Google Tutor

User advice

Mark Fleming has started a new omnibus site/blog dealing with the vagarities and varieties that make up Google.

"In my discussions with other Google users, I am always amazed at how few of Google's tools they have heard of. For the most part, people are only familiar with the main search areas such as the web, news and images. And even in these areas, their knowledge of all the options that would allow them to better harness the power of Google is limited.

When I've told others of the vast features and formidable power of Google tools, they are quite frankly astonished. Compounding the problem of this unfamiliarity is the fact the Google does not make much of an effort to even tell us what's new and what's in public beta. You've usually got to hear about it somewhere else or just stumble upon it."

GoogleTutor.com
Google Tutor and Advisor

One entry, for instance, points to the Google Cheat Sheet

Also see:
Google Guide



See all Topics

Free Statistical Display Software

World wide Economic Data

"Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualize human development. This is done in collaboration with universities, UN organizations, public agencies and non-governmental organizations.
It all started in 1998 from an idea to enhance the understanding of world health. We developed prototype software showing time series of health statistics as moving graphics and varying life conditions as 360° photo panoramas from homes, schools and health facilities. From the prototype emerged the Dollar Street project with Save the Children Fund in Sweden and the World Health Chart project with WHO. Within the later project, Gapminder developed the free software Trendalyzer that turns boring time series of development statistics into attractive moving graphics."

GapMinder.org

"Gapminder offers some interesting interactive uses of technology to humanise economic data. These include "Dollar Street", in which you tour homes that are representative of various incomes, as well as several colourful interactive graphs of health, income and education."
The Economics Subject Centre of the UK's Higher Education Academy, 2004

See all Topics

Aulochrome

A new sound

"For the last year, Fabrizio Cassol (best-known as leader of AKA Moon) has been practicing intensively on the aulochrome. As there is only one model in existence, he is the instrument's only practitioner. Early this year, he premiered a composition by Philippe Boesman written specifically for aulochrome and the night before this presentation played the aulochrome in an improvised music context for the first time.

So, what does it sound like? Well, the aulochrome is essentially two soprano saxophones brought together by a double mouthpiece (with two reeds) and a common key mechanism. Each key is split in two, so the tubes can be played in unison or separately at will. The double mouthpiece means that the saxophone player's mouth muscles get much more of a workout than on a regular mouthpiece. Fabrizio said that he was observing trumpet and trombone players and asking them how they dealt with the demands of their instruments on their embouchure."

Be.Jazz Blog:
Aulochrome - Antwerpen

Introduction to the Aulochrome
Jazz Review.com:
The Aulochrome
The Instrument of the Third Millennium
Also:
Francois Louis.com



See all Topics

Stuff to buy

After Rent and Groceries

Tosterbag

..."a 'thick, A5, black plastic bag'.. With little handles, of course - can't forget those.
But hidden behind this mini-bin liner facade is a thermological, nutrition preparation device of truly impressive proportions. For, as its name suggests, the Toastabag allows you to cook things in a toaster. Not in every toaster, just the thick-and-thin kind that most people have nowadays. All you do is bung the ingredients in the bag, pop it down in the toaster and wait."

Here's a video of a sandwich that might have been made with spam.



Pet Phone

"The patent pending PetsMobility™ PetsCell™ will be compatible with existing cellular and satellite GPS technology. The PetsCell™ will allow pet owners to talk to their pets as well as allowing owners to request assistance should they become incapacitated and require help. In addition, and perhaps more valuable, pet owners will have a peace of mind that if their pet is lost and someone finds their pet wandering the streets, with a simple press of a button on the PetsCell™, the auto dial function will dial the owner's home alerting the owner to retrieve their pet.

While on vacation, at work, or on the road, pets can be contacted by that friendly recognizable voice of their owners."

PawSense
Catproof your PC. No more having your cat hanging out in chat rooms while you're at work.
Stop the beasts before they take over.

"When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard."

See all Topics

Hipster PDA

PDA for $3.00

From 43 Folders.com:

Introducing the Hipster PDA

" The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is a fully extensible system for coordinating incoming and outgoing data for any aspect of your life and work. It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and “beaming,” and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain."

1. get a bunch of 3"x5" file cards
   
2. clip them together with a binder clip
   
3. there is no step 3

More expensive, but part of the new-old cool: Moleskine Pocket Notebooks Jeremy Wagstaff: The Moleskine Report

"There is an immense amount of satisfaction in writing on paper - we tend to forget that in this digital-toy-crazed world we live in. The Moleskine has lovely paper - crisp, creamy, and smooth - that is a pleasure to write on. I use a four-nib Rotring pen that has a mechanical pencil (great for sketching), a roller ball pen, a bright orange dry-lighter, and a PDA stylus tip - all contained in a very precision-machined metal barrel. I also enjoy flipping through my journal pages, reviewing sketches, diagrams, and ad hoc notes. With the Tablet PC, I get a near-paper experience but the best thing about paper is that it requires no batteries!"

Also from 43 Folders: More Moleskine Hacks

See all Topics

Ground Shaking?

Doorway or PC?

If you feel a quake, where do you go?

U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program Website

"Earthquakes pose significant risk to 75 million Americans in 39 States. The USGS is the only Federal agency with responsibility for recording and reporting earthquake activity nationwide. Citizens, emergency responders, and engineers rely on the USGS for accurate and timely information on where an earthquake occurred, how much the ground shook in different locations, and what the likelihood is of future significant ground shaking.

The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year, but many go undetected because they occur in remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The USGS now locates about 50 earthquakes each day; 20,000 a year."

• Current Earthquakes
  • USA
    
  • World
• NEIC Current Earthquake Information
  
• ShakeMaps
  
• Seismogram Displays
  
• Past & HistoricalEarthquakes
  
• Earthquake Notification E-mail

Also: Ask USGS Earth Science Information Center
Tsunamis research at USGS

See all Topics

Freeware

More than affordable software

Here is a collection of free software including a desktop utility called RUNit:

"RUNit is a simple but yet powerful launchpad. RUNit gives you quick access to applications, documents, folders and shortcuts. Unlike many other launchpads RUNit doesn't occupy any space on your screen - you only see it when you actually use it.

RUNit defines a "hot area" on your screen where a click of the right mouse button makes the RUNit launch-menu appear .The "hot area" can be any border of the screen or even the whole screen."

PricelessWare.org

"The Pricelessware list is a compilation of software collected through a yearly vote by the participants of the "alt.comp.freeware" newsgroup. It is a list of what people have voted as "the best of the best in Freeware".

• Business-Home
  
• Desktop
  
• File Utilities
  
• Graphics
  
• Organizers
  
• Multimedia
  
• Security
  
• Web Design
  
• Internet
  
• Programming
  
• Text
  
• System Utilities

See all Topics

Census Maps and Graphs

Statistical treasure trove

The charts and maps can be set for specific areas. The underlying database figures are also provided.

Tacoma, Washington:


CHARTS & TRENDS

"Census 2000 and Trend Data going back to 1990, 1980, and sometimes even further, on a growing list of topics, including population growth, population by race, age structure, family structure, and income."

MAPS

"Many of the most important social trends affecting America have a strongly regional flavor. Figure out where you fit in with demographic maps showing where the elderly predominate (think: the Great Plains), where the nuclear family is (and isn't) the norm, and how "diversity" breaks down regionally."

RANKINGS

"State and county-level rankings by population growth, race, educational attainment, language, gender, and more."

SEGREGATION

"Segregation Exposure and Dissimilarity Measures for 1246 individual US cities with population exceeding 25,000 and for all metropolitan areas, based on single and multiple race populations as identified in Census 2000."

CensusScope

University of Michigan:
Social Science Data Analysis Network

The site was suggested by the eclectic J-WalkBlog of John Walkenbach.


See all Topics

Build a Trebuchet in your backyard

Pumpkin chunkin

The Trebuchet at NF/ Observatory

"The NF/ Ranch is a small cattle ranch in the Mimbres Valley (New Mexico). The earliest signs of human occupation are from 1000AD, when the Mimbres Indians occupied sites along the Gallinas River, just down the hill. A Spanish fort was built over some of these ruins arround 1600, for protection against the local Warm Springs Apaches. Now the residents include Bill, Ty, Nick, Cindy, Amber, and Kaelin along with the animals at the ranch. Ty and Nick are currently perfecting a Trebuchet, a high tech siege weapon from the 10th century."

Also:
Trebuchet MS Font




See all Topics

Jean Sheperd

"You filthy pragmatists, I'm going to get you!"

A Salute to Jean Shepherd:

FlickLives.com

"Those who have seen the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story" know Jean Shepherd as the voice of Ralph Parker as an adult. Others who grew up in the New York Metropolitan area during the 50's, 60's and 70's may recall the nightly radio show he did on WOR 710AM five nights a week for forty-five minutes and the two-hour Saturday night "Live at the Limelight" shows.

... a stunt he liked to pull, was the hurling of invectives. He would instruct his listeners to place their radios in the open window of their house and turn the volume way up. He would then yell over the radio things like, "You filthy pragmatists, I'm going to get you!"

Shep often said that there was 5 to 10 hours of preparation for each of his nightly shows, and yet fellow WOR personality Barry Farber, and one of his engineers, Herb Squire say that it all came from the top of his head. Herb claims that Shep would come into the studio with only a scrap of paper with a few notes, or perhaps an article someone had sent him. He would sit down behind the mike, and as the theme song would play Shep would ease into 45 minutes of non-stop chatter. He would start out talking about a particular subject, and through the course of the show, would side track to other related topics. But as his theme music at the end of the show came to a close he managed to tie it all together and bring the show to an end."

Jean Shepherd: Radio's Noble Savage
by Edward Grossman

"10:15 P.M. The WOR news and weather are out of the way. A bugle sounds, and a sprightly theme song comes trotting on the air. The theme has a double meaning: it is the one that calls the horses to the gate at Aqueduct, and it is the Bahnfrei Overture, composed for an operetta by Eduard Strauss, the only member of the Strauss family who did not make good. Presently, Shepherd's clear, rowdy voice intrudes. 'Okay, gang are you ready to play radio? Are you ready to shuffle off the mortal coil of mediocrity? I am if you are.' There is a noise like a mechanized Bronx cheer (BRRAPP!)- it is Shepherd blowing his kazoo. At other times he twangs his Jew's-harp (BRROING!). 'Yes, you fatheads out there in the darkness, you losers in the Sargasso Sea of existence, take heart, because WOR, in its never ending crusade of public service, is once again proud to bring you--(EROICA SYMPHONY UP)-- The Jean Shepherd Program!'"

Bob Kaye:
Shep In Concert! Video Clip

JeanShepardPodcast


See all Topics

Population 485

By Michael Perry

ISBN 0-06-095807-3
Perennial 2002



About the Author
Michael Perry was raised on a small dairy farm near New Auburn, Wisconsin, and put himself through nursing school working as a cowboy in Wyoming. As of this writing, he is the only member of the New Auburn (nee Cartwright Mills) Area Fire Department to have missed the monthly meeting because of a poetry reading.
See:
SneezingCow.com



Book Description
A collection of stories about life in a small Wisconsin town. What it's like to be in the volunteer fire department with your brothers and your mother.
Unable to polka or repair his own pickup, his farm-boy hands gone soft after years of writing, Mike figures the best way to regain his credibility is to join the volunteer fire department. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, he tells a frequently comic tale leavened with moments of heartbreaking delicacy and searing tragedy.

Quote

"... The village board sent someone around to recite nuisance ordinances chapter and verse, but beyond rearranging the bikes and aligning the camper with the speedboat - feng shui primitif - nothing has changed. You take what you can get in this life. Someone calls you white trash, you go with it, and fight like hell to keep your trash. You understand it is a matter of distinctions: yuppies with their shiny trash, church ladies with their hand-stitched trash, solid citizens with their secret trash. In a yard just outside town, a spray-painted piece of frayed plywood leans against a tree. It reads Trans Ams: 2 for $2000. It has been there for two years."

New Auburn, Wisconsin, 54757


See all Topics

Time Counts

Thoughts and Tick Tocks

Brad McCormick has the kind of web site that is built to be thumbed through. There are some serious linkage pages:

What Time Does Your Computer Think It Is?



And also a collection of his thoughts and others. I found it worthwhile to just surf from spot to spot.

There is good stuff at almost every click.

"Happy the person who can find genuine interest and satisfaction in something nobody else wants -- for then (s)he has a better chance of being allowed to have it. "

"Big problem: How to avoid wasting one's life to earn one's living. "

"When will we advance to a level where not just owning persons (slavery) but also renting them (wage labor) is outlawed and abolished? "

"Some persons can judge [many] books by their covers. Other persons can't judge a book even by its contents. "

"Why not speak, conciliatorily, of the complementary sex (gender), rather than, oppositionally: 'the opposite sex'?"

See all Topics

Flying Pigs

and other cool stuff

I was lucky enough to find an outlet for Flying Pig material in my home town. If you are interested in very clever paper machines, make Flying-Pig.co.uk a must click location.




Also:
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

Timber Kits



And:
the Paper Airplane Museum



See all Topics

Hot Knots

Tied Up?

The KnotPlot Site
By Rob Scharein

"Knot theory is a branch of algebraic topology where one studies what is known as the placement problem, or the embedding of one topological space into another."

The site includes a collection of knots.



You can, also, download a program called KnotPlot to develop your own knots


Click to see more moiré knots.

Animated Knots

Other nots:

Ripley's Believe it or not!

Hot or Not



See all Topics

PC Tick Tock

How a computer tells time

An excellent source of information is Karen Kenworthy's web site.

"Karen is the author of the popular Power Tools, free programs that make life with Windows a lot easier.

Karen also writes a free e-mail newsletter. In it, she discusses her new programs, answers reader questions, and explains technical details in a way that anyone can understand."

What time is it

"Computers running Windows 95 or later can take advantage of a third circuit to measure time even more accurately. The frequency of this high- speed oscillator varies from one computer to another. But it usually produces a few million pulses each second.

Because this timer ticks so furiously, Windows allocates more space to store its current value. This counter can continue to increase until it's recorded a total of 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 ticks! This should take at least 21,350,398 seconds (assuming a fast 10 MHz oscillator), or a little over 58,454 years, before the counter reaches its limit. They tell me at that point the count is reset to zero and begins again."

BTW:
If you're a real geek, you may want this:
Excel Function Wall Clock

Some of the functions used to indicate the time are:
=INT(PI)

=FACT(3)

=GCD(77,49)

and

=ROMAN(2)



See all Topics

Usable Ultimate Utensils

Great Gear

Kevin Kelly:
Cool Tools

"Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. I am chiefly interested in stuff that is extraordinary, better than similar products, little-known, and reliably useful for an individual or small group. There are plenty of places to read about stuff that should be cool, or that looks new and cool, and that might be useful. The recommendations here, on the other hand, are based on people who have used this item and have come to see its superiority. I post things I like and I ignore the rest."

Here are a few of the tools mentioned:

Disposable Suture Set
Micro tools

"The next time you or a friend are in the ER getting stitched up, ask your provider if you can have the suture set when he or she is done. Most places will hand them over if they are the disposable type. Hospitals use disposable suture sets since they are fairly inexpensive and decontamination of the reusable ones can be costly. The curved hemostat, the toothless needle driver, small surgical scissors and the pickups (tweezers) come in handy around the house." -- Fritz Araya

Ikea Tote Bag
Cheap huge tote bag

"Ikea sells these near the cash register. They are large -- about 4 feet by 2 by 2, with two clever lengthened (short & long) handles, made of some nearly indestructible nylon-plasticy mesh fabric in Ikea blue. For a buck, they're amazing. We put a mess at home, in the car, garden, garage. Great for dragging stuff from Sam's Club, or dirt in the garden, hauling firewood or just whenever you've a lot of loose stuff to move." -- Vince Crisci

NoTubes
Puncture-proof bike tires

"Stan's NoTubes system. In the NoTubes system you remove your inner tube from your tire. No tubes! You add a rim strip that seals your spoke holes. Since there is no tube you need a filling stem to put air into the tire.....this is built into the NoTubes rim strip. Then you add some white liquid inside the tire that seals it airtight. It's one of those things that seems like it would never work, but it works amazingly well. I will never go back to tubes." -- Alexander Rose

See all Topics

Cheerios Stops Itching

And other stuff

Joey Green has written a book about other uses for everyday products like:

• "Relieve itching from chicken pox, poison ivy, poison oak, or pain from sunburn. Pour two cups Cheerios in a blender and blend into a fine powder on medium-high speed. Put the powdered Cheerios into a warm bath and soak in the oats for thirty minutes. It's a soothing oatmeal bath.
  
  
  
• Make "Cheerios Chicken." Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a jelly-roll pan (15.5 inches by 10.5 inches by 1 inch) with aluminum foil. Mix two cups finely crushed Cheerios (from the yellow box), one-quarter teaspoon pepper, one teaspoon parsley flakes, one-quarter teaspoon garlic powder, one-quarter teaspoon dried oregano leaves, and one-half teaspoon salt. Dip four chicken-breast halves (skinned and boned) into one-quarter cup milk, then roll in cereal mix until well coated. Place chicken in pan and drizzle with two tablespoons melted margarine. Bake until done, about twenty to twenty-five minutes. (Above 3,500 feet elevation, bake about thirty minutes.) Makes four servings."

 
Wacky Uses


See all Topics

Minton Sparks

Could the air be any fresher . . .

"Sparks talks like Lucinda Williams sings; low, bed-headed and husky with sin, either remembered or imagined. In the syncopated monologues on her new spoken-word album, THIS DRESS, your gas-pumping mama, your fellow Baptists and your unmentionable relatives occupy every slot on the Waffle House jukebox, and when musical guests like Keb'Mos' and Maura O'Connell chime in, you can even dance to 'em.

---Jim Ridley Nashville Scene

With a voice born for gospel and a word artistry that makes you laugh and weep by turns, Sparks offers poems sorrowful and hilarious about the land of the double-wides.

---SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT-June 2005

Minton Sparks.com

RARWriter.com




See all Topics

Useless, but not worthless information

A little is dangerous, a lot is too much

A site with information deemed off of center.

Aspirin

The inventor of this modern miracle drug saw no use for it. Luckily, aspirin's formula was rediscovered nearly fifty years later and the rest is history. But, did you know that aspirin was included as part of the Treaty of Versailles?

Band-Aids

I'm stuck on Band-Aid 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me. Millions of these little adhesive strip have been sold over the years. Yet, their existence may never have been if it weren't for Listerine.

The Brassiere

Mary Phelps Jacob is widely credited with inventing this article of clothing way back in 1913. Did she really invent this garment? Better yet, did you know that it could possibly kill you? Check out the real answers.

Useless Information


See all Topics

Beyond Bullet Points

By Cliff Atkinson

ISBN 0-7356-2052-0
Microsoft Press 2005


About the Author
Cliff Atkinson is a leading authority on how to improve communications across organizations using Microsoft PowerPoint. He is a popular keynote speaker, a writer, and an independent management consultant whose clients include companies ranking in the top five of the Fortune 500. He is president of Sociable Media in Los Angeles.

Cliff teaches at UCLA Extension, is a senior contributor for the MarketingProfs newsletter, and writes the Beyond Bullets weblog, at BeyondBullets.com.
Also see SociableMedia.com

Book Description
PowerPoint owns the presentation world. We've been cocooned by a blue gradient screen with six or more bullet points feeding information.
Or so we've been lulled to believe.
(see Edward Tufte's dissection of the Columbia PowerPoint disaster)

Cliff Atkinson takes a well researched, but almost heretical stand that a presentation is a story and that too much data plastered on the screen, dulls the audience's soul and actually reduces comprehension and retention.

Beyond Bullets walks the reader through the story process and provides tools to structure presentations to have the maximum impact.

The "PowerPoint" part of the process is easy to follow, even for a novice. The story telling sections will help improve the most experienced speaker's show.

Quote

"But what might not be evident in the simplicity of this slide is what happens when the audience experiences it along with your verbal explanation. Because the slide design is simple, the audience can quickly scan the headline and visual and understand the idea. Then their attention turns to the place you want it. — to you, the words you're saying, and the way the information relates to them. Instead of making everything explicit and obvious on the slides, you can leave the slides open to interpretation so the audience is dependent on you, and you on them.

What (the experts are) saying, basically, is that slides filled with bullet points create obstacles between presenters and audiences. You might want to be natural and relaxed when you present, but people say that bullet points make the atmosphere formal and stiff. You might aim to be clear and concise, but people often walk away from these presentations feeling confused and unclear. And you might intend to display the best of your critical thinking on a screen, but people say that bullet points "dumb down" the important discourse that needs to happen for our society to function well.

Somewhere in our collective presentation experience, we're not connecting the dots between presenters and audiences by using the conventional bullet points approach. This issue is of rising concern not only to individuals and audiences - even the major players of large organizations are taking notice of the problem. It seems that in every location where people meet, from small meeting rooms to board rooms to conference halls, people want a change."

Here's the latest edition:






See all Topics

Cohabitation Agreements

And more

Here is a shared community with a collection of important papers. Kind of a Flickr for documents.

"docstoc is a user generated community where you can find and share professional documents. Find free legal documents and free business documents. Upload your documents for all the world to share."

• Differences between a Will and a Trust
  
• Employment Agreement
  
• Cohabitation Agreement
  
• Real Estate Purchase Contract
  
• On Target Marketing Plan Book
  
• Interactive W-9 from EchoSign
  
• Promissory Note
  
• Excel Formulas Help
  
• Venture Capital Firms in California (full contact info)
  
• How to Write a Mission Statement
  
• LLC Company Agreement
  
• Rental Agreement
  
• Last Will And Testament

DocStoc.com

See all Topics

Postal Codes

International

Don't assume that the ZIP code (or postal code, as it is referred to in many countries outside the United States) has any particular format or length, or that it comprises only digits. For instance, Canadian postal codes consist of two groups of three characters, such as "M5R 3H5"; a French postal code is a five-digit number, as in 92300. In some places, people might add a country or region code in front of the postal code (for example, F-92300)

Universal Postal Union:
Postcodes


Graham Rhind:
Links to Postal Code pages
Graham Rhind has specialized for over 14 years in international address and postal code methodologies.

Escape Artist:
Zip Codes & Postal Codes of the World
A website that shows you how to restart your life abroad.

Columbia University
Frank's Compulsive Guide to Postal Addresses

Word will not create a bar code for a Canadian postal code. Under the Canadian postal system, the post office applies bar coding to mail.

More Postal/Zip Stuff:

Melissa data

Campaign Contributions

Individuals that have contributed $200 or more to federal campaigns by ZIP Code.

Canadian Addresses

Lookup any Canadian address and get the Postal Code, time zone and area code.

Income Tax Statistics

Income tax information by ZIP Code. Includes average AGI, number of returns, average refund, filing status, age and more.

Nearest Post Office

Locate the 10 closest post offices to a ZIP Code that accept bulk mail.

Occupants by ZIP

Generate a count of occupant delivery addresses by ZIP Code. Order your Occupant list online.

U.S. Addresses

Lookup any U.S. address and get the ZIP+4 code, area code, time zone, county, address type, street detail and more.

ZIP Codes by County

Obtain a list of the ZIP Codes in any county in the United States.

ZIP Distance

Displays the distance between any two 5-digit ZIP Codes in the United States.

ZIP-City-Phone

Lookup ZIP Codes, city names, the location of phone numbers or the cities covered by an area code.

ZIPs in a Radius

Displays a listing of the ZIP Codes that fall within a radius.

Here are some great links:

Zip code demonstrator

How to Read Postal Bar Codes

Barcode Yourself

Barcode clock


See all Topics

Folding Tips

Bending cloth

Just to break up a boring dinner setting, learn how to fold napkins.

(things to do while waiting for the news)



Napkin Folding Guide



Napkin Folds

Napkin Folding




See all Topics

Publisher Merges

Not just Word

You know that you can send e-mail merges using Word. Try it with Publisher.

Design a newsletter and let it rip.




Merge Publisher




See all Topics

Calculators on the Web

Figure the vigorish

It's sometimes easier to use a preset calculator than it is to write your own in Excel.
Here's a collection of sites:

• Auto Calculators
  
  
• Bond Calculators
  
  
• Budget Calculators
  
  
• College Calculators
  
  
• Credit Card Calculators
  
  
• Home Calculators
  
  
• Insurance - Disability Calculators
  
  
• Insurance - Health Calculators
  
  
• Insurance - Life Calculators
  
  
• Life Expectancy Calculators
  
  
• Choose-to-Save - Life Expectancy
  
  
• Mutual Fund Calculators
  
  
• Paycheck Planning Calculators
  
  
• Retiree Health
  
  
• Retirement Calculators
  
  
• Roth IRA Calculators
  
  
• Savings Calculators
  
  
• Social Security Calculators
  
  
• Social Security Administration - Estimate Your Potential Benefit
  
  
• Stock Calculators
  
  
• Tax Calculators

Calculators



See all Topics

Gun Laws

How trigger happy is your state?

"Most U.S. states have failing scores when it comes to stopping criminals and other dangerous people from obtaining guns.

Two-thirds of all states score less than 20 points out of 100. Almost half of all states score 10 points or less out of 100.

The state with the strongest gun laws is California with 79 points, followed by New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland."

State Gun Laws

See all Topics

Bartleby Quotations

Wha'd I say

Churchill, Winston S.

..."man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on."

Here are a few of one hundred + reference sources available free:

Bartleby.com

• American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary
  
• Brewer's Phrase & Fable
  
• Bulfinch's Mythology
  
• Cambridge History
  
• Columbia Encyclopedia
  
• Columbia Gazetteer
  
• Dickinson, E.
  
• Einstein's Relativity
  
• Eliot, T.S.
  
• Farmer's Cookbook
  
• Fowler's King's English
  
• Gray's Anatomy
  
• Lawrence, D.H.
  
• Mencken's Language
  
• Oxford Shakespeare
  
• Presidential Inaugurals
  
• Roget's Thesaurus
  
• Strunk's Style
  
• The King James Bible
  

Also see: Project Gutenberg 

Quotes: Yahoo Reference


See all Topics

Capable Egg

By Lullaby Baxter Trio

ASIN B000046S0B
Atlantic 2000



About the Artist
Lullaby Baxter (Angelina Iapaulo) is neither fish nor fowl.

"Lullaby Baxter's story couldn't be better: A onetime topless DJ at a Toronto club, Baxter (Canadian-born Angelina Teresa Iapaulo) was discovered when she impulsively sang at an open-mic night.

Her backing band couldn't be better, either: The Oranj Symphonette .Baxter brings to her music torch-song gentility.

"Rooster In Love" is a barnyard-romance yarn that may not be metaphor, while "Mama (Should I Bake A Cherry Pie And Hide You Inside?)" is told from the perspective of a fretting child trying to save mom from some dire, rapidly approaching fate.

"Morty Mort-Morton Showstopper Calhoun," "Knucklehead," and "Ding-A-Ling" are teasing schoolyard chants, while "Mr. Powder-Blue Breadbox," "Horsey Don't Snore," and "The Chatterbox Chronicles" are full of surreal twists worthy of Lewis Carroll.

Capable Egg presents a strange world populated by even stranger people, but Lullaby Baxter Trio's grip on its eccentric material is remarkably restrained and mysteriously magnetic."

Recording Description
Good sound quirky lyrics.

Contents

1. Hopscotch
2. Anyway Song
3. Knucklehead
4. Rooster in Love
5. Mr. Powder-Blue Breadbox
6. Chatterbox Chronicles
7. Mama (Should I Bake a Cherry Pie and Hide You Inside?)
8. Ding-A-Ling
9. Morty-Mort-Morton Showstopper Calhoun
10. Spacegirl
11. Horsey Don't Snore
12. Lullaby
13. Ding-A-Ling (Reprise)

Also see:
Lullabyandgoodnight


See all Topics

Hi Ho the Visio

Free Demos and templates

Have you ever played with Visio?
This site provides demos. Templates and trials.

These templates are available:

• Sarbanes-Oxley Pivot Diagrams
  
  
• Help Desk Flow
  
  
  

  "Here you will see the six data collection points for this example help desk. Call volumes, wait times, and resolution rates are tracked at each point in the process. The diagram flows from left to right and top to bottom. Not every caller will experience each of the steps, if a problem is resolved by a Level One technician, then the caller does not progress to the Level Two technician.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Fault Tree Analysis
  
  
• PC Assembly Process Flow
  
  
• Supply Chain Analysis
  
  
• Value Stream Mapping
  
  
• Factory Floor Assembly Plan
  
  
• Loan Consolidation Process
  
  
• Investment Analysis Report
  
  
• HVAC Controls
  
  
• Military Organization Chart
  
  
• Network Equipment Rack
  
  
• Insurance Claims by State
  
  
• Audit Process
  
  
• Office Space Planning

Visio Toolbox

See all Topics

You are what you eat - with

Old Food Tools

Even before we had Ron Popeil to provide our cutlery, there were knives, spoons, and later forks.

California Academy of Sciences:
The History of Eating Utensils



A History of Eating Utensils in the West:
A Brief Timeline

"Henry Petroski, in The Evolution of Useful Things, makes the argument that it is not so much that necessity is the "mother of invention" as that invention takes place in response to dissatisfaction at the shortcomings of an already existing way of doing things.

The eating utensils we use and the ways we use them are the result of centuries of experimentation."

Medieval and Renaissance Eating Utensils and "Feast Gear"


Ron Popeil (aka Ron "But Wait!" Popeil)

"Born in 1935, he was for all practical purposes orphaned three years later when his parents divorced and he and his brother were shunted to a boarding school in upstate New York.

The one memory of this period is of a Christmas when parents were taking their children home for the holidays. Ron peered through a window at the long, straight road leading to the school, hoping to see his father's car approach. It never did."

See all Topics

Itsy Spitfires

Bitsy bombers

Here's a collection of paper airplanes that will get you expelled/fired any day of the year.

"They're cute. They're zippy. They're the ultimate time-wasters. Created by paper airplane world record holder and engineer Jeff Lammers, authors of the World Record Paper Airplane series, this calendar features a full year of palm-sized flying machines and detailed folding instructions. Perfect for stirring up a little mischief at the office. 4 1/2" x 5 1/2".

See all Topics