A few sellers will only sell via UPS which makes me pay twice as much for shipping instead of going through the postal system. They do so because UPS picks up saving them time and they require a signature (some of the time) unless the driver signs for it. The postal system doesn't pick up for small orders and you usually have to wait in line and have to ask questions which is why some businesses choose not to deal with them. The postal system's tracking system is like the honor system because you can find your package with a neighbor but they do offer insurance but companies don't like filling out the forms.

After going through Mouser and Digikey, I'm trying to track down friendly parts but there are so many choices. For example. If I want a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor there are all these choices like metal oxide, metal film, ceramic composition filters. Which one do I want?

If I want to find a 2N3906 PNP or 2N3904 NPN transistor, I'm usually asking myself which one I need because Mouser has different types listed.

I'm probably going to have a category for capacitors soon.

Mouser and Digikey are also doing away with their printed catalogs to save money so I find that you have to know what you want in order to find something online.

The reason I'm doing this is because other retailers have to make a profit and something that costs .6 cents ends up costing .35 cents and they don't even give me a datasheet.

normally they will have the package listed on the page.

for example with your 2N3904 NPN transistor - you would probably want the TO-92 package because they have leads (whereas SMD would not be suited to breadboards)

As for the resistors, usually the metal film types have a better tolerance than your carbon film. But for the sakes of our projects, they are all really much of a muchness.