Category Archives: How To

Where I show you how to (or how not to) do stuff.

How To

A guide to saving energy

Given our dwindling energy resources, it makes good sense to conserve what we have left. If the phrase “dwindling energy resources” is news to you, welcome back to reality. Where have you been, and was it nice there?

With these concerns in my mind, I’ve put together a list of energy-saving tips that will help both the environment and your pocketbook. I’m fairly sure that you may have seen some of these tips before, but what I’ll try to do is to come up with a comprehensive list grouped by categories in alphabetical order, that I will update as I stumble upon more material.

Bathroom

  • Don’t take very hot showers. Some of us like that sort of thing (including me,) but not doing it saves a whole lot of energy, and according to my wife, is also better for the skin. Apparently very hot water dries the skin and makes it less resilient. Hot water is also bad for your hair. It dries it out too, and it has a tendency to break afterwards.
  • Don’t leave the water running while you brush your teeth.
  • Squeeze the toothpaste tube only from the bottom – just kidding! I squeeze it from the middle just to spite the people that write those directions on the tube.
  • You’ve all heard this saying, right? “If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down…” Well, I think it’s downright disgusting not to flush after urinating, so flush those toilets, for goodness’ sake! But you could invest in a toilet that uses less water per flush.

Cars

  • Be sensible and realize that oil reserves are not unlimited. Just because we don’t have to stand in line to buy gasoline here in the States doesn’t mean you have the right to drive a Hummer or some other gas guzzling SUV or large sedan. Think about this: now, in 2004, the price of gasoline in Europe is 2-3 times what we’ve got here. How long do you think this difference will last? I tell you, not long. Invest in a gas-sipping automobile, preferably a hybrid, before your monster’s resale value drops to nothing.
  • Plan your trips carefully. Going to the drugstore to floss shouldn’t qualify as a car trip. If you’re going to use your car, go to multiple stores during the same trip.
  • Quit trying to impress the person next to you in traffic lights. So your car is probably faster than theirs. So what! It doesn’t mean you should speed off every time just so your ego can get a nice pat on the back. Be reasonable and conserve your acceleration for those times when you really need it.

Computers

  • We have all heard that it pays to leave your computer on all the time, because it’s built with energy-saving devices, and it can be programmed to power individual devices such as hard drives off, etc. Let’s do a bit of math here. Most computers nowadays come with a 320W power source and some with ~400W power sources. If you leave it on all the time, chances are it will only be used actively for about 4-5 hours out of a day, more for some people, less for others. For the rest of that time, it will consume electricity at the rate of 3 (that’s three) 100-watt light bulbs and some change. Would you leave three 100-watt light bulbs on all the time? I didn’t think so. If you’re not sure about the impact your computer has on your electricity bill, just turn off everything else in the house and go look at your electricity meter (note: at 2004 rates, if left on all the time, a computer will cost about $12-15 per month in electricity). That meter’s rotating kind of fast, doesn’t it? Now do you begin to get the point? Therefore set your computer to go into Standby mode after a half hour of idle time. If your network card is equipped with Wake On LAN capability, then get your computer to go into Hibernate mode – most Windows computers using the latest OS can do this without a problem. On an Apple this is Sleep mode – Apple doesn’t have a Standby mode. If neither Standby nor Hibernate will work for you, just TURN IT OFF. Don’t worry about those who say that over time, it will damage the computer. It’ll probably still last upwards of 5 years, which is well beyond the projected lifetime of most PCs.
  • Set your computer to turn the monitor off after 5-10 idle minutes. CRT screens use quite a bit of electricity by themselves. Just look at the labels on their backs to see how much yours consumes. You can also just turn off the monitor. The power switch can take it, don’t worry. It’ll work for years, and years, and years… Well, you get the idea.
  • Set the computer to turn off the hard drives after 30 minutes – 1 hour of idle time. They can start back up without a problem in about 5-10 seconds.
  • Purchase a flat screen monitor if you can afford it. They consume a lot less electricity than CRT screens (about 2-3 times less), and they’re better on your eyes. They also emit less radiation, not to mention they take up a whole lot less space.
  • Instead of adding extra hard drives to the inside of the computer, add them to the outside by purchasing a USB or Firewire hard drive enclosure. That way, when you’re not using them, you can simply unplug them and not have to worry about the extra electricity each uses as it spins around whenever the computer is on. Use them to store files you don’t need to access often.
  • Purchase extra RAM. More RAM means less access time seeking the hard drives, thus, over time, less energy usage.

House

  • Replace all your incandescent bulbs with the new fluorescent spiral bulbs. They consume 3-4 times less energy and give off better light.
  • If you’re building a new house, or just replacing your drywall in your old house, then invest in good insulation. There are plenty of websites on the Internet that can teach you how to properly layer a wall from the outside to the inside in order to get the maximum energy savings – the process is easy and fairly cheap to implement. Just do a search on Google for this stuff. You’ll be happy you did when your heating/cooling bills arrive.
  • If you’ve got a house, put a solar panel (or more if you’d like) on the roof. Store the electricity generated in a battery or generator. You can then use it to power the devices in your house, including air conditioning devices. I’ve heard of people that get paid by their energy company every month because they generate more energy from the solar panels that they are using. A little extra cash can’t hurt, right? Again, there are detailed descriptions for this stuff on the Internet.
  • Install double glass pane windows. There are those windows that have two layers of glass and are filled with an inert gas in the middle. They are very energy efficient.
  • Install draft guards on the main door(s) to your house/apartment. This will not only keep in the nice cool air in the summer (or warm air in the winter) but it will also keep out bugs, and we all want that, right?
  • At night, only turn on the lights in those rooms that you’re using. If you’re afraid you’ll stumble over things, invest in night-lights. You can find fluorescent green night-lights that consume very little energy and last for years and years. Or you could purchase those combination night-light/deodorizers.

Kitchen

  • Don’t use the dishwasher if you can help it.
  • If you do end up having to use it, only wash full loads and put it on the cycle that takes the least time to clean the dishes. What I’ve found is that you can wash a full load in the Light cycle and get results that are just the same or better than washing it in the Normal cycle. I don’t know why, but that’s been my personal experience.
  • Don’t leave the water running in the sink while you’re doing the dishes.
  • Don’t open the faucets all the way if you don’t need a full jet of water.
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Exercise, How To

Starting a vegan diet

First, if you are indeed motivated to go vegan, I want to congratulate you, and to let you know that the advantages are incredible. But… going on a vegan diet could be a very drastic step for anybody, especially if they’re eating the usual American fare: red meat, fries, cola and coffee. You will experience significant withdrawal symptoms, even if you are now a vegetarian. You will definitely crave all of your old favorites, and there will be plenty of times when you’ll ask yourself why. It’ll be up to you to let your mind overcome your senses, and to choose health over appetites.

No matter what we think of food, it is a drug. Although it may not come in test tubes, it is made up chemicals which trigger certain reactions in our body. Some of these chemicals are addictive. Sugar for example, is an addictive chemical. We humans will crave sugar if we get our body used to a certain quantity of it on a daily basis. Similarly, certain chemicals in red meat are also addictive. When the animals are killed, they release certain “fight or flight” hormones in their bloodstream, which quickly travel to the muscle cells that make up the meat. These chemicals remain there through the cooking process until those of us who still eat meat consume it. Once in our body, these hormones, which are still active, trigger certain sensations of well-being and raised awareness, which are then associated with meat-eating. And we probably all know about the addictive qualities of coffee…

In a similar manner, although not as obtrusively, all of the food we eat either gets associated with positive or negative feelings. That is why we like certain foods. And we don’t even have to like them to experience withdrawal symptoms, we just have to be used to eating them. Their absence in our diet will make us miss them.

It is for these reasons that a great many people fail in their resolution to stay vegan, and revert to much less healthful lifestyles. Of course, there are other, secondary reasons, such as convenience (you can get a burger and a cola pretty much anywhere, but it’s much harder to find good vegan food) or health problems caused by a lack of planning in their diets.

Being a vegan by definition means eating a variety of vegan foods: vegetables, fruits and legumes. There are certain vitamins or minerals that only certain foods can provide, and if one sticks to the obvious lettuce and tomatoes and the hardy beans and potatoes and perhaps a few apples and bananas here and there, they’re going to run into serious health problems. While proper planning in a vegan diet will be treated in another article (and I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to write it,) here I simply want to introduce the concept of dietary planning and make you aware of the dangers inherent in a lack of planning.

How does one become a vegan? Well, as you’ve already seen, one has to be fairly motivated, and the strongest motivator that one can have is the desire to stay healthy and live a long life. And given all of the health problems caused by meat and dairy-based diets, going and staying vegan is the only way to ensure that your body can function at its best.

What’s next after motivation? Putting your beliefs into practice. My advice is to take it slowly. It’s not going to be good for you to go vegan cold turkey, because you’ll quickly get discouraged and might revert back to your old lifestyle. Vegan food tastes very bland to a person who’s been eating meat. You’ll need to get your taste buds and mind accustomed to the taste of vegan food, and after a few months of eating it, you’ll finally discover the finer flavors and textures of it. You may even begin to like it. Please don’t think this sounds dreary. I don’t look forward to my meals as a bland experience, but you may. Just realize that your attitude will change, but it may take months.

So how do you do it? If you’re now eating meat, calculate how many times a week you eat it, and reduce the number of meat-containing meals, replacing those meals with either chicken or fish, or vegetarian meals. You may be inclined to drop meat completely out of your diet. Good for you! Do it, but stick in there. If you’ve switched to chicken or fish, continue on this diet for about 1-2 months, all the while reducing the number of times you eat chicken or fish per week and replacing those meals with vegetarian meals. After 2-3 months at the most, you should be a vegetarian. Sounds easy? It is, if you stick to my plan.

Now that you’re a full fledged vegetarian, start planning your diet. Make sure you include all of the veggies and fruits that you need in your diet. And if you’re still consuming milk and cheese and eggs, drop the American-made cheese as fast as you can. I’m referring to the non-organic American cheeses. They are one of the least healthy foods on this planet. They are made from the milk of cows treated with all sorts of hormones that will wreak havoc in your body. Also, as a rule, dry cheese is not very healthy. Wet cheese (feta cheese, cottage cheese, etc.) is okay. But be sure to get only organic cheeses.

Next, drop the eggs. If you like them, you may want to read about their high fat and cholesterol content, and about the hormones they use to grow the chickens. You may also want to think about the fact that eggs are really the placenta and embryo of the chicken. If you must have eggs, get the organic kind. Next, drop the milk. The non-organic milk is loaded with unhealthy hormones, and it actually causes cancer cells in your body to grow and develop into tumors, because the cows here in the States are treated with growth factors (certain chemicals which cause cellular growth). These chemicals accumulate in the milk, and they’re not destroyed by pasteurization. If you must have milk, get the organic kind.

You shouldn’t stay in the vegetarian phase too long, or you’ll get stuck there, midway. Make the move fast, within 1-2 months of becoming vegetarian. Start reading about the vegan diet, and start planning your move. Make sure you know where to buy all of the vegetables and fruits that you need at reasonable prices. Have everything ready, learn a few good dishes to get you through the first vegan week, and then take the plunge. Throw away any vestige of your old lifestyle: any stale meat in the freezer, any cheese or eggs that you might have around the house, any candy bars, any cookies or potato chips. Clean out your house, so nothing tempts you, then start being a vegan.

Now you’ll be in for a few rough weeks, or even months, as your mouth will water at the sight of old foods. Stay in there, and read about the dangers of eating the old foods. It’ll keep you motivated. Believe me, you will begin to love vegan food, and you will also feel disgust at the sight or smell of old food, because now you’ll know exactly what’s in it and why it smells and looks the way it does.

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How To

How to get a job right out of college

A quick note: I wrote this article for Edu.com back in 2000. That site no longer exists, but the article does, and I updated it to keep it current.

So you’re about to graduate and you’re starting to fret because you don’t have a job lined up. If going back to live with your parents seems like a bad idea, then you’d better do your homework. “Yeah, but where do I start?” you ask. Right here and now would be alright…

Use what you already have
First, don’t dismiss the resources that your college or grad school has to offer. Any good school ought to have a Career Services office, a place that will at least help you get an entry-level job if not more. My college, Middlebury, had just such a place. Of course, I never used it because I was too cool for it. Then I paid the price in crappy jobs. That was the first lesson I learned: use every opportunity to your advantage.

Networking (no, not the computer kind)
The least I could have done with my summers was to research internship opportunities. A few months during the summer (when you have nothing better to do anyway) will pay off big later on if you do a good job. Not only do you get to network and make important contacts, these people may actually hand you a job if they like you. And the whole thing is pretty much a no-brainer. You go to work, you, do a good job, then get a real job.

I knew better than to pass up internship opportunities while I was studying for my Master’s. (Besides, they’re pretty much required.) I interned with a local health plan, and while I didn’t get a job out of it, I learned an awful lot about how to function in such an institution. I also got a consulting gig with them when my internship was over. I designed and implemented a Physician Profiling application for them. They were even willing to put up with me while I was still learning my way through programming in Access. The whole thing turned out great in the end, and it persuaded me to go into computer consulting as freelancer, which is what I’m doing now.

Get started
Second, check out the job search sites. There are so many of them these days, you’re bound to find jobs that you like. If you’re looking for entry-level jobs, here’s what you’ve got: CollegeRecruiter.com, College Grad Job Hunter, CareerGuidance, and CareerBuilder. The list probably goes on, but this should get you started in your search for that elusive “real” job that will pay your rent and food.

Note: While in 2000 some job sites used to specialize in entry-level jobs, most good job sites these days will list both entry-level and regular jobs.

Serious play
Now, if you’re like me and you didn’t let those summers go to waste but worked instead, you may be ready for some grown-up jobs. While the competition will definitely heat up, the crop of available jobs and the pay for those jobs definitely looks better. CareerBuilder is a big site with lots of jobs. Another really good site is Monster.

CareerXpress is a site that will distribute your resume to employers and headhunters for a fee. CareerJet is another site that collects job listings from multiple job sites and makes them available to you for easy searching. Do your research though. Find more sites if you’re interested in this. Make sure exactly how the service works, or you might get ripped off.

For that special-ized job?
Discover Me is an interesting service, because it claims to match your personality with that of top performers in a specific job. If you’re in healthcare and you’re despairing because there are no sites specific to your needs, here’s one: HireHealth. They’ve got jobs about everything related to healthcare.

Or perhaps you went abroad for a semester or two, and fell in love with that country. Europe has that kind of power, I know. Maybe you want to go back there and work. Hey, it’s possible to have your cake and eat it too. Check out these two sites and make your dreams come true: Planet Recruit and Datum Online, which list international jobs. And who says you can’t reach for the sky: 6FigureJobs is just the place to go for those of us that like to think large.

If you’re in technology, you’re in luck. Those sites really abound, and the jobs are plentiful (or were, before 2000). The good thing is that computers make the world go ’round these days, so there will always be a demand for good IT people. Here are some sites for us lucky ones: Dice, ITclassifieds, Techies, Jobs, and Positionwatch.

Try the past, you may be surprised
Have you tried newspaper classifieds? Some of you may be wondering what they are, and I’ll tell you. They’re a good way to find local jobs, so give them a shot.

Final thoughts
Network, but don’t be sleazy. Be nice to everyone you meet, you never know when they can help. And be sure to help when you can. Don’t keep count, just be helpful. At your job, be professional. Leave the playing around to the goofs who will never be promoted. Do your job and perform above expectations. Never burn any bridges if you can help it. It will come back to haunt you, believe me.

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How To

How to get started in web design

A quick note: this article was written back in 2000, and it shows its age. At this time, I have no intention of editing it to bring it up to the present. To me, it’s an interesting snapshot of the “old days”…

If you’re interested in Web design and want a simple “how to” guide to starting out, you’re in luck. That’s what this article’s about.

Learning the ropes
Thanks to the huge growth of the Internet during the past few years, it’s become easier than ever to get yourself on the Web without writing a single line of code. Sites such as Tripod, Homestead or FreeYellow will host your pages for free, give you tens of megabytes for you to fill up with files and free tools to help you build your site online in minutes.

Got the hang of it?
If you’re a little more advanced and want to work on your own HTML files, the Web is full of resources. You can have access to free online tutorials to help you beef up your design skills at the same sites mentioned above, or at sites such as CNET or ZDNet.

But my advice to you is to start easy. If you overwhelm yourself with tech terms and get into learning code from the start, you’ll most likely get bogged down and probably stop learning. Begin with FrontPage Express (you can find it at Microsoft’s Windows Update site) or some other free HTML editors such as Cool Page, HotDog or PageMill. The downloads section at ZDNET is where you’ll find free HTML editors and other cool web design programs and goodies. has a really good section on Web publishing tools.

Moving on up
Once you get the hang of these, you’re ready to graduate to the big dogs. Some of the premier HTML editors available these days are Macromedia Dreamweaver and UltraDev, Allaire Homesite and Microsoft FrontPage. What’s good about them is that they integrate ease of use with advanced features such as JavaScript, DHTML, ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages, JSP (Java Script Pages) or CFML (Cold Fusion Markup Language) capabilities. These languages are what make most business Web sites run these days. They’re the hard code behind the pretty fronts that you click on.

Dreamweaver is made by Macromedia, the same company that made Flash a household name. I can’t say enough good things about this program. It is the premier web design application on the market, and it makes it fantastically easy to create quality websites. Of course, you also pay a pretty penny for it (price is around $250-300). UltraDev is Dreamweaver on steroids. Not only does it have all of the capabilities of Dreamweaver, but it also writes advanced code for you and makes it incredibly easy to add database functionality to your website. The price for it runs from $550-600.

Homesite on the other hand has a really nice and functional division between the work window and HTML view, though it lags behind Dreamweaver in the visual quality of the GUI. Allaire (which makes Homesite) was recently bought by Macromedia, so I’m not sure what the future of this application will be.

Microsoft FrontPage is good for beginners because it offers so many features and plug-ins, but it’s awkward to work with unless you use it exclusively. Switching HTML files between it and other editors is a nightmare because it changes the way the code is written. I stay away from it – far, far away – because I just don’t want to deal with the bloated code and the extra folders that it creates for itself on my web server.

After you use these programs yourself, you’ll discover your own pet peeves. And when you do, congratulate yourself, because you’ll have made it to the next level.

So you think you’re hot
If you think you’re ready for the big leagues, the Web development sections at CNET or ZDNet are the ones for you. CNET has a really good section with HTML tutorials and Web design, while ZDNet has a huge Developer section with all the tutorials and free code you could ever want. Other free code also abounds online. You’ll find more than enough CGI, Java and applets if you do a few diligent searches. It also never hurts to actually spend some money on good software books. Most of the time, they’ll come with CD-ROMs filled with free code and other goodies.

Goodies
Good clipart and sounds (great for enhancing your page) are also available free online at places such as AllFreeClipArt.com, About.com, or Volition.com. The best way to find the sounds you like is to search for them by categories. Say you like The Simpsons. Well, then you’d search for them by name, find the sound file that you need, then insert a hidden sound tag on your index page. This sound would then play every time that page was loaded. And if you want to be really annoying, you can make it play over and over and over…. Of course you will have to watch for copyright infringements. If it’s a personal page, no one will probably bother you, but if it’s a page that sells stuff, or your own page on your company’s website, you might get in trouble. Just make sure you check to see if it’s okay first.

Going pro
Last but not least, if you want to be good at this, learn from the masters. Actually, steal from the masters. Go to the sites for some of the coolest design companies these days: The Designory, Me Company, Fusive.Com, Contact Designs, Control V Interactive, DayStream, Exprimare or Lupuspernix. The list is debatable, and so is the order. The important thing is to find some really good sites and pick them apart. Look at the source code. Save the HTML files to your hard drive. Open them up in Dreamweaver, see what they’re made of, how they’re put together. Try to replicate the graphic design in Freehand, Illustrator or PhotoShop. Get into
Flash. It’s hot these days. See what you can do. Then do it better. And when you’re ready, apply for some jobs. You can’t keep bumming off your parents forever. Here’s how!

When I grow up, I want to be?
If you get to know all the stuff I’ve talked about, then you’ll probably wish to specialize, or learn more about a certain aspect of Web design. There are three main areas:

  1. Code Monkeys: these guys and gals want nothing more than to sit in front of the monitor writing JavaScript and messing around with SQL (Structured Query Language) or ASP (Active Server Pages) all day long.
  2. Graphic designers: these creative folks make the great fronts you see on some of today’s coolest Web pages. Homework: go find these really cool pages. Judge them, and be subjective. Art is what you make of it.
  3. Web designers: these guys are the go-betweens. They take the stuff that graphic designers make and they put it on Web pages. Then they get it ready for the code monkeys, which will go in and finish out the job by integrating the HTML with the other code that makes sites work (see above). At most places, the 2nd and 3rd categories are one and the same, but at bigger companies, you will find that most designers will fall into these three categories.
  4. Art/Creative Directors: these gals and guys work on the big picture and chart the direction in which a project needs to go. They’re interesting people with quirky habits, and for the most part, they know what they’re doing.
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