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Nobody likes paying more than they have to for things, it’s a known fact. When you’re buying online, you’ve always got the added convenience of being able to simply choose a store and order it from there—a blessing not present when you’re trying to rush through actual shops to find the best deal. When you’re not buying online, you’ve got the added disadvantage of buying something only to wander into another store to find it for half that price but even if you are purchasing from an e-store, you can easily make this mistake too if you don’t have the right know-how.

This is where ZingSale comes in to solve just that problem for the virtual world. It allows you to easily and quickly find products you’re interested in purchasing soon, setting up alerts and then being notified every time the product lowers in price.

Overview

ZingSale is a nifty web app that allows you to select products you’re interesting in purchasing and the app automatically periodically searches top e-stores to find you the best price, alerting you when the product goes on sale. It has support for a wide range of products and it really is just too simple to use. Just find the product you would like to be notified about, activate alerts, then sit back and wait for the emails from ZingSale telling you just where to find that great deal.

It’s all completely free and the app also lists some of the best deals it offers to ensure that you find exactly what you’re looking for and if not, some other popular products that would make great gift alternatives.

Interface

ZingSale’s attractive and easy-to-use interface makes finding great products and deals a blast. The app is split into several main features that show the top deals available as well as providing a way to search the top ones. These, coupled with the really sleek design ensure the best experience with minimal annoyance.

Getting Started

It’s a really quick process to get a ZingSale account created and once you’ve entered your email address and chosen a password, you will immediately be given access to the website without having to enter any further information. The whole process of using ZingSale really is ridiculously simple and you’re not required to enter massive amounts of information to do it. Once your account is created, you can begin to search for products that you’re looking to get some great deals on and if you don’t really have anything in mind, they offer a wide variety of other popular products to help.

Finding Products

ZingSale offer an extensive range of products that alerts can be activated on. It’s also easy to search for these using their search field, with a fairly wide search criteria. Products can be searched by brand, product name or even by key words associated with that product and once these have been entered, users are immediately taken to a list of relevant items based on what they have entered.

It’s possible to then view an additional product overview page to ensure that the item is exactly what you’re looking for, or you can immediately set up alerts within that page – taking mere seconds.

Deals

As well as allowing you to look for specific products, ZingSale also provides a list of the top deals currently in time for Christmas (or even if you’re just looking to bag some great bargains). It also creates a list of the most popular product searches to allow you to easily products you may have been looking for. Additionally, it also provides a list of categories populated by the most popular products in an effort to provide efficient gift ideas.

Price History

Another nifty little feature of ZingSale is the ability to view a price history on the current item being viewed. This shows, in the form of a graph, the price of the item and how it has fluctuated (if at all) over time. It can be a great insight into whether you really are getting the best deal for that product or it’s been lower-priced lately. Of course, even if it is higher than expected, there’s nothing you can do about it but if you’re simply curious, it can be a really nice insight.

Final Thoughts

Personally, I found ZingSale to be a really great app that I believe will become a great asset to those who have to buy gifts regularly and need the best deals. The design of the app is great and everything’s just really straightforward. It’s dead simple to find exactly what you’re looking for and if not, their list of deals can be a great way to find alternatives. One of the only issues I found with the app is the actual product search feature. Though I found this generally to come up with the exact product I was looking for, there is a problem when some useless accessories are also ranked quite highly within the search results.

A definite feature that would greatly benefit the app is better product relevancy within these results. Other than that, I found no real issues with the app except the possibility of better support for international users but I can understand the difficulty in creating this. ZingSale is one of the few unique apps that come along that can really benefit anyone that does their shopping online, providing not only an efficient method of providing product price data when needed, it also does it really simply.

Would you like to have secure, guaranteed access to all of your bookmarks anytime? With Del.icio.us closing soon (or not?), Ma.gnolia losing all of its members bookmarks last year, and more of us using multiple browsers and devices, we need a better way to keep track of bookmarks wherever you are.

Pinboard is a newer bookmarking site that’s received a lot of attention lately. Co-operated by one of De.licio.us’ founders, it’s fast, simple, and includes many of the same things fans loved about Del.icio.us. You can import all of your bookmarks, including tags and notes exported from Del.icio.us, then quickly add new bookmarks with the bookmarklet, share your bookmarks with friends or keep them private, and find them easily on your desktop or mobile device.

Let’s look at how you can consolidate all of your bookmarks with Pinboard and keep your favorite websites easily accessible.

Getting Started with Pinboard

Pinboard uses a very unique signup process. Unlike many web services, Pinboard costs a one-time fee. Currently it costs around $8 to signup, but the price goes up $0.001 for every signup. The good thing is it’s a one-time fee, not a subscription, so it’s similar to the price of an iOS app. This helps support the service and keep it from getting killed like other bookmarking services. It also helps keep spammers out and makes sure the shared bookmarks are higher quality.

Once you’re ready to give it a try, it’s quick to signup. Just enter your info as normal, then choose to pay with Google Checkout or Paypal—your choice. If you don’t end up liking Pinboard, you can request a full refund within 3 days of signup, so you’ve got nothing to loose.

As soon as your payment is processed, you’ll receive an email with an activation link. Sign in and you’ll be ready to start keeping all of your bookmarks safe in Pinboard. To help you get started, Pinboard will give you some quick tips about using the service. Most helpful is the How-to page, which includes information on importing and exporting bookmarks, along with helpful bookmarklets to help you quickly save and find bookmarks in Pinboard.

Bring All of Your Old Bookmarks

The worst part about switching to a new browser or bookmarking service is the hundreds or thousands of bookmarks you’ve accumulated in different places over the years. Let’s see how you can get each of these pulled into Pinboard for a seamless bookmark experience.

Export Your Delicious Bookmarks

If you’ve been using Delicious to save bookmarks, you’ll want to get all of your bookmarks moved ASAP with the service being shut down soon. Thankfully, it’s easy to get your bookmarks saved and moved. Just head over to the Delicious Bookmark export page, select to include your notes and tags, and click Export. Pinboard can import everything you’ve saved in Delicious, tags and notes included, so no reason to leave anything behind. Save your export file in a safe place; we’ll need it in a few moments.

Export Your Browser Bookmarks

Have you been saving your bookmarks locally in your browser instead? It’s usually pretty easy to export your browser bookmarks. Here’s how to do it in the most popular browsers:

• Chrome: Open the Bookmarks Manager, click Organize, then select Export Bookmarks.
• Firefox: Open the Bookmarks Library, click Import and Backup, then select Export HTML.
• Safari: Open the File menu, then select Export Bookmarks. Leave it to Apple to make it the easiest!
• Opera: Open the Bookmarks manager, click the File button, then select Export Opera Bookmarks.
• Internet Explorer: Open the Bookmarks menu, click the arrow beside the Add to Favorites button, and select Import and Export. Select the Export to a file bullet, then check the Favorites box, select all your bookmarks, and finally save to a file.

Import Everything Into Pinboard

Now that you’ve got all of your bookmarks ready to be imported, head over to the Pinboard import page. Click Choose File, then select one of your bookmark export files and click Upload. Repeat this for all of your bookmark export files you’ve saved. Now you’ll need to wait a bit as Pinboard imports your favorites. Usually this takes a few moments, but it may take a couple hours right now as they’re experiencing a large number of new signups this weekend.

Using Pinboard

Once everything’s all imported, you’ll be ready to use Pinboard as your default bookmarking solution. Let’s look at all the features and see how you can put it to use the best for your needs.

Adding New Bookmarks

The main reason most of us just save bookmarks locally in our browsers is because it’s fast and easy. Online bookmarking doesn’t have to be difficult and Pinboard makes it just about as easy as pressing the Bookmark button in your browser. The easiest way to bookmark is using the Pinboard bookmarklets. Go to the Pinboard How-to page, and drag the bookmarklets you want into your browser’s bookmarks bar.

There’s several different ones available: the popup ones open a new small window that let you save a bookmark without leaving the page you’re on, while the same page bookmarklet opens the Pinboard bookmarking page in your current tab. Either which you choose, you’ll be able to add notes and tags to your bookmark and save it in seconds.

Often you interact with links you’d like to remember but aren’t currently visiting, such as links in Google Reader or articles you’ve saved in Instapaper. From your Pinboard settings page, you can add your account info for a variety of services so your links added there will automatically be saved in your Pinboard account. You can also activate bookmarking by email, which is a great way to save links from your smartphone.

Finding Info When You Need It

Pinboard has a very clean and simple interface, and is very easy to use. You can quickly view and edit notes and tags you’ve saved, or just click a link directly to visit the site. Any editing you need to do can be done right there on the same page without reloading any pages.

Need to find a bookmark you’ve saved, or want to explore bookmarks others have saved publicly in Pinboard? The search box provides speedy access to all the bookmarks in Pinboard, so you can find the info you need and add new bookmarks directly from the public collection.

No matter where you go, you can always find your bookmarks with the Pinboard mobile site. Some newer alternate browsers such as the Cyberspace iOS browser include native support for Pinboard bookmarking. Plus, if you enabled email posting, you can save bookmarks from your smartphone as well.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a great alternative to Delicious, or just want to keep your bookmarks in a safer place accessible anywhere, Pinboard is a great option. With integrated support for tons of services and a fast web interface, bookmarks are no longer a hassle to deal with. Pinboard is getting a lot of new signups right now so imports are taking quite a while. If you try it out today, be patient, and it’ll be back to it’s spiffy self soon. It’s one of the closest alternatives to Delicious.

Last week was a great one for data lovers who were waiting for a bird’s eye view of 2010 as it comes to a close. Google and Twitter published the trends they’ve spotted based on user engagement at their sites, Bing tweaked flight travel search, Hunch lent a helping hand to find gifts, Chrome crossed 10,000 extensions and Posterous launched groups.

Read on for some of this week’s best web app news and updates you might’ve missed!

Top Trends on Twitter

As the year draws to a close, everybody who is somebody on the internet came out with their top trends or topics and so has Twitter. From earthquakes and politics to popstars and hashtags, Twitter Trends are a window into what the world is talking about. The top most topic to trend all through the year was the Gulf oil spill, followed by FIFA World Cup and Inception (the movie). While at it, do check out the gorgeous tree view of important people who joined Twitter this year.

Hunch Gift-O-Matic Predicts Gift Ideas for Twitter Users

Picking up gifts is an art; to master it, you have to actually listen to people what they are saying (tough task!). Now that the conversation has spilled over into the internet universe, you can actually look for clues as to what a person wants only when have to. The ultra reliable recommendation engine Hunch has launched Gift-o-Matic to make your task even simpler. Enter any Twitter username into the Gift-o-matic and it will predict specific gifts that the person might like. Voila!

Chrome Crosses 10,000 Extensions

While Google Chrome has no respect for version numbers, they did take time out to boast about their extensions count. Apparently Chrome now has over 10,000 extensions (themes and plugins put together) that enhance the capability of the browser. While Chrome extensions are not as fully featured as their counterparts and competitors at the Firefox Plugin repository, they help get the job done.

Google Zeitgeist 2010

Nobody processes (snoops) data as Google does. Based on the aggregation of billions of search queries people typed into Google this year, Zeitgeist captures the spirit of 2010. If not for anything, check out the neatly designed page that makes data consumption so much simpler.

Find and Book Flights Faster With Bing

After Google’s acquisition of airline software maker ITA, a lot of folks in the online travel and search verticals are worried. If the deal gets regulatory nod, there’s a very good chance that Google gets a lion’s share of the travel search market, worth billions of dollars. Bing is the first one from that list to announce faster flight search and booking for its users. You can use a number of different combinations including airline names, number of stops or time of year in your searches. Should be useful for planning trips for the holidays!

Email Delegation Comes to Gmail

People who use email more often mostly prefer Gmail, mainly for its powerful features and simplicity. If you’re a Gmail user, there’s a pretty good chance that you have multiple Gmail accounts. Until now, accessing multiple accounts means you will have to log out of one and login to another—not anymore. With the new email delegation feature, you  can grant your personal account access to a shared account and view, organize and send mail on behalf of that shared account. Sounds nice and easy!

Teach Parents Tech

Parents, however learned they are, are often wary or slow to adopt new technology, in particular computers and internet. Yes, you can teach them how to do it, but everyone has their learning curve (and patience!). Why not let people who actually know a lot about Internet teach them with professionally created videos? For free. And how convinced would you be if it were Google? Should really be a fun learning experience for parents and computer newbies as well.

Restore Your Contacts

The great thing with the advent of smartphones is the manner in which they moved contacts to the cloud and simplified navigation with digital maps. Google Contacts is the primary mode of syncing contacts to the cloud if you are using an iOS or Android mobile. Accidental edits and deletions happen while on the go and at times can be so devastating. Thanks to Google, now we get to restore contacts by date and time. Visit Gmail’s Contacts section, select “Restore contacts” in the “More actions” menu, and choose the time you would like to revert to. You can go back for about 30 days.

Introducing Posterous Groups

Posterous lets you run a blog by just sending an email to a preset email address. While not as huge as Tumblr, they do have a sizable userbase. Posterous Groups is a new service for communicating privately with your friends, family and colleagues.  Every time you post to the group, all members will receive the full content as an email and the default privacy setting is set Private. This should comfort people that their content is sent only to the hand picked audience.

Share Your Thoughts!

What news from the app universe grabbed your attention in the past few days?