4 Sites That Teach You How to Do Anything

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

What’s cooler than a treasure chest? Building and burying one, of course! Then you get to find it again, feel like a pirate, wear an eyepatch, and everyone’s happy. Plus, in THIS economy… treasure chests are still awesome.

Whether it’s building a treasure chest, hand-washing clothes, or surviving a bear attack, there are resources on the Web that help you learn how to do, build or make just about anything you can think of. There are videos, step-by-step instructions, and more, all designed to give you sweet skills in any field.

These sites are all free, all easily searchable, and are all great ways to learn how to do something new – even if it’s “How to Grow a Green Lawn Without Water.” Who wouldn’t need to know that, right?

Here are four such sites – between these four, you’ll become a do-anything ninja.

Howcast

Howcast is all about videos – videos on everything from “How to Clean a Cassette Player” to “How to Dine Out With Young Children.” The videos offer simple (often tongue-in-cheek) instructions that make learning these skills simple. Each video starts with a list of what you’ll need, and then walks you through all the necessary steps and information, breaking everything down in a way anyone can understand.

Some of the videos are more funny than useful – like the “How to Survive a Bear Attack” video that kindly reminds you to bring your killer right hook and/or a change of underwear, just in case of a bear attack. The funny ones are worth watching anyway, and they’re outnumbered by the ones with practical information that’ll help you learn how to do any of Howcast’s tackled subjects.

WikiHow

WikiHow is a Wikipedia-style handbook for how to do anything. It’s created, edited and maintained by the community, and anyone can edit any page. Sounds like it wouldn’t work for a How-To, but it does – in the same way Wikipedia manages to work. There are some strict guidelines for users as far as how to put an article together, which makes for a simpler, more consistent read across the site. All the articles have short, simple steps, and everything is kept to a minimum to make actually doing things easier.

The cool thing about WikiHow is that since anyone can contribute, there’s a ton of articles about how to do somewhat random things – whatever people know how to do they tend to share, regardless of how niche-friendly it might be. There are some not-so-useful and not-so-necessary articles, but if you search around the site a bit, you’ll find something cool (plus, the treasure chest).

eHow

eHow is a huge resource of instructions, both written and video, on how to do just about anything. The site boasts over 500,000 articles and videos, all created by professionals – the quality here is often higher than on a site like WikiHow.

You can browse the articles by category, see the most popular eHows, or search for what you need. There are ratings and comments on every one, which gives you a sense both of how good the article is, and what it might have missed. As always, people are pretty smart, and everyone’s got their tips on how to do things a little bit better – the community part of eHow is one of its best features.

Instructables

Instructables is all about DIY (Do It Yourself) projects. It’s a huge repository of how to pull together household objects or cheap parts, and make something cool out of them. Like DIY Infrared Goggles. Who wouldn’t want Infrared Goggles?

Most of the articles have a video associated, and they’re all broken down into simple steps, always with lots of pictures to make life even easier. Instructables is the perfect site if you’re looking for something useful to do on a Saturday, or if you feel like that empty cigarette pack might just make a perfect flash for your camera.

What’s your favorite how-to on the Web?

Photo: tstadler

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