Category Archives: How To

Are you a Showroomer? When retail stores fight back against the Internet, we all lose



Showroom: The Saga of a Family, a Car Business and the Seven Deadly Sins
Showroom: The Saga of a Family, a Car Business and the Seven Deadly Sins

By now, Web Watch is sure that you’ve heard of the term “showrooming“, where consumers go to Target, Best Buy, or other major retailers simply to browse the aisles – cell phone in hand – with the explicit purpose to NOT buy anything that day.

Web Watch will admit, we’ve done this on plenty of occasions:  we go to an electronics department to look for a specific item — maybe so we can get a close-up of the box, or a better idea of the specs — and we do our own little bit of online price comparison.

Continue reading "Are you a Showroomer? When retail stores fight back against the Internet, we all lose" »

Also posted in Internet, shopping | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Now your poop can be like art, with all the colors of the rainbow



Girls Don't Poop
Girls Don’t Poop

Web Watch told you about Dr Stool a few years ago, where you can get all your poop questions that you never knew you had answered.

And if Dr Stool wasn’t enough, you could always head over to SMELLY POOP, an educational website that that answers the question, “What other colors of poop are possible?”

And according to them, you can get red, white, brown, yellow… even blue poop!  Yup, you really are what you eat, and any good physician will tell you that all they need to really diagnose any health issue that you may have it to analyze a stool sample.

Continue reading "Now your poop can be like art, with all the colors of the rainbow" »

Also posted in Gadgets, Science, Websites | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s true: Men can tell when a woman is having her period, just by listening to her



Period.: A Girl's Guide
Period.: A Girl’s Guide

If there’s one thing that men have learned over the years, it’s that women can be moody once in a while.

And we all know what one of those causes of mood swings can be, don’t we?  Yes, yes we do.

But there is something that scientists have discovered that can help men avoid being in the line of fire when that moody time comes around… and it’s not nearly as complicated as keeping a diary of their own to document those moments.

Continue reading "It’s true: Men can tell when a woman is having her period, just by listening to her" »

Posted in How To | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Are you in an open marriage? (Do you even know what that means?)



Open All the Way: Confessions From My Open Marriage
Open All the Way: Confessions From My Open Marriage

You hear all this talk, on the news or one of those special HBO documentaries that they show late on a Saturday night, about OPEN MARRIAGES.

Have you ever wondered what an open marriage really was?

Continue reading "Are you in an open marriage? (Do you even know what that means?)" »

Posted in How To | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How much do you tip your waiter? Chances are, you’re paying them way too much



How to Make Money and Bigger Tips as a Waitress
How to Make Money and Bigger Tips as a Waitress

How much do you tip your wait staff when you visit a bar or restaurant?

Some people go for the standard 20% off the final total of the bill — just take the total, move the decimal point, and multiply by 2… voila! No math required and you left a 20% tip.

Some people jump through complicated hoops to come up with a 15% or 18% tip.

We’ll be honest here – there have been times that Web Watch has left less than 15%… but trust us, the wait staff didn’t do their job that day by listening to what the customer wanted (they didn’t bring us the requested drink, the requested condiment on the side rather than on the sandwich, etc – and it wasn’t because the restaurant was busy that day… it was just bad service all the way around.)

Continue reading "How much do you tip your waiter? Chances are, you’re paying them way too much" »

Also posted in food | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is that YouTube video legal? Check out the YouTube Copyright School to learn more



Harry Potter and the Order of the Court: The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use
Harry Potter and the Order of the Court:
The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use

Copyright is an important aspect of online life today, and not very many people understand it.

“The Internet is FREE”, they claim.  “Everything on the Internet is free for the taking!”

No, not so much.  Rule number one of Internet legalities:  Just because someone posted it on the Internet doesn’t mean that there is no copyright or that the material is free to be shared/taken. 

Fact is, the very act of writing something yourself gives you an automatic copyright to that material that YOU created.  Let’s emphasize that YOU created portion again.  It has to be original work from YOU for you to claim the copyright – and even then, you can only claim the copyright on the portion that YOU edited.

Even large mass-edited projects like Wikipedia have a copyright… but Wikipedia explicitly says that the individual Wikipedia editors can’t claim copyright on the text that is contributed directly to Wikipedia articles — just adding the text to Wikipedia grants Wikipedia a licence to make that text available for public use.  (Content that is already copyrighted outside of Wikipedia and still contributed by the original author falls under a different set of copyright guidelines — be sure to read that WP article for all the copyright details that may pertain to you.)

Continue reading "Is that YouTube video legal? Check out the YouTube Copyright School to learn more" »

Also posted in Internet, Video | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sudoku so hard, it took one team a giant computer and an entire year to solve a single puzzle



Will Shortz Presents Simply Sinister Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles
Will Shortz Presents Simply Sinister Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles

If you enjoy working on Sudoku puzzles as much as Web Watch does, then this may be of interest to you.

First, let’s talk a little bit about what Sudoku is, for those Web Watch readers who may have been living under a rock for the past 10 years:

Sudoku is a puzzle that is rumored to have been created by a puzzle creator living in Indiana, seemingly around 1979.  In 1984, it was published in a Japanese newspaper… and the rest, they say, is history.  The puzzle typically is a 9×9 square, and the object is to put the numbers 1-9 into the boxes so each row, column and 3×3 sub-block contains all the 1-9 digits.

In other words, it’s a game that’s absolutely perfect of playing on an iPad or phone.

Continue reading "Sudoku so hard, it took one team a giant computer and an entire year to solve a single puzzle" »

Also posted in Games | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Want to succeed in business? Try wearing black



Beyond Business Casual: What To Wear To Work If You Want To Get Ahead
Beyond Business Casual:
What To Wear To Work If You Want To Get Ahead

As we head into a new year, you may have on your list of New Year’s Resolutions to “get promoted at work”.

While working hard and getting recognized for the job that you do while at the office is only part of the way to advance your career – you may want to take a look at some of the esoteric things. 

Apparently, according to CareerBuilder:

Continue reading "Want to succeed in business? Try wearing black" »

Also posted in shopping | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Year in Review: 2011′s most popular Web Watch articles and searches



2011: Living in the Future
2011: Living in the Future

Thanks to everyone who took the time to visit Web Watch in 2011. For those of you who haven’t been able to visit every day, let’s take a look at what you did come and see while you were here:

The top ten most viewed Web Watch articles for 2011 were:

Continue reading "Year in Review: 2011′s most popular Web Watch articles and searches" »

Also posted in 10 Things, Internet, Music, Websites | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Common poker tells, from poker expert Mike Caro



Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells
Mike Caro’s Book of Poker Tells

It’s a long weekend, so what better reason to ring in the New Year by getting together with your buddies for a late night of cigar smoking and poker playing?

But before you do, you might want to read up a little bit on how to recognize a “poker tell” – that is, those silent signs that your poker opponents aroung the table give off when they have a good or bad hand.

Some of these little ticks are done on purpose – players think that they can indicate whether they have a worse hand than they actually do by doing or saying something to throw you off the scent.  Other tells are things your body does whether you realize it or not.

Continue reading "Common poker tells, from poker expert Mike Caro" »

Also posted in Gambling | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Women: want to make more money? Stop shaving, showering



GROOMING AND ETIQUETTE FOR CORPORATE MEN AND WOMEN: How to Dress Properly
GROOMING AND ETIQUETTE FOR CORPORATE MEN AND WOMEN:
How to Dress Properly

We all know that proper grooming is important to succeed in the workplace.

Web Watch knows a few men with (shall we say…) less than admirable shower and clothes-washing habits.

One situation arose where a co-worker had to be taken aside and be told explicitly to go home and shower.  It was an uncomfortable conversation, but it had to be done.  You could smell him coming from down the hall.  Web Watch shudders just remembering the stench, it was that bad.

Continue reading "Women: want to make more money? Stop shaving, showering" »

Posted in How To | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

7 Things that millionaires do that you can do too



The Millionaire Next Door
The Millionaire Next Door

Many years ago, Web Watch thought that we knew we had enough money if other people considered us to be “peculiar”.

As we got older, we determined that being “peculiar” wasn’t good enough — we knew that we had enough money if other people considered us to be “eccentric” instead.

The question that Web Watch still has to answer is how to we get enough money to even be thought of as “odd”, since we’re nowhere close to having “odd” enough money.

Continue reading "7 Things that millionaires do that you can do too" »

Also posted in 10 Things | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Want to get rich? Try living with someone instead of getting married



The Good Girl’s Guide to Living in Sin: The New Rules for Moving In With Your Man
The Good Girl’s Guide to Living in Sin:
The New Rules for Moving In With Your Man

Quick, raise your hand if you’re currently living with your partner (girlfriend, boyfriend, significant other, etc).

Yeah, we thought so.  That’s a whole bunch of you out there, living in sin.

And while you may get yelled at by your parents or your clergy for shacking up with someone, maybe there’s some good reason for you to live together before marriage:

Continue reading "Want to get rich? Try living with someone instead of getting married" »

Also posted in Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

How to avoid getting sick when travelling by plane



Airborne
Airborne

It’s the holiday travel season, and tons of Web Watch readers are going to find themselves flying on a crowded plane, more than likely sitting next to somebody who’s just getting over the flu.

It’s like the giant lottery of luck, who you get to sit next to on the plane. Everybody eyes the other people at the terminal, wondering who gets to be lucky enough to sit next to that young attractive man or woman while avoiding eye contact with that overweight, unwashed hairy dude wearing a torn muscle shirt.

Eww.

Continue reading "How to avoid getting sick when travelling by plane" »

Also posted in 10 Things, Travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to remove Carrier IQ from your phone



Android figure toy
Google Android Figure

By now, you probably have heard about CARRIER IQ, that software that many cell phone manufacturers and service providers had installed on all sorts of cellphones in order to track how well their networks were performing.

The issue, if you didn’t know, is that CARRIER IQ wasn’t a very well-designed application and was recording a lot of each user’s phone actions without that person’s knowledge.  Now, Congress has gotten involved and it’s turned into a big ugly mess.

Continue reading "How to remove Carrier IQ from your phone" »

Also posted in Gadgets, Internet | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment