Problem: Article: Colored hair is often more brittle, making it more vulnerable to heat. Try to avoid overusing curling irons, flat irons, and blowdryers when styling your hair to keep the hair healthy and stop fading. If your style really requires the use of these items, then make sure you apply a heat-protectant spray first. Many of the common ingredients in hair products can dry, bleach, or strip hair dye. Look for specifically color-safe hair products while especially avoiding products with alcohol, peroxide, or ammonia, which can strip color and weaken hair. In addition to color-safe products, you should use products for your particular hair typefine, thick, oily, dry, etc.since these will promote healthier hair and counteract the drying and brittleness that dyeing hair can lead to in general. Keeping in moisture and preventing over-drying of colored hair is important to keeping the hair healthy. By using a hair mask once a week, you can help protect dark-dyed hair. Make sure the product you use is paraben free with aloe, and leave the hair mask on for a full hour with a shower cap over it to help it most effectively penetrate your hair. If you prefer hot oil treatments to hair masks, you can substitute these instead, but avoid using both unless you have extremely dry hair since both can leave your hair looking greasy. UV rays are some of the biggest enemies of hair dye. While you no doubt want to show off your lustrous locks in the sunshine, you should still try to minimize sun exposure. Use this as an excuse to show off some of your best sun hats. Obviously, no one wants to permanently avoid sunshine. Though less effective than a hat or simply avoiding UV rays, you can use a leave-in hair treatment with UV absorbers to help filter the UV rays. For effective UV absorbers, look for products with benzophenone-3 or -4, polyquaternium-59, cinnamidopropyltrimonium chloride, or butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane. Especially during the summer, the draw of pools and hot tubs can prove too strong even though you know the chlorine is terrible for dyed hair. In these instances, rinse your hair with fresh water before going swimming. By wetting the hair with regular water first, you will limit the chlorine absorption in the pool. Rinsing chlorinated water out of your hair as soon as you get out of the pool or spa will help as well, but you're still better off avoiding chlorinated water completely when you can.
Summary: Avoid overusing curling irons, flat irons, and blowdryers. Use color-safe hair products. Use a hair mask once a week. Avoid too much sun. Use leave-in treatments with UV absorbers. Stay away from chlorine.

Problem: Article: Use a sharp knife to cut the "X" shape into the chestnuts. This will make them boil more easily. Boiling chestnuts won't make them quite as tasty or aromatic, but it's a great way to quickly soften them. Wait at least 2-3 minutes until the chestnuts are cool enough for you to handle them. Enjoy these chestnuts plain or with 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon and one tablespoon of melted butter.
Summary: Boil a pot of water. Cut an X into one side of two cups of chestnuts. Boil the chestnuts for 5-10 minutes. Let the chestnuts cool. Peel the shells and the skins off the nuts. Serve.

Problem: Article: Early spring is a good time for heavy pruning because new growth hasn't started yet. When new growth does come in, it will hide the cuts you made in the tree. To shear the plant, go over the whole plant with your pruning shears. Trim the tips off all of the branches to create a more even shape. Make sure to leave at least 1 shoot at the top of the tree for new growth. Pruning shears are scissor-like pruners that have 2 long blades that make them great for shaping your plant. If you need to remove entire branches, use loppers or a small saw. The earliest you should prune these trees is mid-March, though it does depend on how early spring comes to your area. These trees continue to grow throughout the summer, so you may want to snip an errant branch here and there. It's fine to perform these cuts throughout the mid-summer. Anytime you prune a tree, you can encourage new growth. Therefore, it's best to wait until prime growing season for pruning these trees so you don't encourage it to start growing in winter. When you see diseased, dead, or damaged branches, trim them right away. Trimming off these branches is better for the health of the plant, as diseases can spread and damaged branches can be a drain on the tree's resources. When a tree is first getting established, it needs its foliage for growth. If you remove too much of its foliage, you could stunt its growth or even kill it. Prune sparingly on very young arborvitae in the first year or 2 of their life. You can trim diseased, broken, or dead branches away if you need to, as well as any branches that rub on each other. Arborvitae that are a couple of years old are more forgiving of cuts than an old tree. You can cut back into wood that is a year or 2 old, and the tree will likely grow it back. However, in older trees, it's less likely to grow back. Arborvitae really don't need much pruning in general, so you should mostly prune to keep the tree's natural shape.
Summary: Shear in early spring. Do light pruning from early spring to mid-summer. Prune troublesome branches anytime they need it. Avoid pruning very young arborvitae. Be more conservative when pruning trees that are over 2 years old.

Problem: Article: Handbrake is a free, open-source video conversion program for any OS. You can download Handbrake from handbrake.fr. You can use Handbrake to convert nearly any video into the MP4 format. Launch Handbrake and click the "Source" button. Select "File" and then browse for the video file. Click the "Presets" menu and select "Show Preset Panel" if you don't see it. The "Normal" preset will work on any computer. You can select specific devices from the "Devices" list. You'll need to name and save the converted file before you start. Make sure you save it somewhere you can find it. Make sure "mp4" is selected in the "Save as type" menu. Handbrake will begin converting your video to MP4 format. The conversion process can take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour.
Summary:
Download and install Handbrake. Use Handbrake to open the video file. Select "Normal" from the "Presets" panel. Click the "Browse" button to set the output file. Click "Add to Queue" and then "Start".