I remembered yesterday, when I was on the road and needed to know the digits of a local drug store, that there was a way to find out said info.

Instead of using the typical (and costly) information services available through land-lines and cell phones you can just dial 800-FREE-411. (This translates to 800-373-3411.) What you’ll get is this:

• A free, voice-automated directory assistance.
• No need to fear telemarketers.

Typical 411 services range from $1.49 to as much as $3.49 per phone number. So how in the name of all that is holy and sacred is this new one gratuit? The whole thing works a little like a radio station. You end up listening to two incredibly brief audio advertisements. One comes before you ask for a listing, and the second comes right before you hear the listing. That’s it.

In the words of Jingle Networks, Inc.:

Our sponsors cover the service cost by playing short advertising messages (about 15 seconds) — ads usually based on your search request. Say you’re looking for a local pizza place. We might play you a special offer from Dominos. And we’ll even connect you for free. Of course, you can always just get the original number you requested. Best part is, a typical call to us lasts about the same amount of time as a paid 411 call.

For more of the F.A.Q. about 800-FREE-411, just click this sentence. Then add the sucker to your cell phone’s contact list or speed dial, baby. (By the way, lest we forget, it’s totally legit.)

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Editor’s Note, Part I: Just for the sake of full disclosure, we will add this: Google has launched a similar service. But we’re always trying to look out for new, privately held, start-up companies.

Editor’s Note, Part II: As with any other 800 number, your phone number is made available to the party you are trying to reach even if you have an unlisted number or even if you have a Caller ID Block on. This is just the way that toll free numbers work. FREE 411 is a legit business, and they don’t do anything that isn’t forced on them by federal law (the aforementioned is part of a governmental regulation). If you’re concerned about releasing your phone number to businesses, we recommend registering with the Do Not Call Registry. Also, keep in mind that some telemarketing is already illegal to make to a cell phone of any kind. Last thing: we’ve used FREE 411 a great deal, and we’ve never had a single problem.

You can only read Newsweek, Cat Fancy, Martha Stewart Living, and Playboy so much.

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Make Progress:

We could go on and on and on (and on and on and on and– ¦) about magazines, but we'll just list some of our faves. This isn't an all-encompassing word-for-typeset-word endorsement of each magazine, each article published, and each author. We just dig reading what they have to say, learning some new things, disagreeing with others. So, without further ado, here goes:

• Utne Reader:

To make good use of a baseball metaphor, this sucker is the clean-up hitter of magazines. The Utne Reader is like Reader's Digest for progressives in that it reprints articles (many of them quite uplifting in an empowering and honest way) from various print media that most of us have never heard of let alone subscribe to. If we could only subscribe to one progressive print source, we'd pick this one, hands down, feet down, eyes down (you get the idea). What are you waiting for: subscribe already.

• The Nation:

Progressive politics at its best — that's what you'll find here. With The Nation, you'll get multiple points of view on one subject, well-informed letters to the editor that disagree with articles, and pieces that suggest unlikely progressive points of view. A great way to filter your knowledge of contemporary politics. They also publish similarly engaging work on their website. (And did we mention that at under a buck an issue for a subscription, you really can't go wrong.)

• Paste:

With each issues, you get a CD sampler of indie and a handful of well-known artists. For example, the September 2006 issue (which we happen to have in front of us at the moment) contains tunes by The Detholz! (who Matt saw open for Wilco), Elvis Costello, Beth Orton, and Buckwheat Zydeco (who we have to dig for having neurotransmitters capable of coming up with that name). These CDs tend to have 20 tracks, give or take.

In addition to the sampler, you'll read editorials, letters to the editor, feature articles on musicians to watch for, under-the-radar movies, cultural commentary, and reviews of albums, books, games, films, and DVDs. Basically, it's an independent Rolling Stone, only interesting.

• Discover:

Let us preface our endorsement of Discover with this: our belief in science is just that — a kind of faith, albeit a strong one. Science has its limitations, its variations over time, its new discoveries and theories. And the best place we've been able to find that is in Discover, an accessible, independent mag about “science, technology, and the future.– Basically, they make superstring theory, synthetic organs, dark matter, and exhaustive studies of cow's milk understandable and, frankly, interesting as all hell. We give it big, no, big-bang ups (sorry, we had to), and not just because Discover was a nominee for the 18^th Annual Utne Independent Press Awards.

• Wired:

Wired makes us whoop. Its pages are filled with mainly pithy pieces about pop- and not-so-pop-culture technology, oddball science, this thing called the Internet, and topics that fall under the category of “General Geekdom.– As geeks, we admire Wired. We'd admire you that much more if you read it too.

• VegNews:

You don't have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to appreciate this magazine, which is concerned, not just about our diets (please note that Matt, once a vegan, is now a born-again omnivore, though likely not for long), but the environment, politics, activism, exercise, and overall healthy living. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, this is magazine seems all-but mandatory reading; you'll feel more educated, find excellent recipes, and probably feel more a part of the vegetarian community.

• Consumer Reports:

Okay, come closer, here's a confession: we buy things, and some times we accidentally buy absolute crap. And we want to make sure we get stuff that's not going to break right away and won't send us cursing back to the store where we bought it demanding a refund, or worse and more useless, running over it in our driveway. Consumer Reports accepts no advertising, so they're beholden to no one. Sure, we think they have bad taste in beer (they once ranked Milwaukee’s Best the best domestic brew), but, because we like to think of ourselves as relatively mature, we can get past that. They helped Matt buy a great car, and Eric a TV that he all-but kowtows to during hockey games broadcast in HD. CR also has an online subscription, so you can access their info wherever you are.

• Sojourners:

For the purposes of full-discloser, we're going to reveal that both Eric and Matt consider themselves Christians, and, at times, their faiths have ebbed and flowed from first fervor to agnosticism and back again. At the same time, we respect, admire, and draw wisdom and strength from many other faiths.

But because of our personal religious interests, we're life-size fans of Sojourners, edited by Jim Wallis, whom you may have caught on Meet the Press. Sojo's mission goes a little something like this: “to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.– Whew — that's a pretty lofty goal, eh? Well, why aim low? The thing is, this sucker practices what it preaches, and includes a gaggle of engaging cultural, spiritual and political commentary, feature articles, pithy news briefs, humor, reviews, poetry and conversations. It's a rather complete magazine for progressive Christians.

Other solid (and by solid we mean “sah-lid,– circa 1957) choices — for their interesting and engaging content and not necessarily for their politics — include:

• American Prospect
• Business 2.0
  
• The Economist
• Fast Company
  
• The Forward
• Harpers
• Liberty
• Mother Jones
• Ms.
• Nerve
• The Sun
• Z Magazine

Photo by this literate dude.

How should we put this? How about an SAT-style analogy: Internet Explorer is to a monkey a screech monkey as all other web browsers are to humans. We still use IE on occasion, the same way when we go to zoos we look at the primates, caged and nearly useless.

So, we admit it: we’re exaggerating a bit. And please know that we don’t mean to offend the IE users out there in Internet land, though PC World did dub IE the 8th worst tech product of all time. But there are at least four better options out there, flying under the web radar. Since about 30% of folks still use IE, we’ve got a lot of minds to change, but change them we will.

Make Progress:

To put it directly: download and use Firefox. This here’s a browser designed and maintained by the friendly-neighborhood folks over at Mozilla. Since making the switch from the vulnerable IE to Firefox, I’ve experienced far, far fewer problems with spyware and adware. I still run Spybot, Ad-Aware, and Venus Spy Trap frequently, but they find hardly any malicious cookies as compared to my days when I relied on Microsoft to do my browsing. Pop-up windows are also something of the past now that I’m a Firefox-er. Another perk of Firefox is that it’s open source software, which means any individual can create extensions for the browser, enabling users to personalize their browsing experience. I use extensions to help me play music (FoxyTunes), know the weather (Forecastfox), and clip and save info I find while researching for Progressive Wednesday (Clipmarks). While this browser isn’t perfect, it’s the new age of browser, whereas IE always seems a step behind the times and slow to fix bugs and security flaws.

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Opera is another browser we find ourselves using from time to time (and those times are on the rise, baby). In fact, we’re a bit torn between it and Firefox–it’s like choosing between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. Opera offers many features we dig on, such as: tabbed browsing; thumbnail previews of open tabs; the ability to save tabs for the next time you use Opera; a trash can that allows you to open accidentally closed tabs; voice operation for those with disabilities; zoom control on any page; enhanced security features; pop-up blocking; tools for using the web from your mobile phone; and widgets that you can use (and develop!) to personalize the sucker.

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If social networking is your cup of Internet tea, we’d suggest taking a gander at Flock. Much like Firefox, Flock has lots (though not nearly as many) extensions you can add to make the browser work better for you.

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Camino is the aforementioned Mozilla’s Safari look-alike. Firefox can also run on Macs, but if the Safari interface is something that makes you drool (and not in that while-you-sleep-and-drool-on-your-pillow sort of way), we recommend Camino. Why? Because it’s open source and not owned by a mammoth company. In essence, Mozilla is like the Green Bay Packers: it’s not really owned by any one entity, and it’s not driven by the bottom line; it’s driven by the needs and desires of its users and the greater good.

Afterward:

If this isn’t enough to convince you, consider this: Progressive Wednesday is optimized to work with Flock, Opera, Safari, Camino and, of course, Firefox. We’re not suggesting that your experience with Firefox will be pain-free, but any problems will probably be more like a scratch as compared to IE’s sucking flesh wound (our apologies for this second slight hyperbole).

You want to blog. You don't want to spend oodles of moolah to do so. You type “blog– into any number of search engines and are pointed to Blogger.com, the most used blogging software on the Internet. The service was once privately held by Prya Labs and is now owned by web-behemoth Google. Blogger’s service is pretty good, and some of our favorite blogs are hosted there. But while there are lots of “hacks– available for it, we think variety, open source, and creativity offer a better solution.

Additionally, Blogger has problems and more problems, and you have to backup your page yourself.

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Make Progress:

There are plenty of free blogging options (see Typepad, Xanga, Blog City, Livejournal, and Greymatter), but whether or not you already have a blog[1], we recommend the use of WordPress.com[2], a free blog-hosting service offered by Automattic Inc., which describes itself as “a group of geeks who are passionate about enabling people to publish on the web.– As geeks, we’re a fan of geeks, and we’re using their open source software, which is found at WordPress.org, to make and maintain Progressive Wednesday.

If you don't have a blog, but you like reading them and you think you’d like writing your thoughts and options on the topics of the day, then start one — this alone can be part of progress. How? Here’s how:

• To highlight regional and national information important to progressives.
• To communicate information and ideas to, if nothing else, friends and family.
• To help with progressive Google-bombing.
• To increase progressive voices on the Internet.
• To create a place to post information, photos, audio and video that we at Progressive Wednesday might link to. (Please let us know about your blog.)
• To give a voice to a vast number of locales and provide new ways of looking at significant problems and places where there’s room for improvement.

And here are some reasons why we encourage you to use WordPress.com:

• The sucker is FREE with two capital E’s.
• Your blog will have a sidebar with more widgets than even the beta Blogger.
• For a nominal fee, you can customize the CSS code.
• The tags are organized for you.
• Your tags get added to global tagging which can then be searched by readers.
• They back you up automatically: “Every minute when you're writing a post we save it to the server.–
• There’s simple importation of your existing blog so you can make the switch.
• You can also build a group blog with several different writers.
• The hosting servers are located in two different cities (San Diego and Dallas) and your blog is saved in both (no one else as far as we can tell, offers this kind of back up).

So once your blog is up and running where do you look for progressive content? Well, start by familiarizing yourself with your local papers, but also check out national new services and progressive and regressive blogs alike. Read their blogrolls. But most importantly, write, write, and write. And remember: there’s no such thing as writer’s block.

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[1] You can easily import a pre-existing blog into WordPress.

[2] We don’t think WordPress is immaculate, and we don’t think Blogger is Satan in binary. It’s that WordPress is our fave and we give it props… make that mad props.

The solution? Please allow us to introduce BugMeNot.com, a site which helps you and me and everyone in between to “bypass compulsory registration” on a vast array of websites, news and otherwise. If you stumble on a site you’d like to access but come upon a registration, all you do is head on over to Bug Me Not and type in the web address. What you’ll get is a list of publicly-submitted user names and passwords. Sometimes it can take a bit of trial and error to find ones that still work, but the payoff is worth it: privacy and simplicity, two things we dig as much as the Buffalo Sabres and sugar cookies, as cheese steak subs and “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” by The Beatles.

I’ve used this resource for years now without regret, but you still might want to take a gander at Bug Me Not’s terms of service.

Bug by this amateur entomologist.