Almost every week I try to tell you about something useful, something that will make your computing experience easier or more fulfilling.

Not today. Today I am going to tell you about websites that are interesting, fun, or just plain silly. If they turn out to be useful as well, don't blame me.

Spice up your life

When you're in the produce section of your local market, do you find yourself staring at all those peppers and wondering what they are? The prices and names are posted well above the peppers. Which ones are which?

If you'd had a look at the Visual Guide to Peppers (http://missvickie.com/howto/spices/peppers/peppersdict.html), you'd know your Sweet Banana pepper from your Habanero Red Savina. You don't want to confuse the two! If you don't believe me, have a look at the Scoville Heat Scale, here:

Miss Vickie

Download YouTube videos easily

There are other ways to do this, but some of those other ways turn the process into a three-swear-word job. Firefox users will like the Add-On called Net Video Hunter (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7447). It just works. There's an instructional video, here:

Net Video Hunter

but there are also instructions for you whenever you use the extension. Now you can have the Numa Numa guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o) forever on your hard drive!

Whether you download the videos or not, be sure to watch the astonishing YouTube videos by Eveilen Lohbec. Start with "The Notebook" here:

The Notebook

If you are captivated by that, you will like the others, listed down the right side of that page. Her website is here:

Eveilen Lohbec


So many webcams, so little time

Did you know that Castanet.net has a whole page of Scenic Webcams, from all over the Okanagan? Neither did I, but here it is:

Castanet Web Cams

This is one of those pages that could accidentally turn out to be useful. I can see, for instance, that there is too little snow at Big White to go skiing, but way too much to go fishing. Right now, that resort in Osoyoos looks good to me.

Do not read this next part if you are planning on actually getting work done today

I warned you. Here come the online puzzles.

Do you like jigsaw puzzles? Try the ones at How Stuff Works, here:

How Stuff Works

If you don't like the History puzzles, try another category, like Electronics, where the Turquoise USB Flash Drive puzzle (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/electronics-puzzles.htm) will drive you crazy.

Want to play some miniature golf online? Go here:

Mini Golf

If you like a little more action, here's another game that I'm terrible at:

Double Wires

Double Wires was described to me as "a great game while on hold at work." It looks like they have a lot of other games on that site, too, but I can't ever seem to quit playing this one long enough to try anything else.

And now, I really have to get back to work

As I mentioned last week, we changed the name of our company to more accurately reflect what we do. We are now Computer Care Kelowna. Don't worry --- the old email will still work for some time to come, and the column archive is right where it always was. But you are welcome to stop by the new website and have a look around.

Computer Care Kelowna

Do you need help with your computer? With your printer/camera/music player? Do you have a new computer and now you're wondering how to get the files from the old one over to the new one? I'm here to help you and your computer get along!

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