What’s this? A post on music? Have I slipped out of my “time saving” mode and wandered off into “cool stuff?” Nothing of the sort. There are many wonderful sites that do a great job of cataloging everything cool. Some of my favorites include MakeUseOf.com, Mashable.com, AppScout.com, and LifeHacker.com.

As an office worker who enjoys background music during the work day, I have latched onto Pandora as a wonderful time saving site and musical companion. She serves up music that I like (Smooth Jazz right now) by playing genres I have selected or specific artists that I have entered. With the flick of a mouse button, she will skip a song or remove it from my listening queue forever. With another click, I can change genres completely. I prefer instrumental music while I work, so I tend to alternate between Jazz and Classical stations. I’m a big fan of Jesse Cook these days.

After you have used Pandora for a while, you’ll realize that you’re not hopping up to change CD’s or fuss with radio station buttons. Commercials, of course, are a thing of the past. These are benefits that a acrue to listeners of XM or Serius radio too, but I get them for free and Pandora learns more about me every day, customizing my listening experience.

Pandora also offers a mobile version.

Hungry? Need some help finding a local restaurant while you’re in the car? Try Google’s free 411 service. Just call 800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) and you’ll be walked through three steps to find and select a local retail establishment. The process is simple:

Identify your location -> Select a category -> Select a merchant -> Connect!

There’s a text message option as well for those of you who are not driving (hint, hint). Send your text query (e.g. “pizza near 30305″) to short code 466453 and Google will text you back what it finds in your area.

Need more detail? Click here.

If you are not already using Launchy or a similar program launcher, this time saving tip for Windows tip will remove lots of menu clicks from your day.

A step by step guide to setting up a new shortcut:

1. Click on the Start icon
   
2. Navigate to the program you want but do not click yet
3. Right-click on the program and choose Properties
4. Type a letter in the Shortcut key field
5. Press OK to close the Properties window

Now, whenever you want to start that program, just hold down ALT and CTRL and press the key you chose.

For example: Ctrl+Alt+W on my computer starts Microsoft Word.

Click here to read a more detailed version of this tip.