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With gas prices (well, and everything else) going up, there’s nothing more valuable than a good travel info site. Want to buy tickets back home for the holidays but got no cash? Don’t want to waste your time going from airline to airline? Or, better yet, one of the lucky few that can manage to fly out of a couple different airports? Kayak might just be for you.

On surface, Kayak might not be a lot different than Travelocity, Orbitz, you name it. But try it out once or twice and you will begin to see the difference. Kayak features a lot of the same options– flights, hotels, cars, vacations, cruises, deals, etc.– but the difference is that it searches other search sites instead of just doing its own. The end result is that you get wayyy more results in a shorter amount of time.

Kayak also features the super-helpful option of selecting nearby airports in case you can fly out of several places. Add in the one-way option or multi-city option for flights, and you have one handy search engine for travel. Kayak claims to search 140 + sites at once.

I think that is a pretty good review of the website, except for, of course, the best feature of all: it works. In numerous trials, I find Kayak to pretty reliably give the best prices. You might find a better price if you go directly to the airline site, but then again, kayak can help you narrow down which airlines you want to try.

Cons? There are some. For starters, there is a stupid log in process that is annoying unless you just save the password on your computer. Secondly, the pages can occasionally take some time to load, and make sure you wait, as often the best results will come up last. Other than that though, Kayak is definitely worth a try!

Back to school is upon us once again, and that means …

New pencil cases and Trapper Keepers? Well, maybe. But more importantly for this post, it means the day the colleges have come to fear the most: the release of the US News & World Report college rankings. Many, many good schools are disparaged by these rankings, and many others are unnecessarily praised. (I actually used to work in higher education administration, so you can trust me on this. Or just use your common sense and read this post.)

Look, I know you are going to look at the rankings. It’s fine, go ahead. Just promise me that a) you won’t make rash application decisions based on them, and b) you’ll take a look at the 5 sites I’m going to talk about below. First, though, let me give you an idea of what you are getting when you drool over those rankings.

US News & World Report rankings

For starters, get an idea of what they are actually looking at when they go to rank schools. In other words, look at methodology. I guarantee you that the formula will be boring and complicated, but you can learn some interesting tidbits. For instance, the US News uses financial resources and alumni giving as indicators of quality. Certainly, you don’t want your kid going to some place that is struggling to pay the bills– but then again, endowment doesn’t always guarantee a good experience. Also, peer perception is an ingredient in the rankings– meaning that high-placed faculty at other institutions are giving their opinions of other schools. Because they really understand what it is like to be a student now…seriously, what they are reviewing is the quality of research happening at a school. Again, this can be important if the kid is a rocket scientist– but things like internships and study abroad programs are just as important for most students. In other words, take the rankings as an opinion, not fact.

It is also interesting to note that US News might be losing some of its grip on the market. As universities have complained about the subjective nature of the rankings, college participation has dropped to 46%. Also cropping up in the picture are rankings released by Forbes, which use a different set of criteria. Although I would love to say that these rankings were more informative, sadly I think they might even be worse. Accounting for a full 50% of a school’s overall rank are its rankings derived from RateMyProfessor.com and number of alums in Who’s Who in America. Seriously??

Enough about rankings. Let’s get to what is actually useful. Here are 5 websites, all easy to use, that will absolutely help you in your college search. They won’t have all the answers, but they’ll get you started– and, more importantly, they are objective and useful!

College Navigator:

College Navigator is a website run by the federal government where you can basically run your own college search based on factors of your choosing. Pros: completely objective (like, it’s the government!) and completely comprehensive– every institution in the nation, I think. It will give you great starting information– majors, costs, etc. Will it give you a feel for what it’s like to be on campus during Thursday afternoons in the fall? Um, that’s what visits are for! Cons: site navigation could use some sprucing; it’s not exactly eye-catching.

Student Aid on the Web:

Another great portal site by the government. This is a place for you to go when you are just first getting started in your search. Learn about financial aid and everything else in one place. Of particular note: try out the Fafsa4caster, a tool which you can use to estimate your financial need. You can even transfer the results into the FAFSA when you are ready to do that.

Fin Aid:

Betcha can’t guess what this site is about, huh? Everything and anything about financial aid! Particularly good section on private and federal loans. This site is all about information, and you can trust that you will get the right information here. There is also some scholarship information. If the word “FAFSA” makes you want to hide, check this site out before dragging out those tax forms.

Fastweb:

The mother of all scholarship searches. Make your own profile, and start applying! This site is fantastic and makes the process painless. And it’s free. NEVER EVER pay for a scholarship search– you shouldn’t pay to get free money that you deserve anyway! With fastweb, you won’t need to.

Peterson’s:

It sort of pains me to include one of the giants of the college search industry, but I know that most of you will go to one anyway, and this is the one that I recommend. You probably can get the same exact info at College Navigator– and with a lot less ads to boot– but this site navigation is a little prettier for sure. Just be responsible!

Ok, there are five websites to get you started. Check back in often or subscribe, as I will offer more tips as the school year gets started!

- robyn

My laptop was stolen on Saturday afternoon.

For once, I wasn’t careless; I wasn’t stupid. I was sitting in a coffeshop, working, and three teenagers walked in. One of them, the biggest, strode towards me, grabbed the laptop literally out from under my typing hands, and ran out. I chased them for about 2 blocks until they headed into a block of crowded apartments. I wasn’t going to follow them into their own turf.

I’m not shocked that my laptop got stolen– in fact, it probably should have happened sooner, given that I’m a trusting person who thinks nothing of asking strangers to watch my stuff. The shocking part is how it happened; how audaciously and overtly. The laptop wasn’t just stolen– it was taken from me, wrenched from my hands. Somehow it seems more violent; somehow it bothers me more.

But what bothers me the most is the small but important part my liberal naivete played in the whole scene. Here is the whole truth of what happened:

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Nice to meet ya.

Warning: this is not a “get rich quick” site. Nor a drop “30 pounds in 2 weeks!” site. Come to think of it, it isn’t even a “how to find your true self” site. What it might be, though, (I’m hoping) is that last step before you take a big leap. A place to gather yourself, take a look around, and maybe tackle the one thing you really want to change. Because change is good, and mostly people are, too.

at the jump > inspiration for the rest of us