Better than The Library?

I found it ironic that we spent lots and lots of money expanding our downtown library and many of the branches. Why?

At a time when more and more is available via the internet, we invested in old fashioned brick and steel buildings. Now I realize that there were also tech advances, but I doubt that we spent enough money to provide internet access to those that could not have access it on their own.

Currently each library card holder is allowed one hour per day for whatever they want to do online. Most of the terminals are full when I have stopped in. Including kids that are just playing games. So what happens when we have more people with a need for internet access? I doubt that our current library has the funds to expand to meet the demands of the community.

What this does is create another version of "have's" vs. "have nots". Yes there are cheaper computers out there, but now with inflation, the poor will be poorer.

Enough of my rant, take a look at this from the DLM Blog This is stuff that you don't need a library for, just an internet connection:

15 Awesome Tutorial Websites You Probably Don't Know About

Posted: 07 Jul 2008 10:40 AM CDT

Written on 7/07/2008 by Abhijeet Mukherjee, of Jeet Blog.

If I were forced to choose an aspect of the internet that made it simply indispensable, it would definitely be its availability as a huge learning resource. 20 years ago, who would have thought that one would have easy access to already completed business documents, research papers of world class universities, free encyclopedias and some great books, no matter where he or she is located in the world.

The internet also boasts of accommodating tutorials to absolutely anything. Here are 15 such super-useful sites which aim to provide you with all the tutorials you'd ever need.

1. How Stuff Works
   How Stuff Works is probably the best known How-to tutorials site. It has has a vast and diverse collection with topics ranging from food, health, computers, etc. One of the best things about this site is that it explains even the toughest tutorial in a very simple and easy to understand language.
   


2. YouTube
   Surprised? Well, it shouldn't be if you use YouTube a lot. Yesterday my younger brother bought a new guitar and the very first thing he needed to do was to tune it. So he just logged on, went to youtube.com and searched for "How to tune a guitar". And there you go! He had a nice video explaining the process step-by-step.


3. eHow
   eHow is another comprehensive tutorials website with detailed instructions on how to do just about anything. Like How Stuff Works, this site also covers a wide range of topics.


4. About.com's Video Tutorials
   About.com's video tutorial site has a collection of very informative how-to videos and screencasts on topics which include Parenting, Style, Electronics and Gadgets, etc. I found the collection to be very comprehensive and probably better than You Tube's collection of similar videos.


5. wikiHow
   wikiHow, as it says, is an editable How-to site with 40,100 articles contributed by volunteers from different parts of the world. You're sure to find some nice tutorials here too.


6. Instructables
   Instructables is a cool Do-It-Yourself site that has an extensive collection of user submitted how-to articles and easy instructions complete with videos and photographs. It's a community driven website where you can submit content, vote and comment on existing content.


7. Wired's How-To Wiki
   Wired magazine's how-to wiki has some very elaborate and detailed tutorials focussed primarily on topics like Gadgets, Technology and Computers. You can also subscribe to its RSS feed to get them the new how-to articles directly in your feed reader.


8. PC World's How-to Site
   PC World, one of the best tech journals available, also has a how to site that publishes technology focused tutorials related to various electronic gadgets, hardware and software applications.


9. VideoJug
   When it comes to how-to video tutorial sites, VideoJug is probably the largest and most comprehensive. It has videos on varied subjects like choosing a new hairstyle, playing golf, installing windows or how to kiss someone passionately.


10. W3Schools
    W3Schools is a first class web development tutorials website which provides easy reference guides on languages like HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript. All the tutorials are free and nicely explained through various examples.


11. NETTUTS And PSDTUTS
    NETTUTS and PSDTUTS are sister sites, in fact blogs, and definitely one of the best online resources on web development and Photoshop skills. NETTUTS explores web development and designing in detail while PSDTUTS provides some world-class Adobe Photoshop tutorials.


12. 5min
    5min is a video tutorial site with a difference- the videos are short and no more than 5 mins. Like other video sites, this too covers a wide range of topics, however it's yet to take on sites like VideoJug in the online video tutorial space.


13. SuTree
    Sutree aggregates the best video tutorials from other video sites and covers a variety of topics like softwares, games, pets & animals etc. Like instructables, SuTree is also a community driven website and lets you find videos through tags and subscribe to the RSS feed of the site.


14. VTC
    Although VTC is not entirely free to use, it does provide some nice tutorials on software and business applications. Out of around 66,000 tutorials, it provides 12,500 for free.


15. Good Tutorials
    Good Tutorials has a nice collection of graphic design tutorials which it aggregates through various web design sites and blogs. And yes, it's free to use !

So overall, with the exception of VTC, all the other sites are completely free and can certainly fetch you any tutorial you can ever imagine. Hope you enjoy using them. :)

Cheers,

Abhijeet


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