Free flash slideshow for your website

If you are looking for a cool, free flash slideshow player for your website, check out Simpleviewer. As suggested by the name, it is pretty simple :-).

Some nifty features include:

• Automatic resize according to the browser window size.
• It automatically starts downloading all the pictures in a particular gallery (folder) in the background. So, if the picture size is bigger, and your speed is low, it helps you to have a smoother experience, instead of waiting for each picture to load after clicking on the thumbnail.
• Control over the thumbnail strip (number of rows and columns).
• Backcolor, forecolor control.
• Easy gallery (xml) generation from Picasa.

Missing features:

• There is no auto advance feature (or slideshow). So, you have to click on each picture manually.
• No option to download the picture by right-clicking. You do, however, get an option to open the image in a new tab or window.
  

If you do not anticipate the total size of your albums to grow beyond 250 MB, I would suggest using Picasa web albums for hosting your images.
There are other free Flash albums available as well, but they all seemed to be lacking some features, although they looked cooler in whatever they did (For example, Slooz).

Airfare predictions?

Another airfares-related website referred to my by one of friends is Farecast. As indicated by the domain name, this website predicts the trend of the airfares between important US airports (it says 75+ cities right now) for the next few weeks. They also allow you to search for fares, but I would suggesting using Kayak or Sidestep for that purpose. I would suggest starting from Farecast to help you decide when to buy, that is, if you are fortunate enough to be flying from one of their listed airports. After deciding the time, use Kayak or Sidestep to search for the right website to buy from.
I did not find this information in their FAQ section, but I am guessing they are using historical data to predict the airfares.
I have not yet had a chance to use it. So, I am not sure of how reliable this really is, but check it out anyway if you get a chance, and let others know if it is any good.

Searching for lower airfares

For over a year, I have been using Kayak to search for airfares online. It is a really great tool, and you will never need to visit multiple travel sites (travelocity, orbitz, expedia, etc.). It is a one-stop place which will actually go and visit all of these and lots of other sites, and give you the lowest fares out of all of these. I found out about this site while I was watching CNN (they have a news section related to airfares).
Kayak has a really simple interface, and is super-easy to use. I love the way how you can use a slider to change your departure and arrival time ranges. Another nice feature is how they completion-match (guess) your airport while you are typing (Take a hint Orbitz :-)).
A friend of mine told me about another website which is based on the same concept: Sidestep. Sidestep and Kayak are pretty similar. Historically, they have given me the same results. I like Kayak because it has a slider for times, while Sidestep has a slider for price instead. Kayak also lets you see the flight details in a popup (that javascript type in-line popup), while in Sidestep, you have to click on a link to see the details. Then you need to go back to look at other options. Which one you end up using, in my opinion, depends on your personal preference. My friend still likes Sidestep better, and I still prefer Kayak.