As technology becomes a larger part of our lives, we find ourselves casting aside our old gadgets in favor of new ones. As a result, cell phones, PDAs, and GPS units end up in a junk drawer. But they don’t have to end up there. Here are 11 sites where you can trade your old - and sometimes dead - gadgets in for actual money, gift cards, and even charitable donations to your favorite causes.

With the holidays coming up, could there be a better time than now to make some money while also helping out the environment?

In the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. Many stores offer tremendous discounts starting very early in the morning. For some, the day becomes a major operation as they strategize where to go for the best deals.

Luckily, there are websites that provide information from various retailers’ ad circulars in one handy location. Here are 10 sites to help you research deals to plan your Black Friday.

You can look up ads by retailer or category, or just sit back and talk about your favorite Black Friday stories on these sites’ various forums. What are your plans for the biggest sale day of the year? (more…)

You would be hard pressed to go anywhere in the world where people don’t know exactly what you mean when you say, “Bond, James Bond.”  Not surprising seeing as there are 22 movies spanning over a 40 year history; it’s a bit difficult to avoid exposure to the British agent with a license to kill.

The 22nd film, Quantum of Solace, is opening across the United States today, and so it seemed a good time to take a look at James Bond related sites across the Web.  From official sites to fan sites, and even one that prides itself on figuring out the real world counterparts to Bond’s gadgets, there is a bit of something for everyone.

Government is increasingly putting much of its public records online, creating opportunities for developers to build useful applications for citizens. From being alerted to neighborhood crime to finding the best mass transit routes, these mashups are helping solve everyday problems.

Recently, the Washington DC government launched the Apps for Democracy contest to encourage developers to build applications using its data. Today, the winners were announced, and below, we take a closer look at 17 of them.

Let us know which are your favorites and which you’d like to see in your city. (more…)

Video on devices like the iPod, iTouch and iPhone look great because of their MPEG-4 H.264 format. The good news is that there are tons of videos that you can purchase from the iTunes store, but the bad news is that you’ll go broke in a hurry downloading everything you want. Sure, some of the videos aren’t much ($1.99 each), but the numbers add up really quickly.

Torley amplifies your awesome with the useful and fun. He loves life, wife, and watermelons. You can check out his profiles at Torley.com

I’m thrilled that websites are increasingly becoming aware that long registration forms discourage you from joining them. Like free drinks at a bar, there have been a few core approaches used to increase your chances of committing: simply shortening a form and leaving much info optional until later is a popular choice, and so is allowing you to test-drive or tour features firsthand before ever giving away your personal info.

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog.

Your Twitter community is your life line. The strength of your community determines overall what you will (or won’t) get out of the microblogging platform. What do you want to use Twitter for? I wanted to build a community where I could engage in dialogue, stay ahead of the social media curve and share some laughs.

No one likes using up their cell phone minutes, and that is where VoIP services come in handy. VoIP offers up an inexpensive alternative to traditional phone calls, making VoIP for the iPhone a great deal.

While the iPhone has not officially supported VoIP service, Apple isn’t saying it’s not allowed either. With all of that in mind, there are two camps of VoIP services popping up for the popular Apple device: official applications and Web based solutions.  Each style has their pros and cons, but there is sure to be something in these eleven options to help you meet your needs.

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also writes a PR and social media blog.

On an average business day, more than 2,000 press releases are distributed by the five leading wire services in the United States – Business Wire, Marketwire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire, and PRWeb. What can you do to set your press release apart from the pack and allow your target audience to find you? Implement the use of search engine optimization, or SEO. (more…)

Not many Web sites allow you to create your own pages, but many do allow you to create segments of HTML. What if you wanted to allow this on your own site? Do you write your own editor? Well, with the capabilities offered by these six embedded HTML editors, there really is no need to write your own.

If you already use embeddable HTML editors, tell us more about your experiences with them in the comments.