How I Repeat Myself

Have you ever just liked something, for no good, defensible reason? Yeah?
OK, well, for no good reason, I like KrazyDad Kaleidoscope. Plug in the URL of any image, and this silly little toy turns the photo into a kaleidoscope image. Flying pigs, your left toe, the photos of your kids you stored in Photobucket or Flickr. It’s just [...]

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How I Examine My Belief

Do your beliefs match your religion? Beliefnet promises to tell you in this quiz that matches denominations with doctrine.
“Even if you don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic knows,” the site asserts. “Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) [...]

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How I Say Happy Birthday

From today on, each time one of my many children has a birthday, Greenlance will celebrate by posting a resource that will be of particular interest to that kid. So happy birthday, middle son. This site’s for you:
“Makai” isn’t just an awkward pronunciation of “Michael”; it’s also the Hawaiian word for “toward the ocean.” [...]

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How I Check My Brain

You enjoy crossword puzzles, your best friend likes Sudoku, and your cat plays the piano. Me? My intellectual stimulant of choice is taking tests.
Tests, Tests, Tests lets me break my brain against career tests, Bible tests, typing tests, personality tests, and even IQ tests. There are plenty of fun quizzes here, too. What’s your [...]

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How I DON’T Plot My Own Death

Here it is: The first review of a site I do not use. Ever. But it’s just so creepy, I feel a need to share.
Just in Case I Die — have you looked at that logo? — sends out an email message to the police, your spouse, or anyone else you designate, in the [...]

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How I Fly Away

Cheap travel is hard to come by. Gas is so dear, I don’t even use drive-throughs anymore.
How do I make every penny count when booking travel? Not Expedia, not Travelocity, not Orbitz, and not Priceline.
Nope, in this house, it’s Kayak, not Red Bull, that gives us wings. Kayak is a no-nonsense tool that simultaneously searches [...]

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How I Get Creative

I’m no artist, but I know good art when I see it. And when I see it, I aspire to create gorgeous little dongxi* to adorn my own life.
Dick Blick Art Lessons is inspiring. It’s a collection of lessons for making beautiful things out of art supplies — supplies that Dick Blick really, really hopes [...]

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How I Feel Superior to Dummies

When my self-esteem is suffering, I go visit the Darwin Awards to see what really dumb people are up to.
When other people set themselves on fire, blow themselves up, or shoot themselves out of cannons…well, how dumb could I be? It sort of puts “falling down the stairs and landing on my can” into perspective.
Darwin [...]

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How I Make My Red Pen Fly

This fellow Bill Walsh has been doing what I do, for nearly as long as I’ve been doing it. He wields a red marker. He uses it unmercifully. He’s my sorta people.
The Slot explains to the curious what a copy editor is. For a good time, I read Walsh’s Sharp Points columns and watch his [...]

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How an Aphorism a Day Keeps the..

So I was sitting in my seat one Shabbat listening to the sermon, when the speaker began describing a sudden flash of inspiration he’d experienced. “This idea struck me like a lightbulb,” he said with great solemnity.
Ouch! (But high-props for having the chutzpah to hold forth! It’s more than I can normally manage myself.)
If you [...]

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How I Go Way Back

Time machines aren’t real…except on the Internet. This time machine fascinates me. WayBack Machine is a documentary record of the internet. Not just a story about it. The actual thing.
It’s a snapshot of more or less every web page. Ever. It’s mind-blowing. Just imagining the storage space required for this effort crosses my eyes.
WayBack Machine [...]

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How I Get My Kids Through College

This is a little test to see whether my college-student offspring are watching. Listen up, kids. Here’s how to get an A on your next research paper: Son of Citation Machine.
It’s a web tool to help you properly cite sources in research papers. Just enter the citation information into a form, click the style, [...]

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How I Learn How

Movies, shmovies. I’ve got videos. From experts. About everything.
Expert Village is a sort of combination YouTube and public television, where every video explains how to do something: make vegan chocolate mousse, predict the weather, organize a convention. Homeschool. Compost. Decorate. Shop. Sew. Sing. Blog.
Me-sa like-sa. When I’ve watched ‘em all, I should be smarter. [...]

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How I Memorize Factoids

No flash cards for me. Not when I’ve got StudyStack. Boring old flashcards were never this good.
Whether you’re prepping for an exam, memorizing scriptures, or studying a new language, if it needs to stick in your head, you need StudyStack. Use it the way you’d use regular flash cards, but take advantage of all the [...]

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How I Forgave Apple

Apple Computer and I haven’t been on speaking terms since 1983, when it put Franklin Computer out of business with the lawsuit heard ’round the world. I really loved my Apple ][ clones, and did not take kindly to their mass murder.
But I’ve finally decided that Apple has done its penance. After all, it’s sort [...]

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How I Fish for Business

Call me biased, but this one’s a must-see resource for the business-minded. Why biased? Blue MauMau is my baby, sort of. I had a hand in the startup; its current success is entirely its own, however.
If you’ve ever considered starting a franchise, Blue MauMau is your go-to place, with straight-up — and often funny — [...]

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How I Wiki My World

When I’m not blogging, or editing, or having a life, I’m building my little Wikispace. Gotta keep all that research someplace. Wikispaces is made for creating your very own version of Wikipedia. Use it to plan events or build a community. Your club or co-op can use it to coordinate classes and activities, advertise for [...]

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How I Feed My Inner Geek

My hubby and I are well and truly the original geeks. We met on line. Not impressed? It was before there was an internet. Before digital photography. Before cell phones. We courted cross country over a juryrigged electronic BBS via dial-up modems. And he’s good lookin’, too. Take that, eHarmony!
So when my egghead husband names Gizmodo [...]

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How I Check My Credit

Free Credit Report dot com has a catchier jingle, but if you want a credit report that’s genuinely free, you want Annual Credit Report – the one mandated by the federal government in an effort to stop identity theft.
That law says that once a year, each of the big three credit reporting agencies must provide [...]

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How I Remember Things

My Palm Treo died, but it never quite fit the bill anyway. So I’ve been looking for a good, free online PDA. I need a reminder that will jump out and yell at me when I’m about to miss an apointment or a deadline.
Remember the Milk seems to fit the bill. It shouts at me [...]

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How I Learn, in Plain English

Make it simple, simple, simple. That’s the way to teach complicated principles. And is there anything more simple than paper dolls on feltboard? Nope?
CommonCraft updates paper dolls with an electronic feltboard that teaches — in plain English — complex technology such as CFL lightbulbs, podcasting and RSS feeds.
But why talk? Just take a look:
[...]

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How I Dog My Kids

Some people collect stamps. I collect children. Seven of ‘em, spread hither and thither across the globe. How do I know where they are? I Skype ‘em, of course.
We videoconference non-stop, for free, via our microphone- and camera-equipped computers. Because we Skype, the kid two states away in the boondocks of Idaho, or the one living [...]

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How I Track Criminals

I’m a big Law & Order buff. Not just the TV show. Actual crime astonishes me. Back when we still had a city paper, I used to read the crime log religiously.
Now that we don’t, I watch what the local criminal masterminds are up to with SpotCrime, the Google-maps-linked tracker of local crime reports. Shootings, [...]

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How I Get Put Out

Wow. Sort of a combination Photobucket and YouTube, PutPile permits unlimited uploads of all your media files — photos, videos, audio, and flash. File sizes up to 200M are permitted, and multiples files can be uploaded at once. You get to choose whether to make your uploads public or private. It’s my new favorite storage [...]

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How I Become a Star

There are now six viable competitors to Microsoft’s Office suite. And they’re all free — more or less. The most extensive office suite — Sun’s Star Office – is free to students and educators. It runs on Windows, Linux or Solaris platforms.
Star Office is a downloadable wordprocessor, database, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing suite. What, no [...]

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How I Connect

It’s easy to get free high-speed Internet access — if you have a laptop and a willingness to travel.
WiFi Free Spot is a directory of public hotspots for wireless internet access. It’s organized by state, and lists only those spots that provide Internet access at no charge.
How do you get online when you’re broke?

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How I Get Carded

I can’t pretend to understand the business model, but that won’t stop me from taking free stuff when it’s offered. VistaPrint is that crazy company that offers free goodies I just gotta have. Business cards, rubber stamps, address labels, announcements, pens…all my favorite stationery-store stuff — free!
What’s your number-one online bargain source? Click the [...]

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How I Check Facts

Lying politicians — it’s tautological. And FactCheck proves it. FactCheck is the lie-detector for politicians on both sides of the aisle. There’ll be no more bogus tales of sniper fire or tax cuts — not if the Annenberg people have any say.
If you have any political inclinations whatsoever, FactCheck’s RSS belongs at the top of [...]

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How I Help Boys

Man of the House is a help for young men who don’t have a father in the home. Encourages responsibility, social development, morality, etiquette and other virtues.
If you don’t have a MOTH in your own home, count your blessings and share this site with someone who does. It’s a hard-knock life out there for boys [...]

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How I Pile On

You Google? Old school! I do better than Google. I Dogpile.
Dogpile quickly and simultaneously searches Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask, About, and several other top search engines. Dogpile also has a toolbar so I can search from wherever my browser happens to be pointed.
Am I missing something by not sticking to Google? Who do you take [...]

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