No, the idea of online dating is not through IRC or other chatting platform anymore. Today, online dating site offer tools to help you find the right dating partner.

Sean Novak wrote a knol that cover the basic and offer some tips on online dating.

According to Sean’s knol, the process of online dating is:

• Choose your website and create an account.
• Write your profile.
• Search for interesting people and contact them.
• Have conversations with these people.
• Arrange to meet and have a first date.
• Continue dating as desired.

Sean also offers some general tips on following through online dating – Please visit his knol to learn more about it.

Kevin Sinnott explained in his knol, that no matter how expensive the beans, if you don’t have a good brewer, you won’t get to taste them at their best.

The following is the exceprts of tips on how to test your coffee brewer:

• Visit consumer feedback sites – You can always learn about anything from other consumers.
• Temperature – 195 to 205 Fahrenheit is the official recommended temperature.
• Grounds saturation – This is about how well the water sprayhead and filter are designed to keep all the grounds wet during brewing.
• Contact time – It is currently the most common fault of the typical consumer auto drip brewer, and also a common fault of overzealous consumers when grinding for auto-drip or manual brewers.

Kevin shared his easiest coffee brewer test of all:

… The easiest test of all is to simply time your brewer. If it’s up to eight minutes, you can probably compensate by grinding coarse. If it’s past that, I would suggest parting company with it. If you’re absolutely determined to make it work, you can compromise by brewing half batches or so, on the theory that you can bring the contact time down to around six minutes. It still won’t address temperature shortcomings, but it will at least help prevent over-extraction.

To learn more, please visit Kevin’s knol.

Jason Quinten Kincade, the knol writer, is panning for gold himself… and earns him a good living today. He shares some tips on how to pan for fun and to make a living.

Why people pan for gold? Most panners, pan for one or more of the following reasons:

1. They enjoy it, (and for the gold of course).
2. They use panning as a prospecting tool to sample and locate potential pay streaks along streams or dry washes for later high banking, sluicing, dredging or dry washing operations.
3. To pan down concentrates from one of the above-mentioned operations.
4. To pan samples from promising hillsides, in a systematic way, while attempting to locate a buried gold vein or residual placer (pocket hunting.)
5. To pan samples of rock extracted from a vein and crushed… in hopes of locating a viable claim.

The knol talks about the background story (including how he make a living panning for gold) and history of gold panning, including exploring the right pan to choose – The right size and material. The nugget of the knol is the Panning 101.

If you are into gold panning, this knol is surely an extremely useful one for you.

If you were intrigued enough, this knol about bikinis might interest you.

What is bikinis?

The obvious, explained: A bikini or two-piece is women’s swimsuit that consists of two parts – the bikini top and bottom.

History of the bikini

Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes have been observed on Greek urns and paintings, dated as early as 1400 BC. As another evidence, Ancient artwork from over 1700 years ago in Villa Romana del Casale have depicted women in garments resembling modern-day bikinis.

Variations of the bikini

Bikini comes in many variations:

• Brazilian cut bikini: A bikini swimsuit bottom that is cut with a generally narrower and lower brief.
• String bikini: A bikini swimsuit that is scantier and more revealing than traditional bikinis.
• Monokini: Sometimes referred to as a unikini, is a woman’s one piece beach garment equivalent to the lower half of a bikini.
• Microkini: An extremely skimpy bikini.The designs for both women and men typically use only enough fabric to cover the genitalia.
• Tankini: A swimsuit combining a tank top and a bikini bottom.
• Sling bikini: Also known as a “suspender bikini”, “suspender thong”, “slingshot bikini” or just “slingshot”. The slingshot is a one-piece suit which provides as little, or even less, coverage (or as much exposure) as a bikini.

There are wealth of information from the knol – just make sure you visit it for more details on bikinis.

I found a knol that might interest you – the do’s and don’ts of getting your ex back. Here’s the excerpt:

The do’s

1. Take responsibility for your action: Was the end of your relationship your fault? If it were, for whatever reason, go to your exand have a heart-to-heart talk.
2. Show confidence: No matter how nasty the breakup is, don’t be afraid to go up to your ex whenever you see him/her around the neighborhood.
3. Be the person he fell in love with: After several months of being in a relationship, you should know by now the qualities your ex-partner liked about you.

The don’ts

1. Don’t be over eager: If you show your ex-partner over eagerness to get back with him there are high chances that you would be played for a fool.
2. Don’t show your ex that you are desperate: If you show your ex partner your weaknesses, he will go as far away from you as possible.

For more details, consider visiting the knol.

It’s monopoly pub crawl.

I stumble upon this knol and it’s interesting to learn that some people does do this for fun.

According to the knol:

The idea of a Monopoly Pub Crawl – played in London, naturally – is to, in a single day, visit and drink at each of the 26 locations (22 properties and 4 stations) appearing on the UK version of the Monopoly Board.

Here are some tips from the knol on how to have a successful Monopoly pub crawl:

• Routes :Visiting the properties in the order they appear on the board is torturous, and only becomes slightly easier if you discard the four stations. Better is to use the optimal ordering described in monopolypubcrawl.org.uk.
• Timing :Ideally you should start as early in the morning as possible – in practice, a 10am start at Elephant & Castle tube station gives you a decent shot at reaching the finish at Oxford Street before 11pm.
• What to bring :travel light. Wear comfortable shoes and avoid bringing much more than the necessary, which is a 1-Day Off-Peak London Travelcard for Zones 1 and 2 (this is good for all buses and tube trains, which you’ll be making extensive use of) OR an Oyster card (same), plus approximately £60 in cash.
• Group dynamics :in practice four people is pretty much the minimum and more than ten people will have difficulty fitting into many of the later pubs, because as time goes on the pubs and streets will get increasingly crowded, particularly if you do this on a Friday or Saturday night (we did Saturday).
• Record-keeping :It is a good idea to bring cameras, for the taking of pictures. You will also need a notepad if you wish to record 1) who wins (finishes their drink first) at each pub, 2) who loses (finishes last or not at all) at each pub, and 3) who drops out and when, which are all interesting statistics to look over later.
• Food :A hearty breakfast is essential, preferably NOT eaten immediately before you start in the morning. You will be eating lunch and dinner on the move.

Fancy a Monopoly pub crawl? Pay this knol a visit.

I found a great resource from Google Knol, written by the professional painting contractors themselves to give you a tip or two on how to make painting your rooms look fantastic.

Here’s the summary of the exceptional tips:

1. Roll paint along the edges for consistent texture: To ensure the finished texture will be consistent in these areas, brush on the paint, then immediately roll it out before the paint dries.
   
2. Prime and texture wall patches to avoid a blotchy finish: Freshly painted walls often look blotchy. A quick coat of primer is all it takes to eliminate flashing and texture differences.
   
3. Let the paint dry, then cut the tape loose for a perfect edge: Once paint is dry, you can’t just pull the tape off the trim. Paint forms a film between the wall and the tape, and removing the tape tears pieces of dried paint off the wall. So before pulling off the tape, cut it loose.
   
4. To avoid lap marks, roll the full height of the wall and keep a wet edge: If you paint in rectangular sections, you double the amount of work and double the chances of lap marks. Instead, roll on the paint the full height of the wall, then move to the next area.
   
5. Feather out the paint where you can’t keep a wet edge: You can’t cover large areas like ceilings, extra-tall walls or stairwells in single, continuous strokes, so the best way to minimize lap marks on these areas is to feather out the paint along the edges that you can’t keep wet.
   
6. Use cotton drop cloths rather than plastic: Spills and spatters happen, regardless of how careful you are. It’s a lot easier to prepare for them than to wipe them out of your carpeting or off your wood floor later. All it takes is canvas drop cloths in your work area.
   
7. Sand trim between coats for an ultra-smooth finish: For a smooth finish, sand the trim before applying each coat of paint.
   
8. Mix several cans of paint in a large bucket for a consistent color throughout the room: Paint color may vary slightly from one can to the next. If you have to open a new can in the middle of a wall, the difference may be noticeable. Mixing the paints together eliminates the problem.
   
9. Clean dirty surfaces so the paint can form a strong bond: Paint dirty, oily surfaces and the paint will easily chip or peel off.
   
10. Paint the trim first, then the ceiling and walls: That’s because it’s easier (and faster) to tape off the trim than to tape off the walls. And you certainly don’t want to tape them both off!
    

For more detailed explanation on each tip, please visit the knol.

Images from Interior Painting Techniques knol, leading image from wharman.

Why jargon, even in barbecuing, important? Craig indicated that knowing the jargon will let you ‘synchronised’ in the conversation with other barbecue enthusiasts.

As a newbie in barbecue myself, learning a new term or two related to barbecuing is quite an achievement for me.

Here’s my favourite barbecue jargon:

Pitmaster. An experienced barbecue cook, a skilled craftsman, who watches over the pit and can tell by sight, sound, smell, and touch, if it is running too hot or too cold, when it needs fuel, when to add wood, when to add sauce, and when the meat is ready.

Securing your identity doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. A knol by Shannon Primicerio lists and explains 10 free things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft.

Here’s the list excerpt:

1. Shred all important financial documents.
2. Request your free credit reports each year.
3. Use strong passwords and pin numbers on all financial accounts and change them often.
4. Mail all bills from the post office and not your own mailbox.
5. Reduce your junk mail and unsolicited credit card offers.
6. Always know where your credit card is – even in restaurants and retail stores.
7. See if your credit card company offers any free safety features for online shopping.
8. Do’t carry your social security number with you, and don’t use it as a user ID or password.
9. Monitor credit card bills and bank statements carefully each month.
10. Beware of online ‘friends’ who may really be identity thieves in disguise.

Image by CarbonNYC.

If so, I found a great knol by Jeremy Miller on how to have a successful yard sale that you might interested in.

Jeremy does a great job in listing things to do to run a yard sale, highly probable from his own experience. In my opinion, reading and following his many tips will definitely aid you running a yard sale, even if you have never done it before.

He explained that yard sale is hard work and require a simple but essential preparations. Here’s some of the great tips excerpted from Jeremy’s knol:

1. Advertise your yard sale online for free, on local newspaper, or on your local community bulletin boards.
2. Find out from and comply with your local laws and regulations about opening a yard sale.
3. Set a definite start and end time of your yard sale.
4. Consider placing price tags on top of all items.
5. Have some background music on.
6. On a hot day, consider kids or relatives running a lemonade stall.
7. Go through your on sale items to check whether they are dirty or have ‘secret items’ in them, such as money, receipts, etc.
8. Accept cash only transaction.
9. Have plastic grocery bags ready.
10. Put ‘all sales are final’ sign to avoid returns and refunds.

There are tens other tips on the knol. Please make sure you read the knol to give you a clean start and more hassle-free yard sale to do.

Image by Dano.