It's probably happened to all of us at one time or another; we buy something that has a hefty manual to go along with it, and we promptly lose that important document. All is not lost however - there are plenty of ways you can use the Web to find a manual to pretty much anything that needs one. Here's a simple search you can use in pretty much any search engine:

"name and model number of your item" manual

That will turn up quite a few hits. Let's get more specific:

"name and model number of your item" filetype:pdf"

This will bring back only .pdf files that reference your item. Still can't find what you're looking for? No problem - there are search engines to target manuals. Try The Manuals - Free Manuals Online, Wikibooks, a collection of open-content textbooks, Diplodocs, where you can find your user manual, user guide, instruction manual or owner manual instantly, , or OwnerIQ, a resource for product user manuals, help, forums tips and tutorials.

And even more manuals

• Google - The Missing Manual
• Use the Web to Find a Users Manual
• Camera Instruction Manuals On the Web

More books on the Web

• The Best Sites to Read Books Online for Free
• The Best Sites for Free Audio Books
• Find a Book with Book Search Engines

If you've ever wanted to send multiple links to someone, and you want to A)save time and B)shorten those links, then you'll want to check out fur.ly, a simple yet amazingly useful tool that shortens multiple URLs into one convenient link for easy sharing.

Here's how fur.ly works: copy and paste the links you want to share, one by one, and click "go". You'll get a shortened link. Click on that link,and fur.ly sends you to a page where you can view all the shared sites by clicking an arrow to page through. It's one of those great Web tools that should definitely be on your list of must-haves!

More linking tools

• How to Find Sites That Link To Your Site
• Need to send a naughty link ? Try NSFW
• Five ways to make that link shorter

If you're looking for tools to help you with your writing, the Web is a great place to start.

Here are just a few of the incredibly useful writing tools you can find on the Web in my article titled The Best Writing Tools on the Web.

More Writing Tools: There are plenty of Web sites that can help you with your writing, including:

• Google Docs: Google Docs is a great collaboration tool you can use to create and share documents completely online.
• TinyUrl: If you've ever tried to copy and paste a super long URL, only to have it break once you try to copy it, then the site Tiny URL is for you.
• FreeMind: Map your mind with FreeMind, a great way to turn your ideas into productivity.

And if THAT's not enough good stuff for you, then be sure to read the Top Ten Productivity Web Sites - my picks for some of the best productivity-boosting Web sites online, as well as these helpful picks:

• The Most Useful Web Tools for Students: If you're looking for a list of the most useful tools on the Web, you've come to the right place. Here are my picks for the best tools on the Web for students and anyone else who is looking to boost their productivity.
• The Best How To Sites on the Web: Whether you're looking for information on how to remodel a bathroom or repair a hard drive, you'll find it in my picks for the best how to sites on the Web.
• Manage Your To-Do List with Remember the Millk: If you're looking for a dead simple way to manage your to-do lists, reminders, and basic stuff you gotta get done, then you need to check out Remember the Milk, a deceptively simple Web service that helps you organize yourself.

If you are a comic book fan, you will absolutely love Cover Browser, a unique site that offers over 200k comic covers for a quick look-see (you can buy them if you want to as well). Check out a few of the goodies I found:

TinTin

Gene Autry

Superman

And on and on. You could seriously spend a lot of time here! If you're in the mood for even more comics, try Marvel Comics, OhNoRobot - a Search Engine for Web Comics, JibJab, or Comic Books - Collecting Comic Books, News, Reviews and More.