Prolific Living – A Weekly Blog winner, this inspiring little piece of blog heaven is brought to us by Farnoosh, who promises to deliver “Smart Habits for Rich Living.” Armed with a knock-out experience in management, communication, organizational skills and witty writing, Farnoosh offers grade A tips for a fuller life and a satisfied soul.

To give a couple of examples of Prolific Living’s insightful reads, I highly recommend reading these two posts: Self-Reflection: 19 Things I Wish I Knew Earlier in Life and From Fear to Motivation 22 Radical Thoughts. These are but two examples of the immense world of better mind and body tips Farnoosh is offering on Prolific Living. Other topics you will find here include ‘for fun,’ ‘for the body,’ for the heart,’ ‘for the mind,’ ‘for the soul,’ ‘on the road,’ podcasts and videos.  If you’re seeking well-written inspiration to last a lifetime, Prolific Living is it. Here’s an interesting video Farnoosh has published on her blog, titled Yoga Flow Series 1: Welcoming Fall. Yes, she does that, too! Enjoy.

Knoword – I just loved this innovative guessing game. Once you start playing you’ll be presented with a definition and the word’s first letter as a hint. You goal is to guess what the word is and type it quickly in the box before you run out of time. This is a great game to keep your grey brain cells active, and it could also serve as an entertaining game for word-loving kids and adults. For more addicting word games, visit our Games page and scroll down to Words.

The 2010 PNC Christmas Price Index – For 27 years now, PNC Bank has been keeping this wonderful tradition of tracking price fluctuations of the gifts mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song. This year they’ve created an enchanting interactive website to visualize the 2010 data in comparison to the gifts’ prices in 2009.

See the price change of a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds and so on, right up to the 12 drummers in 2010. The PNC Christmas Price Index site is so engaging, stunning and fun, learning about the percentages of increase or decrease in the prices of the gifts of Xmas is merely a secondary attraction. Enjoy this one.

Teach Parents Tech – Don’t we all have at least one member in the family who has given up all efforts to learn how to make the most out of the Web? My 86 year-old grandma uses her PC offline to play solitaire, and online to read the news -she visits over 10 major news sites per day!- and receive emails, as long as these are text-only, basic messages without any attachments or links. On numerous different occasions I have tried tempting her to learn the wonders of the Web, but she would always reply with the same aphoristic claim: “Honey, I’m too old for that.”

My relentless efforts of Web-pushing (including creating for my grandma an All My Faves mini user showcasing all the news and health sites she reads obsessively every day) fail to lure my granny into deeper levels of Web exploration and interaction. It seems she’s dead set on keeping it as basic as possible, and even that, she says, is way too much. Seen as my grandma’s case is a familiar one among seniors, baby boomers and individuals with a low-tech life approach, it was wonderful to discover Google’s recent initiative, Teach Parents Tech, helping to eradicate the strong technophobia pandemic among older people.

Beautifully designed and super-easy to use, Teach Parents Tech is a two-part process; first is the form (shown above) you, the experienced Web users fills out, checking the boxes next to the online actions you wish your parents/grandparents/aunts & uncles would learn. Once you hit Preview you will be taken to a new page structured in a letter format including how-to videos corresponding to the issues you checked in the form. Next all you have to do is provide your and the recipient’s email addresses, and you’re good to go.

For my grandma I picked the two how-to videos below (how to copy & paste, and how to change the PC’s desktop background, respectively). The Teach Parents Tech project is outstanding in both its concept and execution, and I highly recommend using it for the technophobes in your family. This is a keeper!

I wonder how long it would take for my grandma to learn how to use Google Reader. On second thought, I think I’ll just take it one baby step at a time…

Google eBookstore – Although this new feature by the search giant still exhibits some major hiccups (specialty book lists are lacking content, such as the NY Bestsellers list, perhaps due to location constraints), this new service by Google is a commendable effort.

Despite the eBookstore’s limited availability of free books compared to its large number of paid books offered, the cherry on top of Google’s library/bookstore  is the eBook reader interface. This makes the reading of any book virtually as enjoyable as reading the actual physical copy on an indulgently soft armchair by a warm fireplace. The screen shot below shows the ‘Best Free’ eBook list, and the lower screen shot displays the reader platform in action using Jane Austen’s globally renowned Pride and Prejudice. Obviously, this service’s magnitude connects us, the users with pretty much every book ever written. I only wonder what Amazon.com has to say about Google’s eBookstore…

Nikon’s This Day – This site could best be described as a “web content page that shows what happened on that day in the past, at some place in the world.” So if for instance, today’s date is December 19, 2010, This Day displays an important past event that took place on that date sometime in the past decades or centuries. Each entry is accompanied by an HD image, and the background music will make you feel as if you’re strolling around a futuristic yet peaceful museum.

Explore Nikon’s This Day and learn a bit of history along the way. Below is the entry for Dec 19, 1851, which marked the death of a famous English painter. Guess who?

Historvius – Some travelers strive to be the antithesis to traditional tourists, seeking rarely visited, off the beaten path sites around the world, avoiding famous sites and the crowds at all costs. But that doesn’t mean famous sites have become overrated. On the contrary, international tourist sites such as Egypt’s pyramids or the huge man-shaped statues of Easter Island are still on my to-visit list, and the fact that many people flock these places each year is not about to deter me from doing so.

Historvius is a wonderful information place on mainstream (and less known) tourist sites worldwide, offering a super cool platform for learning more on your next sought-after site (note that you won’t be able to find info on cities per se, rather only on attraction sites). Start your site search by selecting your vacation destination, or choose a time period you are interested in as a filter, or, if yo wish, search by historical figure. There is also an open search for those interested. I had a specific site in mind I wanted to learn more about when I gave Historvius a try, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The photo below is a hint. Click it to get to the site’s page.

Earth 350 Art – A climate-focused art exhibition that can be seen from space – that’s the underlining concept of the amazing large scale art of Earth 350, initiated by 350.org. It is “the first-ever global scale group show on the front line of climate change—our polluted cities, endangered forests, melting glaciers, and sinking coastlines.”

Taken via satellite, each of the photos showcased here are awe-inspiring and poignant, and the entire exhibition’s timing intentionally overlapped the UN’s climate meetings in Cancun as a means of voicing the need for a tougher strategy to tackle climate change. I have never seen anything quite like it. See one of my favorite works below, the “Climate Elephant” by Daniel Dancer, New Delhi, India. There are many others right here. Enjoy.

Academia.edu – This marriage between academic research and social networking is a didactic match made in heaven.  Academia.edu allows academics all over the world to “follow the latest research in their field.” Once you have created your own profile (it’s free!), you can invite your colleagues over, decide which researchers you would like to follow, upload papers you have published, lectures you have given, even posts and status updates you have posted.

When you think about it, Academia.edu’s added value is huge: the free service allows each researcher (regardless of rank) to create their own web page listing all of their material. The viewing and downloads of these, along with key search words people use online to search for any researcher can be tracked via Academia.edu’s system. This is phenomenal and all for a great cause: sharing and expanding the dialogue of research all over. Great job, Academia.edu team! I’ve created an account based on my B.A. major, Anthropology. Here’s a screen shot of it.

Daily Infographic -The sharp rise of infogrpahics (short for information graphics) attests to the growing trend of consuming complicated data in a visual way, which makes the understanding part both fast and more memorable, as opposed to simple numerical statistics. Infographics are particular handy when it comes to complex processes (such as financial, geo-political scenarios, etc.). Daily Infographic vows to post an interesting infographic every day, and they certainly keep that promise.

What kind of infographics will you find on this Weekly Blog winner? See the two interesting posts below, 16 Facts About Sleep and Colors of the Web. Enjoy.

20 Things I Learned About Browsers & The Web – Google sure knows how to pack each of their projects with creativity, interest and a taste for more. This project, published by the Google Chrome Team, cleverly makes the user feel as though he or she is reading a cute and engaging book, telling the story (in simple terms) of the Web, how it works, and explaining relevant key terms (such as cloud computing, web apps, HTML5 and more).

The beautiful illustrations you’ll find as you read along are simple yet super adorable, and they add to the overall look and feel of the 20 Things I Learned project (illustrations by Christoph Neimann).Reading the book from start to finish will take you less than an hour, and it will give you a solid idea of what and where the Web is today.

Fluent in 3 Months – Meet the magical website of Benny Lewis, a delightful Irishman promising to let you in on the all the language hacks out there so you can master language fluency in no time. The content you will find on Fluent in 3 Months is based on hardcore, firsthand experience: Benny was out traveling the world for seven years, meeting various nations, cultures and languages along the way.

Before he set out to his worldwide experience, Benny spoke only one language: English. This is a nice reassurance that learning a new language is more than possible, well after one’s school days are over. Fluent in 3 Months was a winner Weekly Blog, hence its Weekly Fave position. So go ahead and enjoy discovering a new language, and I suggest starting with Benny’s Language Hacking Guide. By the way, if you’re interested in additional language learning resources, check out our Language faveline on the Education page.