Pro account), but FaxZero lets you send faxes for, well, zero. Just enter the recipient's name and fax number, then browse your hard drive for any Word document or PDF. (Use your scanner's scan-to-PDF option if your document is still in analog form.) Documents must be no longer than three pages, and the recipient will find an ad on the cover page--but the price is right. For $1.99, you can fax an ad-free document of up to 15 pages.

There are other freebie fax services out there, but I've had great luck with these two. Mostly, of course, I just e-mail everything. What about you? Still using a fax machine, or have you consigned it to the scrap heap?

Much as I love the idea of using a service like Skype to make free PC-to-PC phone calls (and cheap PC-to-landline calls), it's yet another program to install, and yet another drain on my system's already strapped resources.

Enter GizmoCall, which offers Skype-like calling capabilities but requires no special software. Instead, it works right inside your browser-any browser, on any system (Windows, Mac, or Linux).

Sites like Askville and Yahoo Answers have long offered community-fed answers to many of life's questions (technical and otherwise). Now Microsoft is getting in on the answers act with the aptly named Microsoft Answers.

This new service is designed for a sole purpose: to address all your Vista OS-related questions. And the answers come not just from fellow users, but also from Microsoft support pros. In fact, according to the site, the "Microsoft Answers Team" has a dozen members just waiting to help out.