The Wordpile

Guides and How-to’s

Both the boon and the bane of the Internet, instructionals, tutorials, and manuals for some at home project clutter every corner of the Web. On the one hand, they are often very useful, and undoubtedly convenient. On the other hand, anybody can put one of those darn things up, and three out of four are neither helpful nor worthwhile. So this is both a particularly noteworthy section of this blog, and a section requiring an especial amount of maintenance. As always, I invite your aid.

Note: The site based section is not nearly what it should be at the moment.  I am focusing on making the blog ready to launch for now, but once that has been achieved I will be doing some sniffing around to find some really good places to mention. In the meantime, you can use the comments to make suggestions (we may eventually post a forum).

Site Based

My Data Team:
Tutorials for all constant web based money making. Affiliate marketing, article writing, blog making (helped me!), classic data entry, etc. I am a member and can attest to the value of the site’s resources. Fee: fifty dollars. One time payment.

Learn How to Blog on WordPress:
A set of video tutorials. They’re free, but I found it on clickbank so a sale is definitely hidden somewhere on the page. Let me know when and where you find it, and I’ll update the description accordingly.

Software

Rocket Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Sign Language:
Rosetta Stone is prohibitively expensive. The Rocket series of language programs are respectable, work, and cost a lot less. I would recommend using it together with the ‘Learn That Language’ e-book listed below (or, if these programs are also too expensive, just the e-book, which is pure gold and only thirty).

Learn to Read Music:
It’s pretty intimidating looking, isn’t it? I had an e-book ready but found that there’s lots of good free software out there anyway. The link goes to a search page for it. Read and choose.

Zygor’s In-Game Leveling Guide:
Widely acknowledged as the best WoW guide money can buy. It’s a program, not a PDF booklet, and integrates into your playing screen. It also shows all the information you need right there, as well as directions, so no need to spend time checking up on stuff. If I ever do play WoW (one of my constant temptations in life), buying this will be my first step after signing up. Buying the PDF gold guide I also list here will be my second.

E-books

Building a Koi Pond:
This one has the potential to be replaced with a better. Please be sure to share any useful input you might have on this.

Parrot Care:
Parrots are notoriously difficult pets, and yet many people would like to keep one. So I have made an effort to have an e-book on the subject, but the fact is I have my doubts about this one. It’s the best I can find at the moment, so here it stays, but feedback would be deeply appreciated, and this entry is subject to change at any time.

Make a backyard waterfall:
Too good to miss, no?

World of Warcraft Gold Guide:
Slogging for gold is easily the most tedious part of any RPG. WoW is so big you can buy gold for US dollars, but that is a) expensive and a never ending cycle b) illegal, you could get banned for that, and c) just plain lame. That’s not playing. This guide is written by one of the games oldest players, and the first ever to own an epic mount. Put that together with the fact that he still plays, and you have a reassuring amount of authority behind this. Kept up to date (updates are free with purchase).

Energy2Green:
The most reliable guide to homemade windmills and solar panels. There are quite a few others, but this one stands out as the most credible, easily.

The Thriving Artist:
How to make your art a sustainable, bread winning enterprise. This item beat its competitors for credibility largely thanks to the unprecedented move (in my experience) of actually allowing you to view the table of contents, so that you could see just what he was going to teach you to accomplish this.

Cardboard Cutouts:
You know those realistic cardboard stands of people? This teaches you how to make them.

Crazy Spray:
A cheap little e-book (ten dollars) that teaches you how to make an even cheaper (far less than five for various parts) water toy that keeps the kids happy day after day. If the season hadn’t already been over for water fun when I found it, I’d have tried it already on my family. Cheaper, more durable, and infinitely more conducive to kids imagination than any thirty dollar leak prone Toys R’ Us product. That imagination bit is key: when the kids can really start hanging their own little worlds on a toy, they’ll never get tired of it. Ever.

Sweet Smell:
Instructions for home made perfume. Sell them, or just enjoy them, either way a unique, fun sounding how to.

Make Candy:
For fun, profit, or special parties.

Guide to Saltwater Fish and Invertebrates:
Some of the most beautiful or unusual pets are the hardest to take proper care of. This ebook covers two classic aquirium additions that can be hard to take proper care of.

 

Learn That Language:
Definitely one of my favorite offerings here. Instead of being a guide to a language, which is the norm – and why not, when it means you can repackage the same thing over and over again? – this is a guide to the art of effective, relatively painless language learning – any language. If you are someone with an interest in learning languages, you want this. I certainly do. Rates high on my list of pitch pages that strike me as genuine. I will update this entry when I have bought and tried it.

Photography Lessons:
A dime a dozen, and this one technically wouldn’t have merited mention either – if not for the detailed description of what subjects would be covered, that was just as long as the hype that came before. That kind of freely offered detail, not to mention the hype to fact ration, is rare enough that I usually take it as a sign that there is nothing to hide. Also, digital photography keeps changing, making an e-version more dependable in its way. In any case, I’ve dabbled in photography, and am inclined to trust it. As always, I am ready to delete this entry depending on what I’m told. Comment!

Homemade Hydroponics:
Now this was interesting. Let me know about this.

Train Cat to Use and Flush Toilet:
Yes, it can be done! Outside of the movies. This was too good to pass up.

Discus Fish Guide:
Exotic fish require knowledgeable care, and fish as a whole tend to die on newbies, which is why I include guides on a range of aquarium inhabitants.

Run a Home Craft Business:
It could be this should substitute for some of the other home/art business guides listed here. Please let me know.

Making Personalized Wire Jewelry:
This one mostly wins the ‘real deal’ assessment by virtue of a multi page website, including, most tellingly, a contact page. Clearly whoever these guys are, they are prepared to take their customers seriously. Which in turn suggests they aren’t going to scam you. And it’s an intriguing subject.

Preserve Your Own Bouquet:
How to preserve flowers professional style. Do it yourself, don’t hire a pro to do it (pros always charge far more for this kind of thing than it takes either time or investment to do. As a graphic designer, I know this firsthand). Alternatively, become the pro who overcharges! Sweet revenge…

Game Assassin:
Similar to the ‘Learn that Language’ e-book in mentality, this teaches you how to learn and master games, rather how to play one game.

Products/Misc.

Origami Video:
Something like origami is very hard to learn from diagrams, however well illustrated. No matter what, it requires a kind of mental imaging many find very difficult, and it rarely comes out looking like it should. Someone clever thought of making a video instructional instead. This does cost.