Webware

The economy is in trouble and we're all cutting back on spending, unsure of what the future might hold. We're also starting to realize that maybe doing things ourselves instead of hiring outside help is a great idea.

But if you're someone like me, building a deck in the back yard or, heck, painting vaulted ceilings, just isn't something you're proficient at. But luckily for us, there are a slew of sites across the Web that provide articles and videos that can help us complete any project.

5min.com
I like 5min because I can learn about almost anything in, well, 5 minutes or less.

5min features videos from users who are experts on a particular subject. Sometimes, their expertise is buying an electric shaver. Other times, it's installing weatherstripping. Either way, you can find anything from the simple to the complex on 5min.

Although the videos are great, my favorite feature on 5min is the company's video player. Unlike some players that only let you play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward a clip, 5min's video player lets you zoom in, proceed frame-by-frame, and run the video in slow motion so you don't miss any steps. That feature comes in especially handy when you watch a video on a complex topic and the expert is moving too fast in their instruction.

eHow

eHow is a fantastic how-to site that includes both videos and articles. And although there aren't nearly as many videos on the site as other services like 5min, eHow still provides a fine alternative for learning how to get things done.

eHow enlists the help of professionals to create the more than 300,000 articles on the site. From learning how to tie a tie, to how to caulk, the site has it all. That said, if you're looking for video, you're not going to find much on eHow--it's designed to provide step-by-step text instructions. Sometimes, especially when I need to figure out how to build something like a deck, that's ideal. But for simple topics like learning how to throw a baseball, a video works much better. In those cases, I tend to use sites like 5min or Expert Village instead.

You will be forced to sit through commercials on the company's videos, but that's not a big deal--they're only 15 seconds long and run before the clip. I should also note that the site's video player doesn't offer all the extras like those that you'll find with 5min, so you'll probably find yourself moving the slider back quite often to figure out how to do something.

But video isn't what eHow is all about. The site is ideal when you want to bring instructions with you wherever you need to complete a task. Unlike 5min or Expert Village, I don't need to sit in front of my computer to see how to sand wood flooring when I use eHow; I can print out the instructions and read them. And on complex projects, having that option is ideal.

Expert Village

Expert Village is a little different from a service like 5min, which allows users to upload videos to display their expertise. Expert Village employs experts who work in fields ranging from music to home improvement who research particular topics and create short videos--usually no longer than five minutes--detailing how to perform a particular task.

The value of Expert Village's use of experts is seen almost immediately. Sure, you can find a really informative video on 5min and it might provide the same quality as something on Expert Village, but generally, that's the exception, not the norm.

According to Expert Village's internal figures, the site features over 131,000 videos that have been viewed more than 292 million times. And given the wide range of topics those videos cover, Expert Village is an ideal source for help.

One especially nice offering that shouldn't be overlooked is Expert Village's series. Unlike 5min or even eHow, some Expert Village experts stay on one topic and create a series of videos to walk you through a process.

For instance, one expert is teaching Chinese etiquette.... Read more

If you're contemplating liquidating some of your assets, eBay, Craigslist and others are probably looking pretty attractive right now. Don't forget about the garage sale though!

A good way to dress one up, or turn those old pizza boxes into holiday gift baskets is to head over to iStockPack. It's an Instructables-like community that's filled with various projects to put together anything from a cigar box to a cardboard cookie jar using nothing more than materials you may have laying around the house.

Users can submit their own designs with instructions, which go into one of 19 categories. Each item tells you what materials you'll need, and how difficult it is. Users can also chime in by reviewing each creation and adding their own tips.

The number of designs on the site right now is pretty light, but assuming more are added, budding entrepreneurs will soon have a place to find fast, simple packaging on the cheap.

[via Delicious]

Sadly, feeling ripped off is common when you need to fix some complex piece of equipment at home, in a car, or on a hard drive. Since Thanksgiving, I've suffered a long-distance tech support nightmare trying to get a four-year-old laptop to connect to the Internet. More tech manufacturers are dropping the ball on product support, so forget about free help from the company that made your computer. BestBuy's Geek Squad may be down the street, but $99 is steep just for a diagnosis.

While I've been without a PC for half a year, I've often wished for quick tech help from something like Angie's List. That site counts a thriving community of a half-million members who help each other find household handymen and handywomen. If only I'd found Fixya sooner! Fixya is sort of like Angie's List for geeky matters. But in addition to displaying other users' ratings of fix-it services, Fixya also puts you in touch with self-proclaimed experts on gadgets and other sundry subjects such as jewelry, strollers, and video game consoles.

You can receive or give free advice immediately by chatting online. Within an hour of checking out the site, I found several smart Fixya members who were happy to analyze my problem. It would be cool if Fixya allowed video chatting so you could show and tell in more detail.

I haven't been able to put advice from Fixya's folks to the test yet (my computer, supposedly working again, is still being shipped across the country). But I can add ratings later and subscribe in the meantime to RSS updates when items are posted that match my question.

Many fledgling peer-review services offer only a small pool of users from which to choose. But many of Fixya's experts, particularly those who know something about computers, have already been rated by other users hundreds of times. Fixya also offers a manufacturer directory for locating brand-specific manuals and products, and more content from third parties will be coming.

Question-and-answer services have so much potential for delivering speedy help when you need it, but most are too generalized to be practical. Yahoo Answers, for instance, remains cluttered with fluffy talk about movie stars and school-age crushes. I like the potential for finding professionals at LinkedIn Answers, but Fixya is better when a problem calls for rolling up the sleeves. And unlike the pay-per-minute peer help at BitWine, Fixya doesn't cost anything. That could change, though, as Fixya is adding options to pay certain experts. I wonder if niche sites like Fixya and Angie's List will eventually be swallowed by larger Web communities, or if most will retain their do-it-yourself independence.

Slooh is a do-it-yourself stargazing service that puts you behind powerful telescopes in real time. With Slooh's help, you can see a disco-ball-like cluster of stars, a sunflower galaxy, Comet Lovejoy, and other wonders from an observatory atop a Canary Island mountain--all from the comfort of your chair at home.

I found the most dazzling views by following Slooh's suggested astronomical points of interest. Guided missions happen at 9:00 p.m. (Universal Time) nightly. The longer you hang out, the riper the images get. Impressed by the blood-red Trifid Nebula, 5,500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation? Slooh lets you snap, save, and show off three pictures at each stop in space.

By contrast, the HubbleSite, which just won a Webby Award, offers images that may be processed a million times to achieve jaw-dropping crispness, but they're not live. Slooh is more beginner-friendly than skywatching sites run by nonprofits and universities. It's also easier to use than a pricey telescope, especially for urbanites who can't see past the smog and city lights. Slooh's views may be 2 million to 3 million times clearer than what you'll see in a city, according to COO Tierney O'Dea.

Slooh can be pretty cool once you get the hang of it, but the Flash-based Mission Interface should be more intuitive. Pop-ups label the various features (unless you turn them off), which is somewhat helpful. But to no avail, I kept clicking arrows around the lens, and I couldn't satisfy the urge to drag around the view.

Nevertheless, Slooh is fun already, and its social networking element can add depth and education to the experience. Slooh's users include newbies and professional astronomers in 70 countries. You can chat, share images, and rate the current sky conditions. One amateur even identified a known asteroid. Slooh also offers podcasts on iTunes, hosted by luminaries, such as comet hunter David Levy and author Phil Harrington. Blogging is coming soon.

Unfortunately, Slooh is free of charge for only a week, and a bit costly at $99 per year thereafter. But a family full of science fans might find it a great value. Because Slooh's founder, Michael Paolucci, wants to make the service more accessible, he's working to give it away to school children in India and Iran.

Slooh is adding telescopes in Chile, with the long-term goal to provide 24-hour coverage of the Earth. Unlike so many dynamic Web services that allow you to network and navel-gaze with a select group of people, Slooh connects you to the vastness beyond our terrestrial, wired world. That's partly why Slooh co-sponsored the surreal Yuri's Night party that kept me up until dawn at the NASA Ames research center last month. That event, like Slooh, was built with the starry-eyed aim of getting more people to celebrate space exploration as an extension of caring for the home planet. I'm excited to see how the Slooh community will evolve around what O'Dea called the "celestial campfire."

Up for a do-it-yourself project this weekend? Rarely does Web site swag get as intricate as the Digg button from Adafruit Industries. The $20 kit gives you everything you need (sans soldering tools) to put together a slick, working Digg button that has a three-digit counter on it to keep track of Diggs. Every time you click the tiny, red button, you get a nice "dug" message on the LED display, and the count goes up by one. The real-world possibilities for this are endless.

The kits were first made available at last month's Digg 1 million user party, where partygoers could purchase and put them together on the spot. Many were soldering for the first time--in the dark, with loud music playing, while potentially under the influence of alcohol. You get the benefit of being able to do this in your home. Also, $1 from each purchase goes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

While the button doesn't actually link to Digg.com in any way, it makes for great office kitsch and was a lot of fun to make. It took about 20 minutes for CNET's very own soldering guru Donald Bell to melt put it together . We've condensed that down into the three-minute clip below.

Me.com has launched a new tool called SNAPP that lets people put together their own social networking hubs. Like Ning.com, which launched a similar service in March, SNAPP gives users ready-made tools such as a blog, live chat, forums, and shared photo albums to create a fairly full-featured site without knowing any HTML. SNAPP also integrates Me.com's social networking system, so existing Me.com users will be able to join your network without any special signup.

While some of the tools and features are aimed at the younger social networking crowd (like the am i hot? rating tool), Me.com is also offering network owners some nice throw-ins, like traffic stats, custom CSS, and the option to promote loyal users with prestige status.

Building a site with SNAPP is fairly easy, although I found it to be visually overwhelming. Me.com gives its users a lot of ready-made tools, so if you're trying to go lean and custom configure, you'll be spending a lot of time deleting and editing superfluous things that have been included in some of the templates. Compared to building a site with Ning, it's certainly not as flashy or straightforward. SNAPP forgoes a drag-and-drop builder for a tabbed interface where each tool gets its own page.

Me.com is taking an interesting twist on these new services, giving users three tiers of SNAPP service: free, pro and network. All three have integration with Google Adsense, with varying rates of revenue sharing for the integrated advertising. The service is promoting it as a way to make money off visitors, which is entirely possible using the custom branding and high percentage revenue sharing you get with the pro and network services. Whether or not the savvy network builder will see the benefit in using these subscription-based premium services over building and hosting their own site has yet to be seen.

Me.com has put together an explanatory video of SNAPP.

[via Mashable]