July 15, 2009, issue

     I am learning all over again what wonderful things are on the Internet in general and YOUTUBE in particular. I recently decided to learn how to create a playlist on YOUTUBE. Once you do, you can play all your favorite videos, one after the other, anytime, with a couple of mouse clicks. Learning this is such a major victory for me - I'm a lady who isn't comfortable with any technology more elaborate than that of a refrigerator - that I've devoted item 15 to an explanation of how you can do it too.

     Your video playlist can, of course, be on any subject, from your favorite comedy videos to how to build a garden cold frame. Being me, I've been creating one Bach playlist after another. Which led me to Oedipus Coloneus, who has posted on YOUTUBE his playlist with 2579 videos, mostly 18th century opera. Now, to tell the truth, my interest in 18th century opera isn't that strong. But I just love the idea that the tiny band of people who do love 18th century opera - people from all over the world - can not only listen to it for free on YOUTUBE but can then discuss the details with one another in the comments section.

     Now, is the Internet great or what?

     No matter what kind of music you like, YOUTUBE is almost certain to have it. So do go to:

http://www.youtube.com/

and put into the search box your favorite music group or type of music or composer or whatever. I think you'll find a wonderful selection of your favorite music. And if you enjoy some of it so much you want to turn it into a playlist, read item 15. If I can do it, anyone can.

     Janette

----Table Of Contents----

1. Free Christian Music
2. More Free And Legal Music
3. Daily Motion's Music And More
4. 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video
5. Top 10 Funny Videos
6. If You Know Someone
7. The Toilet Tank Trick
8. Produce Your Own Electricity
9. Horrible Movies For Kids
10. Sounds To Help You Sleep
11. Get Free Legal Advice
12. Top 10 Grocery Coupon Sites
13. Your Zucchinis Are Plotting Against You
14. The Night Is Light
15. Creating a Youtube Playlist

1. FREE CHRISTIAN MUSIC

     Some of it's not your grandmother's Christian music. And some of it is. If you go to TANGLE.COM, their "Featured Artists" section will lead you to the latest in free Christian music. (TANGLE seems to have replaced Godtube.com.) Or, for more traditional music, put "Gaither" into the TANGLE search box, for wonderful Gospel music with feeling and rhythm. But, so far as I can tell, TANGLE doesn't do playlists.

http://www.tangle.com/

     On the other hand, if you put "Christian music" in the YOUTUBE search box, you can of course make playlists of all your favorite selections and play them again whenever you're in the mood. Likewise, if you put "Gaither music" in the YOUTUBE search box, you can make playlists of their Gospel music selections.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=GAITHER+music&search_type=&aq=f

2. MORE FREE AND LEGAL MUSIC

     If you like popular or classical music, you might want to try gHACK's list, created two years ago:

http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/19/free-music-list-july-2007/

3. DAILY MOTION'S MUSIC AND MORE

     The above gHACKS list does not include DAILY MOTION, and it should. DAILY MOTION is a French YOUTUBE that doesn't have YOUTUBE's annoying ten-minute time limit. It has a lot of everything, including popular music; click below to explore their U.S. entrance page:

http://www.dailymotion.com/us

     I am currently devoted to DAILY MOTION's classical music section which, oddly enough, is NOT listed if you click on its music section. You have to know it's there. Start with QUAROUBLE's magnificent playlist of mostly French classical selections, listed below. As you play from her list, you'll see items from other playlists off to the right. DAILY MOTION has a splendid playlist setup that, frankly, I'm still learning to work properly. I call it "splendid" because it apparently allows you to enter a playlist in the middle and keep going, whereas YOUTUBE ever and always seems to start you at the beginning (if you know how to circumvent this, do let me know).

http://www.dailymotion.com/quarouble/1

4. 18 FREE WAYS TO DOWNLOAD ANY VIDEO

     MAKEUSEOF.COM is a treasure trove of practical information. Scroll down the page to "[DOWNLOADS] FREE PDF Guides from MakeUseOf" for related material.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/18-free-ways-to-download-any-video-off-the-internet/

5. TOP 10 FUNNY VIDEOS

     This is someone else's idea of funny, but you might find some favorites too:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/my-top-ten-favourite-funniest-youtube-videos/

     And, if you want to look up favorite YOUTUBE videos that have appeared in past issues of TOUR THE SITES, click on "Recent Newsletters" in the upper righthand corner.

6. IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE

     If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter or find it useful, do tell them about it. People can subscribe, for free of course, by going to the TOUR THE SITES home page at

http://tourthesites.com/

     If someone just wants to see what the newsletter's like, or if you wish you'd made a note of an item in an earlier newsletter, you will find the newsletters all nicely posted at the above address. Just click on Recent Newsletters in the upper righthand corner.

     And if you want to make a playlist of your favorite TOUR THE SITES videos, see the above.

7. THE TOILET TANK TRICK

     Want to save money, water, and the environment? For free? Try "the toilet tank trick":

http://www.videojug.com/film/the-toilet-tank-trick

8. PRODUCE YOUR OWN ELECTRICITY

     You too, it seems, can build an electricity producing solar panel. It's easy, says the author of this site. And perhaps he shouldn't have said that, because the whole thing seems to have hit a national nerve. MD PUB says, "This web site has become insanely popular, often taxing the bandwidth limits of the server." It has also taxed the limits of the author's patience. He'll help you build a solar panel, all right, but he will not personally walk you through the process. Click below for detailed instructions:

http://www.mdpub.com/SolarPanel/index.html

9. HORRIBLE MOVIES FOR KIDS

     The movie industry always tries to come out with some Big Ones for kids to view in the summertime. Some of these are good - speaking from a parent's point of view - and some are simply horrible, and of course parents can't necessarily, or even usually, tell from the ads. But MOVIE MOM will tell you.

     NELL MINOW, the MOVIE MOM, has become mildly famous, and deserves to be, as she has watched some truly horrible productions in the line of duty. And MOVIE MOM makes it easy for parents: she gives movies a grade, from A to F, in nice big red letters. Then she gives the kind of details a parent would want to learn. If you're a parent, you may want to bookmark this site.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/

10. SOUNDS TO HELP YOU SLEEP

     Tune in to iSERENITY to get sound tracks out of the ordinary. OF COURSE they've got ocean waves, but highway noise? Yep. A pencil scratching? Yep. A cat purring? Yep. The one that got me was the library sound track. Because there were no sounds worth mentioning on that track. Someone at iSERENITY has a sense of humor. I did find the fan audio lacking. I've got a fan going a good deal of the time these days, and mine have this wonderful fan buzz that I did not hear with the iSERENITY fan. My bedroom fan also has this tiny rattle, which you might think would be irritating, but it's not. It's relaxing. I love to sleep to the tune of my fan and think iSERENITY should send its sound engineers to our house.

http://www.iserenity.com/environments.htm

     WHITE NOISE. SIMPLY NOISE not only offers white noise but pink noise and brown-red noise. No, I'm not joking. I found the brown-red noise a little spooky, for some reason. White noise, they say, will soothe migraines and mask tinnitus.

http://simplynoise.com/

     SOUNDS TO PUT BABY TO SLEEP. The sound of rain put these people's baby to sleep; maybe it will be just the thing yours needs.

http://www.baby-to-sleep.com/

11. GET FREE LEGAL ADVICE

     It's hard times all over. AVVO.COM will help you find the right lawyer for your particular problem - and it will also give you a certain amount of free legal advice from a lawyer just building up a practice. After all, not every recent law school graduate received an offer to clerk for the Supreme Court, and, like you, they've got bills to pay.

http://www.avvo.com/

     THE INTERNET LAW LIBRARY enables you to do a good deal of research yourself into U.S. federal and state laws. It includes legal forms, legal dictionaries, and much more free legal information.

http://www.lawguru.com/ilawlib/

12. TOP 10 GROCERY COUPON SITES

     The truly tried-and-true best grocery coupon sites, where you can (1) find local best buys, and/or (2) have all coupons electronically loaded directly to your grocery store loyalty card (no need to carry coupons around), and/or (3) get thousands of retail store coupons.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-top-10-grocery-coupon-websites-for-cheapskates/

13. YOUR ZUCCHINIS ARE PLOTTING AGAINST YOU

     The zucchini plants you so thoughtlessly included in your garden this year are doing terrible things in the night. By daylight they look harmless; in fact, you'd think they were just sitting there doing nothing. But in the dark they are growing huge, vicious looking baseball bats, hidden under innocent appearing leaves. Which baseball bats you do not know how to cook and do not want to eat. You could give them to little boys to play with, but those little boys will of course get to fooling around. It's in a little boy's nature to fool around, just as it's in a zucchini plant's nature to do underhanded things in the dark. Those little boys will wind up getting zucchini seeds all over everything and maybe even give one another concussions.

     Fortunately the Internet has a better solution. First, below is a recipe for dealing with zucchini not yet at the baseball bat stage:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2009/07/08/preserved-zucchini/

     And now for an address I gave you last summer, with zucchini recipes that will even help you deal with those baseball bats without getting zucchini fragments all over the front lawn:

http://www.ljcfyi.com/ljcsProjects/cooking/zucchini_recipes.html

     And last comes a previously unprinted recipe for a prize-winning zucchini casserole, with a side benefit of other low carb recipes:

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbsidedishes/r/momszucchini.htm

14. THE NIGHT IS LIGHT

     In my YOUTUBE wanderings I landed in BACHLOVENAT's playlist, looking of course for more Bach. But Natalia is Russian, and, while I discovered only a small amount of Bach, I found remarkably beautiful Russian music, along with photos and paintings of Russian scenery. One of the pieces is called "The Night Is Light," and this is indeed the glorious time in the Far North when the days last all night. If you'd like to sample Natalia's art and music and see just how beautiful a playlist channel can be, click below:

http://www.youtube.com/user/BachLoveNat

     Her videos, including some of the ancient music of the Church, are here:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BachLoveNat&view=videos

     And, if you would like to learn more about this type of religious music and art, come to this page:

http://www.iconsexplained.com/

15. CREATING A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

     You can organize your favorite YOUTUBE videos into playlists, which enable you to play your favorites in the order you select. (I also tell you how to play a playlist once you have one. None of the other how-to articles I read bothered to mention that little detail. I know, I looked high and low.)

     (1) Officially join YOUTUBE, setting up a free account.

     (2) While you're playing the video you want to be first, click on Playlist below it.

     (3) Type in the title you want for the playlist, then click on Add. Now you have your first playlist and its first item. Continue selecting playlist videos by clicking on Playlist below the video.

     (4) To play your playlist, click on Account, then Playlists.

     (5) To edit a playlist, go to Account, then Playlists. Edit Playlist Info at top enables you to change the title and description of playlist. To delete an item, check the box in front of it and hit Remove. To change the order of playlist items, click on the number of the item you want to change. Put in the new number, hit Enter. For some reason YOUTUBE won't let you make two changes in a row. You have to exit momentarily from that playlist, then return.