If you're feeling short of funds, get ready to be short of time today, too.

For those who'd like to reserve the same username across multiple sites (and keep it outta the hands of pesky namesquatters) comes UsernameCheck. The pitch: see whether your username is available or taken across 63 web services.

And if you, like me, spot scores of sites where your moniker is still up for grabs, you'll no doubt feel compelled to fritter away the two-and-a-quarter hours it just took me to "catch 'em all". With only 150 of you feeling the same compulsion, we could collectively waste more than 300 hours. (Can I get a "woot"?)

One small insight gleaned from those misspent minutes: signup forms still suck. Most are longer than they need to be, and those sites using OpenID, the unified signup system, actually made the signup process more convoluted than those with standard registration.

OpenID has a long way to go, and you have a long, boring, signup form-filling Saturday afternoon ahead of you. (Sorry.)