Tech for Luddites

I hate clickbait. And whenever I end up clicking on a headline like, “This man stood up and you won’t believe what happened next” or “You’ve been folding fitted sheets all wrong,” I feel like I’ve given up a little piece of my soul. (And for the record, even after learning the right way to fold fitted sheets, I’m still folding them all wrong…)

But.

Earlier this year I saw link to a post by (shocker!) BuzzFeed titled, “You’ve Been Peeling Eggs Wrong Your Whole Life,” I was intrigued. 🙂 I don’t eat eggs a lot, but deviled eggs are one of my all-time favourite appetizers but they generally don’t come out looking so great after I’ve peeled off a bunch of the egg along with the shell.

So I clicked through and found this video:

I was dubious about it, but the next time I boiled eggs I discovered that I had, indeed, been peeling eggs wrong my whole life! It worked great, although I didn’t like the water splashing through my fingers so I used a lid from a plastic container to cover the glass while I shook it. You can even do two eggs at the same time this way.

Pretty cool, eh? But wait… THERE’S MORE!

Sometime later I was looking for this video again and I found an entirely different technique in this video from YouTuber Crazy Russian Hacker.

That’s even easier! Before you try this one, though, I must warn you not to smash the egg TOO hard on the counter; the first time I did this my egg broke completely in half.

Also, I haven’t gotten to the point where the shells comes off quite as easily as they do in the videos, but the difference is enormous.

Here some other tips for making the shells easier to peel before you get to this stage. I have no idea what the science is behind these tips, but they have helped me in the past even with my previous peeling method.

• Use older eggs. Super fresh ones don’t peel as easily.
• Add a teaspoon of baking soda to the water before you boil them.
• After you’ve finished boiling them and drained the water, put the eggs immediately in a bowl of ice water.

Bonus Video

Back in the 1987s, the Egg Farmers of Ontario began a marketing campaign with the slogan, Get Cracking, that continues to this day. I’ve always thought it was one of the best slogans I’ve ever seen, even if the commercials from then are a bit cheesy. (Pun intended) 🙂

Non-Reader Tip

Despite the SUPER AWESOME prize I’m offering as part of this month’s Reader Tip Contest (see below), I’m out of submissions! 🙁 So here’s a quick tip from li’l ol’ me.

As much as I hate clickbait, it’s nothing compared to how much I hate when videos autoplay on a web page WITH THE SOUND ON! When that happened in the past, I used to always scroll all through the page trying to find the offending video so I could pause it, but that was easier said than done.

Then one day when it happened, I suddenly noticed that my browser tab had a little icon of a speaker on it. So I clicked it and sure enough, it muted the audio!

Now, I’m not a big fan of autoplaying videos in general, because they can clog up your memory or eat up your data plan. But with this little tip, at least I don’t have to listen to what is usually an annoying ad while I’m hunting to turn it off.

Share Your Favorite Tech Tip and Enter for a Chance to Win!

Got a good tip that other readers could benefit from? Submit it to T4L and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win an Amazon Fire tablet AND an Amazon Fire TV Stick streaming media player! (And based on the fact that I have run out of submissions, I have to say your chances of winning are preeety good right now…)

See the full contest rules and submit your tech tip. >>

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Google Chrome Will Soon Let You Disable Autoplay Videos

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