Technology

The Economic Times Wealth, August 11-17, 2014

THINGS
you can learn online for

FREE
If you have been thinking
of learning a new
language, coding,
designing, art or
cooking, Hitesh Raj
Bhagat &
Karan Bajaj
tell you how to
do so online
without paying
for them.

PHOTOGRAPHY
To learn the basics of photography, visit http://photographycourse.net. The
content on this website is laid out as per the skill level. At http://photo.net/
learn, youll find a handy collection of articlesregularly updatedand tutorials
from professionals. If you need to brush up your photography jargon, DP
Review, a popular forum for photo enthusiasts, has a comprehensive listing at
www.dpreview.com/glossary.
As for apps, Photography Tutorials by Anton Gregory is a good free app for
Android devices. It curates and organises a list of photography tutorials from
around the Internet. It has practically every techniquebeginner or advanced
that you need to know about.

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COOKING

SELF DEFENCE
You cant learn advanced self-defence
techniques or earn a black belt, but you can easily
pick up and practise basic martial arts
and self-defence techniques online. Lifehacker
has a one-page guide for basic self-defence that
can help you get out of a sticky situation. It
includes tips on vulnerable parts of the body, how
to attack, leverage your weight, basic kicks/
punches and how to administer/get out
of basic holds. You can find the guide at
http://goo.gl/gsFUBn.
For apps, you can try the Self Defense Trainer for
iOS, Self Defense for Windows and BlackBerry,
and Marine Corps Martial Arts for Android.

Cooking is a fine art. Learning to apply hundreds of

little tricks and techniques can usually take years to
master. Luckily, you can find many useful tips at
www.simplyrecipes.com (Simply Recipes also offers
a free app). At www.reluctant-gourmet.com, the
How to Cook tab will help you brush up on
roasting, poaching, grilling, frying, braising, baking
and everything in between. A handy cooking
converter at the bottom of every page can help you
convert quantitiestablespoons to teaspoons, litres
to pints, etc.
All Recipes and Epicurious are two of our favourites
apps on cooking. These are easy to use and
customised for each platform. If you also want to
learn how to mix drinks, check out the Mixology
app, also available on all platforms.

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How Dinesh
Agarwal built a
`200-crore firm
Page 29

A NEW LANGUAGE

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

Learning a new language can be fun. The

courses hosted on www.openculture.com are a
good place to start. Another great place to
learn Spanish, English, French, German,
Portuguese and Italian is www.duolingo.com.
Some languages are easier to learn than others.
For instance, if you know English well, itll be
easier for you to pick up Spanish than Russian.
Duolingo gamifies the process with rewards. It
also has free apps for iOS and Android. Other
popular services include Live Mocha and Lang8. While you learn, you also act as an editor for
someone learning your native languagethis
helps keep learning free.

For JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Python and Ruby, head to

www.codeacademy.com. The interactive website offers
step-by-step instructions to familiarise you with the
language and shortcuts. You dont even need to sign up,
but it is advisable to do so to keep track of your course
and resume from the level you have mastered instead of
beginning afresh each time you log in.
A free iPad app called Treehouse can teach you
Objective-C, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, and
SQL. There is also a dedicated section for iOS and
Android app development. You gain access to various
tutorial videos that are constantly updated. As you move
ahead in the course, you need to take a regular quiz and
complete interactive challenges.

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DANCING

ARTISTIC SKILLS

Dancing requires you to do more than just

read. That is why, if you think you can dance,
tutorial videos on various dance forms on
YouTube are the first place you should go to.
Next, head to www.dancetothis.com for an
advanced course in hip hop, pop, street, break
dance, krumping and ballroom, among others.
Remember, to really master the art, practise is
what you will need.

To learn the basicscolouring, drawing techniques, perspectivehead to

www.artyfactory.com. At http://thevirtualinstructor.com, you can find a list
of art lessons, tutorials, articles and videos curated from around the Web.
When you want to do more, head to www.instructables.com, where you can
learn a diverse array of activities from watermelon carving to making
jewellery, puppets and costumes.
As for apps, How to Draw by ArtelPlus (for iOS and Android) is a good place
to start. There is also a wide range of apps available in the How to Draw
series, with each app teaching a specific activity.