Cooking By Numbers

Don't know what to cook? Try this tool! Just select the ingredients you have, and a list of possible recipes will be generated for you based on which ingredients you have. If you select eggs, milk, and flour (I bet you have those!) a bunch of recipes will come up, including Perfect Yorkshire Puddings and Fried Egg. There are a bunch of recipes on here, and if you're out of ideas, it could be a lifesaver (no, wait, Lifesavers aren't on the list). Just go to cookingbynumbers.com.

StumbleUpon - Wander through the web.

I'm addicted to this one. It takes wandering aimlessly through the internet to a whole new level, because with StumbleUpon I can wander through websites that not only would I probably never have found on my own, but I can review them and add them to my online bookmarks. Just sign up (it's free!) and download the toolbar (it only works in Internet Explorer and Firefox). Then click "Stumble!" and you'll be taken to a website that is under one of the categories of interests (computers, animals, meteorology, art, etc.) that you listed when you signed up. For example, if you told StumbleUpon you liked cats, then you might find a cute cat picture, or if you like homeschooling, you might find good homeschooling resources. You can stumble through one category or choose to stumble through pages in any category you like. You can thumbs-up or thumbs-down a page and review it, and your reviews will go on your StumbleUpon blog. You can also stumble through pages your friends like. It's a really amazing site, and I bet that when you try it out you'll be addicted too. Just go to stumbleupon.com to sign up and get started! If you would like to see my reviews, go to http://sivartm.stumbleupon.com/.

Cafepress - Open your own online shop.

You can open a free online store with personalized products! If you aren't familiar with Cafepress, you should be. It's wonderfully easy to open an online store and add products. The hardest part (for me at least) is coming up with a good product design that people will buy, but Cafepress has helpful resources, like templates and guides to designing an image. Then you just select the product you want, upload the image, write a description, and you've basically got your product. Your store is now open for business. And yes, it works. I've gotten one check already (you can decide how much you want to earn before they send you a check), and I don't even really sell that much (my store is at http://www.cafepress.com/thehamstore, and my mom's is at http://www.cafepress.com/picturepretty). Cafepress is a great way to earn money online, and it's easy, too! Just go to cafepress.com!

Google Earth - World travel from your desk.

No more expensive vacations! You can now travel the world in one click - for free! With Google Earth, that is. Google Earth (made by, you guessed it, our friend Google) uses satellite photos of the entire earth (mostly, anyway; Google excludes some places because of security reasons) to construct a virtual globe inside your computer.
With your mouse, you can interact with the world by zooming in and out and panning through the image. But that's just the beginning. You can type in an address, directions or coordinates and instantly be taken to the geographic location. Many cities have 3D buildings, and there's a neat new feature called Street View that allows you to take panoramic tours of select cities. You can also see the sunrise and sunset happen in real time, or change the time of day to see the sunlight move across the earth.
There's a neat feature called Sky that lets you explore beyond the earth in outer space, seeing other stars and galaxies. There are so many amazing features in this program that I can't mention them all, but you can get a great tour with videos at http://earth.google.com/tour.html, or if I've already convinced you, go to http://earth.google.com/ to download it. It's free!

Twitter - Broadcast your life.

Well, I hope that title doesn't scare you off. Don't worry, there won't be camera crews following you around. I'm just talking about Twitter, one of the best ways to keep your friends and family updated on what's up.
You can use up to 140 characters to say anything you want, like the address of a website you found, what you're eating for breakfast, or the funny thing your dog is doing. Your friends and family (and anyone else) can join Twitter and follow you, and be updated when you post. Some people are calling it "micro-blogging".
You can post to your Twitter account with a text message from your phone, with your instant messenger or on the Twitter website itself. If you have a blog, you can put your recent updates on it.
It's a really neat service, and I highly recommend it. If you'd like to check out my Twitter profile and maybe even follow me, go to http://twitter.com/SivartM. To get your own Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com.

Spreeder - speed reading training.

A while back I came across a great website. It's called Spreeder, and it's a neat tool for training yourself to speed read. You simply copy and paste the text you want to speed read (articles, e-books, whatever) and choose how fast you want to read (in words per minute). It flashes the  words on the screen at that speed. I've read at over 500 words per minute using this tool by gradually increasing my reading speed. I'm not sure how much text you can put in the text box, but I've put over 10,000 words in it before. It's a good tool, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to increase their reading speed! Just go to spreeder.com.

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FreeRice - Build your vocabulary and feed the hungry at the same time.

No, I'm not kidding. FreeRice is a great game for building your vocabulary. You just go to the website, freerice.com, and you see a word. You click on the definition (or, what you think is the definition) given four choices, and it tells you if you're right. The more words you get right, the higher your vocabulary level goes (the highest level is currently 60). My highest is 44; how high can you go? Oh, and, of course, for each word you get right, FreeRice donates the money for 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program, thanks to ads on their site (but the ads aren't very obnoxious and intrusive, thankfully). It's really a great game, you should check it out!

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Miro - TV on your computer

Wouldn't you like to be able to watch television on your computer? Well, a program called Miro will let you do just that. Almost. Here's how it works: you subscribe to video channels (using RSS) with Miro, which automatically downloads new videos that you can watch in Miro. There are over 2,500 channels on almost every topic imaginable: cooking shows, nature, science, and more! There are also many HD channels, so you can watch High Definition video on your computer (beware of extremely large file sizes, though, when downloading HD or large videos). You can also search for and download videos from websites like YouTube and Google Video. The best part of it all is that it's free! You don't have to pay a penny. You can even make your own Miro channel for free! To learn more about Miro and to download it, visit getmiro.com or click on this shiny button:

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How RSS can help you

What's RSS? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (sometimes, anyway). An RSS file feed is a file that you can find on many websites, like news websites and blogs. When you subscribe to it, you can read the latest news or blog posts without having to visit that particular website.

You may notice the orange icon to the right of this page that says "Subscribe". If you clicked on it, you would go to a page that shows the contents of the feed (my blog posts) and with links to help you subscribe. To subscribe to my RSS feed, you would need a program called an RSS aggregator, or RSS reader. You may have one built into the web browser you are using, or you can use an online RSS reader like Google Reader. I currently use an RSS reader built into my browser, as well as a nifty program called Feed Reader.

Once you have an RSS reader, it's very simple. You usually just have to click on a link to subscribe (you can find them on many websites if you look closely; they often say RSS or XML) and your feed reader will automatically subscribe to the feed. Then it will update the feeds periodically to give you the latest news.

What if you click on the link and you get a bunch of weird computer code? That's the code of the feed, which doesn't really matter to you, most likely. Your feed reader will probably let you copy and paste the address of your feed.

For more on RSS and a perhaps simpler explanation (I probably lost you, didn't I?), go to http://computer.howstuffworks.com/rss.htm.

Talking Paper Clip

This is the first post. Really. Look in the archives. See? First post!
Talking Paper Clip will probably share some interesting software and websites with you, but you probably don't need to be a computer whiz. No programming or computer-building necessary (unless I decide to post something advanced). But I'll try not to make it too boring, either, so that more advanced users will get something out of this too.

-Siv