Once upon a time, mobile phones were a futuristic fancy filling TV sets and our imaginations with cordless wonders we could only dream of. Nowadays of course, not only does everyone have one, but it seems like cellular/mobile phone stands can be found on any street corner, each offering a different enticing deal. Which presents a quandary — what’s the best deal for me? That’s where companies like findaMob.com come in. This UK website offers over 20,000 deals compared every day, with the ability to search for a specific phone or contract by monthly costs, minutes, or special functions like MP3 playback. The site also features other special deals like free Nintendo Wiii’s, iPods or Xboxes with certain phone purchases.

Moving is tough for everyone, especially to new cities. Finding real estate agents, apartments, moving companies and storage facilities are the least of it. Also included are things like hotels on the way to the new place, getting directions, or even just the mundane hassle of not knowing what places deliver pizza to your new address. This hassle is amplified for military families who are constantly asked to move as part of the culture. Fortunately for military families in the U.S., there’s resources like MilitaryAvenue.com to help. The website is oriented towards these families, offering both information and resources for relocation, travel and other topics. Another cool thing about the site is their desire to put their mission before their pocketbook, offering free advertising on the website for businesses providing exclusive discounts to the U.S. Military community.

As mentioned in the Community Portal a couple of days ago, the AboutUs community started detailing out the process to more finely present our mission, starting with a community collaborated Thoughts On Vision. As part of that we’re re-committing our focus to champion the lesser known websites, interests, users and communities on AboutUs. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we roll our new features and opportunities to give props to these people and their wiki articles. In the meantime, kudos to Rndinfo.com/Radix, a small website for offshore outsourcing of software solutions in India. A few weeks ago someone from Radix came to AboutUs and really polished up their wiki page. It’s now got a through telling of the services and opportunities they offer, as well as pictures and other great information. Great job and thanks!

It probably isn’t a wonder that the Walt Disney Company has a website full of great activities designed for families to do together. It’s also probably not too surprising that this website, FamilyFun.com, offers a wealth of information on family travel, food, crafts, holidays, and parties. Or that they offer a companion magazine with over 2 million readers that’s also filled with more of the same range of information. Designed for parents and kids, FamilyFun.com lives up to it’s name in the way you’ve come to expect from the Disney family.

Online purchasers are only beginning to realize what people in Portland, OR have known for years, Powell’s Books is simply one of the best bookstores in the world. Centralized by “Powell’s City of Books” (the world’s largest independent new and used bookstore), the Powell’s “chain” encompasses four stores and two specialty shops in the Portland area. Serving up the entire catalog from all the locations, Powells.com presents a way for book lovers to find and purchase materials at great prices. Powell’s also is the only major bookseller to be unionized. The employee’s union runs their own portal, PowellsUnion.com, which allows readers and union supporters the ability to have a portion of their sales go toward the employee profit-sharing plan.

Today’s Forecast: Weather.com offers warm fronts of expert news and forecasts interspersed with 100% chance of radar maps and other meteorological information presented in a friendly format to help you plan your family outing, sporting event, wedding and more. Expect to see continued news and comprehensive coverage from the online home of The Weather Channel, with videos and pictures available around the clock. Visibility is high with forecasts for your location updated with hour-by-hour weather changes, as well as features and a customizable Weather.com page with road information, school closures and airport delays.

Oh, how we love out gadgets. Digital cameras, PDAs, GPS units, MP3 players, Playstations, Nintendos, Xboxes and more. As a culture that lives on the internet, we thrive on our toys. Fortunately for all of us, there’s websites like CNET.com that helps us parse the blitz of new and exciting electronic devices to buy. CNET.com features reviews, prices, discussion and more about the things we seemingly can’t live without. And since the CNET extended media family includes notable sites like TV.com, GameSpot.com and MP3.com, CNET.com is able to pool some of the hottest news and reviews from their sister sites into one place.

Well, here’s a different take on the online auction. Rather than selling goods to the highest bidder, BassaBids.com is selling to the lowest. Okay, not exactly the lowest, but the lowest unique bid. What this means is that if ten people bid $1 for an item, but only one person bids $1.31 and that’s the lowest unique bid, then that person gets the item. It’s a little crazy, and of course, the bidding gets that way as the game becomes how to guess not only what will be a low bid, but something no one else thought of. In the end though, having a chance to get an iPod shuffle for around $1.35 is a steal, with the catch being the nearly $2 BassaBids.com charges for each bid (most items). However, while they are in “beta testing” mode, all bidding is free, so it’s a great time to try them out and see what this craziness is all about.

Sometimes a product, service or website comes along that makes us chuckle (see HolyBling.com and PhonePimp.com). The past couple of days, it’s been CrittergetterOnline.com. While pest control is no laughing matter, this product has such a catchy name, it’s hard not to break a smile. All joking aside, Crittergetter is designed to help kill gophers, moles, voles, shrews or any other burrowing pest. The idea is simple, a hose attaches to your car’s tailpipe and is then run into the offending pest’s burrow, letting the carbon monoxide do the work. While we’re not positive how effective this is, it certainly sounds like it should work, as ghastly as it might seem. Which just begs the question: How different would the movie “Caddyshack” have been if Bill Murray had had one of these to take care of their gopher problem?

Some cool things happening in the AboutUs Community… Fixes: A couple of nagging things were fixed in the last couple days, including the “caching” issue that plagued some users where an edit would be made but the system would not reflect it on save right away; also fixed was the “lowercase first letter” issue that caused articles to always have to start with an initial capital letter, infuriatingly making sites like eBay.com and eNom.com look wrong… Wiki news: Yesterday TechCrunch reported that PB wiki closed a $2 million funding round, “Peanut Butter Wiki” as it’s known specializes in the ability to make a wiki quickly and easily and has been a champion for free speech on the internet… Editing Cheat Sheet: There’s also been some discussion over on the Community Portal about whether the new “cheat sheet” that appears at the bottom of edit windows is a helpful thing, or hinders user’s ability to easily find the “Save” and “Preview” buttons… Chime In: As always, feel free to join the Community Discussion and let us know what you think about these and other topics.