Google Saves My Internet from Itself

Yesterday Google made public its Measurement Labs series of sites, designed to analyze your internet connection and determine whether your ISP is throttling you or not.

This news makes it even harder to hate Google; with these tools the average joe can keep an eye on his ISP and make sure its not trying to sneak anything by him, and will help to keep those sneaky ISPs honest. Google may be the most massive company in the universe, but they sure are helpful.

This comes at the perfect time for men, because I’m beginning to suspect that our ISP is throttling us.

Religious Networking Sites

In this series we have been looking a variety of social networking sites that have been aimed towards specific interests such as writing, the arts, and music but the field of specialized social media is ever growing and a lot of religious communities and organizations are starting to get in on the popularity of the social media craze while trying to fill a gap for many users whose needs are not, or can not, be met by some of the larger mainstream social networking sites.

With some of the larger, more popular social network sites you have several problems that are of concern to some users including the lack of family friendly content and the risk of exposing yourself or your child to offensive or harmful material that may be of particular concern to many families. Additionally, with such large sites it may often be difficult to find others in the crowd who share your particular religious or philosophical views. For these reasons, among others, we are seeing a few religious or ideological themed social networking sites springing up. After scouring the web for such communities these sites proved to be worth a look:

Jewish Social Networking Sites:

Jew Crew: http://www.jewcrew.org/home.php

A social networking site that helps users connect to other Jewish members from around the world.

My J World: http://www.myjworld.com/

A community web site and for personal networking or growing your business by connecting to a Jewish community where you can join clubs, explore videos, or just meet some interesting new people.

Frum Chat: http://www.frumchat.com/home.php

A great site for the Jewish community with easy to use features and over 800 members on an easy to use site.

Christian Social Networking Sites:

Tangle: http://www.tangle.com

A unique social networking site for the Christian community where you can find churches and new ministries, submit and review prayer requests, and read the Bible online.

Holy Pal: http://www.holypal.com

A fairly large christian social network with all the standard features, share videos, upload your photos, create groups, and connect with others.

My Faith Haven: http://myfaithhaven.com

Easy to use Christian site that not only includes some of the traditional social networking features but also features a daily Bible verse and arcade.

My Godly Place: http://www.mygodlyplace.com

Another site that aims to be a christian alternative to myspace boasting hundreds of members along with polls, forums, etc.

Shout Life: http://www.shoutlife.com

Another great alternative to the other sites that offer a “safe and clean” environment for all of your social networking needs.

Generation JC: http://www.generationjc.com

Blogs, music, chat, and more make this site an interesting choice for those looking for christian communities online.

Life Space: http://www.lifespace.cc

A small but growing christian social network that is offering a family alternative to some of the more well known sites out there.

Messianic Social Networking Sites:

The Nazarite Site: http://the-nazarite-site.ning.com

A social networking community for messianic believers as well as others in the religious community of Sabbath observant followers. Nice design and great features make this one a good choice.

Moshiach Now: http://moshiachnow.ning.com

Another small messianic social network worth checking out with customizable profile and easy to use features.

Messianic Evangelicals http://messianicevangelicals.ning.com

A teaching ministry and social network combined that describes itself as a “Union of Two House Messianic Israelite and Evangelicals”.

Messianic Torah: http://messianictorah.ning.com

A small but interesting social network for those in the messianic community.

One to Watch: Another up and coming social networking site for the Messianic community is Kehila which is a brand new site accepting members now but plans to official launch at the end of the month so it might be worth checking out: http://kehilaonline.ning.com

Other:

Buddhist Network: http://www.buddhist-network.com

Christian and Jewish communities are not the only one getting into social networking as you can see with this popular Buddhist community with forums and plenty of interesting people to meet.

Whether it is offering a family friendly environment that you can feel good about your children using, giving you a chance to promote your ministry or service that is of interest to the religious community, or simply giving you an opportunity to connect with like minded individuals, these specialized social media networks are seeing some success and may be worth checking out.

Specialized Social Media: Part 3- Social Media for Religious Communities

In this series we have been looking a variety of social networking sites that have been aimed towards specific interests such as writing, the arts, and music but the field of specialized social media is ever growing and a lot of religious communities and organizations are starting to get in on the popularity of the social media craze while trying to fill a gap for many users whose needs are not, or can not, be met by some of the larger mainstream social networking sites.

With some of the larger, more popular social network sites you have several problems that are of concern to some users including the lack of family friendly content and the risk of exposing yourself or your child to offensive or harmful material that may be of particular concern to many families. Additionally, with such large sites it may often be difficult to find others in the crowd who share your particular religious or philosophical views. For these reasons, among others, we are seeing a few religious or ideological themed social networking sites springing up. After scouring the web for such communities these sites proved to be worth a look:

Jewish Social Networking Sites:
Jew Crew:
A social networking site that helps users connect to other Jewish members from around the world.

My J World:
A community web site and for personal networking or growing your business by connecting to a Jewish community where you can join clubs, explore videos, or just meet some interesting new people.

Frum Chat:
A great site for the Jewish community with easy to use features and over 800 members on an easy to use site.

Christian Social Networking Sites:
Tangle:
A unique social networking site for the Christian community where you can find churches and new ministries, submit and review prayer requests, and read the Bible online.

Holy Pal:
A fairly large christian social network with all the standard features, share videos, upload your photos, create groups, and connect with others.

My Faith Haven:
Easy to use Christian site that not only includes some of the traditional social networking features but also features a daily Bible verse and arcade.

My Godly Place:
Another site that aims to be a christian alternative to myspace boasting hundreds of members along with polls, forums, etc.

Shout Life:
Another great alternative to the other sites that offer a “safe and clean” environment for all of your social networking needs.

Generation JC:
Blogs, music, chat, and more make this site an interesting choice for those looking for christian communities online.

Life Space:
A small but growing christian social network that is offering a family alternative to some of the more well known sites out there.

Messianic Social Networking Sites:
The Nazarite Site:
A social networking community for messianic believers as well as others in the religious community of Sabbath observant followers. Nice design and great features make this one a good choice.

Moshiach Now::
Another small messianic social network worth checking out with customizable profile and easy to use features.

Messianic Evangelicals:
A teaching ministry and social network combined that describes itself as a “Union of Two House Messianic Israelite and Evangelicals”.

Messianic Torah:
A small but interesting social network for those in the messianic community.

One to Watch: Another up and coming social networking site for the Messianic community is Kehila which is a brand new site accepting members now but plans to official launch at the end of the month so it might be worth checking out.

Other:
Buddhist Network:
Christian and Jewish communities are not the only one getting into social networking as you can see with this popular Buddhist community with forums and plenty of interesting people to meet.

Whether it is offering a family friendly environment that you can feel good about your children using, giving you a chance to promote your ministry or service that is of interest to the religious community, or simply giving you an opportunity to connect with like minded individuals, these specialized social media networks are seeing some success and may be worth checking out and they are just the tip of the iceburg, so if you did not see your particular religion of choice featured here be sure to do some searching and you are sure to find a community that will fit your need for specialized social media. And do not forget that these communities can be a great way to promote your products or services that migh be of special interest to religious communities.

Christmas Gifts for the Shutterbug

It seems every family has at least one person in charge of taking family snapshots. After looking over dozens of catalogs and even more web sites, I have compiled a list of great gifts for that camera buff.

Under $20

Giottos Rocket Air Blower. (About $12) Every camera bag should have one of these indispensible gadgets. The Rocket Air Blower shoots a powerful stream of air that will clean lenses and filters. It’s design prevents dust from being blown into the object being cleaned and it does a remarkable job in cleaning the surfaces of filters or lenses.

Bower Wrist Strap (About $6) Small camera or large camera, a wrist strap is cheap insurance preventing a camera from slipping out of your hand and hitting the hard floor. The Bower wrist strap is comfortable to use all day and is large enough to hold a DSLR safely. This is not the tiny wrist strap that comes with some cameras. This one is padded and thick to it won’t cut into your wrist or slip off your hand. Even with my big hands, this wrist strap worked extremely well.

Under $50

Joby Gorillapod (About $45) Every shot can be made better with the use of a camera support. Unfortunately there isn’t always enough space to set up a full tripod. The GorillaPod uses a series of interlocking plastic joints to lock it’s three legs around almost any object. Trees, fence posts, even a kitchen chair. The Gorillapod is small enough to take with you almost anywhere and is surprisingly strong.

Under $100

Samsung 8-inch Digital Photo Frame (About $80) Every camera buff wants a way to display their photos and digital photo frames are perfect. Housing the images on an SD card, updating the images is easy and is limited by only the size of the SD card. What makes this Samsing frame a little different is that it is the ony one I’ve found where you can schedule a time when it’s on and off so it isn’t using electricity while you aren’t at work or asleep. This particular frame can also be used as a second PC monitor.

Under $200

Casio Exilim EX-FS10 (About $175) This 9 megapixel pocket-sized camera works remarkably well. With a bright 2.7 inch LCD display and ISO settings from 50-1600, this camera is capable of many great photographs. In burst mode, it can take up to 30 photos per second, which is impressive for such a small camera. The camera’s video capabilities also set it apart from its peers. Not only will it shoot 848×480 resolution video, but it can shoot it in super slow motion which can be very fun for shutterbugs of all experience levels.

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera (About $180) If you are looking for a sub $200 video camera that shoots HD and fits in your pocket, then this is your camera! Video can be 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second and can upload to YouTube quickly and easily via the USB cable. For the price and the video quality, it will be difficult to find a better video camera out there.

All in all, the variety of photo-centric gadgets keeps increasing and the features continue to keep us shutterbugs happy year after year!

Interview With Jay Feitlinger, Founder and CEO of ShopTab

Recently, I was able to interview Jay Feitlinger, CEO and Founder of ShopTab, a company that allows businesses to sell through their FaceBook pages.

RS: First off, WHAT is ShopTab?
JF: ShopTab is a Facebook App that allows business owners to sell more products by creating a shop tab on their Facebook fan page, showcasing products from their existing online store. Easily. Quickly. Inexpensively.

RS: When did ShopTab launch
JF: ShopTab launched in October 2009

RS: What made you decide to create ShopTab?
JF: Over the past 8 years I have been working with small to large clients with their online marketing and social media strategy. One of my biggest passions is helping small to medium size business owners understand and leverage the internet to connect with their customers. Many of my smaller ecommerce clients have been requesting my help on how they can monetize their efforts on Facebook.

My wife owns an online baby product business http://www.littlebutterflykiss.com. She, as with many of my smaller ecommerce clients, don™t have large budgets to afford website development of a custom Facebook shop tab nor large marketing budgets. I decided to help and after 3 months of development we recently launched ShopTab to complement any ecommerce tool. It has some built in social shopping features such as Share to Facebook Wall to get the word out about their Shop Tab products.

RS: What sets ShopTab apart from other similar applications?
JF: There are a few shop type applications on Facebook but ShopTab specifically:

1. Was designed and developed from the business owner perspective. We focused heavily on the needs of the business owner when developing the application and spent the extra time and money to ensure the tool did not require any technical knowledge. We require no additional programming code or html.
2. Works with every ecommerce tool.
3. Allows a shop owner to export their products from their current ecommerce tool and upload through our easy to use admin tool. A few of our recent customers told me they set up their 500+ product store within 10 minutes.
4. Ds not charge an upfront fee for the shop tab application, nor take a percentage of each sale. Our customers pay a flat small monthly fee starting at $10/mo for up to 500 products. We also offer a 7 day free trial and they can cancel whenever they want — no long term contracts
5. Ds not require they use any specific platform to handle payments, sales tax, shipping, security, etc. We send their prospective customer to their website to handle the transaction.
6. Sends customers directly to an existing shopping site, increasing traffic and enabling a shopping experience unfettered by any limitations within Facebook. For instance, upselling, cross-selling, recurring purchases and so forth can still be handles as they always have.

RS: Why Facebook?
JF: With over 350 million fans and growing everyday and the strong desire for business owners to find a way to monetize their Facebook presence “ Facebook was the right choice for our intial launch.

RS: If I were looking at setting something like this up, what would I need to do to get started?
JF: Simply visit http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=189977524185 and click on Go To Application. From there a business owner would create their account, log into the admin, and either use our product feed upload tool or add products individually.

RS: What features are you looking at adding in the near future?
JF: For this we are relying on our customers to tell us what else they need. Just last week customers asked us for a way to share a product to their wall. That feature was added yesterday. We are going to rely on what features make the most sense for our business owners but do not require an increase in monthly cost to the ShopTab business owner. There are a few features such as horizontal vs. vertical layout that we have in the works but again if another feature comes up that is more important to our ShopTab business owner customer it will take higher priority over our feature roll out schedule.

Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=189977524185

Companies Behind Linux

One question which amazes many people is how the world of Open Source runs and from where it gets all its funds. Open Source and Linux developers work for free and it is a community driven and open project.

Anyone can join and for that question, anyone can leave as well. There is no-one bossing you around. But that is true only for projects which are hosted for free. There are other projects managed by Linux giants like Red Hat and Novell which get their funds from the Enterprise Solutions they provide. Additionally, there are many companies financing the world of Open Source, especially the world of Linux for their own benefit. Many of them are reputed companies specializing in providing state of the art business solutions.

One such company is Google. Even antitrust controversies like Microsoft are in the game. Microsoft has its CodePlex foundation where, it is said, Microsoft puts employees to write open source code and pays them and has been denying this fact ever since it surfaced. But Microsoft has other better things to worry and care for.

There are many other companies which deal in Linux development specifically.

Red Hat

Red Hat is a S&P 500 company and is a major promoter of Linux and Open Source. Its most popular product includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora. Red Hat was founded in the year 1993 and has never looked back ever since.

The company went public in 1999 and has received wide appreciation from the Open Source world. It has its headquarters located a Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. It has 2800 employees and has a net income of 78.72 million USD. Achievements :

Red Hat grabbed the Operating System Product of the Year award more than once and has been awarded a number of times elsewhere.

The entry of Red Hat into the S&P 500 was a big win for the world of Linux and ensured continued development over the years. Red Hat has followed a number of acquisitions ever since its birth. It acquired Cygnus Solutions in 1999 and the JBoss in 2006.

These were major milestones for Red Hat. Products :

The major products of Red Hat include the Red Ha Enterprise Linux and the community driven and Red Hat backed Fedora Project. Red Hat developers work for the Fedora project project along side their mainstream job and many developments from the Fedora project make it to the Red Hat distribution releases.

Canonical

Canonical Ltd. is a company founded by South African multi-millionaire Mark Shuttleworth. He made a furtune when he sold away his venture Thawte to VeriSign. Ever since, Mark Shuttleworth has been financing open source software and development all over the world through his company Canonical Ltd., which is a private company dedicated to this sole purpose.

The company was founded on 5th March 2004 and has its registered headquarters at Douglas, Isle of Man in Europe. Canonical Ltd. has revenue of 30 million USD and has a little over 200 employees.

Activity :

The company has been involved in a number of activities right after after its birth.

The Software freedom day is held on the third Saturday of every September. Canonicals sponsored the event in 2005-2006 by a huge amount.

Freedom Toaster is an innovative kiosk designed for users to save on download costs and burn CD/DVD of their favorite Linux distribution of choice, for free of cost and in seconds.

Products :

The major contribution of Canonical to the world of Linux includes the Ubuntu distribution of Linux which forms the base for a number of side projects like Mint, Ubuntu Ultimate Edition etc. Ubuntu has a definitive 6 months release cycle ensuring a continuous flow of quality work from the developers. Other products include Landscape, which is a browser based web-server manager, Launchpad, the website containing Open Source software projects and Ubuntu One which is a closed source file synchronization service.

Novell

Novell was founded in 1983 and has over 4000 employees currently. Its headquarters are located at Waltham, MA, USA and the company specializes in enterprise software solutions for Linux. This is one of the oldest players in the Open Source world and has played a key role in emerging technologies like the LAN and network security.

The company was one of the first tech giants to compete with Microsoft and started with buying UNIX rights from Novell. Novell was headed by current Google CEO Eric Schmidt for a long period and has flourished to be a key competitor to the closed source world of paid software.

The company ran into many controversies due to its deal with Microsoft and was looked down upon by major Open Source communities around the world. Things have started getting better now and Novell will probably gain back the confidence it had once. Novell has a net income of 8.7 Million USD.

Achievement :

Novell entered into an agreement with Microsoft on 2nd November 2006 whereby it decided to setup a lab which allowed research to be carried out for better compatibility of its software with other software vendors. Novell is especially known for its excellent customer support and it holds support as a top priority in its business solution.

Products :

Novell has a number of products which include Novell NetWare, SUSE Linux and the Novell Cloud Security Service.

Interview with SCOTTEVEST CEO Scott Jordan

Recently I was able to interview founder and CEO of SCOTTEVEST, Scott Jordan.

SCOTTEVEST manufactures clothing with a proprietary system of routing wires and cables into clothing for gadgets along with unique pockets for all your electronics.

RS: First off, WHAT is SCOTTEVEST?

SJ: It’s a full line of clothing designed to carry, among other things, all your electronic devices. We have a patented Personal Area Network that enables you to wire your devices in your garment in a fashion that allows you to manage your wires and have everything in a pocket and everything in its place. We recognize that people are carrying around more and more stuff and now you can do so without looking like a geek

RS :What made you decide to create the first vest?

SJ: It was the year 2000 and I was traveling quite a bit¦I had a commute from Chicago to Princeton, NJ. I worked in a business casual environment and I didn’t have any pockets to store my stuff. This was before the iPod was invented and there were CD players and such with earphone cables. I was constantly asking my wife to hold my gadgets as we went on our walks. I came up with the idea of designing a great looking jacket. At that time it was called the EVEST 1.0.

RS: Have you always been fond of gadget?

SJ: Yes! I have to have all the coolest gadgets! It started with the transistor radio when I was young. Transistor radios and cameras and it never ended.

RS: Your products have so many useful pockets, do you ever have problems at security check points?

SJ: No. Quite the opposite. You can take your jacket off and put it right through. It’s no different than using a suitcase or bag full of your devices. In fact with the restrictions on carryon bags, the SCOTTEVEST makes it much easier.

RS: How has social media affected your business? Twitter, Facebook, YouTube?

SJ: I’ve been doing this for quite some time. I have notices that many of my hits come from social media. I think people like to interact with the CEO of a company that they are buying products from. I personally respond to every single tweet that comes to my twitter account. I really enjoy interacting with the customers on a daily basis.”

RS: Tell me a little about your newest products”the soft shell Jacket and the Flex Cargo Pants.

SJ: The softshell jack will be available at the end of November. Its like most soft shells with waterproof breathable material. The unique thing is all the pockets and the clear touch fabric [He then demonstrated by placing his iPhone into a pocket of his hoodie and showed how you could control the iPhone right through the the clear pocket window] The flex Cargo pants won’t be available until January. They have a little bit of stretch in them and they have a lot of hidden pockets.

RS:What is the item in the catalog with the most pockets?

SJ: I would say the Signature System. It has 52 pockets.

SCOTTEVEST
http://www.scottevest.com

Specialized Social Media Part 2: Networks for Music Lovers and Musicians

Who Should Used Specialized Media for Music Communities:

If you have a product or service that is of special interest to either music fans or to musicians and bands then networking on these specialized social media networks can be a great form of advertising. This can include businesses that sell music equipment, venues that are looking for new talent, or businesses that meet specialized needs such as creating custom web sites for a band or designing promotional t-shirts, or other service can also greatly benefit from getting their name and products or services in front of the right people.

Of course, anyone involved in the music industry will also want to explore social media dedicated to music fans as a simple and cheap way to promote there own music, find new fans and venues, and sell their own CD’s and other music related items. Additionally, music fans who want to stay up to date on what is happening with their favorite bands or discover great new music that they might not otherwise be exposed to will likely find something worth there time at one of the many music related social media networks.

So whether you are looking to sell your own business or service, promote your own music, or simply spend your online time finding the best new music then checking out music themed social networks may be a great choice. Here are a few great suggestions to get you started:

MusoCity- A great little community for music lovers, fans, bands, and music professionals of various musical genres and a great place to discover new musical artists. Get your free account and start mingling with other music fans and discovering new talent right away.

Last FM- This is a great site for music lovers with videos and profiles for just about every type of music you could be looking for including indie, rock, pop, metal, and even jazz and classical music. Musicians can even find ways to sell their music and build a fan base with Last FM.

ilike.com- iLike is designed for music lovers and utilizes a spectrum of other social networking sites to let users share play lists, discover new music, and get personalized concert alerts.

Diletante- This is a wonderful community for lovers of classical music and new artists and composers looking to gain an audience for their musical talents.

In additional to social networks devoted to the broad spectrum of music, certain artists have also started their own unique versions which is not  only a great way for the bands to connect with their fans but it also presents an excellent opportunity for you to network with others who share your common interest or who might loosely fit a particular type of demographic. One great example of this is the network designed by H.I.M. on their web site at heartagram.com.

Regardless of the type of music that you are looking for or the audience that you wish to capture, odds are there is a perfect social network or two out there that can help you achieve your social networking goals while meeting some interesting people and finding great new talent in an easy and affordable way.

Top Seven Tips For Great Blog Design

1. Content: Great blogs have great content. Ensure that the blogs overall design and theme coincide with the content. Make any navigation through the content simple by utilizing simple terms and easy to read fonts. Keep your content easily readable by ensuring good contrast between the background and the foreground. Typically white background with black font will have the most contrast and therefore be easiest to read. Whatever colors you choose, be sure to use a very light color with a very dark color to ensure readability.

2. Ease of Use: Readers of your content may never come back if you make your otherwise great content difficult to see or get to. Horizontal scrolling is a huge obstacle for readers, so take that into consideration when designing your blog.

Look at the smallest screen you are targeting and design for that resolution. Many blog creators decide that their blog should have animation or utilize heavy amounts of Flash.

Avoid this urge. Using animation of any kind can be distracting, annoying, and can cause your site to load very slowly.

3. Good Header Graphic: A good header graphic is like a good billboard for a business. It will tell you everything you need to know. Use high quality photos or professional looking logos. First impressions are the most important and a strong, yet non-obtrusive header will be your best tool.

Think of your header as your calling card. Don’t overcrowd it and don’t shroud it with advertisements.

4. Obvious Comment Section: Blogs are all about interaction with your audience, so to encourage this, make sure that the ability to comment on your posts is very obvious. Comment areas are like mini forums with the posts as the header.

Making commenting difficult or not intuitive can be the death of your audience interaction. And since an involved audience is more likely to become a loyal audience, the comment area can be a Make or break section of your blog design.

5. Tie into Social Media: Utilize the existing infrastructure like Digg, delicious, twitter and Facebook to allow your readers to forward link to their family and friends who may also be interested. This can help grow your audience and increase your traffic. Likewise, posting updates from your blog to these social media sites can help drive traffic which will expose your site to more readers.

Be careful not to overload your blog with too many options. Stick with the social media sites you are aware of. This will ensure your posts don’t look like an old suitcase with hundreds of stickers on it. Clutter kills.

6. Illustrate Your Content: If a picture says 1000 words, then you better take heed. Photos and graphics can be your best friend in a blog post. It will help the reader’s visualize your content and make your posts more interesting. Be careful not to over-saturate your posts with too many images. Less high quality images are better than many poor quality images every time.

7. Don’t Overcrowd Your Content: I have said it before and I will say it again, Clutter kills. Ads can play an important role, but don’t sacrifice your entire site design just for a few bucks.

Be very cautious where you add advertisements and other extraneous content. If it isn’t directly related to the content or the blog, it would be better to leave it out.

You don’t want to read a newspaper and have to hunt for the content. Don’t do that with your blog either.

Hopefully these 7 simple tips will help you as you design or redesign your blog for maximum benefit and foster loyal readership.

Four Sites that Could Teach you to do Just About Anything

 Have you ever wanted to learn how to play guitar, change your car’s oil, increase your Twitter followers, or become way more skilled in Photoshop?  Knowledge is power and there are many web sites out there offering a Boat-load of knowledge for free.  I will cover four web sites that cover a wide array of topics and have instructions for you to accomplish just about anything you want.

 

The first is eHow (http://www.eHow.com).  A great multi purpose site, eHow, covers topics like Careers, electronics and even legal and Parenting.  For instance, are you wondering what constitutes Reasonable Suspicion for a police officer to stop you?  There’s an article on that.  Are you wondering how to pierce an ear like a professional?  Or maybe how to best choose a tattoo design?  eHow has a mountain of user-submitted articles covering all these topics and more.  The downside to this site is that many of the instructions are of a very basic nature.  Over all, eHow has provided me with a few tips and tricks valuable enough that I will go back.

 

Next is Tutorialized (http://www.tutorialized.com).  Focusing on the more technical side of tutorials, Tutorialized does a really good job of providing articles on Photoshop, Gimp, and even AutCAD.  With over 12,000 tutorials on Photoshop alone, this is a great resource for any graphic designer or photographer.  They have some great articles on simple enhancements all the way to very specific tips and tricks, like How to Create Glossy Lips and Change Hair Color.  Each tutorial has stats like the number of views, votes and a simple rating system so you can quickly evaluate which tutorials seem to be better. 

 

Not commonly thought of as a tutorial site, but Mahalo (http://www.mahalo.com) has some pretty decent tutorials covering a wide range of topics.  Just check out the How To section of the site (http://www.mahalo.com/category/how-tos) to find some great articles like How to make Pumpkin Pie or How to Make Money off of Facebook.  The articles are well done and rival just about any tutorial I’ve seen on the internet.  Don’t under estimate Mahalo the next time you are looking for directions on how to do something. 

 

Lastly,  MonkeySee (http://www.monkeysee.com).  An aptly named site, these tutorials are all video-based and range in topics from automotive repair to pet care.  One of the more interesting articles is, How to Play Air Guitar and How to Read Tarot Cards.  I thought I knew how to play air guitar, but watching a video from the world champion air guitarist, I guess everyone has something to learn. 

So, the next time you find yourself wondering how to accomplish a task on your Honey Do List, don’t worry, because you can look it up on the internet.

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