THWS: Life Hacks

Been a while since I posted a Totally Handy Web Site, and I'm bending the rules slightly with this one.

Strictly speaking, instead of posting a specific site that is handy, I am posting to a specific post on a page that is handy, but you can find examples of this kind of thing by googling "life hacks".

Below are eight examples of the 99 pictures of amazing and sensible "I wish I had thought of that" life hacks listed at this page.

See them all, go here: http://dedalvs.tumblr.com/post/48998678919/99-life-hacks-to-make-your-life-easier

Some of these are some seriously Totally Handy hacks!

THWS: Full-featured Online Image Editor

The latest Totally Handy Web Site is one I frequent regularly. I run a few web sites and do a lot of projects that require image editing. Sometimes I do some of the work at the power company when it is slow, or at the FD in off hours, or at home. It was problematic to use different types of software depending on where I was at and what was (or was not) installed in each place.

Introducing Pixlr (http://www.pixlr.com), a FREE full-featured image editing application that is entirely web-based. If your web browser's Adobe Flash plug-in is up to date, you're all set to go.

You can upload images from your own computer, make your edits, and re-save them to your computer. You can also designate the URL of an image online to load into Pixlr, and then save your modified version locally. And that's for anonymous users. If you choose to create a free account with them, you gain access to their "cloud", allowing you to store your images online and access them from anywhere.

To create an account, go to the editor and choose to open an image from the library. The pop-up window will ask you to log in, but there is a link just below the password field labeled "sign up for pixlr". Username, email, password, you're in, no other info required.

There are a few tutorial paths you can take if you're not familiar with image editing, and it won't be long until you can navigate the application with relative ease.

Unless you are in need of industrial strength super image editing software and just must install PhotoShop or similar stuff on your PC, Pixlr is your answer, is totally free, and accessible from anywhere you can get online.

Check out their FAQ, which addresses privacy and operational concerns. Also, here are straight links to sample tutorials for "creating an intense portrait", and working with "selective coloring". There are also a lot of video tutorials made by a variety of users that can be found on YouTube to help you through certain tasks.

Very slick. Very cool. Very totally handy.

THWS: Comprehensive Movie Ratings

Today I give you the latest installment of the Totally Handy Web Sites (THWS) series.

I am a parent of several children, and I am a firm believer in filtering them from unnecessary crap in entertainment media. I also need to filter, from time to time, exactly what it is that they are exposed to depending on the age of each kid.

Regarding movies, what exactly is PG, or PG-13? Did it get its rating because of too much skin? Too much blood? Too much language? Could be any of them. I am willing to tolerate more contextual violence for the kids than skin, for example. If it's a war movie, people bleed. But a comedy that relies too much on partly-dressed ladies to be cute is not of value to my kids. Bad language? What exactly is it? Cursing? Suggestive language? The MPAA system is so incredibly subjective that it is impossible to decide with any real assurance what is OK for the kids of any particular age to watch based on the MPAA rating alone.

Enter Kids In Mind
http://kids-in-mind.com

The staff of this site goes to incredible lengths to tell you exactly what to expect in a movie that you would want to know about before letting the kids watch it. Each movie is scored on a 1-10 scale in three areas: Sex and Nudity, Language, and Violence and Gore. And they don't just score them so you make your judgment on the rating, but they go to a detached level of objective detail as to how each score was determined.

Lets look at a couple of examples.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

This is supposed to be a harmless kids movie, right? Rated PG? Why? Kids In Mind scored it a 2.3.2 (Sex-2, Violence-3, Language-2). Not too bad, I guess, but what's in it? Their review reveals, among other things, that A chipmunk says that a woman is "Practicing her pole dancing." A remark is made about a chipmunk having "Junk in the trunk." A chipmunk calls to a crowd, "Shake what your mama gave you.". My six year old does not need to see or hear that. The violence is all cartoonish violence, and though they spell it out in detail, it is silly and of no consequence. On the language, they report 3 mild anatomical terms, 2 mild obscenities, exclamations (nuts, heck, dang), name-calling (short, jock, dirty rat, stupid, jerk, low-life, rat face, suckers, loser), 2 religious exclamations.

This may seem overkill in detail, but it tells me a whole lot more than "PG" did. I'd let the pre-teen kids watch it, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to pick this when movies of higher quality are out there.

How about a movie that I might or might not want to watch with my wife?

No Strings Attached

Rated R, unsurprisingly, but why? Kids In Mind scored it 8.3.6, and although the very detailed description never mentions frontal nudity, there is so much visual and verbal sexual content and partial nudity that it racks up the score quickly and has a very long 10-paragraph breakdown of what contributed to the sex/nudity score. And as for the language? A score of 6 is found with About 16 F-words and its derivatives, 29 sexual references, 11 scatological terms, 16 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling, 13 religious exclamations. Very survivable to adults, I suppose, but not my kind of movie, either.

So you see, this site is not just for parents to filter for the kids, but for adults to filter for themselves, too. Some of the people I show this site to laugh at me and think I am way overzealous about protecting my kids. You know what, they're right. My kids don't live in a protective castle, but quality, context, and crap are subjectively things that I care about, that are not adequately measured by the MPAA. Kids In Mind lets me make a confident decision in what I watch or let my kids watch, without having to preview the show on my own. You too may chuckle at first, but when you aren't sure about a show your kids ask to see, I bet you'll find yourself at Kids In Mind checking it out. And then you'll tell your friends about it, too.

Do you have a Totally Handy Web Site you like? Let me know and it might be added to the collection here. grumpydispatcher [at] gmail

THWS: Appliance Repair

The latest Totally Handy Web Site (THWS) is likely to save you some money, and helps raise your stock in the household hero department, too.

http://www.the-appliance-clinic.com/

The Appliance Clinic gives you loads of detailed help so that you can troubleshoot and repair virtually any major home appliance, or least determine whether you need to call for backup or not.

Many (most?) of us learned from our dad how to fix stuff. Often, what we learned was that you just had to take the danged thing apart and figure out what was what, and then attempt a fix.

I'm not knocking the practice of doing exploratory surgery on appliances, but you can greatly reduce the risk of accidentally breaking something in the process if you have an idea of what you're getting into before you start.

From the home page, click the "Repair" link, and you will see a fairly comprehensive list of makes and types of major appliances. Under these you will find a breakdown list of the common problems encountered and the steps to investigate, verify and repair as needed.

I first found this site back in 1996, so it is relatively ancient as far as web sites go, but its information is still updated from time to time despite its spartan web design appearance. The Restoration section, for example, just showed up within the past couple of years.

If you have a broken thing at home, go here and see if you can fix it yourself. Yes, you can be the hero at home too.

THWS: Give Wisely

Starting a new thing here, which I will call Totally Handy Web Sites (THWS).

I have a small mental collection, which I occasionally add to, of extremely handy web sites that are worthy of permanent bookmarking. Sometimes they are funny or amusing as an exception, but for the most part they are functionally very good to know about.

First out of the chute: Better Business Bureau Charity Accreditation.

http://www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Reviews/

I give to a lot of charities regularly, but unless you have a personal hand in what's going on there, how do you know that your donation is well spent and on the right things? Any organization can say anything in a fund raising letter, but who checks for truthfulness and integrity?

The BBB's Charity Accreditation program has well-defined and remarkably stringent standards that any charity must meet in order to gain accreditation.

Before running a query, make sure to check the "Limit my results to only charities" checkbox first. When you run a search there, you will see an accreditation seal by any compliant organization:

You can click on that seal (or on the "No" that appears in its place when an organization fails muster) to see their levels of compliance or why they were not accredited. Especially handy: A pie chart that breaks down the percentages of their funds and how they are used, such as Programs, Salaries, Fundraising, etc.

All of the organizations that I give to are vetted by the BBB. I also dumped several that I had been giving to beforehand, when I found out that they weren't on the good list, and why.

Donate with confidence this holiday season, knowing your gifts are used wisely and effectively.