Escape the Middle Seat

If you hate being stuck in a middle seat on a plane, especially for a long flight, there is now a free service that will send you alerts when a better seat becomes available. Expert Flyer (www.expertflyer.com enables you to be informed when a seat of the type you want on a particular flight is open.
I personally don't mind middle seats that much on realtively short flights, perhaps because I'm fairly small. It's good that I don't, because I've noticed lately that when I book low fares via sites like Travelocity, it usually means a middle seat.
Expert Flyer also has a more extensive system of alerts for frequent flyers, but unfortunately that one is not free.