Techreluctant.com

Ever google something and down drops your past search history including “homemade hemorrhoid treatments”, all while your boss is sitting next to you at the computer? No? Me either, but I have been appalled when some of my past google searches appeared onscreen. I mean the things you can conceivably google in a day could run from chicken recipes to sexual positions so every now and then it’s a good idea to clear those out. The search box on the Google homepage displays suggestions to help you search and they come from more popular searches but also from your own previous searches. But starting afresh with google is as simple as a few clicks, but which clicks depend on what browser you’re using.

In Firefox:

• Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser
• Click Clear Private Data.
• Select Saved Form and Search History.
• Click the Clear Private Data Now button.

In Internet Explorer 6:

• Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser.
• Select Internet Options.
• Click the Content tab.
• Click the AutoComplete button.
• Click the Clear Forms button.

In Internet Explorer 7:

• Click the Tools menu.
• Select Delete Browsing History .
• Click the Delete forms button.
• Click Yes.
• Press the Close button.

Phew, now no one needs to know about those searches you’ve been doing on what to do after you’ve talked with an alien. But good luck with that.

There are thousands of recipe sites on the Internet but I always keep coming back to allrecipes.com when I’m stuck for what to have for supper. You can browse, or type search by the ingredients you have on hand. If you find something you like you can check out recipes that are similar to it and best of all the reviews tell you if the dish is really tasty, and if something can be done to make it even better. I have a few recipe books but more often than not, I’ll go to allrecipes.com and do a quick search.  I even have it as an app on my iPod Touch. If only allrecipes.com could cook for me too.

This one is new to me. Instead of typing the whole web address (or, as you know, the URL) into your browser’s address bar, you can just type the part that usually goes between www and .com then press Ctrl+Enter. www will be put before what you typed and .com will be automatically placed after it. So if you type techreluctant then press Ctrl+Enter, you’ll automatically get www.techreluctant.com. I think this is one I am going to start using a lot. It works in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, and the new Google Chrome.

Freecycle is one of those things that is not really a technological thing but would be impossible without technology. At its heart, it is people sharing and helping each other out. The Freecycle network is made up of 4,734 groups with 6,680,000 members all over the world. Its mission is clear, to keep stuff you don’t need anymore out of the landfill and into the hands of someone who’d like to have it. The old truism one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure is a truism for a reason. And so Freecycle was started.

It’s pretty simple. You sign up for a group in your area, you peruse the group for things people are giving away that you might be interested in and if you have something you’d like to part with and think someone else can use, you can post about that on the group. The one in my area, for instance, on one random day I chose, had a dinner table that sits 4-6 which was offered and picked up, a scanner and computer monitor offered and picked up, somoene who was looking for an office chair, and another person who was looking for an old crimping iron (as in 80s hairstyle crimping iron). It keeps these things out of the dump and someone gets to use the things you may just throw away. Or  it may be the perfect chance to get rid of the crimping iron down in that box in your basement. We’re all cleaning up around these days and getting out our summer stuff so maybe there are some things you’d like to offer up. If so, check out Freecycle.org.

Everyone needs a little silly sometimes and facebook has recognized this. Even many tech-reluctants have signed up for facebook so the next time you check in on it, change your language settings… to pirate. Why check your Inbox when you can check your Bottle O’ Messages and who wouldn’t rather have Me Hearties than Friends? To start walking the facebook plank, just

1. Scroll to the bottom of your facebook page;
2. On the bottom left corner, click English: US (next to Facebook © 2009);
3. When the language selection appears, click English: Pirate;
4. Check out your Home Page, er, Home Port. Arrrrhhhhhh.

I’ll admit that Twitter and all the talk of Twitter is getting on my nerves (but that won’t stop me from twittering that I have this new post up). So anything that makes me feel that there is something interesting and different related to Twitter makes me happy and Twistori is just such a thing. Twistori is based on another very cool website called We Feel Fine which sets about “harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs” (really, it’s worth it to drop by We Feel Fine and just see all the cool ways you can maneuver through all the information on the site). Twistori does the same thing with Twitter posts and limits the feelings to Love, Hate, Think, Believe, Feel and Wish. It’s interesting to drop by from time to time and just check out the kind of things people are twittering about. There’s also a very cool Twistori Desktop for Macs that lets you create your own Twistori and choose certain words you want to see but unfortunately there is no such program for Windows at this time.

Don't you just love "I wish that I could rinse off my eyeballs"?

(Special thanks to Dale Jarvis for bringing this to my attention)

I have to admit, I am a sarcastic person by nature although I do try to control it. Case in point is that I have never used Let Me Google That For You, no matter how many opportunities to do so. Maybe you won’t be as reserved. If someone asks a question that should be pretty easy to google, you can go to Let Me Google That For You, type in the search they should have done themselves, then send them the link for the results. They will actually get to see an invisible typer type the search, and the site will also show text that says “Was That So Hard?”  Check it out in action.

Since we talked facebook yesterday, today I want to tell you about Lexulous, one of my favourite things about facebook. Lexulous used to be Scrabulous on facebook but the Scrabble people didn’t like that they used their game and sued for copyright and trademark infringement. This went on for a while until Scrabulous was eventually yanked with cries of “noooooo” from plenty of us who loved the game. Then Scrabble came out with its own game on facebook. And I think I can speak for many people in saying we did not like it. It was slower and just not the same as Scrabulous. Then a while ago, out came Lexulous which was Scrabulous’s real replacement. The guys at Lexulous had even saved the games we were playing when Scrabulous was yanked from us. Now, Lexulous is not Scrabble. Lexulous has eight tiles not Scrabble’s seven and the tiles have some different values (Z is 12 in Lexulous and 10 points in Scrabble). See the difference? All I know is that Lexulous is fun. You can have as many games going as you want and you can get to it whenever you find the time. There is a dictionary lookup for cheating, a two-word list, you can message inside the game, and if you try a word that’s not real, Lexulous will stop you. If you are on facebook and you like a game of “not-Scrabble” Lexulous is your game. I love it even though I may fall behind on some games and need to get a nudge now and then from my opponents.

Many of you, even the tech-reluctant have heard of facebook and may very well already be part of facebook. But for those who are wondering what all this is about, let’s talk facebook. Facebook is another one of those things referred to by the way overused and all-encompassing term of social networking. Basically, facebook is a way to catch up with your friends. Once you sign up, you can create a profile where you put information about yourself and a picture of yourself. Well, it should be a picture of yourself but I find a lot of my facebook friends turn out to be cats or cars or, more often, children. You can include your address, workplace, web pages, email addresses, etc. on your profile but note this profile will be available to anyone if you make your profile public or all your “friends” if you restrict it to friends only. So, provide information carefully.

You’ll note that I put the word friends in quotes before and I did so for a reason. A facebook friend is anyone who asks you to be a friend and you accept or vice versa. So along with you best friend and your sister, you might also end up being friends with an old classmate you barely remember or the parent of your child’s classmate who you met twice at birthday parties. So, again, be careful of who you become friends with and if you choose to have more friends that you don’t really know well, be careful what you share on facebook. Do you really want that fellow Kindergarten parent to see your picture from a drunken night in Cuba?

Yes, you can add pictures to facebook and video as well. That’s one of my favourite parts of facebook. I like looking at other peoples’ pictures and catching up with old friends without having to call or meet them and look at the pictures of their kids in real life. Maybe at first glance, that last line sounded sad, that I would rather meet people in cyberspace than in real life, but if I had to keep up with all the people I keep up with on facebook, I would have to spend hours with people every day and travel from here to Florida to Texas to Vancouver and well beyond. And really, while I might want to see an old teacher’s retirement party pictures, I don’t necessary want to call her and speak to her about it. Take note, though, that when you add photos and videos, pay attention to the privacy settings. You can choose who can see your photos and videos and the choices include everyone, friends of friends or friends only. I always choose friends only but I know lots of people don’t because I can see their photos even though I’m not a friend. Even choosing friends of friends means hundreds and probably thousands of people you don’t know can now see your photos or videos.

Then there’s the status updates on facebook. Like Twitter, these updates are people letting you know about what is happening in their lives, from the mundane to the exciting. There are all kinds of status updates and I’ll refer you to a post on my other blog at tinachaulk.com to get a taste of what they are.

Each person in Facebook has a wall where you can post messages to the person. Again all the friends can see the wall so private messages are best handled by another feature, a kind of email service in facebook so you can send private messages. There is also facebook chat for people who want more immediate discussions with friends. There are so many other things you can do on facebook like play games with friends, invite people to events, join or create groups, post interesting links, tell people what music you like, recommend books, I could go on and on. The easiest way to find out more about facebook is to join yourself and start looking for your friends. But a warning, it can be quite addictive.

One of the little things I use the most on the computer, and one that most people ask me about when they see me do it, is to open a web page in a new window. Instead of just clicking on a link, right-click the link and you will see a dropdown box. Choose Open in New Window or Open Link in New Window (depending on your browser) and that web page will open in a new window. Now you still have your original browser window open and when you finish reading the new page, just close it. For me, when I surf the Net, I find someting interesting, click on it, go to that page and there’s something interesting there so I click again and so on and so on and so on. Before I know it, I’ve lost where I started and wish I could find my way back. That’s why I love opening in new windows. You may have noticed that most of the links I put on here open in new windows and that’s why, so you can always return to where you started. Now you can do it on any web page.

You can also open in new tabs, both in Firefox and recent versions of Internet Explorer. Again, just right-click the link and the dropdown box will give you an option to open in a new tab. That’s not my preference but maybe you’d like to try that as another way of making your tech life easier.