These are awesome resources, blockchain.info in particular. Not only for the charts and such, but you can also follow transactions. If you send some coin to a friend you can look up that transaction and see if it has been confirmed yet. This is especially useful if you use any bitcoin sportsbooks. You can see if your bet has been received and also if your payout is making its way to you (and also if that payout may have been sent to the wrong address, which has, unfortunately, happened to me but this, at least, gives you the ability to note that you haven't received the payout and they may have gotten the address wrong).