How Stuff Works

How does lock picking work? Cell phones? Hybrid cars, or nuclear bombs?

How Stuff Works answers those questions and hundreds more. This is a cool site just to browse thru - a great website for adults and kids alike. Explainations are sometimes accompanied by animations too, which is helpful. Might be a great resource for kid's homework. My only criticism of the site is the heavy advertising, but they do have to make a living too.


I just wish I had this stuff to read while sitting in the bathroom!

Netflix

Let me paint a little picture for you.

You'd like to rent a movie this weekend, so you go to your neighborhood Blockbuster or locally owned rental joint, and nab the new release. So, you drive over there, get in the store, and find a movie. Luckily, it's in stock. You rent it for $3.99 and take it home. You watch it. Gotta be back Monday, so now you've got to find time to do that. You missed getting there? Plan on paying a rental fee!

No thanks. We don't do that at my house anymore; it's Netflix now, baby! Couldn't be more convienent or cheap. $16 a month for two movies at a time. Typically, we'll view about 8 movies a month, so that's $2 a movie for no driving back and forth, and no late fees. Yeah, I'm loving that. The selection on Netflix is immense, and they have a convienent queing system for your rentals - pick out the movies in advance, and they send them to you in order, as they receive the previous rentals back. Easy. The website is well-designed and easy to use.

When you are done viewing the movie, you just send it back in the mail - they give a prepaid envelope to do so. Keep the movie for as long as you want - no late fees!

Trips to the video store? No more!

Love My Seat

So you're making that big family vacation plans, and you want everything to go as smoothly as possible; you know Disney won't be a problem....but getting there? Yes, that can be a problem. You're flying; you want decent seats - perhaps close to the bathroom, or near the roomier exit doors. Does the airline have video screens, or power outputs for your laptop? - how do you find that out?

Enter Love My Seat.

This website has helpful information for US and international (how's Czech Airlines for exotic?) airlines - things like seating charts, flight status, the airline's official website, video, audio, power outputs, frequent flier programs, phone numbers, in-flight services - just about any info you'll need to book your flight.

Yahoo! Buzz Index

Yahoo! Buzz Index is cool because you can get a real pulse on what people are using the Internet to search for. For this post, your humble correspondent was puzzled as to why the term "Vanity Fair" was up 4242.71% in one day. Come to find out, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightly were both naked in the magazine's current issue, and lots of people wanted to see that (ok, yes I checked it out as well, but only in service to YOU).

Also, the Most Viewed News articles, and the Most Emailed News articles are there as well - interesting to see what the general public thinks is interesting enough to send to others.

Most Emailed Photos is also interesting - others, in effect, pull the best photos of the week for your viewing pleasure.

Go to Yahoo! Buzz Index

You Tube

Think of this as "America's Funniest Videos" without the commercials.

All kinds of homemade videos, yes, even the risque kinds, populate this website. Videos are sorted by category, popularity. The idea for this website is something like HotOrNot.com - but instead of uploading your photo, and getting approvals from other users - you upload your homemade video, and people vote on it. A vanity thing I guess. Deal is, some of it is really very interesting stuff. Click here.

Google Earth

Talk about being able to search for anything. Google Earth lets you see your house from above, fly thru the Grand Canyon, check out Maui, The Mall in Washington or Manhattan.

You download their application, and type in an address; Google Earth takes you from hundreds of miles above the Earth (you can see the whole planet) right down to a street address! Talk about seeing "the big picture".

Land elevations can be viewed - right from ground level - so you can see the height of surrounding geography as if you were right there. Roadways are labelled, as are hotels, parks, restaurants. Even get driving directions. It's a lot of fun just to play with. Manhattan Island even has the buildings in 3D!

The coolness - and usefulness - factor of Google Earth is very high; try it out here.

Zappos

One thing I love about the 'net is the ability to find things quickly.

Contrast that to shoe shopping. Usually, I have to go to several stores to find what I was looking for, and then I might get lucky and actually find the size AND width that I wanted. Mabye. Never mind the spotty service.

Ah, then I found Zappos. I was looking for a pair of slippers. I knew what I wanted, and went to, seriously, a dozen stores looking for them - both shoe stores and department stores. Nothing. So, I went online, and found Zappos.

Now, I know what you're thinking; I can't buy shoes online - I don't know if they'll fit, and if they'll look good on me, and so on. I hear that; that was my concern too. To be able to stay in business, Zappos would have to be able to work with those concerns, and they do - wonderfully.

So I found the pair of slippers I wanted. They were around $54. Maybe you think that's a bit pricey, but these are a name brand, high quality slipper, not some stuffed foam chinese junk in Wal-mart for $7.77. I was willing to pay more to get more. So I look over the slipper - they have it photographed from every angle - and it looked great. Still, I wasn't sure - what if it didn't feel plush enough, or fell off when I walked?

So i checked out the shipping and return policy. I almost dropped my mouse. Shipping was free! Gotta love that - and the return policy was almost making myself ask how they can stay in business; you can return your purchase up to a year later, used or not! How can they do that? Can you imagine walking around in a pair of sneakers for even two days, and trying to take them back to the shoe store? I can tell you what happens - they won't take them back - been there, done that. Oh, and if you do have to ship the shoes back? They pay that shipping too. How can you lose?

So I placed an order for them over the web. Got the confirmation of the sale. Then I got a call a couple of hours later from Zappos. "Sorry sir, that size is not in stock" Sigh! "We'd like to send them to you free, when they come in." HUH? "Yes, we'd like to send them to you, free of charge when we get them in. Should be in about 3 days." Wow, ok. And sure enough, about 5 days later, they came. I loved them. I still can't belive they just gave them to me. Now THAT is service!

So, my dumb dog tears apart one of them a few months later. I went back to Zappos and ordered again, and again, I was very satisfied (it was in stock this time).

Try Zappos next time you're in the market for shoes - you'll love the service and the product!

WayBack Machine

So you remember seeing an article on CNN.com a few months (or years) ago, and wish you had downloaded it?

Or perhaps your server crashed, and you had no back up of some really important text documents that would be really difficult (if even possible) to re-create?

WayBack Machine can help you out. You CAN actually go back in time on the internet with this website. They have 40 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. I had typed in some old websites that I had done for myself years ago, and sure enough, there they were. Most of the JPGs were gone, but still, the text was there. Also, I looked back at the coverage of Sept. 11, on CNN's website. A friend of mine, who does some website work as well, had a client come to him ( a major business, actually), to re-create their website - apparently they had never backed it up! And thru WayBack, they were able to recover most, if not all of the text, saving a tremendous amount of time and money.

Lulu

What a great idea this is. You've written the great american novel, or heck, just a cookbook to sell to benefit your church, and you need to get it...published?

Instead of going thru the hassle of sending out copies to dozens of publishers and getting rejected just as much, become a publisher yourself! Lulu.comis a marketplace for creators of content, so what you see is actually the product of a community that has grown up around Lulu's electronic publishing technology. They give the creators and owners of digital content complete control over how they use their work. Individuals, companies and groups can use Lulu to publish and sell a variety of digital content including books, music, video, software, calendars, photos and artwork.

So basically, you can create your book, "publish it" to Lulu, and when someone orders your book, you get the commish. You keep control ... of the rights, the design, the price and 80% of the profits. Really.

No set-up fees. No minimum order. No catch. They print and ship each product as it's bought, and the purchaser pays for it.

Prices for a printed book are very, very good. A 6x9 "perfect" bound color book of 100 pages is $19.53 per copy. If you ordered 100, it would be $17.03 each; 1000 would be $15.20 each.

You don't need to get a printed order; you can simply upload your book, and Lulu pays you an 80% royalty on every book they sell. I'm sure traditional book publishers don't pay this!

$39 glasses

About a year ago, I had to have new glasses - my prescription had changed. I went and got the eye exam, and paid the $79. Then I went into the store, convientley right next door (this was LensCrafters), and started looking at glasses. Bottom line was this - to get something half-way stylish and and to buy the lenses was going to cost over $300.

I'm sorry, that's way too much. My brother-in-law works for a lab here in Rochester that makes glasses - like LensCrafters does - for private optometry practices. He is a manager and also buys the actual frames and lenses that make the glasses. Not surprisingly, they all come from China. I asked him what kind of mark-up the frames were (they are just some small pieces of metal!) - and he wouldn't tell me, but said the percentage would blow my mind. I don't doubt it. They probably cost the retailer $15, and they sell them for $150. These places in the mall have to charge high retail to pay the rental costs of the store.

I walked out. I wasn't going to get ripped off again. I knew somebody out there had to sell for cheaper, alot cheaper. So, i picked out a style I liked, and marked down the brand and model number. Then I went home and surfed the net.

That's when I came across 39dollarglasses.com .

That's right, a whole pair of glasses for $39 - lenses included. You couldn't get a glasses case for that much at LensCrafters, Pearle Vision or the like.

So, I looked thru their well-done website, and found a pair just like the ones I was looking at in the store! These were $59, with lenses! Of course, I looked over the information on the site to see if there were any hidden costs - there was none. Shipping was $6, and they claimed a two-day turn-around time. Not bad. You could also "see" what the glasses look like on different facial shapes - round, oval, rectangele - male or female. Awesome.

So I placed the order. I think it came to like $69 with the shipping and tax. In any case, MUCH better than the $300+ the mall store wanted ( i don't have optical insurance).

I ordered on a Tuesday, and had them Friday. I was apprehensive - I'll admit it - I figured they would be junky. I put them on, and....awesome! The prescription was perfect, and they looked great - and fit great.

About two weeks later, I ordered a pair of prescription sunglasses - which were actually less money, as I recall - for a Florida trip, and they too have been great. I still have both pair, and they have held up wonderfully - even though I'm not as kind to glasses as I should be.

If you need a new pair of glasses, try these guys, please - you won't be dissapointed. I have a link right below. Yes, I get a commission - and I'm sure you won't mind; I put quite a bit of time into this website.

Big Stock Photo

So you need a nice, professionally-shot photo for a presentation, website or blog. You go to Corbis.com, find one, and find out it about $300 for what you want to use it for.

Are these people insane? $300 for using a photo for such small scale use? It's not like it's going to be for a Ford media blitz. There must be a better way.

Enter Big Stock Photo (www.bigstockphoto.com). Here, you can get those professionally-shot photos on the cheap, and not worry about copyrights. A single photo is $2.50 (!), and if you buy in bulk, get huge discounts.

On the flip side, if you are a good photographer, you can sell what your wares - Big Stock acts as a broker.You get 50¢ per download.