Like it or not, the holiday shopping season is upon us. Luckily for those of us who dread the thought of wandering through crowded malls and department stores with Christmas music assaulting our ears at every turn, this nifty little tool called the Internet is here to help save our sanity. Still, scouring dozens of Web sites for the very best deal on that perfect gift is exhausting on a whole 'nother level. To that end, Superfish--a visual search engine developer that just raised $4 million in funding--has created a nifty app called Window Shopper.

Window Shopper is a browser add-on that's available for IE and Firefox. The extension is quite simple: if you're shopping for an item within any of the hundreds of available stores, a "See Similar" button will appear next to the photo of the item. Clicking the button brings up a bubble (your virtual window, as it were) that shows pics, prices, and availability of similar products.

Just how similar the comparison items are varies, though. For instance, the KitchenAid stand mixer I searched for on Target.com populated a selection of the exact same product from across various sites (as shown in the screenshot above). However, a comparison for a pair of shoes on Nordstrom's Web site produced rather different results.

In other words, the Window Shopper app may give you directly competing listings for the item you're interested in, or it may populate a list of similar (but different) products, possibly even from the same site. Thus, the usefulness varies depending on what exactly you're looking for: a better price or similar items. There doesn't appear to be a way to tinker with settings to focus in on what you need.

The other issue is that it doesn't work on all sites (Zappos being a prime example), and the functionality doesn't activate if, say, there's a video instead of a still image in the main product slot (as with the Kindle on Amazon). Still, Window Shopper's still in beta--and it's free--so these are a minor complaints, really. It's worth checking out if you do a lot of online shopping.

The latest Firefox 4 beta comes with an easy hack to help tab addicts cover the high cost of memory-devouring tabs. Watch how to enable this key function of the BarTab add-on, without installing the add-on itself.

With the startling variety of products offered by online retail giant Amazon.com, it's no wonder the site is the go-to Web depot for all manner of holiday shopper. Interestingly, though, digital media gifting was notably absent from the store's repertoire--until last week. The company first announced a new feature allowing Kindle book gifting; unsurprisingly, MP3 gifting capability was launched almost immediately after.

Giving the gift of digital music is just as straightforward as you'd expect, and works largely in the same manner as e-book gifting. Simply visit the Amazon MP3 Music store, select a single track or an entire album, and enter the e-mail address of the recipient. You also have the option to add a personal note along with your musical offering.

Once all the requisite info is filled out, you can check out and select payment as with any other Amazon purchase. The recipient of the MP3 gift will be notified by e-mail within 5 minutes. The recipient is prompted to download the tracks, or has the option of exchanging the gift for store credit--a handy feature for those with finicky taste in music.

Sadly, there doesn't appear to an option to schedule the timing of the e-mail for, say, Christmas morning or a person's birthday. Also, I have to say that though any gesture is sure to be appreciated, fully digital gifts aren't nearly as exciting as a wrapped package or even an envelope-ensconced card--there's just no substitute for that tangibility. That said, the ability to send one-off MP3s via Amazon is definitely a welcome feature.

Originally posted at Webware

Ever heard the term "kludge"? It refers to a workaround, a cobbled-together solution to a problem. Usually, it ain't pretty, but it works.

Collect3's CoBrowser is a kludge, a way around Apple's limitation on apps that enable tethering. With it, a Wi-Fi iPad can tap an iPhone's 3G connectivity--no jailbreaking required. It's extremely limited, and it ain't pretty, but it works.

Just to clarify, CoBrowser doesn't actually tether your iPad to your iPhone. Instead, it shares the latter's screen with the former, and then only for Web browsing. Before you shake your head in dismay, consider the value in being able to surf on your iPad even when there's no Wi-Fi available. Pretty tempting, right?

To get started, install the $1.99 app on both your devices, then enable Bluetooth on both--it's how CoBrowser communicates. Run the app on your iPhone and tap Host Session; then run it on your iPad and tap Join Session. Presto! You're connected.

Once this happens, CoBrowser launches its own custom browser (one that's virtually identical to Safari)--on both devices. As you'll quickly discover, the iPhone is actually sharing its screen with the iPad; that's the "tethering" trick CoBrowser pulls off. So as you browse on your iPhone, you see everything writ large on the iPad.

It works the other way, too--you can navigate the browser on your iPad as well--but with one very irksome limitation: whenever you open a page or tap a link on the iPad, an "Accept Incoming Request" alert appears on your iPhone, and you have to tap to confirm it. Every single time.

That definitely diminishes the overall experience, which is why you may prefer to do the navigating on your iPhone and only the reading on your iPad. What's more, the CoBrowser browser offers no way to import your existing bookmarks, another irksome limitation. And if you want to do anything other than browsing--check e-mail, stream a video, etc.--you can forget it.

Like I said, it's a kludge. But it works, and does so for the extremely affordable price of 2 bucks. To put that in some perspective, AT&T charges an extra $20 per month for traditional tethering. If you own an iPhone and a Wi-Fi iPad, you may find CoBrowser the answer to a prayer. Or half the answer, anyway.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Those of you ready to shop for the holidays now have a new tool to find the best prices.

Available today in Apple's App Store, Amazon's new and free Price Check for the iPhone tries to find the best deals on items among both online and offline retailers. iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users shopping at their favorite outlets can compare prices on the shelves against those at other stores as well as at Amazon and other online vendors.

You'll find a variety of ways to get the app to recognize an item. You can take a picture of the product's bar code. You can snap a photo of a book, DVD, CD, or video game. You can speak the name of the product. If all else fails, you can simply type the name of the item into the app's search field.

Amazon then matches the product's photo or description with the same item already in its database and provides a list of vendors and their respective prices. Price Check even offers details on the item and reviews from other Amazon users.

If you find an item and a price you like, you can buy the item directly through the app, whether it's sold by Amazon or by another retailer through Amazon. You can share prices on your favorite items through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter as a not-so-subtle holiday wish list for friends and family.

"We've worked hard to have low prices at Amazon, and we like it when customers comparison shop so they know they're getting a good deal," Sam Hall, director of Amazon Mobile, said in a statement. "We hope this app will empower customers to shop with confidence this holiday and any other day."

I tried the app on my iPod Touch, and the accuracy was solid. I snapped pictures of different books and CDs, and Price Check got every item right, each time pointing me to Amazon and other online bookstores and CD sellers. The voice recognition was equally on the money. I spoke the names of some of the tech gadgets cluttering my office, and the app picked up each one and again delivered prices from several different retailers. Beyond tracking down those items, the app can find many other products, from appliances to jewelry to clothes to groceries.

For anyone planning to hit the local stores and malls this season, Price Check can be a handy app to take with you to make sure your favorite retailer is giving you the best deal.

Originally posted at Crave

If you run a small Web site or blog, you need a solid FTP client to keep your site up to date. ForkLift packs speed and flexibility into a tidy user interface that helps you manage files without a lot of fuss. This latest update includes a laundry list of new features and enhancements making it a must-download for ForkLift users and definitely worth checking out if you're in the market for a good FTP client.

Also this week, we have the latest version of Geekbench, the benchmarking utility that lets you accurately measure your Mac's memory and processor performance. Our game this week is Kitty Spangle's Solitaire, a cartoonish, but challenging solitaire game with 46 variations of the popular card game.

Don't forget to check out our iPhone apps of the week!