There’s a cool website where you can be notified in advance of a burdening on the system so you can take action, turning down the power usage to help avoid the rolling black outs.

Go to FYPower.org to sign up for feeds AND get information on energy saving programs, appliances and rebates.

Perhaps you’ve gotten lucky and not been towed and impounded after having parked for more than 3 days.  This is generally because DPT doesn’t always enforce it unless the car stands out in some way; being stripped, burned, or stolen.  A disgruntled neighbor can also report the car, so be careful not to block those driveways!

If you are going to leave your car for more than three days in a row, make sure you park it off street, or have a friend watch out for it and/or move it to avoid that nasty surprize!

Here’s a cool app from SF Park that will give you a map of SF Park Garages, prices and availability.  It’s available by text message as well as mapping on your smart phone, either iPhone or Android.

The app gives real-time information on available parking places and rates.  Here’s where to find out more.

Rather than wait til it comes on the news, you can find out in advance by signing up for Spare the Air Alerts via email or phone.

Go to SparetheAir.org  to sign up and find out when not to use fireplaces, when your car should be left at home. Winter Spare the Air season runs from Nov. 1 to the end of February, although, occasionally, a Spare the Air event can occur outside those dates.

The best solution is to be thoughtful about air polluting activities everyday, by cutting down on car trips, carpooling, taking public transit and reducing the use of fireplaces.

This one happens to be a SF Bus from 1969. But hurry. Only a day left.

The link to eBay.

With the City of San Francisco ramping up their efforts to raise capital by increasing their presence to write parking tickets, this news is particularly interesting.  Have you received a parking ticket for not curbing your wheels?  Seems that you can’t (or aren’t supposed to) get a ticket for streets that are a three percent grade or less.  How do you find out what the grade is?  Go to the surveyed streets of San Francisco at the DPW website.

For other tips, or to sign up for the monthly tip, visit Finding the Sweet Spot.  It’s a great resource.

Decide.com home screen

You can also vote for new upcoming categories.  It will let you know whether you should buy now, if prices are going up, or whether not to, if a new model is coming out soon.  Check it out, it’s pretty neat.

As for the crime statistics, they pull that from the San Francisco Police Department, so it is updated whenever the police department does it.  Each map looks a little different.  The Trulia map is pretty well done on a citywide level-set up like a heat map that you can click on and drill down into specific areas.  The other two, CrimeMapping and CrimeReports give information based on your input of an address onto the site.  And then there is Megan’s Law where you can see if your neighbors are offenders.

Here are some sites to check out crime statistics;

www.trulia.com/crime

www.crimemapping.com/map/ca/sanfrancisco

www.crimereports.com

www.meganslaw.ca.gov