Fear not, apartment shopper, because with these three US-based iPhone apps, you will be ready to hit the apartment market with your best foot forward and armed with as much knowledge on what is available as possible. Each of these three apps has some great features, and because they are all free, there really is no reason not to download them all! Between the three, it is nearly impossible not to find what you need.

Apartment Guide

This is a great application for finding your next place to live. When you first boot it up, it will ask you to allow it to use your location, if you say yes it will be able to find apartments near you. At first, you can simply tap the “Search Nearby” button, and it will show you the apartments close to you. From the search nearby screen, you can tap refine to narrow the results by price, bedrooms, bathrooms and other parameters.

Clicking any result will bring you to the screen for more details on the apartment. You can quickly click “Call now” to call the place and set up an appointment to see the units. You will also be able to see a detailed description of the units, as well as a breakdown of different models and their prices. They also show amenities, pet policies, community features and special features.

You can also used the advanced search to limit the results it shows you to only ones that meet specific requirements. Of course, if you are not looking for an apartment near you, you can also type in a zip code to search anywhere. Another cool feature is that the app will remember places you have viewed recently as well as those you have called. It also allows you to store any place as a favorite for easy access later.

Trulia

Trulia is a full featured real estate iPhone application that does everything from finding houses for sale, houses that are sold, places that have been reduced in price, open houses and of course apartments for rent. To view the places available for rent, simply tap “For Rent” from the main screen. By default, the application will show you an aerial map view of all the places available in your proximity. You can tap any of them for a more detailed view.

If you do not enjoy looking at a map, you can tap the list button on the bottom right of the screen to view the apartments in an easy to read format. You can also tap the magnifying glass symbol to search using location,  minimum and maximum rent, the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and other things that are important in your search.

You can add places to favorites, but you must create a free account with Trulia. The nice thing about this is that you can get access to your favorites from another device or computer. Trulia, while not as easy to navigate as some apps, is your one stop real estate iPhone application.

MyApartmentMap

This app is incredibly streamlined and easy to navigate. It launches a simple screen that asks, “Where do you want your apartment?” The front page also features any places you have saved on the bottom. To start your search, simply enter a zip code or city into the box and click “Search!”

The results will start with a list, showing you all the apartments for rent in the area. You can scroll through these to find the one you like. At the top of the screen is where you can customize how you view the results. You can click “Map,” which, you guessed it, shows the results on a map. You can also click “Data,” which is an awesome feature that shows averages for the apartments in your results. You can see the average rents based on size and other data about the places you are looking for. You can also view deals on apartments in your area by clicking on the “Deals” tab.

On the top left of the screen you can click “Filter” to tweak the results. Do you need an apartment that will let you keep your dog? Do you need a place that is under $1,000 a month? Well from this screen, you can customize all that and more.

Conclusion

With these three applications, you will be ready to find the perfect place to live, for the right price and in a great location. They make finding an apartment as simple and painless as possible. The best part is; you can take them with you while looking at the places, to make sure they stack up to their description.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

I personally think having a knack for knots is one of the essential skills to have or acquire in your toolset of manliness. After all, one never knows when you might be called upon to rope a steer…or knot a tie.

So, if you weren’t a Boy Scout, here are a few resources that give you a notch to add to the manliness scale.

Animated Knots

This well regarded and frequented site on knots puts it best – Better to know a knot and not need it, than need a knot and not know it. Nearly 170+ knots are listed on this site. Start with The Basics- Find a Knot by Name or head to any of the sections that take you through the know-how required for fishing knots to decorative ones. Animated Knots as the name indicates is a how-to website that uses cool, simple to understand animated slideshows to teach you how to tie different types of knots. Learn which are the essential knots, or download the Android and iPhone app that unfortunately aren’t free.

I Will Knot!

From animated tutorials to those in video, knot instructional couldn’t get any simpler. If you are looking to start of quickly, then this uncomplicated site is just the thing as it doesn’t overwhelm you with the variety of knots that are hanging out there. There are just about 12 of them (knots, hitches, loops, and bends) but with easy-to-follow video walkthroughs.

Netknots

Netknots relies on animated illustrations too that show you how to tie knots. You can play and pause the inline player to note the steps more closely. The focus is on knots needed for the outdoors. So you have – fishing knots, paddling knots, boating knots, and other outdoor knots. Knots are arranged by usage and also by name.

The Pirate King

Quite frankly, I found the remainder of this website that seems to be all about pirates and all things on the high seas to be more interesting than the page devoted to nautical knots. But don’t get sidetracked by all the babble on rum and buried treasure…head over to the page that teaches you about different types of sailing knots. The site is nicely and simply designed, so understanding how to form a bowline won’t be a problem at all.

Tie-a-Tie

This site is very useful to have bookmarked because many of our male brethren suffer from the acute disability of learning how to knot together a necktie. Hendrik’s site shows you how to stylishly bring the ends together with the help of simple instructions and video tutorials. You won’t be sartorially challenged again.

Another similar site to keep close would be 2 Tie a Tie.

Knots Guide

Ok, this isn’t a website but an Android app. It’s all the more useful because you can carry it around as a pocket reference. 92 how-to on knots arranged in 10 categories make this a worthwhile download. (Directory mention)

Knots on the Web

You won’t be impressed by the façade as it resembles a directory listing from the days of yore. In fact that’s what this is, and it hasn’t been updated for quite some time. So, don’t be surprised if you hit a domain parking page now and them. But you might also land on informative resource like Knots and Knitting that makes the scrounging through the large list worthwhile.

Knots are really out there. Well, did you know that there is an International Guild of Knot Tyers that’s dedicated to furthering interest in practical, recreational and theoretical aspects of knotting? Knots are one of those things in life that are needed when you least expect them to be. So, get yourself a rope and start practicing. And do tell us if you are a virtuoso with knots or a knot novice.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’d like to take you on a tour of two different Android task manager that can help you do this.

Routinely [2.1+]

The first app we’re going to be looking at is free and currently enjoys a four-star market rating with 113 reviews – Routinely.

As you can see, the layout is fairly simple and inviting. The app is made up of a single list of tasks, where each task gets two lines. Unfortunately, longer task names get truncated – you can see it on the last task above, where I’m supposed to check how many veggies we still have. While Routinely is simple, it still offers some options for every task:

You can set the days in which a certain task is to be done; for example, I don’t want to sort out the shelves on Friday, so I just disabled this task on Fridays. You can also set up routine notifications, and configure the time for each notification.

One thing I really like about Routinely is that it lets you see how you’re doing at a glance. Here’s what you get when you tap on a task:

So I cleaned out the coffee table and the sofa just once (today). The calendar view only becomes handy once you’ve been using the app for a while, but it looks like this:

This is a very useful view, both for motivating yourself and for showing others that you have been carrying your own weight around the house. Routinely also offers two simple graphs, showing the total done tasks per month or per day of week.

I really like its simple aesthetic. If you don’t have a complicated routine, Routinely might be the way to go.

Chore Checklist Full [1.6+]

The other app I’d like to show comes in two flavors – Chore Checklist Lite (free) and Chore Checklist Full, which costs around $1.50. I will be looking at the full version, which looks like this:

The first thing you may notice is that unlike Routinely, Chore Checklist supports multiple routines. Whether this is a good thing or not is up to you. Some people may find this needlessly complex, while others actually need it for their complex lives. Each routine has its own settings:

You can set the whole routine to repeat in certain intervals; so you can set up a routine for things you do only once per quarter, or even every six months. The single item properties are similarly complex:

And the screen actually continues down to let you select the reminder type and even the specific sound used for that task:

I’ve been using Chore Checklist for some time now, and I have had an issue with the reminders. The application is superb, but the reminders simply don’t always pop up. After checking with the Chore Checklist tech support, I suspect this is specific to my own device and use case. However, if you plan to make heavy use of reminders, I would suggest you try out the free version first.

Chore Checklist also comes with its own simple widget, which looks like this:

You can select one of five different sizes for the widget. Whether or not you actually want your chores sitting on your home screen is an entirely different matter.

Final Thoughts

I think there is no clear winner here – it all comes down to personal preference. I really like how Routinely looks, and I like the fact that it saves a history of your past performance. On the other hand, Chore Checklist feels more powerful.

What do you think – which one seems better? Or maybe you know of a chore-busting Android task manager that leaves both of these in the dust? Tell us in the comments!

Image Credit : ratterrell

Computers, like all electronics, consume a fair amount of electricity. And while the efficiency of the modern computer hardware has improved relative to older parts, there’s still a lot of energy wasted.

Finding ways to save energy with your PC will not only help save the planet. It can also reduce your power bill. But by how much? Let’s have a look at some common energy saving tactics and gauge their impact.

Turning Off Your Computer – Or Putting It To Sleep

A modern computer uses far less energy at idle than it does at load. In fact, stress testing can increase a computer’s power draw by as much as five times as the processors, graphics card and other components attempt to meet the demands of the user.

Still, an idle computer does continue to use energy. How much? Well, according to a recent Tech Report processor review, a modern desktop computer with an Intel Core processor uses 64 watts of power at idle.

Let’s assume that you left your computer on, but at idle, while you slept. Assuming you receive a full eight hours, and that you sleep every night with your computer on, you’ll have used 186,880 watt-hours of energy. Assuming an average price of $12.06, you’re looking at a yearly cost of $22.53.

Obviously, these numbers might vary significantly based on where you live, so try plugging your own figures in this formula.

(Power usage in watts x hours of usage saved) x 365 = Yearly power draw in watt-hours

Yearly power draw / 1000 = Conversion to kilowatt-hours

Kilowatt-hours x Price per kilowatt-hour = Final cost

Keep in mind that this is simply the extra cost of running the computer at idle overnight, which is added to the total energy cost of running your computer.  Those who have multiple computers will multiply their savings if this power saving tactic is used.

Adjusting Your Monitor Sleep Settings 

Computer monitors are, from the perspective of energy use, nothing more than big light bulbs. In order to form a visible image a light must shine through the LCD panel, and the power used by that light makes up most of a monitor’s overall power draw.

You can save energy and money by aggressively turning off the monitor even if you need your computer to run in the background, a task that can be accomplished using the Windows Power Management settings or the Energy Saver settings of an OS X machine.

Try changing your monitor settings so that the display turns off automatically after three to five minutes. It’s hard to say how much this will save you, because different people have different usage patterns, but let’s say that you frequently go to and from your computer, resulting in a large amount of time where the display is on by not being used – four hours a day sounds like a nice, round figure. We’ll also assume that an average 24-inch monitor is used, which has a power draw of 35 watts.

By adapting the formula above, we find that this scenario saves 51,100 watt-hours of energy per year if  power management settings for the monitor are changed, which results in a monetary savings of $6.16 per year.

That’s nothing for a home user, but it can be a more serious issue for a business that owns a hundred monitors or more. It should also be noted that users of less energy efficient monitors, such as large IPS displays and of course CRTs, will reap much larger rewards from aggressive power management because of the higher power draw of such displays. In some cases, these less efficient monitors draw more power than the computers they’re connected to.

Reducing Time At Load 

Earlier, it was mentioned that computers use several times more energy at load than they do at idle. Usually, a computer left unattended will be at idle, but that’s not always the case. Leaving a program running can increase power consumption, and there are certain programs – like Bitcoin miners and distributed research software like SETI@home – that are specifically designed to convert idle time into load time.

Let’s go back to the modern Intel Core as a baseline. According to the Tech Report review referenced earlier, a Core i7-2600K will use 144 watts at load. So what happens if your processor is being used when you’re sleeping?

According to the formula, additional power draw per year increases by 420,480 watt-hours, which works out to about $50 per year. Remember, that’s an additional $50 on top of all the other energy costs of running your PC.

The Core i7-2600K represents a relatively good scenario, however. If you instead owned a Phenom X6 1100T processor, for example, your additional cost for running at load while you’re asleep would be about $70 per year, or $20 more than with the Core i7.

 Conclusion – Interpreting the Results

 As you can see, you’re not likely to go broke by using your computer. The power draw of a modern PC is not insignificant, but it’s not a large percentage of your average household’s power usage. Major appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators and heaters still consume the majority of a home’s power.

With that said, the numbers above do show that you can save money by reducing the energy your computer or computer use. Households with multiple PCs will see the biggest benefit, of course, and businesses are also good candidates for saving money by reducing energy consumption. A small business that asks its employees to turn off their computers before going home could save several thousand dollars a year.

Luckily, there is an open source Portal that you can install on your own home web server. What this means is that you can create an Intranet start page in your home where all of your family members can access photos, videos, music, calendars, web links and any other resource that’s stored on the home web server.

Setting Up A Home Web Server With ocPortal

Unsure whether you have what it takes to create your own web server to install ocPortal onto? Have no fear – all you have to do is connect a PC to your home network, and then install and set up XAMPP as Dave described in his article.  You could also use some of the XAMPP tips I offered in my article on setting up a USB stick web server.

The prerequisites to installing the ocPortal on your home web server is to install XAMPP, and then create a MySQL table using PHPMyAdmin. Remember to create a user name and password on the table as well, ocPortal will need this information during the installation.

Once XAMPP is running and you’ve got the database ready, go ahead and download the ocPortal software. On XAMPP, your public HTML folder is hpdocs. Within this folder, you should create a subfolder called “Portal“, and then upload all of the ocPortal software files there. Then, go to http://localhost/portal/install.php.

This will kick off the ocPortal installation routine. One of the first options is to choose whether you intend to use a forum. Unless you have some other forum software from the list installed on your web server, just go with the ocPortals forum.

Don’t forget to change the database to mySQL, since this is what XAMPP uses. The next step of the installation will be to identify the domain. You should have your web server set to a static IP (use Karl’s instructions in his network domain article to do this).

Use that static web server IP as the domain, and as part of the base URL settings. Leave the table prefix as is, and choose your preferred password.

Keep default settings on subsequent steps, and once you reach step 10, you’ll see the following completion screen if the installation completed without a hitch.

Go to your htpdocs/portal/ directory and make sure to delete the “install.php” file, or your portal will not work without flashing a warning at you on every screen. Now that your new portal software is installed, all you have to do is go to the IP address of your web server, like this: http://192.168.1.107/portal/, and you’ll see your portal page. If you log in under the admin account you created during setup, you can click on the “Administration Zone” link  to set up the portal.

On the main admin page, you’ll see a status with reminders for each step of what you need to set up to get content loaded onto your Portal as quickly as possible. The nice thing about ocPortal is that it comes with lots of dynamic tools like a calendar, file sharing, an internal chat system and a whole lot more.

If you’re using the ocPortal for your family, like I am, the first thing you’ll want to do is establish the member accounts. You’ll find the Members panel under “Tools” in the Admin zone.

The majority of the time you’ll be spending, as the administrator/creator of the site, is in the editing areas. To get there, click on the Administration Zone, and then click on the “Structure” menu item to get to the website design page. You can access all of the same icons under the Structure menu list itself.

The “Site Tree editor” is probably my favorite method to design the site, because you can view sections of your portal in a tree-format. Clicking on any of the portal pages in the tree lets you choose to edit that “zone.” When you edit a zone, you’ll enter the “Zone Editor” where you can view the page and then edit the sections or “blocks” that you want to change.

Below is what my first attempt to redesign the main page looks like. I removed the poll, added an image of the day, included a schedule/calendar block to the right menu bar, and added in a news section that I can update every day.

It’s also really easy to add new pages to the portal by editing the left menu and then clicking to add those pages to your portal. Here, I’ve created individual pages for each family member, with items, features and links that matter most to them.

The beauty of ocPortal is that it takes so much less time to set up than if you were going to try and build an HTML portal page yourself on your web server. Installing this PHP application includes everything you need to build a fully-functional family or small-business portal site in just minutes.

So take ocPortal for a test drive on your own web server and see what you and your family think. Does it have all of the add-ons you need, and how is the learning curve? Share your experiences and your opinions in the comments section below.

If you’ve had similar landscaping ideas, then you know that it’s very hard to gauge whether a project will end up looking good or not until you’re halfway through it. For projects that can cost upwards of a few thousand dollars or more to complete, finishing such a landscaping idea and realizing that it looks horrid is not a very good feeling.

In the spirit of spring and for all of you homeowners (and even renters with a backyard) I would like to present a very cool, new online tool called Showoff the Visualizer.

Test Indoor Decorating Ideas as well as Landscaping Ideas

Showoff the Visualizer is a photo editing tool that lets you take images of the inside or outside of your home, and then overlay your home decorating or landscaping ideas on top of the actual image. It’s a brilliant concept, because unlike Project Dragonfly, reviewed on the MUO directory or unlike  Floorplanner, which I reviewed earlier, Showoff the Visualizer allows you to immediately start testing your ideas without the need to build a 3D model of your home or backyard from scratch.

After you register (all you need is an email address), you’ll be greeted with the main menu, where you can either upload your own photos, test drive the app with sample photos, browse through the Visualizer’s showroom of available design and landscaping products, and also view images of some of the landscaping ideas other users have submitted – a great way to find landscaping ideas for your own house when you’re stumped.

There are a few minor details I noticed about the site right off the bat. While the overall design is fairly professional, there are a few minor mistakes that give it that “fresh and untested” feel. For example, the links on the main menu are bolded black, so you don’t really know they’re links unless you place your mouse cursor over them. Another thing is that many of the showcase products don’t have any vendors yet. Finally, I noticed a few misspelled words around the site, like the main menu link offers “Real Estate Listinings.” Still, due to the functionality and usefulness of the site (and the fact that it’s free) – it’s easy to overlook these minor flaws.

Backyard Landscaping Ideas

If you do use your own photos, make sure to set your digital camera on one of it’s highest resolution settings, because the Showoff Visualizer really lets you zoom in on the photo so that you can add very small details, like flowers (which I’ll show you further down).

The online app works perfect if you’ve taken a very nice, crisp and clear photo of your yard with your digital camera. Don’t forget to take different areas of your yard so you can plan out your landscaping ideas and make sure they really look the way you imagine.

Choosing an item from the catalog is so easy – and unlike so many other online applications like this, your selection isn’t limited to just a few items. Browsing through the catalog items is a lot of fun – and in all honesty, that’s the brilliance of this marketing scheme. You see, this entire application is free because it’s a way to market landscaping and home decorating products to you. By providing a useful service for free to you, the Internet user, the makers of this application have a captive audience. Then they turn to vendors of these products and let them advertise as a integrated part of the tool.

When you select the product to use as part of your landscaping (here I chose poppies), a box of vendors where you can buy those items shows up in a place that isn’t really in the way of your main window. The one thing that’s still a little bit “off” is that when you rotate the smaller image to make it look right, the perspective is a bit off – try rotating the pool and you’ll see what I mean. The rotation takes place in 2D, looks rather silly with some objects.

Like how the item looks? Click the “Buy” button on the item you’re placing and you can purchase it immediately. It’s an excellent marketing approach using free software offered to the potential customer – I only wish I’d thought of it first!

Interior Decorating Ideas

In addition to testing out your landscaping ideas on images of your back yard, you can also play around with different decorating ideas using photo snapshots you’ve taken inside your house.

In the photo above, I’m trying to see how a candle holder will look on the kitchen counter. If you don’t have a photo of the inside of your house, or you’re moving to a new place that’s going to be empty and you just want to play around with rearranging furniture, then just select one of the empty room templates.

The, just start placing furniture and playing around. By the way, rotating objects like chairs or sofas is a joke – unless you want a chair hanging upside down from the ceiling!

Overall, this free online application is very fresh and very new – so expect that things may not work perfectly. However,the fact that you can overlay pre-made objects onto photos of your actual house rather than a fabricated 3D replica makes it very useful to getting a much better idea of how something may look. In fact, doing this, you may realize that your landscaping idea would be a total flop, and you could avoid some pretty costly mistakes.

So give it a try and leave your experiences and feedback on the ShowOff Visualizer in the comments section below.

Within this article, I will show you three online resources that will help you learn how to cook and become good at it.

Cooking has been a necessity of life for hundreds of years. Yet, with the rise of processed food and fast food restaurants, it has become a mostly neglected art. Only in recent years have countless TV cooks polished up its reputation.

Imagine you could not only learn how to cook well, but also cook healthy and tasty meals, bake delicious cakes and fresh bread. You would save money cooking for yourself rather than buying expensive meals, friends and family would love to be your guest, and you would never be short of ideas for yummy gifts or much desired vouchers.

Chef2Chef Online Cooking Class

This online cooking class will serve any skill level. Whether you have never even cooked tea or whether you’ve routinely been cooking simple meals and know kitchen tools and routines inside out, you can start here.

There are ten different courses, which contain five lessons each. You can read through as many lessons as you like, but if you have little time, you can manage at least one lesson each day, i.e. one course per week. The articles are pure theory and will work well with recipes that match the respective skill level. Each lesson features two “recipes for success”.

You can practice your skills browsing the site’s thorough recipe collection. It is neatly categorized into courses, types of foods (e.g. meat, vegetarian, fish), cuisine (e.g. Cuban, German, Thai) or methods (e.g. grilled, steamed, barbecued).

Learn To Cook 101

This site is best suited for people who have a basic understanding of cooking. If you can already cook simple recipes, i.e. read recipes and pick the right ingredients and tools, this is the right place to start.

Learn to Cook 101 provides instructions on how to equip your kitchen, general articles on cooking, diet, health & fitness, and of course you’ll find several recipes. Click through to the articles to strategically look up the information you need to improve your skills.

Passionate About Food

As you become more and more skilled and passionate about cooking, head over to this site. You’ll find an alphabetically sorted Guide to Cooking Techniques, Kitchen & Cooking Tips that will save you time, information about Herbs & Spices, and lots more.

Once you know the basics of how to cook, you may find the following MakeUseOf articles interesting:

Simon eyed Great Cooking Websites from a Different Perspective
I showed you 3 Recipe Sites For The Post Fast Food Era

On MakeUseOf we have previously showed you things you can learn online:

Mark presented The Best Online Sources To Play & Learn Chess
Laurence covered Essential Free Tools to Learn Guitar Playing Online
Ryan wrote about Top 5 Sites For Learning Piano Online
Shankar found 30+ Online Resources to Expand your English Vocabulary
I compiled 7 Online Resources To Help you Improve Your Writing
Angeline introduced 18 Great Sites to Learn a New Language

Before you pick a skill, make sure you have an idea how to start. About.com has a great article on How to Learn a New Skill.

What did you learn in 2009 and what do you want to learn in 2010?

Image credits: svilen001, nkzs

Or you could follow the tips I’m about to give you to put together painless decorations, and….well, I can’t guarantee I will be able to help liven up your party, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Step with caution though, because some of the tips are off the top of my head, and might not have been road tested, so YMMV. Nonetheless, raise your glasses of eggnog, and cheers to high tech christmas!

Streamline Your Party

Getting people together for the holidays is usually a nightmare, as scheduling conflicts abound. Never fear, the MakeUseOf Directory has a horde of web-apps that will help you plan your party. I went through and picked out a few of my favorites.

Which Date Works

This app immediately stands out to me simply because there is no registration required. As you can see, the interface is very clean and eye catching. The host simply decides the details of the event, picks a few possible dates, and then emails out the notifications. The guests then pick which dates they are available as well, and the results are shown graphically on the calendar.

Pingg

If you want to be a bit more elaborate than simply sending a “come hither” email, Pingg is a great service for creating e-vites and even a custom webpage for your event. Of course, event planning sites are a dime a dozen, but Pingg’s clean design and simple interface (things I always look for in webapps) make it a good choice above more spartan looking services like invite43.

Use Google Instead

But if you’d rather not sign up for one more service just to host a party, James wrote a great article on how to plan a party with Google services.

Now once you have ensnared your unwitting guests, you need a way to keep them interested! Why not a party playlist, planned by everyone on the guest list, to make sure that the beats at least are keeping the guests appeased? Flavortunes is a great service that works just like sending out invitations, except you’re inviting the guests to suggest songs to play at the party. Unfortunately the service seems to be down at the moment, but keep it in mind for future reference.

Perhaps that is not enough involvement from the net for you. Perhaps you’d like to be a little geekier than that?  You could always toss the traditional holiday party idea (it’s so conventional anyways, right?) and have a LAN party instead!  Yes, a LAN party. Jack covered How to Organize An Awesome Lan Party, and trust me, if you like games as much as my crowd does, it’ll be a hit for sure.

But what about the party food? You can’t have a holiday party without decadent Christmas cake, and it HAS to match with the party theme. If you’re not having a LAN party, I can’t help you there, but if you ARE however, here are some great game-themed desserts to get your creativity going!

Starcraft

Warcraft

Halo

There’s way more inspiration out there on the web, if you care to look, but if you are not a master baker (neither am I, no worries) you could always just buy a few action figures and shove them into the frosting! Or, you can just bake a bunch of brownies, cut them into squares, pretend the squares are pixels, dip them into colored frosting, and make pixel pictures, like the following.

Fabulous, no?

Decorations

For some simple, geeky centerpieces, take red and white wire, wind them around each other, and bend one end until the wires resemble a candy cane. To mass produce these wire candy canes, start with two ridiculously long lengths of wire, and after winding them together, snip the long twist into candy cane sized pieces. Use these wire canes in any decoration that calls for candy canes.

One particularly simple candy-cane based decoration I like is created by taking a handful of the wire canes, spacing them evenly in a clear glass vase (the closer it is to the length of your cane, the better, so that the curve of the cane hits roughly the top of the glass), and then tying a length of silver ribbon in an aesthetically pleasing manner about 1/3 of the way down the top of the vase. It takes five minutes, and is one of the most elegant yet quick-fix decorations I have come across.

If you have old sticks of ram or scratched up CDs lying around, you could cut them into the shapes of petals, and hot glue them together to create ram/CD – flowers. Then, you could either attach green wire stem to your flower, with a few leaves made from either wire or more ram attached, and use these in flower-based arrangements. For example, you could take a few very tall and skinny vases like the one shown below, fill them halfway with red potpourri, and stick a few “flowers” in each.

CDs in general make particularly great ornaments because they are so reflective and so easy to come by. Just cut a few of your old CDs up in fetching shapes, tie some thread from the central holes of the CDs, and get to tree-trimming.

Christmas is almost here! What an exciting and nerve racking thought! Perhaps you were not ready for its imminent arrival, but hopefully now you’re a bit more prepared and inspired for the last sprint of the Christmas rush. In this article, I’ve covered a bit about throwing a fun, but not necessarily Christmas related party and providing the food and decorations, so I fully expect to receive dozens of invitations in my inbox tonight. Or, you could just leave us a comment with all the grisly details, and maybe a few pictures of your cake/ram flowers too!  Happy Holidays!