Most men learn how to tie ties at an early age, sitting on their fathers’ laps and watching every cross, tuck and pull. After some trial and error and a little help from their fathers, they finally get it.
Times have certainly changed and more resources have become available at our fingertips, literally.
Now, learning to tie a tie is as simple as opening your web browser and visiting Tie-a-Tie.net. This website offers filmed video tutorials, as well as written descriptions, of how to tie a necktie six different ways. As if you even knew there were six different ways to tie a tie.
For further guidance, the site also gives advice on which tie is best suited for certain sport coats. But the Internet how-to lessons don’t end there. You can learn how to do almost anything with just the click of a mouse. And as students, the more we can learn the better off we are.
“Sometimes I need help with school or work-related things, such as Excel, and the How to learn in the Internet is extremely helpful with that, or sometimes I’ll need help with more fun things like craft projects or cooking recipes,” Taylor Ziaja, a senior marketing student, said. From tying ties to learning how to use functions in Microsoft Excel to learning how to bake a cronut, Internet how-to sites are full of information for the student of the world.
In spite of the obvious benefits of increasing our knowledge through Internet tutorials and how-to videos, it’s hard not to wonder if in the end it really is good for us. With the answers to any question we might have on our computer screens in front of us, what use is there for textbooks or even human interaction?
“It is definitely becoming a crutch, especially for college students,” Ziaja said.
With the myriad options of how-to websites, it’s important to find the right one to suit your independent studies. Here’s a guide to some of the most common and most useful how-to sites.
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A Guide For Everything
The sites wikiHow and eHow were both founded by entrepreneur Jack Herrick in the hopes of creating a “guide for everything.” WikiHow includes a “Random Article” button on their website that lets you browse all of the articles that the website has to offer, teaching you how to do things you didn’t even know existed.
Through a step-by-step demonstration, you can learn how to emulate Brazilian midfielder Ronaldinho’s El’ÛÎstico trick for fooling defenders. This is followed by a list of tips, warnings and things you’ll need to be successful.
Similar websites exist to compete with wikiHow and eHow, including senior accounting and finance student Mike O’Hara’s favorite how-to sites: Answers.com and WikiAnswers.
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Get Fit To Quit
The Internet isn’t only useful for random queries, but it can also be helpful in teaching you important things that you may not have learned from school, parents or peers.
We spend four years in college preparing ourselves for the real world, learning all the tips and tricks it takes to land a job and how to keep moving up in the ranks. But there are things that our professors don’t teach us about jobs, like how to quit your job when the timing is right.
That’s where the School of the Internet comes in handy. Lifehacker is one site that advises you on how to do just that. In a simple list format, the website explains how to confront your boss early, finish what you’ve started, not slack off, complete the paperwork and stay in touch.
The extra bonus is that you get the lesson tuition- free. Lifehacker also gives lessons on more frivolous skills, such as how to make a duct tape rose. That’s what you can do in the lame duck period after you quit your old job and before you start the new one.
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The Golden Fold
A textbook won’t teach you how to perfectly fold a fitted bed sheet, quite possibly the most frustrating part of your laundry folding experience. The corners never match up, the bottom is always hanging out, and it always ends up balled up somewhere. Admit it. Thankfully, Martha Stewart’s website gives you a step-by-step demonstration of how to fold that frustrating piece of linen, which you otherwise wouldn’t know how to do. The queen of crafting, cooking and home d’ÛΩcor is full of advice and tutorials on how to take care of your home life.
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Fix In Six
Lowe’s has also taken advantage of the fact that Internet users seek out random, quick fixes by introducing the “Lowe’s Fix in Six” website. The Tumblr page utilizes Vine, a six-second video-making application, to show consumers quick life hacks using things lying around the house, or at least things that are easily obtainable.
For example, there’s a video that shows how to use an egg carton to store Christmas tree ornaments. Another one shows how to use a raw potato to unscrew a broken light bulb.
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The New Cookbook
Supercook.com is a handy website to know if you are one of those people who let their fridge become completely empty before buying more groceries. With this website, you can type in what ingredients you have in your home, and it will return the favor by giving you recipes that require only those ingredients that you already have.
For all college students on a budget, there are 17 recipes alone just using pasta and ground beef, two of the cheapest things you can find at your local grocery store.
This is how we do it:
As one of the most popular search engines, Google acts as an ever-expanding how-to encyclopedia. Every day – every second, even – a new edition is born. According to Google, the site receives more than 1 billion questions a day from 181 countries around the world. Here are the most popular searches that taught us something in 2013.
Most searched how-to’s:
1. How to tie a tie
2. How to file
3. How to get a passport
4. How to blog
5. How to knit
6. How to kiss
7. How to flirt
8. How to whistle
9. How to unjailbreak
10. How to vader
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Most searched ‘what is…’:
1. What is twerking
2. What is ricin
3. What is DOMA
4. What is molly
5. What is gluten
6. What is sequestration
7. What is Obamacare
8. What is lupus
9. What is Snapchat
10. What is Bitcoin