How To Study Anything

Best and least expensive laundry detergent

Grover — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:59:29 +0000

I suggest Biokleen powder. It gets things cleaner and we use less of it.

Once we knew that we liked it when we bought a box at Wholefoods, I looked on Google shopping.

However the best deal was found at Amazon.com because they offered free shipping. We combined it with their version of dish powder. Not quite sure why Google did not show the Amazon price and offer but now I know to always check Amazon.

Chocolate cake - sometimes called crazy cake

Grover — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:13:41 +0000

Very Dangerous Cake

1 Coffee mug

4 tablespoons flour (that’s plain flour, not self-rising)

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons baking cocoa

1 egg white

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

Small splash of vanilla

Optional

Dash of cinnamon

Dash of instant coffee or instant espresso

Handful of nuts

Oil (spray) your mug (inside). Use oversized coffee mug.

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 2.5 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to share!)

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?

Because now you are only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

Guilt free hot chocolate drink (sugar free)

Grover — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:50:28 +0000

Recipe for coffee substitute.
Use a small cup.
4 teaspons of 100% pure Cocoa

4 tiny measures of organic Stevia Extract powder

Slowly fill and stir with hot water
Sprinkle a generous amount of ground Cinnamon over the top of the drink.

Attacked by 2010 Virus scam

Grover — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:17:42 +0000

Last week my laptop was brought down by some sort of virus attack. All I know is that I was surfing at Ancestry.com when I got a pop up window that said something like “your computer has a virus” and “click here to fix”. I clicked in the upper right hand corner to close the pop up and the whole computer froze. I could not even start task manager. All I could do was power down the machine and restart. When I did, it was still frozen with a placard on the desktop saying something about virus infected and click here to fix. My windows kernal had been changed and the only way to rid myself of this horrible situation was to re-install the operating system. We have installed Ubuntu Linux, which in itself was not an easy task since we had to figure out a way to boot and install it from a thumb drive. Ubuntu is the most popular desktop version of Linux. We picked it because it has great hardware support, an easy installer, and a huge community of support. Now I am using Linux with Firefox as a browser. Firefox is less susceptible to virus attacks. Not sure why. Right now we have no anti-virus software running at all.

The strange part about my computer being brought down by this virus is that one of my friends had the exact same attack about 2 months ago. He also had to wipe his hard drive. Ubuntu came with software for my scanner, open office, and even some photo editing software. I could never afford to buy all that software from Microsoft. So Linux was a simple choice based on the cost.

Free e-learning

Grover — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:01:00 +0000

A big headline on the AARP Bulletin listed FREE-Learning. The main point of the article is that Massachusetts Institute Of Technology has put 2,000 academic courses online for free access. They included a hyperlink to their AARP article. A fabulous resource included here is Open Culture. Which is a portal to free learning. Right off the bat, you see links to free movies and free online courses. Both sites deserve investigating.

How to fix your Scooba

Grover — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:35:18 +0000

The first thing I noticed on the machine was a URL. It listed www.irobot.com/service Once I got to this site I sorted through all the options till I came to my machine. There was a helpful hint on how to overcome the “check tank” error. Also, supplement this with google searches and my never favorite …searching www.youtube.com I found a great movie that shows exactly how to get past the error. Basically, one of the little water valves gets clogged and you need to flush it out. I just used the following youtube.com link to fix mine. Get your mouth full of hot water and take a straw to flush out the valve.

Youtube movies can teach you too.

Grover — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:03:05 +0000

Since my company has been talking about upgrading us to Office 2007, I have been looking for a good way to study Excel 2007. Youtube.com is a great source for “How to” lessons. It appears people just set up their video camera and explain how to do things while the video records each step. This is great!

How to file your 2009 income tax.

Grover — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:00:29 +0000

You might be able to file 2009 income tax for free using IRS home page. The IRS site supports their own links for freefile and IRS e_file. I’ve taken advantage of electronic filing for years. Filing a paperless return makes perfect sense for several reasons. For the 2009 tax year your maximum 401k deduction is $16,500. If you are 50 or over, then you can add $5500 “catch up” to that amount. Here is a very simply chart. In addition to using the $401k technique, don’t forget that you may be able to avoid taxes by using an IRA too. The traditional IRA 2009 limit is $5000 for 49 and under and $6000 for 50 and over. I always buy Turbo Tax. I like Turbo Tax because it gives you easy to understand answers to your questions, and provides examples to follow. Last year, one of my friends did his income tax using Turbo Tax with no prior experience. A professional wanted to charge him a fee based on his income which made him so mad he simply bought Turbo Tax and did his own return. It ended up saving himself about 800 dollars. I have also amended my tax return after submitting with Turbo Tax, which is very easy to do too.

Spaced Learning

Ernie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:23:54 +0000

A very effective method for retaining and memorizing topics is something called “spaced learning”. It works on the theory that memories degrade exponentially, and repetitions strengthen them. So something that you learn one day you’ll remember for a few days, but if you hear it all week, you remember it for a month, or if you hear it for a month, you’ll remember it for a year.

According to this theory, the optimal time to have a repetition enforce a memory is right before you forget it. There is software to time this for you, called nmemosyne. It is a flashcard program that supports mathematical formulas, pictures and audio and automatically times the display of flashcards for optimal learning. I’m using it to learn art theory and cascading style sheets.

Prostate Benefits You Could Be Missing

Ernie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:22:43 +0000

Prostate health is important for all men. As with almost all things in life, a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There have found distinct links between diet and cancer risk. Specifically, diets high in fresh fruits and vegetables, omega-3 fatty acids and low in red meat and dairy products reduce risk for prostate cancer. Soy products also are effective at fighting prostate cancer because of a isoflavones present in them.

Foods to Eat:

Brown rice
Fresh raw fruits
Fresh vegetables
Legumes,
Raw nuts,
Seeds and whole grains
Pumpkin seeds
Soy (for isoflavones)

Foods to Avoid:

Milk
Butter
Red Meat
Coffee
Alcohol
Refined carbohydrates (white flours, sugar.)

In coming blog posts, we’ll cover how to alter your diet incorporate these guidelines.