Help End Hunger, Get Kindled, and 3 More Positive Web Tips You Should Know About

Linsey Knerl — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:56:31 +0000

There are days when little bits of good news can help undercut the bad. With a recent initiative by Tyson to end hunger, a new super-groovy Kindle-esque iPhone app, and a killer comparison shopping site, there’s good stuff out there. (You just have to know where to find it!)

The iPhone can now be used as a Kindle (seriously). – The unofficial Apple Weblog verifies that the rumors are true! Hooray for those of you who held back from buying the $300+ Kindle (and possibly the 2nd generation Kindle 2) but were using an iPhone, anyway. I haven’t purchased an iPhone yet (I’ve been narrowly eeking by without a phone at all), but this gives me one more reason to upgrade. This and the Pandora app will probably seal the deal for me. (Not to mention the fact that illustrations in the iPhone app will be displayed in color. Very groovy.)

Your pledge can feed 140 kids. As part of an impressive initiative by Tyson foods, you can help end hunger. Be one of the 1,000 people that pledges to give, share, or volunteer for the cause, and your pledge will guarantee 35 lbs of food will end up on a truck to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas in Austin during the SXSW ’09 Interactive Festival. Ways to share (which is all you need to do to help the cause) include:

Use the share function on the website.
Follow @HungerPledge on Twitter for updates and use #HungerPledge with your tweets.
Write a blog post about Pledge to End Hunger.
Email the link to your colleagues, family, & friends.
Join the Pledge to End Hunger Facebook cause.
Embed the Pledge to End Hunger Tally widget on your website, blog, or MySpace account.

Plan for the future with a family heirloom. You hear about it all the time: Kids squabbling over who will get the china set when the parents pass away. While we can’t give advice on the family dynamics that can come about during these difficult times, this recent article on Mainstreet.com highlights some tips you should take to ensure that taxes are handled accordingly. The best part of the piece isn’t the financial details, however. It gives creative ideas for passing down heirlooms, even if you don’t have a row to hoe. (Tomatoes, anyone?)

There’s nothing depressing about this meal. If you somehow missed Trent’s roundup of spectacular Depression-era cooking videos (compliments of a lovely 93-year-old Clara), you must stop what you are doing and check them out! Not only are the recipes delicious, they are true to the mission of keeping things simple. (It’s also motivation for those of us who’ve considered video blogging to get up and finally do it. This lady is fantastic!)

All I ever needed to know about growing sprouts, I learned from Jenn Fowler. I admit to over-spending on fancy sprout-growing kits. (Shame, shame.) If you haven’t already fallen victim to unnecessary growing gizmos, or you want to redeem yourself with a no-nonsense, super-affordable method to making your own green edible sprouts in your kitchen, you still have time. Frugal Upstate’s photos and directions are dummy-proof. (Plus, they really make me want to eat a veggie sandwich!)

Beat this! From the makers of the hit website RetailMeNot.com (a favorite among many of us, including Paul Michael) comes an impressive upgrade to comparison shopping. While it’s still in the beginning stages, BeatMyPrice.com is a fun and fairly accurate way to find the lowest price for an item online. What really caught my eye was the way that it suggests coupon codes for the shopping outlets it provides, and it is slowly building a reader-based price guide for each item. I just tried a search for “Salad Spinner” and input a link to one on Amazon for $29.99. The BeatMyPrice.com tool gave me just one other product to choose from, but it happened to be a Wolfgang Puck stainless steel version for just 10 cents less. Bravo!

Written by Linsey Knerl and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.

beatmyprice.com

Help End Hunger, Get Kindled, and 3 More Positive Web Tips You Should Know About