Dictionary.com is an old favorite of mine for quick reference while surfing the web. I often use it to decode exactly what the hell Tycho from Penny Arcade is talking about: I’m convinced he blogs with a thesaurus next to his iMac. The site was always very useful, if a bit slow, but it had become very dated looking and some would argue downright ugly over the past few years. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised today when I punched in the URL and found a nicely redesigned, clean interface. It still offers users the ability to search using dictionary or thesaurus modes, but now there is an intriguing encyclopedia feature as well. For power users they are rolling out new premium subscriptions for $19.99/month that will allow visitors to view the site ad-free and with enhancements such as color illustrations and word games. One negative note: the audio pronunciations that were once part of the free site are now only available with a subscription.

Feel like working outside the office today? Sounds like a good plan, but where to go? Starbucks costs money and the local library doesn’t have wireless access yet. Windows Live Hotspot Locator allows you to search for nearby hotspots so you can be sure you will have internet access before venturing into the great outdoors with your handy laptop. The service boasts 99 countries and 106,978 paid and free WiFi hotspots. If you desire a more specific locale, you can drill down with the Advanced Search, allowing you to specify certain categories (Airport, Bar, Beach etc). Once you submit your details, you will get a list of results organized by distance from your starting location and icons indicating whether they are free or paid access points. You also have the ability to view the results on a map in case you are not familiar with the area. I’ve got to hand it to Microsoft for this service. The site is attractive, not cluttered and highly functional. Imagine if they designed their operating systems this way!

Did everyone see the slick new look for Del.icio.us? They have a totally revamped layout that displays thumbnail pics of all your bookmarked pages and “Digg-style” tallys for how many other people bookmarked the same sites. For those new to Del.icio.us, it is a social bookmarking service where you can store your bookmarks for access on any computer as well as share them with other users and groups. One of the really nice things about the site is the ability to add links to your account using their bookmarklet. Whenever you are surfing the web and come upon a site that you like, you just click a button in your browser’s toolbar and that site will be added to your Del.icio.us account along with whatever tags you would like to associate with it. It is one of the first (that I remember) truly web 2.0 sites that completely embraced the collaborative powers of the net.

I’ve recently decided to start taking a hard look at my budget and where my money is going each month. That’s why I was glad to find, through the all-knowing beings over at Lifehacker, some great blogs about personal finance.

Get Rich Slowly is the result of one blogger’s study of multiple personal finance books. After reading all these books, he attempted to get his thoughts down in writing with a post called “Get Rich Slowly!” and his blog was born. I found some really helpful articles here including How to Give Yourself a Raise and Make Some Noise to Save Some Money. J.D.’s posts are insightful and concise and his advice is very easy to implement into your own life.

I Will Teach You to be Rich is the brainchild of Ramit Sethi, a recent Stanford graduate and entrepreneur. Ramit mixes some humor into his extremely thorough articles, making for some nice light reading that packs in a lot of great ideas and advice about personal finance. Check out How I Got My Credit Scores and Credit Report for Free and his excellent What’s Easier Now Than Later? series. Ramit has also sends out a newsletter and has various other occupations.

For the geek in all of us…ok, the geek in me, there is Getting Finances Done. This is a mixture of a personal finance blog and David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology which basically makes it the geek equivalent of a speedball. Getting Finances Done has been immensely helpful in the development of my personal budget. I highly recommend 3 Reasons Why Most Budgets Don’t Work (and How to Fix Them) and the excellent follow-up piece, How to Create a Zero-Based Budget.

Whether you are an old pro at managing your finances or just getting started, these blogs are full of great advice and useful information!