"The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket." Kin Hubbard

Want some free money? OK so I’m not giving away money but I will introduce you to some sites that will help. The first one that has saved me a bundle on music is Dealnews. This site has a ton of categories that you can choose from. They seem to scour the net so they can present you the very best deals. I tend to jump on the free ones. (I’m cheap) From technology to clothing, they seem to have it all. They turned me onto Amazon’s free music list which has almost 2500 free, legit, music. They’ll even give you local discount on restaurants and other deals closer to home.
The other site is Groupon. My friend Nate turned me onto this one. You sign up and they take your zip code and assign you the closest large city. In my case it was either Providence or Boston. Both are not exactly close but I’ll take what I can get. Groupon will present you with a limited time offer that will be something like buy a coupon for $15 dollars that is actually a $30 dollar coupon at a restaurant. So in effect you get double your money. You print out the coupon and bring it to the place. It works nice and easy. I do have a couple of issues with it as much as I like it. First it requires a bit of preplanning, which I am not the best at. Also because the range of locations is so large you might get a deal an hour away. I guess that’s fine but I’m lazy but I am not running out the door for that one. You can specify the types of deals you want like food and museums and not health and beauty stuff. However it doesn’t seem to listen to those preferences. I got two for liposuction. I took it personally.
Anyway I recommend trying either one at least for a bit just to see the one you like most. I should mention that Dealnews also covers coupons from Groupon as well.

"This little piece of gum is a three-course dinner." Willy Wonka

Chocolate is sweet but free chocolate is sweeter. Many website offer free samples or other goodies. Here is one such yummy from Mars. If you get a sorry page just try again some other time. Also Thunderfap has a list of the goodies that you can sign up for as well. Now before you get angry and tell me that you have done that and now all I get is spam and junk mail offers. I recommend two strategies. The first is my old fall back register with a junk email address that you don’t mind filling up with crowd. The second is even better. The problem with the first one is that you must periodically open the email to keep it active. I like using 10 minute mail. You can read more about it here. The gist of it is that after 10 minutes it deletes itself so you have just enough time to register and answer any reply emails but you never have to worry about getting spam from them. I should say that there are some advantages to getting company emails. Many of them have specials, offer, or coupons. I use them every time I go to the grocery. So at least you have options. Go ahead and give these a try.

"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness." Elsa Schiaparelli

A passion of mine that I speak about often and use as analogies in my computer training is cooking. Whether it is a comparison to holding a good knife to using the mouse or the difference between Word and Excel (stir fry Vs. Baking) I am always up for a new cooking/recipe site. Thanks to Lifehacker I discovered the site Supercook. Now I do use my cookbooks frequently and foodie websites as well to give me new inspiration for the next meal but this particular site does something very different than the others. You input all the foods you have in the fridge and pantry and then it spits out a huge amounts of recipes. You have the option of choosing specific foods to be in your next meal. As an example I told it I wanted to cook with some spinach, it needed to be cooked or tossed, and then it went through all the other ingredients that I had and gave me a rather nice Spinach Pasta Pie recipe. It tells you if you have all the ingredients. It will also make ingredient suggestions to get the next time. There is even a printout grocery list. Everything about the site is easy and smooth. I heartily recommend it. Give it a try.

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." Adelle Davis

It’s a funny thing that when I think of the Internet I think of sites and stuff to do that is elsewhere in the world. It seems everything is created in California but of course this is not true. Even in our small towns people are doing amazingly helpful things on the net. I happened to be at the doctors recently and noticed something called MYPhotoDiet. I spoke to the Doctor and he explained that people have a tough time thinking out healthy food choices for themselves and their kids. So to help they created MYPhotoDiet which is a pictorial view of what a good diet should consist of. I am a visual person and find I am always after cookbooks with pictures. I explained to the doctor that I had a tech blog and I would like to look into it but I try to recommend stuff that is free or low cost so he gave me the codes for the Myphotodiet kid’s lunch’s program. He said that any of the readers are welcome to use the code. I checked it out and it simple to get into and use. For the kid’s program it shows 30 days of meals and gives the nutritional breakdown for each one. It looks decent. All the diets are in PDF format and can be downloaded to your computer or you can look at it online. The other diets like the one for diabetes or heart healthy ones range from 10.95 to 19.95. Give the free one a try and if it works for you try the others

To gain access click login and type in HEALTHY in the username and the KIDS in the password. Make sure it is all in capital letters.

One last thing I was happy to see my Doctor had his own blog and is staying up with technology. Check it out here.

"And this is icing!" exclaimed Gretel,Starving but delighted, the children began to eat pieces of candy broken off the cottage." Hansel and Gretel

This time of the year many turn to the classic that is a gingerbread house and a week later they are not sure what the heck to do with this giant sweet construction. Well Google has an internet solution and a contest. A while back I wrote about the free tool called Sketchup. It is a nice piece of software that allows you to create 3-D buildings. I have seen it used in architectural offices to set a design or just for kicks. Recently Google put out an updated version with some cool extras. It works really well and tends to be a bit more intuitive. Anyway back to the gingerbread house. Google has created a simple template for you to create an online gingerbread house. The basics are all there like the pinwheel mints or gumdrops. It is really simple to use and has some major perks. No mess, no insulin shock, and the ability to tour your creation. Plus you can send it to anyone or make it viewable on your website. Google also has a contest for the best house in a bunch of different categories. They did a create Santa’s sleigh contest last year that was pretty cool. So if you are not interested in a sticky dining room table with sugar high kids running around at speeds of mach 8 then give this alternative a try.

Note: Artist is Scott Gustafson

“My mother is such a lousy cook that Thanksgiving at her house is a time of sorrow.” Rita Rudner

We have made another turn around the Sun and have finally come to the time when everyone starts recipe hunting for the best holiday ever, Thanksgiving. I cook every year and enjoy it completely however I do not only read about recipes during November. I am constantly on the prowl for the next best dish. Recipes are everywhere on the net and there is a glut. Some sites are better than others and below I have tried to list some of the ones I go to repeatedly. I may not cook everything I see on these sites but it is fun to see what is possible.
Food blogs

• 101 Cookbooks
• Ramblings of a frantic home cook
• Brownie Points
• Green Avocado
• FXCuisine
• Start Cooking
• Everyday Food

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor” Phyllis Diller

Cooking and food are obsessions of mine. I love to go to recipe sites and see what there is to be made and then finally eaten. Sites with recipes and the ability to rate them has been out there for a long time. Bigoven however seems to mix the web 2.0 and cooking idea perfectly. They allow sharing and posting of recipes and they have some really wonderful other features.
I started to summarize they are all about and then I realized I could not interpret it easier than they put it. Head on over and give it a try.

• Search 160,000+ recipes and see ratings and tips from other cooks
• Enter ingredients you've got in your fridge and find out what you can make
• Find out what's freshest now
• Publish your favorite recipes online -- get photos and tips
• Get your free cooking page on the Internet that keeps track of your favorites
• Easily tag and link recipes together -- suggest pairings or use of leftovers
• Create your own "Try Soon" list -- never again be stuck for dinner
• Suggest recipes for your friends, earn cooking medals... much more!

“Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart.” Thomas Fuller

Another Thanksgiving is under our belt (both figuratively and literally) and it is time to figure out what to do with all the leftovers. Last year I provided a site that had a list of recipes and help. This year it seems appropriate to keep up the tradition. I personally recommend a leftover party for everyone. I also ask people to bring the carcass if they are going to get rid of it so I can make a turkey stock out of it. As far as the actual meat and the rest of the dinner CdKitchen seems to have our backs with a long list of recipes. Everything is segmented into categories for all your grand turkey experiences. As far as party ideas head to Better Homes and Gardens for all sorts of ideas. So when you have finally digested the first meal and getting ready for the next give this one a try.

“You really can't beat that. Having some good friends and going out to eat some good barbecue.” Andrew Ray

So I am home and I am with a bunch of friends trying to decide where to eat. Nobody can remember all the places and we are just waiting for someone to make a decision. Enter Dine-o-Matic, my favorite widget. Widgets are small programs devoted to one specific action. Unfortunately they are only for the Mac operating system. Windows has something similar in the Vista OS. Dine-O-Matic is my personal favorite widget. You type in all the restaurants that you frequent and then choose the type of cuisine it is like Italian or Chinese. Once setup it is just a matter of clicking and it will randomly choose a place to go and show you with an accompanying picture specific to the cuisine. It is a beautiful design and simple and best of all it works. So if you have a hunger, indecision, and a Mac give it a try.