Hands On Women

Chances are you have a computer in your home, over 80% of households in the United States do. To get the most use out of your computer you need to be connected to the internet. If you aren’t connected, firstly, how are you reading this? Secondly, it can be a daunting task to hook up a modem like the one pictured above to your computer. But believe me, you can do it!

You may not have the same cable router as the one pictured but most have the same connections and ports. You should already have your computer set up on a flat surface located near a power outlet and a cable line. Take the coaxial cord from your cable line and connect it to the appropriate slot on your router. Then you must take your Ethernet cable and make sure it is connected to the proper port on the backside of your modem as well as the correct slot on the router. After both cables are connected correctly, make sure your router is set on a flat surface where it is away from the possibility of being knocked over and damaged.

Now you are going to plug in the power for the router and hit the stand-by button to make the router active. You will know your router is active when the stand-by light is off and the other lights begin to flash and come to life as a connection to the internet is established. You will then have to run the network connection wizard on your home computer to make sure everything is running smoothly. Afterwards, your computer should be connected to the internet and ready to go!

References

1. www.ehow.com

When a screw becomes stripped it can be difficult to remove. Here are some easy steps to remove stripped screws and bolts.

You will need
• A decent drill
• Strong drill bits
• Extractors
• A sturdy pair of pliers

Take your drill and select an appropriate sized drill bit. The drill bit should be smaller than the threaded section of the screw. It is important that you keep the drill as straight as possible so as not to drill into the material surrounding the screw or bolt. Once you have drilled into the screw, place your extractor into the screw. Extractors can be purchased at almost any hardware store and are relatively cheap. A decent set of extractors should cost anywhere from 10 to 15 dollars.

Make sure that your extractor is in the stripped screw deeply. Once it is in securely, grab hold of the extractor and turn it in the direction that you would normally turn if unscrewing the screw normally (to the left, or counterclockwise). That is all there is to it, you now have removed a stripped screw!

Take the screw to a hardware store and they should be able to help you replace it with a nearly identical screw.

Sources

2 Trax TV

Art eStuff

Fixing a bike chain that has fallen off is extremely simple. The first thing you have to do is to flip your bike over, taking care not to damage it. Make sure that it rests on its handlebars and is completely stationary. Take your chain and slip it over top of the sprockets. If you have a bike that has multiple gears, do not worry if it is over the top of several of the gears. Start rotating the pedal slowly; if you do not encounter any resistance then continue to rotate the tire. If you do encounter some resistance try placing more of the chain onto the gear and rotating it.

Be careful not to get your finger caught in any of the gears when placing the chain. If your chain is especially tight, then it may be difficult to place your chain back onto your gear without getting your finger caught underneath it. If this is the case, you can place a butter knife on the gear, and slip the chain over the gear. Using the butter knife to guide the chain to the gear protects your fingers from a painful pinch.

Once you have gotten your chain back on your bike it should be riding normally. If you are having some trouble with your bike (it’s riding funny or the chain pops off often), then you may want to lube your bike chain. Any bike shop will sell chain lubricant, and it is fairly inexpensive. This will help keep your chain running smoothly during a bike ride, making it less likely to jiggle loose.

Source

eHow

Jalapenos are extremely high in capsaicin which irritates the skin. When somebody cuts up jalapenos without wearing gloves, they suffer the consequences. The very best way to avoid skin irritation is to wear gloves while cutting the peppers, but there are a couple of alternatives. Whether you are using gloves or not you must be extremely careful about touching your eyes, face, or any exposed skin. Doing so will result in a painful burning; most of your skin is not as calloused as your hands, so what may be a slight burning on your hands could be unbearable on your face.

If you either do not have gloves to use, or have some strange aversion to using them, then good luck! One of the smartest things you can do is have a plate full of baking soda next to you while chopping the peppers. After every couple of peppers you chop, cover your hands with the baking soda, let it sit for a bit and then wash your hands with dish soap to get the baking soda off. This will help prevent some of the burning sensation, but not eliminate it entirely.

If your hands or other part of your body is burning there are a number of steps that you can take to try to remove the burning feeling. If one does not work try something else; these are all methods that have worked for people in the past.

	Some people have said that rubbing alcohol has helped them, but for many people this does not work.
	Honey has proven helpful to a number of people suffering from jalapeno burns: slather the affected area with honey and allow it to sit. If this provides relief then leave the honey on for 20-30 minutes before washing it off. Reapply if necessary.
	Many dish soaps are designed to remove and trap oils, so one thing you can try is washing your hands with a good dish soap. Be careful to not splash any other part of your body, as the water will have capsaicin in it and will burn whatever part of your body it touches once the water dries.
	Baking soda is the most widely accepted cure for pepper burns. Either cake it on dry and rinse off, or make a paste and apply it to the affected area. Repeat as many times as necessary.
	Milk, be it fresh, powdered, or even condensed in a can, may be able to alleviate symptoms.
	If symptoms persist it may be best to take an allergy medicine like Zyrtec, Allegra, Claritin, or Benadryl, to name a few. Follow the instructions on the bottle to the letter, and it may alleviate some symptoms.

Sources

Bon Appetit

Tip King

Jalapeno Delights

A compost pile is a great way to recycle and clear up the clutter in your garden. Realistically, composting in your backyard is just a process by which you speed up the natural process in which plants break down.

Things NOT to put in your Compost

Any sort of animal product should not be put in your pile, with the exception of rinsed eggshells. This means that no dairy, bones, meat, droppings, or any other animal part or product should be composted. These things all CAN be composted, but they smell and attract pests to your compost. Egg shells can add valuable calcium to your compost, but be sure to rinse them completely before adding them to your compost.

All processed or cooked fruits and vegetables should also be left out of your pile. In addition, peanut butter is extremely high in fat and extremely difficult to break down. You can, however, compost peanut shells, assuming they have not been cooked. Cooked vegetables have lost a lot of their nutrients and tend to smell and attract pests when added to compost piles.

Balanced Piles

An important part of composting is maintaining a balance. A general rule of thumb is to keep the ratio of brown to green vegetation somewhere between 5:1 and 8:1; this means for every one bit of green there should be 5 to 8 bits of brown. We will cover what is considered green and what is considered brown below. If your compost pile has a terrible smell then this balance is off. If it smells like ammonia then there is too much nitrogen, meaning too much green vegetation in the pile. To fix, simply add some brown to the pile; the brown has a higher carbon content which will correct the imbalance. If it smells like something rotten then you have either placed something in the pile that you should not have, or it is not getting enough oxygen. Lack of oxygen could mean that your pile has been compacted too much, or more likely that there is too much water in the pile. There should be 40% to 50% moisture content in your pile. Too much water will cause it to rot instead of breaking down the way we want it to.

Brown Versus Green

Brown plant matter is any high carbon, low nitrogen plant matter. These include things like fallen leaves, black and white print newspaper, old cardboard, and untreated wood products. All of these things are brown and should be the majority of your compost pile. Green plant matter is anything with high nitrogen content, and is not by nature green in color. Fruit and vegetable discards like citrus rinds, grape stems, or anything cut off of a vegetable (like tomato ends) are considered green matter. Coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit/vegetables, and grass clippings are all high in nitrogen content and as such are considered green plant matter.

Sources

Echo Chem

Compost Info

Smells Like Dirt

The hardest thing about recycling is knowing what to recycle and how. This is especially difficult because what is recycled in your area varies state to state and even city to city. Luckily there are a number of tools and resources to help you locate nearby recycling centers and understand what can and cannot be recycled in your area. RecyclingCenters.org is one of many such resources. You can simply go to their website, type in your zip code, and get a list of recycling centers in your area. These centers generally focus on one specific material to be recycled, so with this list you have a general idea of what can and cannot be recycled in your area. So what to do with any of the items that simply cannot be recycled in your area?

Package stuffing is often impossible to recycle, but you can recycle them yourself. Simply recycle them by reusing them, and perhaps even go so far as asking the receiver of your package to reuse them. Before I found out about water soluble packaging material I had a large garbage bag full of packing peanuts stuffed in a closet for any packages I needed to send. While they may not have been recycled properly, at the very least I got more than one use out of them.

Batteries and cell phones are recyclable, but there is often not a place to take them in your area. Luckily there are always companies that are willing to either recycle or refurbish your old electronics. One such company is Collective Good: they will recycle your cell phones and a number of other electronics for free. As of 2009 over 1 billion cell phones have been tossed either in drawers or in the garbage dump, but we can lower this number by mailing in our old phones. Batteries are also recyclable; in fact the automotive industry recycles 98% of all their batteries. Many companies charge to recycle batteries used in the home, which is unfortunate since people are generally not willing to pay to recycle. Do some research and see if there is anywhere in your area that you can recycle them, and if not you could always do what I do: just hold onto them until somebody is recycling them again.

Food soiled papers are not recyclable in the traditional sense. That means that any pizza box, paper sandwich wrapper, or used napkin is usually thrown away. That is, unless you have a compost pile. Composting is a great way to reduce the amount of trash you throw out. Even if you do not garden and have no need for compost, you can still recycle by composting. I have seen people selling and giving away their compost on craigslist, so since it is in high demand I doubt you will have any difficulty getting rid of it. This takes care of any sort of organic matter that you would normally throw away (do not compost meats or bones), and all of those paper products that have gotten food all over them can now be recycled.

Be inventive with the way that you recycle, and you will find uses for things you used to think were trash. Check out the links below; some of them have some great recycling tips not covered above.

Sources

Collective Good

Recycling Centers

Tulalip Tribes

Sweatband Man

Battery University

Images

Pharmalot.com/

Ehow

techchee.com

Nitrogen deficiency in growing is a fairly common occurrence. Luckily it can be a fairly easy problem to fix naturally or organically. One of the most widespread ways to treat a nitrogen deficiency in the soil is to plant a “cover crop.” A cover crop is quite possibly the most effective way to add nitrogen into the soil. Unfortunately it is also one of the most difficult ways. A cover crop is any sort of plant that is high in nitrogen; the most common one used is alfalfa. You grow your cover crop and you till it into the soil before it has a chance to bloom completely. Nitrogen rich plants like peas and alfalfa are richest in nitrogen just before they are finished blooming. By plowing these into the land you are adding tons of nitrogen back into the soil, and making it once again suitable for planting.

There are other, faster ways to replace some of the nitrogen in the soil. Compost or composted manure is a great way to add nitrogen back into the soil, but it unfortunately also brings with it a number of other issues. If you do use this method, be sure to test you soil a couple of weeks after you have laid down your compost. This ensures that you have fixed the nitrogen balance, without creating another imbalance.  Another quick way to fix a lack of nitrogen is to add used coffee grounds to your garden. Again, while this is a great way to add nitrogen, it also adds a number of other things to your garden, namely acids. Coffee grounds are extremely acidic, so adding them can throw your pH balance out of whack. If you use coffee grounds to add nitrogen to your garden, you may want to get a test a couple weeks after doing so, again to ensure that you have not placed something else out of balance in the process of adding nitrogen.

Sources

Woolly Designs

Garden Simply

Gardening Know How

Gardening can be frustrating, especially if you have little experience. One of the first things that you should do if you are having difficulty getting your garden to grow is take a soil sample. Sending a soil sample off for testing allows you to identify what your soil needs. The first step in taking and sending a soil sample is to locate your county Extension center. To locate your county Extension center, do a quick Google search for “Your State or County Extension center”; this will put you in touch with the closest Extension center to you.

Now that you have found your center, it is time to get a sample and a sample box. Just call your local Extension center and ask them for a box. They will let you know how much it costs to get a soil sample tested, but it is generally 5 to 9 dollars.

Taking the actual sample is extremely simple, but there are a couple of things you need to do to make sure your sample is an accurate portrayal of your yard. You will need to take several samples from different locations in your yard, and you need to make sure that you go in at least three inches to get your soil sample. You should also pick out rocks and vegetation from your soil sample. After you mail it in and receive you results, you can start to correct any imbalances you have in your soil. Soil often is lacking vital nutrients and minerals like nitrogen, calcium, and sulfur. Fixing these imbalances are generally simple and inexpensive.