The Chamber

It’s time for another post on how great the world wide web is. We’ve recently looked at how social networks can benefit business and a list of 80 sites to hack your life. So today, it’s a look at the sites where you can go to learn to do, well, just about anything.

Over on the Dumb Little Man blog, they’ve posted a list of 15 sites that can teach you to anything from learning to build your own website to looking after a sick cat. Some of them you may have heard of, some you won’t, and some may be a surprise.

The full list of 15 sites can be seen here, but it includes:

• YouTube - yep, it’s not all dancing stormtroopers. Need to learn how to tune a guitar, build a blog or bake a nice cake? Chances are someone’s posted an instructional vid on YouTube.
• How Stuff Works - with sections covering cars, pets, computers, business, food, money and more, find out how things tick here.
• wikiHow - user generated content on a host of topics
• Wired’s How To Wiki - Wired is the techy’s mag of choice, and its how to site covers technical matters such as gadgets, technology and computers. Geek out here.
• W3Schools - become a web developer by using these free tutorials from the people who help set web standards
• VideoJug - probably the largest and most comprehensive online video tutorial site, covering a mind-bogglingly broad selection of subjects.

Read the full list on Dumb Little Man here.

Here’s a little game to pass the time on your designated break today (as it’s just started chucking it down it doesn’t look like a day for going out).

Flight of the Hamsters lets you fire be-goggled rodents through the air to see how far they can go. Bounce of various objects to go further and score more points. Good clean fun.

Play Flight of the Hamsters here.

It’s Friday. Woo yay. So here’s a little game to play on your designated break.

In White Dwarf, you control the white circle. Collect the green circles whilst avoiding the red. The more greens you collect, the greater your gravitational pull, which attracts all colours. Use the blue dots to ‘bank’ your collection of greens.

Mindless fun or a thought-provoking and educational representation of the mighty forces of nature that control our very existence? Who knows…

Play White Dwarf here.

So the holidays are definitely over - we’ve all had our first full week back in work. Deep joy!

So, here’s a little game to pass the time on your designated break and brighten your Friday.

I’m not sure what it’s really called, as the site’s not in English, but let’s call it Kebab Tetris for now.

Your first test is to get the game going, as the instructions are in a foreign tongue. I’m not going to tell you how to do that, but it’s an easy challenge.

Once you’re in, you have to skewer the little characters using your kebab stick (contrlolled by clicking and holding your mouse). Once you have three or more of the same next to each other on the stick, they disappear. You have to keep going for as long as you can without overloading your stick.

Sounds rubbish, but is fiendishly addictive.

Play Kebab Tetris here.

It’s Friday, it’s nearly Christmas, some of you may even be going on your work’s night out later, I know we are (w00t!).

What you need is a nice little game to calm you down during your tea break.

So, have a go at Bejeweled, the classic game where you have to re-arrange the jewels to score points. Move them around to form rows of three or more to get points and clear the board. Simple, classic and not too taxing.

Play Bejeweled here.

Nom Nom! It’s nearly time for the slap up feed that is Christmas Dinner.

So, as a public service and an excuse to talk about Christmas again, here’s a handy link to the BBC’s guide to safely defrosting and cooking the big bird.

I’m sure we’ve all cooked one plenty of times before, but there’s no harm in taking a quick refresher in the run up to the big day. Better that than ‘turkey tummy’ on Boxing Day!

A busy day on the blog yesterday meant we didn’t have time to post any festive frippery.

So, here’s the first of some posts to hopefully get you into the Christmas spirit. I mean, it’s less than a fortnight away now!

This is a nice little game called Chat Noir. Must be German or something.

Anyway, the aim is to try and stop the cat from exiting the board of dots by blocking his path. Click on a dot to make it impassible. Then the cat will try and find an alternative exit. And judging by the games we’ve played, succeed every time.

Play Chat Noir here.

Here’s a nice little point and click puzzle to pass some time on your designated break today.

In Anika’s Odyssey  you have to help a little girl recover her toy bunny that’s been stolen by an evil eagle. Click on the different elements in the landscape to guide her through the various obstacle. Some things have to be done in a certain order, so make sure you have a good old explore.

Takes a while to load, but is good fun.

No Friday Fun for a couple of weeks. Hope you’ve all managed to entertain yourselves in its absence - playing with matches and running with scissors etc.

So - here’s this week’s little game to keep you out of trouble: Blockout.

Use your arrow buttons to guide the slippy little brown jobby around the tubes to its eventual ocean-blue home. Manage that and you’ll be flushed with success.

The usual ’starts easy / gets hard’ rules apply.

Play Blockout here.

Not nearly as rude as it sounds, in fact not rude at all, Bollix is a nice little game to liven up your Friday tea break.

You have to guide your little ball across the screen to the exit. Avoid the various obstacles and pick up coins along the way. Easy. At least to begin with.

You can play Bollix here.

As an extra treat, thanks to the lolsome people over at Cheezburger, you can take a glimpse in to the everyday life of your humble blog moderator.