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


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Shuffle Music

Like those fruity machines

Microsoft Media player can do more things than just play the odd sound file. You can set it up to go through a play list is random order; playing music all day long.



Shuffle Sort


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Find Found Things

Where'd it go?

A Research Project of the Information School
at the University of Washington

Keeping Found Things Found™

"What is KFTF?

The classic problem of information retrieval, simply put, is to help people find the relatively small number of things they are looking for (books, articles, web pages, CDs, etc.) from a very large set of possibilities. This classic problem has been studied in many variations and has been addressed through a rich diversity of information retrieval tools and techniques.

A follow-on problem also exists which has received relatively less study: Once found, how are things organized for re-access and re-use later on? What can be done to avoid the need to repeat the process by which the information was found in the first place? (If, indeed, it is possible to repeat this process.) We refer to this as the problem of Keeping Found Things Found™ or KFTF."

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Scrub DVD Scratches

Methods tested

Which is better toothpaste or Brasso when it comes to cleaning that DVD?

Or



Paul Michael has done the testing for you and provides videos of the results.


Removing scratches


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Convert Anything

Four pecks to a bushel

Convert

"Convert is an easy to use unit conversion program that will convert the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions!"

OnlineConversion.com does more conversions online.
(A Hogshead is 63 Gallons)


Also:
Convert between bits/bytes/kilobits/kilobytes/megabits/megabytes/gigabits/gigabytes


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Translate on the Fly

Translate Text

Ahora usted puede exhibir un grado de la sofisticación que excede tu conocimiento


On the Tools menu, click Research.

1. In the Search for list, select Translation.
   
2. To change the languages used for translation, in the Research task pane, under Translation, select the languages you want to translate from and to.

Do one of the following:

• To translate a specific word, press ALT and click a word. The results appear under Translation in the Research task pane.
  
• To translate a short sentence, select the words, and then press ALT and click the selection. The results appear in the Research task pane under Translation.
  
• To translate a whole document, in the Research task pane, under Translation, click Translate whole document A translation of your document appears in your Web browser
  
• To translate a word or phrase, type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching .

Also see:

• Babel Fish
  
• Google Language Tools
• LangToLang.com
  
• Promt Online Translator
  
• Foreignword.com

Speaking of translating a fly, here's another kind of translation: BzzzPeek A collection of 'onomatopoeia' from around the world using sound recordings from native speakers imitating the sounds of mainly animals and vehicles.


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A Way Cool Paint-Picker

Just slap it on

If you have decided to paint your home, or just this inside of the downstairs coat closet, the Behr paint people have a neat tool.

Color Smart

You still have to slop the paint on yourself, though.

Here are other color generators:

Top 8 Color Tools

EasyRGB matches generated RGB values to paints, inks, etc.


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Calendar Templates

New days

Here are calendars that you can produce using Word, PowerPoint, or even Visio.

Calendars

Also see
Make a Calendar

"For each month of each year featured, there are a variety of printable calendar pages for you to choose from. You can print out calendar pages that include coloring pages, selected craft projects, and special days to celebrate. "

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Shoelaces

What's to know?

Fun, fashion & science in this quirky site about shoelaces. Whether you want to learn to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian's Shoelace Site has the answer!

Fieggen.com


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Ribbon Guide

FluidUserInterface

”These interactive guides show you where your favorite menu and toolbar commands are located in Office 2010-13. Just click the command or button that you want to find, and the guide will show you its location in the 2010-13 version of the program.”

Office.Microsoft.com


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Set Your Kindle Free

Jailbreak

You can program your Kindle to accept screensavers, and other aps.

How to Geek.com


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Flight Status

Where da plane?

An easy way to find out whether Aunt Mable's plane is on time is to type the airline name and number into Google (or Bing).




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Fast Interchange

7 day URL

Go to http://cl1p.net and then:

Enter a URL that starts with http://cl1p.net.
example:http://cl1p.net/assuming/

Paste in anything you want.
Some text, links, etc. Click 'Save' when done.

On any other computer open a browser to the same URL.
You will find the information you entered in step 2.


Do more with CL1P.net. Just open any URL that starts with http://cl1p.net and you can...

• Create a notebook
  
• Have a conversation
  
• Create a community

Cl1p.net


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Dryer Sheet Uses

Not just for machines

Use Dryer Sheets to:

1. Freshen smelly shoes.
   
2. Remove static from clothing, hair, TV screens, and computer monitors.
   
3. Clean pet hair from the floor or furniture.
   
4. Replace a sachet.
   
5. Loosen caked-on food from a pan.
   
6. Tackle suitcase and gym-bag odors.
   
7. Prevent old books from smelling musty when in storage.
   
8. Wipe up sawdust after working in the garage.
   
9. Prevent thread from tangling when sewing.
   
10. Dust venetian blinds.

RealSimple.com

DoItYourself.com

Curbly.com


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Psst - Cheap Gas

Drive to Save

"GasBuddy.com is the portal site to more than 170 web sites that help consumers find cheap gas prices. All web sites are operated by the non-profit organization known as GasBuddy Organization Inc.

Since gasoline prices change frequently and may vary by as much as 20 percent within only a few blocks it is important to be able locate the service station with the lowest priced fuel. GasBuddy Organization web sites allow consumers to both share information about low priced fuel with others as well as target the lowest priced stations to save at the pumps!"

Also:
Gas Price Watch.com

Autos.MSN.com


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Julian Dates

Gregorian to/from Julian

Julian dates refer to the number of days from the first of the year and the number of days until the end of the year.

The year -45 has been called the "year of confusion," because in that year Julius Caesar inserted 90 days to bring the months of the Roman calendar back to their traditional place with respect to the seasons. This was Caesar's first step in replacing a calendar that had gone badly awry. Caesar created a solar calendar with twelve months of fixed lengths and a provision for an intercalary day to be added every fourth year. As a result, the average length of the Julian calendar year was 365.25 days.

The Gregorian (Pope Gregory XIII) calendar is based on a cycle of 400 years, which comprises 146,097 days. Since 146,097 is evenly divisible by 7. Dividing 146,097 by 400 yields an average length of 365.2425 days per calendar year, which is a close approximation to the length of the tropical year. The Gregorian calendar accumulates an error of one day in about 2500 years.

Calendars by L. E. Doggett


From Chip Pearson's site CPearson.com:

"Many applications (especially mainframe systems) store dates in the Julian format, which is a 5-digit number, consisting of a 2-digit year and a 3-digit day-of-year number. For example, 24-August-1999 is stored as 99236, since 24-August is the 236th day of the year. Excel does not support Julian dates directly, but you can use them with only a few fairly simple formulas.

Converting A Standard Date To A Julian Date

The formula below will convert a standard Excel date in A1 to a Julian Date.

=RIGHT(YEAR(A1),2)&TEXT(A1-DATE(YEAR(A1),1,0),"000")

This formula takes the 2 right-most characters of the YEAR of the date in A1, and then appends the number of days between the date in A1 and the 0th day of that year. The TEXT function formats the day-of-year number as three digits, with leading zeros if necessary.

Converting A Julian Date To A Standard Date

The formula below will convert a Julian date to a standard Excel date.

=DATE(IF(0+(LEFT(A1,2))<30 data-blogger-escaped-strong="strong">

If the year digits of the Julian date are less than 30 (i.e., 00 to 29), the date is assumed to be a 2000 century year. If the year digits of the Julian date are greater than or equal to 30 (i.e., 30 to 99), the date is assumed to be a 1900 century year. This formula works by taking advantage of the fact that the DATE function can handle days beyond the "normal" days in a month. For example, DATE correctly computes 100-Jan-1999 to be 10-April-1999.

These Julian dates must have the leading zero or zeros for years between 2000 and 2009. For example the 123rd day of 2000 must be entered as 00123. Format the cell as TEXT before entering the data, or enter an apostrophe before the Julian date -- e.g., '00123. This will prevent Excel from treating the Julian date as a number and suppressing the leading zeros."

US Naval Observatory has this definition (and a calculator):

Julian dates (abbreviated JD) are simply a continuous count of days and fractions since noon Universal Time on January 1, 4713 BCE (on the Julian calendar). Almost 2.5 million days have transpired since this date.

CE 2016 March 17 03:00:00.0 is JD 2457464.625000


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Kahanamoku Keyboard

Surfboard - Keyboard

People ask you how to increase the font size in Internet Explorer?

"Oh, well, go to View>Text size and pick one between Largest and Smallest."

Here's another way:

Resize Text Size IE

Hold down CTRL key and move the wheel on the mouse.
The page text will enlarge or shrink.

Here are some others from Penn State University

Browser Tricks

Quick jump to Web Site IE

Type just the Internet domain name in the URL Address field and hold down CTRL+ENTER keys.
This will fill in www as the machine name and add .com

Presentation Mode IE

Select the F11 function key to enter Presentation mode (full screen).
Select the F11 function key to toggle back.

Page forward and back IE

Hold down SHIFT key and move the wheel on the mouse.
This will page forward or backward through the pages selected.

Page scroll using mouse wheel button IE

Push down on the mouse wheel button and slide the whole mouse up and down.
This will page up and down the screen.

Open a New IE Window with One Click

Hold down SHIFT and click on the link.
A new IE browser window will appear.

Page forward and back using arrow keys IE

Hold ALT button and use the arrow keys to page forward and back.

Get to Your Favorites with Keyboard Shortcut IE

Enter CTRL+I will bring up your left pane favorites.
Enter CTRL+I will make it disappear
Enter CTRL+B to organize your favorites

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku (1890-1968) is called the Father of Modern Surfing. There were others before him, such as George Freeth, who died in 1919, but Duke is the most widely known.

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Date an Octothorpe

Some more of those things I'm sure I used to know

The keyboard combination of Alt+Shift+D inserts the current date in MS Word and PowerPoint. Ctrl+; (semicolon) does it in Excel and Access.

If you do not like the date's format, select a different one with Insert>Date and Time and, if you would like to make that permanent, click on the Default button in the lower left corner of the dialog box (in PowerPoint it's in the lower right corner).

In Excel, Ctrl+Shift +# formats the entry as day-month-year. Ctrl+1 will display the "Format cells" dialog box.

BTW, the "hash, pound or number" sign # is also called an "octothorpe".

The person who named it combined Octo for the eight points and Thorpe for James Thorpe.

"Bell Labs engineer, Don Macpherson, went to instruct their first client, the Mayo Clinic, in the use of the new touch tone phone system. He felt the need for a fresh and unambiguous name for the # symbol. His reasoning that led to the new word was roughly that it had eight points, so ought to start with octo-. He was apparently at that time active in a group that was trying to get the Olympic medals of the athlete Jim Thorpe returned from Sweden, so he decided to add thorpe to the end."

While we're at it, the "backwards P, Enter mark" ¶ is actually named a "pilcrow".

The pilcrow was used in medieval times to mark a new train of thought, before the convention of using paragraphs was commonplace.

Also see:
Geek-speak names for punctuation marks

Wikipedia:
Punctuation


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