Blogs and Websites to add to your RSS Reader

I have been using an RSS reader for several years now.  I started with Bloglines, and about two years ago, I switched to Google Reader.

If you have never used an RSS reader to stay informed on what's happening in the news, with your friends, and in your industry, check out my previous post about using Google Reader.

Once you are setup with an RSS reader, it's time to find some great blogs to read!  I have compiled my favorite blogs in several different categories. 

Technology
Mashable
How-To Geek
Digitizd

Personal Finance
The Simple Dollar
Get Rich Slowly
Frugal Dad

Food
Kath Eats Real Food
Bakerella
Cooking Through Life Together

Coupons and Deals
Hip2Save
Groupon Girl
Dealusional

Miscellaneous
The Pioneer Woman
Dooce
Lifehacker

Feel free to chime in with your favorites in the Comments section below!

How to use Google Reader to stay informed

I use Google Reader everyday to stay informed with what's happening in my industry, with my friends and family, and to read my favorite blogs about cooking, photography, technology, and entertainment.  If you aren't currently using an RSS reader to read your favorite websites and blogs, take a look at the videos that I made below to get you started.

Part 1:



Part 2:




Get started with Google Reader today!

http://www.google.com/reader

Free food at restaurants during your birthday month

Did you know that you can eat for free during your birthday month?

Restaurants would love for you to celebrate your birthday dinner with them, but if you have a lot of favorite restaurants, you can eat for free all month long!

Check out the restaurants in the list below.  Join their Email Club, and you will receive a coupon for signing up or for your birthday.  If you don't want all of the emails to clutter up your main box, you may want to start a separate email account just for your coupons and offers.  I suggest Gmail.  Here is the current list:

AMC Theatres
Benihana
Blue Mesa Grill (Dallas/Ft. Worth area)
Buca di Beppo
Buffalo Wild Wings 
Dairy Queen
Dickey's Barbeque
Freebirds
Great American Cookies
La Duni (Dallas/Ft. Worth area)
Macaroni Grill
McAlister's Deli
Melting Pot
Mimi's Cafe
On the Border 
Qdoba
Raising Cane's
Santa Fe Cattle Co.
Starbucks
Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation
Taco Bueno
Texas de Brazil
Texas Land & Cattle
TGI Friday's
Wendy's 

This list is only a start.  Find the website of your favorite restaurants and look for a place to sign up for email promotions.  Free food is coming!

Get that song out of your head!

It drives me crazy when I have a song stuck in my head, and nothing will help me to forget it!

Cue UnHearIt. It's a website whose sole purpose is to get that song out of your head!  The only problem with the site is that the new song in your head might be just as bad as the old one.

http://unhearit.com/

Random Article in Wikipedia

Wikipedia has a random feature that, when clicked, will return a random article from the website.  If you have an extra few minutes and want to learn something new, try the random feature and expand your knowledge on a new topic!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Word Clouds

Word clouds (also known as tag clouds) seem to be popping up everywhere in education, but I think they are fun for personal use too. On websites for creating word clouds, you can paste in the address of a website or an article online and find the central theme of the page. You can also upload a paper like one you would write for English class and see the theme of the paper using a word cloud. Or you can make a list of your own words and create your own word cloud to use on your personal website, social media account or as a creative nametag or sign.

Wordle is the original word cloud website.  It has features to change the color themes, the font, and the text orientation on the cloud.

Tagxedo is like Wordle on steroids.  It has all of the same features as Wordle but also allows you to change the shape of the cloud.  If you are a Twitter user, you can create a word cloud based on all of your tweets.  You can even try other Twitter user names to get a feel for what they post.  Tagxedo makes this easy.  Navigate to the web site and click the Twitter box and enter the desired user name.  One of Demi Moore's followers on Twitter made a word cloud for her using the program.

I have found other word cloud sites, but I believe these are the best.  If you know of others, let me know!  Have fun visualizing your words in a new way!

http://www.wordle.net/
http://www.tagxedo.com/

Polaroid pictures without the Polaroid camera

If you are feeling nostalgic for the look of a Polaroid picture but haven't seen one of those clunky cameras in years, there's a fun program you can download to get that same look!

A free application (both Windows and Mac) is available online at Polodroid that allows you to upload digital pictures you have taken and add effects to resemble a Poloroid picture.

While you wait for your picture to develop, you can even shake it to make it go a little faster.

And once you have a collection of your best Polaroid pictures reminiscent of the 1980s, you can upload them to the Poladroid online gallery on Flickr and show off your best work! 

http://poladroid.net/

iPhone App: ESPN ScoreCenter

ESPN has a great FREE app available in the iTunes App Store that you will LOVE if you have any amount of love of professional sports.

You can view the Top Events happening in sports today.

You can see the top scores in a particular sport with your favorite team at the top.

And my favorite part...you get a message (like a text message pop-up) to your phone when any of your favorite teams plays or scores...or any other option you choose, for that matter.  Of course, you can turn off these messages if they start to annoy you.  But I love being updated on what's happening when I can't watch my favorite teams on TV.

Download ESPN ScoreCenter and customize it with your favorite teams today!

Sync files automatically between all of your computers

Dropbox may very well transform how you use all of your computers on a daily basis.  Seriously, it's that cool.

Let's look at an example.  You're at work and start working on a project, perhaps you are organizing the Office Christmas Party this year.  You have spreadsheets, documents, notes, all kinds of files.  Then you get home and would like to make some changes to your plans, but the files are at work!  Or, your coworker Janet has been assigned to help you with the party planning, and she needs to be able to view and edit all of the files.  How on earth do you keep all of the files current?  Probably by emailing each version back and forth and back and forth...

Endless emailing no longer!  Enter Dropbox!  It's a program that you download to your computer that automatically syncs files to any other computers of your choosing.  You can could have a Personal folder that you sync between your work and home computers.  You can have a Party folder that you sync between yours and Janet's computers.  You can have a Recipes folder that you sync between yours and your sister's computer.  The possibilities are endless!  And the syncing happens immediately when you close the file on your computer, no other work needed!

Even more, your files are synced across PCs, Macs, the Dropbox website, and your smart phone!  Check out the Dropbox tour for more details.

Seriously, this is life-changing!  Or as life changing as a computer application can be.

Happy Dropbox-ing!

iPhone App: Pano

Pano does one thing and does it very well.  It quickly pieces together a panoramic shot from several pictures taken in succession on your iPhone.  The app has on-screen steps to guide you in creating a clean shot and even allows you to switch from landscape to portrait, depending on what you are shooting.

You can find it in the App Store on your iPhone for $2.99.

Read Kindle books without a Kindle

I love the idea of e-books, but I haven't always been so thrilled.  I was definitely a feel-the-pages-and-hold-the-book kinda girl until I was forced to make the switch.  My graduate program studies made use of electronic textbooks for our classes, so I had to either read electronically or pay double for print textbooks.  I decided it was time for me to make the ecologically and financially responsible choice, and it was tough...at first.  It took longer to read, and I fumbled through several different methods for taking notes, but that's another post.  Eventually, I came around!  It was like training myself in how to play a new sport or complete a new kind of a puzzle.  After some initial practice, I was ready for more!

For today, let's talk about personal, non-textbook reading.  I still enjoy reading print books, but I also like the portability of having a book with me at all times, as long as I have my phone.  That's right!  I don't need a Kindle device to read a Kindle book.

Amazon has developed several free apps that allow readers of Kindle e-books to read, even if they don't have a Kindle. There's a version for the PC, Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Android, Blackberry, and more!

What's more, Amazon and others offer free books, mostly classics but a few are current, so that you can take the e-book reader for a free trial.  Download a reader app for your device, grab a classic novel for free, and you're set!  If you love the Kindle look and feel, you can purchase new releases for about $10.

One final great feature: if you are using two or more readers (like iPhone and iPad) among all of your devices, your books and page locations will all be synced automatically.

If you were thinking about trying out e-books but didn't want to invest in a Kindle, there's a way, and it's free!

iPhone App: Photoshop

The Adobe Photoshop app for the iPhone is a clean and easy way to jazz up your phone photos in a hurry.  If you don't have the time (or patience, for that matter) to upload your pictures to a full-size photo editor,  you will find that this app will do all the basics!

You can...

• Crop, Straighten, Rotate, Flip
• Adjust the Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black & White, Contrast
• Switch to Sketch, Soft Focus, Sharpen
• Add Effects and Borders
• Undo and Redo your changes
• Save photos back to your phone
• Upload photos to Facebook and TwitPic (for Twitter)

Find Adobe Photoshop in the App Store on your phone for FREE!

Secrets on a Post Card

PostSecret began several years ago when Frank Warren released several postcards into the wild of his hometown and asked people to write their deepest, darkest secret on the card and mail it back to him.  Today, his blog is an Internet phenomenon!

His site counter measure more than 350 million visitors and has a very simple layout.  Followers of his site from around the world send him postcards with secrets from their lives.  Every Sunday morning, Mr. Warren posts a new group of postcards -- often following themes -- from among the thousands of post cards he receives each week.

Some secrets are funny and light-hearted, others poignant and heart-wrenching.  This site is worth adding to your blog reader!

I like to check it out on Sunday, lingering on those where I find a personal connection and considering what my secret might be.

http://www.postsecret.com/

Gmaps Pedometer

I have a route that I enjoy walking in my neighborhood.  It takes me through my apartment complex, down the street, through a nearby park that has a playground and a soccer field and back home again.  Since I'm walking through a park and on small trails and sidewalks, I can't measure the distance of my walk by driving it with my car.  I would love to know how far I'm walking currently and would also like to map out distances on other longer routes that would take me to nearby neighborhoods.

A great site exists called Gmaps Pedometer that will you calculate those walking, running and biking distances, and you will find that it's very exact, to the hundredth of a mile! 

When you arrive at the site, type in your starting point next to the "Jump to:" box and click "go."  Zoom in to find your starting place.  You may want to switch the map to Hybrid view  so that you can see streets, trails and other landmarks.

Click "Start recording" to begin.  Double click on your starting place, and a red marker will show up.  Then continue to double click along your walking/running/biking path.  As you double click, you will notice that your total distance will increase.

The site offers great options like saving, printing and exporting routes, displaying elevation, showing mile markers and calorie counts.  Both miles and kilometers are available.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

TV Thoughts, As of Late

I’ve been watching a little extra TV lately, kinda as a last hurrah before school starts. My observations follow…

1. The Pottery episode of Community is awesome! Pottery class (no Ghost references!) and Sailing class (no Titanic references!) and guest star Tony Hale…all in one episode!
2. My “Me Time” has never had and will never have any connection to McDonalds.
3. Royal Pains is the only medical show that I enjoy watching.
4. You should not tell your husband that you are pregnant via video chat, even if you have an iPhone 4.
5. I’m just now getting around to watching the last few episodes of Modern Family. I don’t keep up with the awards circuit, so I don’t know…but I really hope this show is winning some awards! Brilliant, I tell you! Brilliant!

How to Take an Inexpensive and Fun Road Trip

My husband and I recently took a 12-day road trip through the southeast USA without making any prior reservations!  We both have iPhones and decided to book hotels and decide on attractions along the way.  We had a wonderful time and loved the freedom of being able to change our plans if we loved a certain city.  I have compiled a list of tips that we used to make our trip awesome and still save a little money along the way.

From the beginning, we know that our trip would be expensive, so we tried to save money where we could without making the trip a drag or having to stay in seedy motels. I'll share my tips on how we saved money

Food
We saved money on food by bringing along a full-size ice chest on the trip.  We brought enough drinks to last us the entire trip and brought all of the components for sandwiches so that we could have sandwiches for lunch on the days we were driving all day.  On our 12-day trip, we ate sandwiches about 6 times.  We also brought other snacks with us to munch on throughout the trip.  To keep our food cold, we brought several ice packs and made sure to book hotels with refrigerators in them.  The ice chest also allowed us to take leftovers from our restaurant meals and eat those the following day for lunch if we wanted. Once we arrived in a city, we used our phones to find restaurants within our price range and with great reviews!  We used Google, Urbanspoon and Yelp for restaurant recommendations.

Attractions
Our main tool for finding great prices on attractions in the cites we were visiting was to use group coupon sites. This was the only part of the trip where we did some advance planning.  First, I subscribed to the coupons for the cities where I was are vacationing several weeks before the trip began. I watched everyday for deals that we could use on our vacation. Before we the trip, we bought two coupons: one coupon for a half-price zip line tour and one coupon for half-price tickets to a Shakespeare play.  We also found some of our attractions through the brochure racks in hotel lobbies where we stayed.  We made sure to pick up brochures when we checked in at each new city and used those to help us find events in case we found ourselves with some extra time.

Hotels
Hotels were a big chunk of our budget.  While on the trip, we used three different methods for booking hotels, all via our iPhones.  We booked two nights via priceline.com.  Using this site, you don't get to choose the hotel, so sometimes you end up with a crappy hotel or a seedy neighborhood.  We had one good experience and one bad experience with Priceline. Another drawback with Priceline is that you forfeit any hotel points that you might have received if you had booked directly with the hotel chain. We also used hotels.com to book one night on the trip.  I have used this site before and was once again pleased with the results.  We found cheap prices, a wide selection of hotels, and I was able to choose the exact hotel…no wishing and praying like with Priceline.  Our favorite way to book for this trip was to go directly through the hotel chain that we prefer.  We decided that Best Western would be the best choice since they are currently offering a summer promotion, have multiple hotels in every city where we vacationed and offer good rewards for continued hotels stays. We used bestwestern.com to book several of our hotel stays.  Toward the end of the trip, we wished that we would have booked all of our stays on this one site so that we could accumulate points for future vacations.

Gas
We didn't use one of those gas price sites on our trip because we were frequently in a hurry to arrive at our next destination and didn't want to spend extra time searching around town for cheap gas.  However, if you have several people in the car with smartphones, you can task one person with finding the cheapest gas on the route you are taking!  (Perhaps another person book hotels...and another for investigating attractions.  It might be a great way to get your teens involved on the road trip if they are carrying a web-enabled phone with them on the trip!)

Tracking Expenses
Finally, we brought along a laptop with us and kept a spreadsheet of all of our expenses.  We updated it in the car as we were driving.  The spreadsheet helped us to decide if we needed to cut back on our spending to make sure that we stayed within our overall budget for the trip.

If you have good tips for budget-friendly travel, please leave a comment below!

A Guaranteed Smile

Some days don't start out well then get even worse.  On the bad days and even on the good days, it helps to know you can also get a smile.  Check out ZooBorns for pictures of baby animals in zoos around the world.  I'm telling you...you are guaranteed a smile!  To get you started, look at this sweet baby rhino born with one white leg!

www.zooborns.com

Letter to yourself in the future

Have you ever had something to tell your future self?  Maybe you recently started a new job and want to remind yourself about all of the reasons why you chose that position.  Or you would like to write a letter to yourself at your 10-year wedding anniversary.  Life’s most important and memorable experiences yield lessons that we need to remember.

FutureMe is a great website that allows you to send yourself an email at any point in the future, one year or more.  Write your email, choose your date in the future, and send!

Just a few days ago, I received an email that I had sent to myself a year ago on my first wedding anniversary.  I enjoyed reading how I had grown as a person in the last year of my life and how my marriage had also grown stronger.  I think it’s a great way to remember the details of important landmarks in your life.

There is one more feature on the website that you might love!  You can read others letters to themselves.  Some of them are heart-warming and sad, but most of them are just hilarious!  When you stop in to write a letter to yourself, make sure to take some time to read others.

www.futureme.org

What do you suggest?

You're sitting at your desk, bored to tears.  You're watching the clock, staring at your computer, and typing random words and phrases in Google...because of your sheer boredom.

Let me give you a focus to your mindless searches with: What do you suggest?

Type something in the little white box, anything at all.  A word, a letter, a question, anything!  Try your name, your city, your favorite color, your favorite band.  Hit enter and follow the path.  The site will take you down a path of options that are all popular searches for your term.  Once the path is complete, you will receive links on your selected topic.

But for me, the fun is in making the path!

What did it suggest for you?

Starting your Browser with Multiple Tabs

What's your favorite web site that you open first in the morning?  Whether it's your email, Facebook, or your news source, you automatically start with that page!  It's part of your morning routine.  But where do you go after that?  I'm willing to bet that you have another page that you visit right after the first one, and maybe several more...

Did you know that your browser can open all of your favorite pages in tabs right when you open it?  If there are several pages that you like to keep open throughout the day, you might want to consider setting each one in a separate tab.  For me, it's email, calendar, Facebook, my RSS reader, and the weather.

Here are the instructions for the most popular browsers...

• Internet Explorer:  Go to... Tools > Internet Options > General Tab.  In the Home page box, type each web site on its own line. 

• Firefox:  Go to... Tools > Options > General Tab.  In the Home page box, type each web site separated by a pipe. (You can find the pipe below the backspace key on your keyboard.)  For example:  www.gmail.com | www.facebook.com | www.weather.com 

• Chrome:  Click on the Customize icon that looks like a wrench.  Choose Options.  On the Basics tab, add each of your favorite web sites next to "On startup".

Let me know if you have trouble making this work.  Sometimes you need to tweak settings to get it working just like you would like!

Shop Smart on Amazon with CamelCamelCamel

If you spend any time shopping on Amazon.com, you know that you can get great deals on books, household items, electronics, just about anything!  However, prices change frequently so you have to grab up your item before the price goes up.

Cue the singing angels!  I found CamelCamelCamel.com a while back, and I am in love! The site will watch a certain item for you on Amazon and send you an email when the price goes down!

For example, let's say you want one of those back-in-style-again Baby G watches and find it on Amazon for $52.  But who knows how much is a good price to pay for one of those things?!  Copy the web site address from Amazon and paste it into CamelCamelCamel, and you'll find that the price for the Baby G recently fell to $46.

Follow the steps on the site to setup an alert, and you'll get an email as soon as the Baby G price drops...below the current price, back down to $46, or any other price that you choose!  If you can stand waiting for the watch of your dreams, this is the best way to get a great deal!

You can even plug in your entire Amazon Wish List to the Camel site, and it will alert you when any of your favorite items goes on sale!

Happy shopping!

The Best Videos on YouTube

Take a look at this list of 161 of the best videos on YouTube!  You'll find animals, UFOs, flash mobs, TV bloopers, the World Cup, and of course, Lady Gaga!

Let me know your favorites in the comments.

Group Coupon Sites

Group coupon sites are suddenly all the rage in the metro cities around the US.  Each site sends you a daily email with a coupon that's only available on that day.  You buy the coupon and then have a specified length of time to use the coupon into the future.

For example, I bought a coupon for $5 to use at Freebirds Burrito.  The coupon gave me $10 off my purchase.  So I saved $5 on my next purchase by buying the coupon.

I have seen great spa deals out there, like a $100 facial for $40 and a $70 massage for $35.  The sites feature restaurants, personal services, golf deals, and recreation, to name a few, at 50-70% off regular prices.  Click the links below to find today's deal.

• Groupon
• Seize the Deal
• Living Social
• ADealio
• Jasmere
  
• BuyWithMe
• Plum District
• Juice in the City 

Each of these sites offers referral bonuses if you sign up by clicking on the link for a friend.  If you join, I get credit for a future purchase, and if you pass your link on to others, you get credit too.  Sweet deal!

Google Voice

Google has a new service called Google Voice that allows you to have a virtual phone number to give away to people who you don't want calling your home and cell numbers.  I use my Google Voice number for people whose calls I don't have to answer right away, like blood donation companies, salesmen, etc.

The service has many options, like sending your calls to your cell phone or home phone or just sending them straight to voice mail.  If a caller leaves you a voice mail, you will receive a transcription of the message in your email.  Great feature!

Until recently, Google Voice was only available by invitation and to college students.  Now, it's open for all.  Sign up and let me know what you think in the comments.

Welcome!

While you are here, I hope that you find something useful, interesting, funny and maybe something you can pass along to your friends and family from the web.

I hope to share with you fun web sites, tips and what not that I find as I wander the web each day.  Feel free to post comments and…enjoy!