GeekSugar

Website of the Day: 1 Million Love Messages

GeekSugar — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:00:50 PDT

Want to surprise a loved one with a special message? Or maybe you want to tell a friend how much they mean to you. Spread the love on a website called 1 million love messages, where you can send your love message using text, picture or video format. To be a part of this project, which is intended to spread peace and love, go to the site and type in your name, age, location, the recipient's name, age, location, your special love message and hit send. The website will display your love message and many others from all around the world!

To learn how to post your favorite sites to the Website of the Day group, just

I know that this long list looks scary, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll be a snap the second time around.

First of all, join the Website of the Day group
Click "Create and Share!" on the left hand side
Choose "Blog"
Give your photo a Title
Leave the category as "general"
Change the channel to "technology and gadgets"
Add keyword(s) (for example mine for this photo was "Website of the Day")
Click on the "Add Image" link below the "body" box
A popup window will happen - click on "Browse" to find your image on your computer
Once you have the image chosen, click "Submit"
The popup will show you your image, choose size: "normal" - if you want, you can give it a title (which will show up as a caption)
Click "Insert" and the popup will go away
Your "body" box will now have some text in it. Leave it as is. If you want to add some text before the picture telling me why you love the website, do it before the code that has appeared.
Click Submit

So join the Website of the Day group and share information about all of your favorite sites! Yours just might end up on the geeksugar homepage!

Nighttime Fasting: A New Way to Lose Weight?

Shape — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:09:52 PDT

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Shape here on FitSugar. This week Shape turns to Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian with master's degrees in both nutrition science and public health.

If you couldn’t let anything cross your lips from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m., but you were allowed to eat anything you wanted for eight hours a day and still lose weight, would you try it? That’s the apparent bottom line of a rat study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, which recently stirred up the weight loss pot.

Top 50 Summer Diet Foods for Weight Loss

Scientists put groups of mice on different diet regimens for 100 days. One group of rodents ate healthy food while animals in two of the groups chowed down on high-fat, high-calorie feed. Half of the junk food eaters were allowed to munch whenever they wanted to while the others only had access to feed for the eight hours they were most active. The conclusion: even though they ate a fatty diet, the mice who were forced to fast for 16 hours were almost as lean as those who ate the healthy fare. Interestingly, the round the clock junk food eaters became obese and developed health problems, even though they consumed about the same amount of fat and calories as the time-restricted junk food fed mice.

See if a nutritionist thinks nighttime fasting works after the break!

How Not to Destroy Your Marriage

The Good Men Project — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:30:42 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Today, Mark Tyrrell offers eight relationship tools to make your marriage work.

"All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble." - Raymond Hull

So how do you make your marriage work? Or do you just blindly hope it'll take care of itself?

Think of a hot, successful date with someone you’re attracted to. You have fun, great conversation and more sexual chemistry than a warehouse full of pheromones. You don’t have to “work at” the date because it’s self sustaining. It runs as smoothly as the gliding hand of a classical guitar maestro and you can’t wait for another rendition.

Teenage Dating in a Twilight-Hunger Games World

But marriage, or any long term relationship; well that’s a whole other caboodle.

If we’re not careful, marriage can deteriorate into little more than a torturous assault course; littered with routine boredoms, frustrations and resentments. Couple all that with external pressures and sometimes marriage feels not worth the effort. But there are major benefits to being hitched or committed, other than just a beneficial tax regime.

Healthy marriage; healthy people.

Being happily married bestows heaps of health benefits. You might be forgiven for thinking that if you’re married you don’t live longer it just seems like it but, no, a good marriage really can help you clock up more years (1) and married people are happier (2) even though they don’t always look it from the outside.

But when marriage doesn’t work it can feel being manacled to a maniac, marooned with a misogynist or nailed to a nag. And I don’t care what the studies say, that’s not healthy. You may hear couples say stuff like: “We are making our marriage work!” but how do we do this?

Making it work.

We pay lip service to “working on the marriage” but what is the work we need to do? Marriage vows such as “to love and to cherish” and “forsaking all others, for better or for worse” don’t really tell us how to make it work, although they give us a clue.

Fortunately a ton of research has been done on what to do and not do to make your marriage, or any intimate relationship work. Follow the guidelines here to become “good at marriage."

Tip one: Be romantic but keep it real.

We are all (force?) fed romance in movies and novels. The handsome man gets the beautiful woman. But what I wonder is what happens after our romantic couple ride off into the sunset together? What do they do exactly? Bicker? Moan at one another? Start to ignore each other?

After all that romance, our beautiful couple is bound to have massive expectations of their life together. But when rose tinted expectations clash with day to reality, watch out!

Romance is vital in any relationship. Always seeing the best in your partner helps to keep things intimate and love should be expressed. But if you have been raised on Mills and Boon Romance novels or feel-good movies, then your own romantic expectations can work against the sustainability of your long term relationship.

When day to day life fails to live up to the giddy, heady lust-filled days of the pre-settled down romance people can become angry, even blame one another: “This wasn’t what I signed up for." They find it hard to take the rough with the smooth because they never really figured there would be any rough.

Expectations not diluted with at least a dash of realism can be a royal road to relationship ruin. Your partner may be an angel, but they have feet of clay. You must learn to love those feet or at least accept them a bit!

Get the rest after the jump!

Jennifer Garner Spends a Play Day With Seraphina and Samuel

Lauren Turner — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:18:43 PDT

Jennifer Garner had a busy afternoon in LA with her two youngest children yesterday. She took Samuel and Seraphina to a friend's birthday party and later popped up at a park with Seraphina. Jennifer hung out around the playground with Seraphina and helped her ride down the slide. Jen got back to her weekly routine with the kids after an exciting Mother's Day on Sunday. It was her first as a mom of three kids and her husband, Ben Affleck, showed his love and appreciation for her in a sweet Facebook message. Ben called Jen a "world-class mom" and praised all that she does for their family. Ben even gave Jen a break last Saturday when he took Violet and Seraphina out shopping and they happened to run into Halle Berry and her fiancé Olivier Martinez.

Victoria and Harper Hit London as Shirtless David Takes the Field in Canada

Allie Merriam — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:15:02 PDT

The Beckham family was spread out over three cities this weekend. Victoria Beckham and baby Harper were in the UK and were seen shopping along London's Sloane Street and at Selfridge's yesterday afternoon. David, meanwhile, was in Canada for a game with the Galaxy. On Saturday, David Beckham got shirtless to celebrate a successful match with the Galaxy. David and his teammates traveled to Montreal for the matchup, and he managed to tie up 1-1 with a free kick.

David and Victoria's three sons, meanwhile, stayed in LA. Romeo, Cruz, and Brooklyn had a fun day together yesterday playing volleyball and rollerblading in Santa Monica. David returned to the US in time to send a special Mother's Day message last night. He posted on his Facebook wall, "It's Mother's Day here in America, so lots of love to my mum Sandra and to Victoria Beckham, the mother of my four beautiful children. Also to all the mothers out there, have a great day. Hope you're being spoiled!"

Gear Review: Lark Silent Alarm Clock

Leta Shy — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:48:00 PDT

You can count me as one of the 30 percent of people who don't get enough sleep every night, so when Lark sent me its silent alarm clock ($100) to test a couple months ago, I was all about it. Since then, I've been using it pretty regularly, here's what I think of the alarm clock.

First, here's what it is: The Lark is part app (compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad only at the moment, but an Android version seems imminent), part motion-sensing wristband that vibrates to wake you up and tracks your sleep quality throughout the night. It promises to both help you wake up more naturally and without disturbing your bedmate and change your personality from sleep-deprived night owl to well-rested morning lark. Included in the package is the Lark sensor, wristband, and charging dock where you plug your wristband into when you wake up - both to shut off the vibrating alarm and ensure that your wristband has enough juice to monitor your sleeping stats for the next night. The charging dock includes a USB port to connect your iPhone charger to it, so you don't have to use two sockets for each.

Who it's for: The Lark is useful if you have a partner and you both wake up at different times. Since it's a silent alarm clock, it rouses you with a series of vibrations through your wristband, so if your normal wake-up call is earlier than your bedmate's, your partner can snooze away without being disturbed. That may or may not be valuable enough for you to justify the $100 price tag, but it is an effective solution. Besides the alarm clock portion, the Lark app tracks several sleeping stats: how many hours you slept as well as how many times you woke up during the night and how long it took you to fall asleep (both based on your movements).

Keep reading for my thoughts on the Lark alarm clock.

"Do I Have the Right to Be Upset?"

Tres Community — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:05:00 PDT

This question is from a Group Therapy post in our TrèsSugar Community. Add your advice in the comments!

I met this dude on an online dating site, because that's what people do nowadays and also I'm shy so it provides a medium for me that's less intimidating. I create a profile and in three hours we find each other and we talk from about midnight until 6am about everything pretty much. It was so rewarding after a long dry spell of nothingness and jerks. He said things like "I'd be an idiot if I didn't ask you to hang out. It would be like sitting in gold"

Anyway, we talk for a couple more weeks before we go out to dinner. HE asked ME on the date by the way. And during dinner he was very lovely, showing off his Spanish speaking skills to the busboy gal. At one point the waiter comes over and was like "wow she's so pretty" in regards to me, and he replies "yeah don't remind me. I'm like a 6 and she's a 9/10"

So he was very kind and sweet like that the whole night, saying I looked nice and asking about my life. The sentiment was returned and we ended up talking until the restaurant closed and afterwards we took a walk and talked more and more. (we went dutch by the way for the dinner)

After this we went to his friend's house, chilled, drank and talked around a bonfire. And we also kissed. And when he drove me home he was very grabby, holding into my hand and letting me rest on his shoulder.

LITERALLY the next day he calls me and says something along the lines of "I had a good time. You're so incredibly gorgeous and cool and I want to see you again." real sweet stuff

We make plans to hang out again the following week and during the interim we texted and chatted online DAILY and Skyped. During these conversations I remember him telling me explicitly that usually when he loses interest in a girl he will stop calling or texting and that he would "never" lead me on. When he hang out again it was magical and he stayed over in my apartment and we talked and kissed until like 3am before he left. During this he's saying stuff indicative of him wanting this to work out in the long run like how he wants me to meet his best gal friend and meet the parents. He's also more sexually experienced than me and he let me know that he'd "never do anything that would make me uncomfortable" and other reassuring things. Also he never really pushed for sex at all. I mean he was genuinely really sweet.

The next day we go see a movie with his friends and that's when things turned sour because I was under the impression that it would be just him and me hanging out, so already my expectations were shattered. Also he got really drunk after the movie when we went back to his friends house and he basically ignored me the entire night because you know he wanted to drink with his bros. and this is okay but my body language showed that I was bored and uninterested and he noticed and gave me a lot of shit for it. Eventually he said he could just walk me home if I was feeling uncomfortable (at this point we are already back on my campus) and so he did. All the while he was kissing me and saying things like "after tonight I'm all yours. I'll hang out with you on Sunday, I'm all yours" and I JOKINGLY said something about him wanting to get rid of me for the night and I think that may have scared him off because he went into this drunken rant about "you know, I can't be that guy who always does what you want him to" and blah blah blah. It came outta nowhere because I was literally just kidding.

More of this reader's dilemma below.

Fashion's Spring Floral Moment Feels Just as Fresh at Home

Noria Morales — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:00:37 PDT

A love affair with lush, worthy-of-an-oil-painting florals began this Spring with British fashion designer Erdem's collection featuring unabashedly feminine floral prints as its main message. Floral prints have decked everything from jeans to shift dresses in fashion this Spring, and it's feeling particularly fresh for home as well. Classic floral prints are wonderfully old-fashioned, inspiring visions of English teatime and visits to grandmother's house, but they feel of-the-moment when paired with more modern settings, or bohemian when layered with mixed textures and prints. Click through to see the floral trend, and our picks for easy ways to incorporate Spring flowers.

Getty

The Spotify iPad App: Is It Worth Downloading?

Anna Monette Roberts — Sun, 06 May 2012 09:30:44 PDT

The Spotify streaming service has taken over the music world om the past year. But while the company offers both an iPhone app and an incredible desktop application, it has neglected to create an iPad app - until this week.

The recently released iPad app is only available to premium members ($10/month); however, you can sign up for a 48-hour trial run, no credit card required. Spotify's premium membership truly is as good as it sounds: the vast music library is ad-free, offers high sound quality, and gives you offline access to your playlists. However, is the Spotify iPad app as good as the desktop app? Here are some of the pros and cons of the new Spotify iPad app (Free):

Pros:

Beautiful graphics and cover art: Spotify's iPad graphics are crisp and gorgeous. Unlike the somewhat flat desktop version, the iPad graphics practically pop out of the page. The iPad app also provides large cover art images, and as with iTunes, you can flip through the album art by swiping your finger.
Simplified design:The iPad app contains a simplified side navigation bar with only five tabs (as opposed to the 12 on the desktop), making the interface more intuitive and easier to use.
Facebook connect: While some people grumble about this, others love the ability to find new artists via their friend's profiles. The design makes it easy to see your friends' top tracks, artists, and playlists.
Text message-like inbox: In a major change in the design, track suggestions and messages sent to your inbox are organized like iPhone bubble text messages.

Keep reading to take a look at the cons.

A Cancer Survivor's Goal: 50 Triathlons by Her 50th Birthday

espnW — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:26:06 PDT

We are pumped to share one of our fave stories from espnW here on FitSugar!

By Julia Savacool

It's a good thing Jenn Sommermann discovered triathlons when she did. "I was turning 40 years old, and my friend and I were looking for a way to commemorate the occasion," Sommermann said. "We decided to train for a triathlon." Because Sommermann was on the East Coast and her friend was on the West, the two trained together virtually, exchanging workout notes and messages of encouragement. Several months later, they competed in the Danskin Women's Tri in Seattle.

"That was it, I was in love with triathlons," Sommermann said. Little did she know, two years later the fitness she gained through the sport would help her win a battle against ovarian cancer.

It was December 2006 when Sommermann received her diagnosis. She'd been feeling out of sorts for months, but had been reluctant to see her doctor.

The symptoms for ovarian cancer are subtle: Bloating, weight gain, fatigue and indigestion are all indicators for the disease, but they are also common symptoms for many women during their monthly cycle. The main difference with ovarian cancer, explained Sommermann, is the symptoms don't go away.

It was by chance she discovered the cancer - she was pressing on her stomach one night and came across a hard lump. "I called my husband over, and he felt it, too," she said. "I knew this wasn't good." She went to see her physician immediately, and an ultrasound revealed a tumor about the size of an eggplant. "I had Stage 3 ovarian cancer," said Sommermann. "I was in shock. The disease is 94 percent curable if you catch it by Stage 2. But after that, the numbers are not in your favor."

Surfing gets Anastasia Ashley through tough times

Read more about Jen's inspiring story after the break.