links for 2008-04-29
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Presentation that TechMonkey & Linuxchic gave on WordPress at PodCamp MidWest
Archive for April, 2008
links for 2008-04-18
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Mmm, homemade magic shell for your ice cream.
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Website with projects for crochet, knitting, jewelry making, paper crafts, sewing, quilting and more. Save projects, add projects, and more with a free account and profile.
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Free online sewing patterns for all of baby’s staples. Patterns include pictures of finished item and are sorted by size from 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months, and beyond the first year.
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Source list of the top 10 places for online fabric purchases
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Free patterns and howto for making appliques for clothes, crafts, and quilts.
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Refashion old t-shirts into stylish baby, toddler, and kid pants.
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Free sewing patterns, instructions, and projects
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HowTos for Quilting Projects
Concert: My Chemical Romance
Boy did I strike gold yesterday! Although it was the dreaded tax day and one thing went wrong after another, a friend of mine called and said she had an extra ticket for the My Chemical Romance concert that night and did I want to go. Of
course, I felt really guilty about accepting since I had a ton of crap to do and was having such a terrible day, but her husband pretty much talked me into it. It didn’t take much really because I do like MCR.
I haven’t been to a concert since Megadeth (with the Misfits opening) in ‘99. Oh boy things have changed and I have certainly gotten older but I eventually really got into the music and started dancing and jumping and singing along. It was great fun and a much needed release. I love any opportunity where I can dance like no one is watching and sing my heart out like no one is listening.
Today I still managed to get up on time for work but my ears are still ringing. I took some pictures with my phone and since it doesn’t zoom I had to modify them in iPhoto after the fact. They aren’t the best since we chose to head up to the top balcony but it was a good location for watching the show even if the pictures are blah.
Moral of the story: great concert, great opening acts (Drive By and Billy Talent), and I really need to do this more often!
links for 2008-04-15
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Like the braided knot friendship bracelets from junior high, only on a larger scarf-like scale.
You don’t have to be a farmer to make cheese
and other free, fascinating, and informative how-tos.
Well, that isn’t exactly the title of the publication but it does tell you how to Make Homemade Cheese (PDF) and even includes recipes! I have seen dairy farms and cheese making places (my oh so technical terms) on the Discovery Channel but it always looked so intimidating, what with all the industrial equipment and such. After reading the free publications from the New Mexico State University I realized there is more I can make in my own humble kitchen and backyard than I previously thought. Don’t worry if making homemade cheese doesn’t appeal to you, they have documents on everything from reconstructing clothing to potty training toddlers to recipes for pinto beans and my personal favorite, In a Pinch Ingredient Substitutions (PDF).
More favorites of mine:
- Make Jelly, Jam, and Spread at Home (PDF)
- Managing Your Family’s Money (PDF)
- Rags to Riches (clothing reconstruction) PDF
- Pattern Alteration (PDF)
- How to Keep a Small Poultry Flock (PDF)
- Creating Strong Families (PDF)
- Backyard Composting (PDF)
- Growing Sweetcorn in Home and Market Gardens (PDF)
- When to Harvest Vegetables (HTML)
More free nutritional, cooking, sewing, canning, and family publications at the New Mexico State University How To Publications site
links for 2008-04-08
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Build a Twitter feed out of Twitter peeps from the area you specify. Great way to find local Twitter users.
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Make a grocery list of the best specials from the fliers, visit your local store and save!
I Want Sandy - Bzz
This is a BzzAgent Review and is my honest opinion of the service posted. For more information about Web Bzz visit the link at the top of the sidebar.
I Want Sandy is a service that is designed to be your virtual office assistant on the internet and on the go. More than just to-do lists, I Want Sandy can keep track of your contacts, notes, calendar, important dates, and even shopping lists. While you can manage your data online through the website, I found that the site is clunky and hard to navigate. I Want Sandy excels at email and mobile communication integrating with SMS and Twitter. While I had no problem getting the service to work with Twitter, I never could get the authorization SMS to go through to my phone even though they have my provider listed.
Personally I Want Sandy was more complex than I needed and I have found other targeted services work better for managing my to-do list. With so many features it is difficult to get used to at first, but if you are looking for a robust free internet service to manage everything I Want Sandy is your dream assistant. For those like me that struggled to get used to the commands there is well laid out documentation and cheat sheets to get you on your way to organizing your day on the go.
43 Things - Bzz
I haven’t checked into BzzAgent (see below for more info on BzzAgent) for a while and thought I would update my info and see what opportunities were available while I was at it. Low and behold they had several sites in their queue that I am a member of and enjoy very much with 43 Things just being one of them. I have written up a few things about each one and will post them one at a time over the next few days.
43 Things is a productivity site geared towards personal goal making and achieving. The social side of the site allows you to not only see who else has your to-dos in common on their goal plans, but you can also give and receive encouragement towards your goals. My favorite part of 43 Things is the social aspect of it. Not only can you see who else has your goals in common but you can share and receive encouragement towards those things. Although I don’t use 43 Things to keep a common, every day to-do list, I do use it to list those things I need a little extra push to get done. If I have “organize my closet” on a list that is viewable by the public and people can see when I haven’t gotten around to it a year later, it is a tad bit embarrassing. Keeping these items on 43 Things not only makes you feel normal (there may be hundreds of others that have the same items on their goal list as you do) but the cheers I have received from absolute strangers for goals I have posted makes me feel like I have accomplished something when I get it done.
Feel free to look me up at 43 Things if you stop and visit! Of course, I go by linuxchic.
About BzzAgent: Bzz is creating discussions and enabling information to spread from one person to the next and the next. It’s the word on the street, the energy around a product — it’s about creating and sharing ideas that people will talk about. It’s about honesty and upfront disclosure of the nature of the information as well. Interested in spreading some Bzz? Click here to learn more.
links for 2008-04-07
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Great money saving tips and the best deals to watch for from Walgreen’s and CVS posted weekly.
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Printable Coupons
Pulling together as a family
Between the soaring gas prices and the rising costs of necessities we are really feeling the crunch of the economy at home. While it would be awesome if the blogs and podcast would finally start pulling in some extra cash, they really haven’t done it yet. My family made a lot of sacrifices over the last year while I spent every waking moment on the computer writing, podcasting, and researching content and the time has come where I can’t expect them to continue to miss me 80 hours a week not to mention I am missing them most of all. Online has to take a backseat to my family since giving up my day job is not an option. My family is more important than any other blog or social networking event is so hopefully everyone understands why it seems I have gone dark for awhile.
Besides the new challenges facing the average family in the US right now, the real wake up call was that 10 years and a better income later, I had less money now than I did in the past in a single income family. We were doing something wrong and we had to do something to fix it or we will never survive the current economy crisis. We are going back to our roots and doing what we used to to save money and make our hard earned money go as far as possible. We also realized we don’t spend enough quality time together so we made a plan and agreed to start implementing change. We put our plans in motion a few weeks ago and things are looking up.
One of the easiest changes I can make is to alter my work schedule to cut down daycare costs so I can be home when school gets out. This starts this week and I will be getting up before the sun comes up to start my commute to work every day and I will be home more with the kids and be around to take care of my home.I have gotten some great tips from online blogs and groups in addition to just common sense back to basics living for overcoming the rising costs of living. We will survive stronger, happier, and healthier than ever and I will share more of our money saving tips that include our garden, made from scratch recipes, sewing/crochet/knitting, and smart shopping methods. My free time has moved completely over to household productivity/management time but blogging won’t cease completely; posts will be less frequent, but they won’t be absent.