How-To Guides from WonderHowTo: Page 17

If you're a teacher in any type of school, whether it's high school, college, or middle school, it's imperative that you keep an attendance sheet. The paper and pen route can get pretty messy, and very disorganized, and that's where Microsoft Excel comes in. With this software, you can create a simple yet functional attendance sheet to keep track of your students.

Have an old bike combination lock that you can't remember the code for? If it's a simply four-digit cable lock, you can easily figure out the combination with a quick peck-and-go method. Best of all, this technique doesn't require any tools or special know-how, and let's you reuse the cable lock again versus just damaging it with bolt cutters. All you need is a bit of patience and you'll have your figure out your combo in no time.

There are so many cutesy pink, red, and heart-shaped desserts and drinks put out on Valentine's Day, but none of those really get you into a low-light mood. Instead, turn up the heat with one of these aphrodisiac cocktails for grown-ups.

Someday, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, you'll find yourself on the road in your car, maybe on the highway, and you'll hear something.

To play off Gertrude Stein's famous quote, a rose is a rose is a magic paper cube. And with this paper folder's guide, you'll learn how to make your very own magic rose cube from paper using the Japanese art of origami. This design by Valerie Vann, and folded by YouTuber German Fernandez, is great for Valentine's Day or any other day where a paper puzzle rose is needed. Just be prepared... it's a not just a puzzle origami rose, it's a puzzle folding it.

Valentine's Day is a day for love, but it also just happens to be the time when every flower shop in town hikes up their prices. Chocolates are still relatively cheap, but I never understood why you have to give the gift of bigger love handles when something more creative gets the job done at a much cheaper price.

Slope is the change in Y over the change in X. Written out, the formula looks is as follows:

It's good to password-protect your PC to make sure that your personal files, folders, and important documents are safe and can't be modified without your permission. Though, entering the password all of the time before using your computer might frustrate you.

If you have any doubt about how secure that strong password you created really is, there's an easy way to check online. Just visit HowSecureIsMyPassword.net, which uses a combination of math and statistics to determine how long it would take for a PC to crack your password. It's sponsored by Dashlane, one of the top password managers available, and also gives you tips on how to make your password or passphrase stronger. The site claims the password submitted is not sent over the web, and its...

Curve stitching is a form of string art where smooth curves are created through the use of straight lines. It is taught in many Junior High and High School art classes. I discovered it when my math students started showing me the geometric art they had created.

Given a function, you can easily find the slope of a tangent line using Microsoft Excel to do the dirty work. That is to say, you can input your x-value, create a couple of formulas, and have Excel calculate the secant value of the tangent slope. This is a fantastic tool for Stewart Calculus sections 2.1 and 2.2.

Need to remove the vocals from a song? Audacity just might be the answer. It's one of the few free audio editing programs out there with many, many features, making it simple to create a track for karaoke or simply to listen to an instrumental version.

Unfortunately, many of us will be celebrating New Year's morning with a post-New Year's Eve party hangover. Avoid this common misfortune by taking some basic hangover-prevention precautions: eat a full meal before drinking, stay hydrated, and limit yourself to 1 to 2 drinks for every hour.

Winter and the winter holidays in general are a time of joy, laughter, and love… but not for everyone. For some, the stress of preparing for parties, hosting family, traveling long distances in bad weather, and just keeping up with your daily routine can start to bring you down.

Ayurvedic medicine is a 5,000-year-old system of Hindu traditional medicine of Vedic tradition and is now a widespread form of alternative medicine and natural holistic healing.

Though the holiday season is just wrapping up, don't throw away your torn leftover gift wrap paper just yet. Whether for next year's holiday season or for year-round use, leftover gift wrap can be reused for a variety of creative and practical uses.

If you want to succeed at your New Year's resolution, stop thinking of it as a resolution. Instead, frame your resolution as a daily, manageable habit you want to develop into you day-to-day life.

You don't have to be a professional artist to make sweet crafty gifts out of the humble Sharpie pen. On a budget, you can easily make personalized yet visually pleasing gifts for your favorite people out of Sharpies and a blank canvas in the form of ceramic mugs, T-shirt, tote bags, canvas shoes, ornament balls, lampshades, and more.

Being Jewish is kind of tough this time of year. Folks are putting up their lights, stringing popcorn and cranberries, and decorating trees. Those of us who don't celebrate Christmas start to feel a wee bit left out in the cold. Yes, some families give out presents on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, but the truth is that it's not a major holiday on the Jewish calendar.

Every year I wait until the last minute to wrap Christmas presents. I always tell myself I'm going to get it done ahead of time, but it never happens. And the worst thing that can happen when you put it off is running out of Scotch tape.

Somehow, we end up with a pile of leftover candy canes at the end of every December. Yet just because the enthusiastic holiday commercials are gone and the Christmas cards are on discount doesn't mean you have to let the minty sweets go to waste.

Christmas is just around the corner, which means holiday wreaths are decorating many doors across the nation. While we're always fans of a practical DIY, we especially love the edible kind, which are great for last-minute decorations.

The concept and structure of Christmas hasn't changed much since its inception. In its infancy, Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn (also held in December). The pagans had long worshiped trees (as did other historical cultures) and would bring them into their homes and decorate them, something that influenced our modern holiday decorations.

LEGOs are more than just a toy for young children— it's an emerging art form combining photography, stop-motion (i.e., brickfilms), and imitative models that portray today's pop culture as it is. It's something visual culture analysts are sure to be studying over the next decade, and Chris McVeigh, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, is sure to be studied for his LEGO mastery.

We've all made them. I remember making hundreds of paper snowflakes when I was in elementary school. You take a piece of paper and fold it in half, then fold it in half again. You now have a piece that is one fourth the size of the original. Now you fold it in half diagonally. You then cut slices out of the edges of the paper, and unfold to find that you have created a snowflake. The resulting snowflake has four lines of symmetry and looks something like this:

All day I dream of eggs: scrambled, poached, over easy, hard-boiled, fried, baked, raw... Okay, the last one is a joke (unless you're Gaston, which means that you eat five dozen of them and you're roughly the size of a barge). But eggs are freaking good in just about any cooking prep, and more often than not are the foundation of your favorite baked goods.

Maybe you decided to make your own pumpkin pureé because of all the buzz about canned pumpkin actually being squash (which, by the way, is a load of bull: it's made with ugly pumpkins, but pumpkins nonetheless). Or maybe you just wanted to be that person that proudly proclaims that they made everything from scratch for their Thanksgiving feast this year (ahem, me).

Autumn is a time of year when everything looks, smells, and tastes good. The scents of cinnamon and spices are everywhere you go, and even the dead leaves that fall off the trees are pretty. In particular, the fruits and vegetables of the season are gorgeous.

When it comes to Thanksgiving, some people live for stuffing (or dressing, if that's what you call it). Personally, I love all stuffing, even the boxed kind. However, even the classics can start to feel a little staid and dull after a while.

One of the golden rules to cooking a Thanksgiving turkey is to place it on a roasting rack before it goes into the oven. Missing this step and cooking it directly on the pan will burn the bottom of the bird, resulting in overcooked, dry meat.

Fall is my favorite time of year, yet I cringe every time it begins. Why? Because it seems like every business is in a frenzy to start the Christmas shopping season the day after Halloween ends. For those of us who are fans of pumpkins, that's a buzzkill.

You've probably seen someone in your family truss the turkey on Thanksgiving before roasting it, even if you don't recognize the word. To truss a bird or roast just means to wrap it up as compactly as possible before placing it in the oven, and it's usually done by tying it with string.

I used to brag that I could make a swan out of an apple, but chicks don't dig swans—they dig roses. So now I'm going to brag about making apple roses, because you would, too, if you could get them to look like this:

Calling all popcorn fanatics: we know a bit of drizzled butter is all that's needed to make a delicious bowl of your favorite finger food, but we've got some interesting mash-ups of flavors that we think you should try the next time you veg out on your couch for another Netflix marathon.

What's the best part of the holidays, other than gorging yourself on food until you're physically able to hibernate? Imbibing delicious, hot drinks that are spiked to the gills with liquor.

This is a whole new level of "Paleo," guys.

Pancakes are a pretty simple breakfast. You add a few dry ingredients and a few wet ingredients, cook them up, and voilà—a delicious breakfast that's just waiting to suck up all that maple syrup.

You have a Rubik's Cube, maybe your mother gave it to you for your birthday, maybe you actually bought it for yourself, or maybe you just found that colorful puzzle cube in the gutter, but either way... you don't know how to solve it.

For me, the smoky brilliance of a good barbecue can't be beat. The way the smoke flavor seems to permeate every part of the meat is, in my opinion, the closest thing we have to food magic. Throw a piece of meat in a smoker with some select wood choices, wait a few hours, and suddenly you have something rich, complex, and bursting with smoky flavors.

Pickles are insanely versatile: we eat them on their own as a snack, as a tasty zing on burgers, and some of us even like them in a sandwich with peanut butter. And if you're already an avid reader of our site, you'd know that we're even crazier about pickle juice and its myriad uses.