Feeling Sick? Check Your Symptoms Online

Feeling under the weather, but not sure what's up? There are a couple of online sites that allow you to input symptoms, and voila! a list of possible causes pops up with suggested courses of treatment - stuff to do at home, as well as suggestions on when you should see the doctor.

The Mayo Clinic offers this free service at its site. Its "symptom checker" provides lots of information, including both treatment and prevention.

WebMD.Com also has a symptom checker. WebMD is an online site provided by a combination of physicians and other professionals. It is affiliated with MedicineNet.

Other online symptom checkers include Healthline, and About.Com, whose symptom checker uses information provided by Harvard Medical School.

For those of you interested in alternative medicine, or distrustful of standardized medicine, check out HowStuffWorks.Com, which provides not only a symptom checker but tons of info on ... well, how stuff works health-wise. Revolution Health also provides a symptom checker (but if you look closely, they are using the Mayo Clinic site).


Shown: Gabriel Von Max's Die ekstatische Jungfrau Katharina Emmerich, 1885

Homemade Laundry Soap

There are several sites with lots of recipe lists for homemade laundry soap. Why bother?

It's cheaper. Lots cheaper. The Simple Dollar reports a $70.00 savings and provides a per load savings comparison to bulk buys at Sams and Costco here.

Another factor is that making your own laundry soap means you know what's going into it, which can really help with skin allergies, eczema, and the like. Artificial fragrances alone are the source of many skin irritations.


For recipes, check out:
The Frugal Shopper
The Family Homestead
Christian Mommies

Open Office: Great Free Software Suite

Open Office is free, free, free. It offers software comparable to other major office software suites (yes, think Microsoft Word et al) and has won high praise from techies and non-techies alike.

There is Writer (word processor); Calc (spreadsheets); Impress (multimedia presentations); Draw (3D illustrations, etc.); Base (databases); and Math (equations editor and creator).

VUNET.COM gives it a five star rating.

PCWorld/India calls it "an excellent free alternative to Microsoft Office."

James Gaskin at NetworkWorld goes so far as to opine that small businesses should buy a few Microsoft Office packages, and fill out the rest with OpenOffice. It's a 80/20 analysis that seems to make good sense.

Me? I like it.