With technology full blast in the lives of budding college students across the nation, few are apt to pick up a dusty encyclopedia or call 411 to find out the number for their nearest pizza place. This is the era of user-edited Wikipedia, zoom-happy Google maps and instantly uploaded photos. For the Web-savvy and Facebook-friendly college student, the Internet can be a great means of entertainment. It can also offer a variety of snazzy online tools.

Fiverr.com: No longer do you have to post fliers offering services; today there are more electronic bulletin boards out there for offering and finding all types of services. Fiverr.com is like craigslist except weirder. The Web site is a gathering place for people with services like writing songs to people searching for writers for a new magazine – all for the price of five dollars. All services offered and wanted are five dollars, and so are all things bought and sold. But the Web site also goes beyond normal posts, allowing users to pay five dollars for everything from relationship advice to customized birthday videos. So forgo that Subway Footlong and invest in technologically advanced, user-friendly advertising.

CourseRank.com: As if it weren’t enough to compete with other students over Web registration for the coming semester, sometimes the classes you fight for end up being a semester-long battle. To alleviate your frustration and predict some obstacles, Chegg.com – the Web site that allows students to rent textbooks – bought CourseRank.com and made your academic life a little more predictable. The site suits fans of ratemyprofessor.com and similar services, allowing you to take a look at what you can expect from a class. Not only do you get to see behind the scenes from the student’s point of view, but CourseRank also offers the grades of your peers so you can see whether the course is likely to deflate your precious GPA or prove an easy A.

Banana Books: If you’re still hanging on to those textbooks with the nostalgia from last semester, it’s time to add a little pep to your bank account. Bananabooks.com offers an easy way of selling back last semester’s books and getting some cash. The Web site ensures that it will take any book you want to send. Simply type in the ISBN and in return you get a nifty list of book prices and a label to ship them off. When they get to their destination safe and sound, you get your check. The Web site even takes damaged books, though any with missing pages only get you a shiny penny to add to your savings account. If the cost of postage for your books totals in at $10, shipping is free, but anything less must be covered by you. Send up to 30 a semester and keep the cash for the next book list.

PhatCampus.com: If you’re looking to stock up on textbooks but hate high prices and long lines, stay cozy in bed and virtually visit phatcampus.com for more affordable books. The site lets you search by ISBN for your textbook but also features cheap textbooks and compares the list price to their price. As a plus, take an additional $5 off when you spend $30 by using the coupon code: 5circle. Keep the pajamas on and keep your wallet happy.

Bib Me: No, this is not a site for making custom bibs. Famed for their nocturnal sense, quite a few college students stay up until 4 a.m. writing their papers. And when the sun is up the next morning and you hear the glorious sound of pages printing, you remember you completely forgot to type your bibliography. As you rush to the computer, you think angrily, why doesn’t that pesky thing write itself? Well, now it does. Go to bibme.org and type in the name of the books used for the paper and let the Web site do the work. Select the correct version, check the information and indicate how much you quoted, and it goes on your list. Registering for an account allows you to either download it to your computer or keep it on your online account. Registration is completely free and allows you to choose from MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian layouts.

Project Gutenberg: Nothing like saving money on buying books and with the e-book craze, it only makes sense you make your textbooks more high-tech too. Type in Gutenberg.org and browse through their selection for the books you need for class. The site boasts of allowing you to download around 33,000 books for free and download them onto anything ranging from an iPhone to a Kindle. Basically, the copyright is no longer valid in the United States, so you can rest assured that F.B.I. agents won’t be breaking into your dorm window when your download completes. You can search by author or title name or browse the catalog, which is organized by a variety of categories.

Date Buzz: There’s plenty of fish in the sea, or so they say. If you’re looking to expand beyond your college campus, take a dip into the world of online dating. Datebuzz.com takes into account newbie online daters’ fears and creates a new experience. The site is all about the buzz – users peruse profiles and vote on what is ‘buzzworthy.’ In this way, getting buzz lets you check out who likes what about you while giving buzz lets you explore other profiles. The pair with the reigning buzz scores each week will get a restaurant.com gift certificate for $50. The site also offers three months free if you sign up before Valentine’s Day.