Don's Patch Issue #2004-08-01 from http://www.don-guitar.com I have a full time job now and have been busy with several important projects recently so I'm a little behind on my publications deadline this time. Since I'm already behind and won't have time to finish for a few more days I've decided to publish this issue as it sits. It's a little smaller than normal but should still prove entertaining. Remember, your input is always welcome. I value your suggestions and comments, and I'm always willing to help you find answers to your computer and Internet questions. My feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª Some of the craft patterns on this site are costless. http://www.earthheartdesigns.com/ A couple of Personal Information Managers (PIMs). http://www.bellz.org/treeline/index.html http://www.wiredplane.com/wirenote/info.shtml?eng Robert A. Heinlein is often called the "Dean of Modern Science Fiction". http://www.wegrokit.com/ http://home.t-online.de/home/herbsev/rah.htm http://www.heinleinsociety.org/ http://www.pulpless.com/0150.html http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ When hurricane Charley decided to swing over the Florida home of my friend Lisa Miller I went looking for weather resources on the web. As always, the search lead me in a lot of directions. http://wwwa.accuweather.com/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/weather/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ http://www.cbc.ca/weather/map.jsp http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/ http://www.almanac.com/weather/index.php http://www.fi.edu/weather/ http://www.weatherperhour.com/ http://www.intellicast.com/ http://www.onlineweather.com/ http://www.southafrica.co.za/weather/ http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ http://www.theweathernetwork.com/ http://www.weatherstreet.com/ http://www.weatherunderground.com/ http://www.weather.com/ http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/ukukstdf.htm http://www.weatheronline.com/ http://weather.portalz.us/ An odd sort of online book. http://www.extremeink.com/37/37.htm I did a search on the topic of "third world" and got some interesting results. http://www.twnso.org/ http://www.item.org.uy/eng/index.php http://friendsofthethirdworld.org/ http://www.phlog.net/user/hlvictorya http://www.upd.edu.ph/~twsc/ http://www.twows.org/ http://www.arches.uga.edu/~haneydaw/twwh/ http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/ http://www.ibiblio.org/twf/ http://www.twnside.org.sg/ http://www.twn.org/ http://home.planet.nl/~grims005/ A site with some interesting artists resources. http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/ A diversified learning site. http://www.able2know.com/ College and career planning information. http://www.adventuresineducation.org/ Adventures in sound. http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures.htm Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic in British literature. http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/ The adventures of Herman the Worm. http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/ An agricultural learning adventure for young people. http://www.ncsu.edu/project/agronauts/intro2.htm A collection of essays and discourses on traditional woodworking and antique restoration. http://www.ilovewood.com/Alburnam.htm The Amazing Adventure Series (requires Flash player). http://www.amazingadventure.com/ Adventures of Amelia the Pigeon (requires Flash player). http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/amelia/index.html Protecting human rights all over the world. http://www.amnesty.org/index.html Andrew Que's site on Fractals. http://fractals.drque.net/index.html Stanley Novak's fractal site. http://home.att.net/~Novak.S/ Famous people, funny stories. http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php Antiques of a mechanical nature. http://www.patented-antiques.com/Our_Collection_aHeader.htm The Applied Research Center is a public policy, educational and research institute whose work emphasizes issues of race and social change. http://www.arc.org/ How should I describe this one? "Off the wall"? Maybe but interesting. http://www.stardoves.com/ Argus Hamilton is a columnist and humorist. http://www.argushamilton.com/argus.htm The argument against tables in web design. http://davespicks.com/essays/notables.html "A" to "Z" of space. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A642160 ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª This publication is only mailed to verified double opt-in subscribers, and is brought to you by me, Don Crowder, and http://www.freelists.org ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª An adventurous ant named Banph. http://www.banph.com/ Official website of Batman and Superman. http://www.batman-superman.com/ A father's online musings. http://www.beingdaddy.com/ Some costless apps from Brian Atiken. http://www.brianaitkenconsulting.com/bac-software.html Brian Cryer's web portal. http://www.cryer.co.uk/ You know the feeling. You've installed an Internet Explorer add-on or two, kept some, uninstalled the rest, and now something's not quite right. http://www.nuetools.co.uk/bxman.html BrowserSizer is a low-fat, not-in-your-face tool to help web developers check to see how their web pages look on screen resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and WebTV. http://www.applythis.com/browsersizer/ Web development resources. http://builder.com.com/ This multimedia tutorial focuses on the histories of Canada's First Nations peoples from ancient times to the 19th century. http://snipurl.com/8pz9 An online photo portfolio. http://www.sixhours.net/ Learn a little about 18th century carpenter's tools. http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/spring03/tools.cfm If you have an abiding interest in chemistry here's a tool you'll enjoy. http://www.meta-synthesis.com/Products/ChemThes3.html A few children's stories. http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/stories.menu.html educational adventure series. http://www.newseum.org/chiptracer/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/laic/home.html http://www.eduweb.com/portfolio/adventure.php Would you like your own online newspaper? http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/index.html Health issues for city life. http://www.stressed-in-the-city.com/headaches.html A theory of civilization. http://www.ourcivilisation.com/index.htm The Tiempo climate cyberlibrary. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/ An online color tool. http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html Crayons as therapy. http://www.coloringtherapy.com/optimism.htm A news site from the fringe. http://www.commondreams.org/ A high-tech dictionary. http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/ and more from the same site. http://www.computeruser.com/index.html Computer help resources. http://www.computing.net/ I don't know how "cool" this stop is but it might be worth exploring. http://coolstop.com/root/ An eclectic sort of travel resource. http://www.cyber-adventures.com/ An interesting site for kids, or parents. http://www.cyberkids.com/index.html An odd sort of news site for web design. http://www.zeldman.com/ Neat stuff from David Pye. http://www.davidpye.com/freeware/index.shtml Projects for amateur astronomers. http://www.angelfire.com/id/jsredshift/ Deepesh Agarwal is a costless application programmer and aficionado. http://www.freeware-alternative.uni.cc/ Computer vision meets digital libraries. http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/vision.html Digital storytelling. http://www.cultureisaweapon.org/cdsm/ This is truly weird, but interesting. http://imaginary.puzzling.org/ A technical sort of web development site. http://www.dnzone.com/ Toys for users of Dreamweaver. http://www.dreamlettes.net/default.htm These bat stories aren't so batty. http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/echohome.html A collection of junk email. http://www.emailjunkyard.com/index.cgi A collection of facts. http://www.fact-index.com/index.html Would you believe, fathers who breastfeed. http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/milkmen.htm May be of interest to women. http://www.feminist.org/ Native Americans and Europeans in the Mississippi Valley. http://www.uark.edu/depts/contact/index.html Goodies from Florian Balmer. http://www.flos-freeware.ch/index.html A member-supported, nonprofit peoples think tank and education-for-action center. http://www.foodfirst.org/ Possibly worth exploring. http://www.free-definition.com/ Can a website be neither conservative nor liberal while claiming to be unbiased? Frankly, I doubt it very much but that's only my opinion. Have a look for yourself. http://www.freedomsnest.com/index.html There's just something unique and cool about a good local newspaper. http://www.gangtoktimes.com A US-based, non-profit organization which places international technical volunteers in developing nations. http://www.geekcorps.org/ Gender specific mass murder. http://www.gendercide.org/ Gennady Feldman's site (Win32Pad is very cool). http://www.gena01.com/ I've no idea why one would wish to convert an animated gif to a shockwave file, but it can be done without cost. http://www.segon.com/gif2swf.html Girl power, Australian style. http://www.girl.com.au/ ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was ??? ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª Reader Jacquie Albert suggested that I should have given links in the last issue to places where email hoaxes can be checked. Right on Jacquie, here's my recently updated list on hoaxes and fraud. Internet hoaxes and frauds. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/ http://www.vmyths.com/ http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp http://www.snopes.com/ http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/wtcsurvivor.html http://www.cdc.gov/hoax_rumors.htm http://www.scambusters.org/ http://www.truthorfiction.com/ http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/ http://www.nmia.com/~lhxavier/hoaxmine.htm http://www.virusbtn.com/resources/hoaxes/index.xml http://diamond-back.com/emailhoaxes.html http://breakthechain.org/ http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/if/hoax.html http://www.hoaxinfo.com/ http://www.emailjunkyard.com/index.cgi?page=hoax http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp http://fraud.org/ A good portal site. http://www.internethoaxes.info/ Hoax search engines. http://www.snopes.com/info/search/search.asp http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoax.asp Of course hoaxes aren't the exclusive province of the Web. http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/hoax.html http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/ http://www.unmuseum.org/ufohoax.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/psy_hoax.htm http://members.aol.com/calebj/hoaxes.html http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/ http://www.rotten.com/library/hoaxes/ http://www.feralchildren.com/en/children.php?tp=3 http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/great.htm http://www.texashatecrime.com/fake_hate_crimes_true_stories.htm http://www.whale.to/b/hoax.html http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/catalog/more_hoaxes.htm http://www.quackwatch.org/ http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/ http://www.flimflam.com/ http://www.quatloos.com/ ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª If you'd like to help promote this non-commercial publication, please forward this ezine to anyone you know who might appreciate it. To spare them the forwarding carets (>>>>these things) I suggest you copy/paste the ezine to a new email window, or save the ezine as a text file to be inserted, or copy/pasted to a new email. If you've received this publication as a forward and wish to subscribe you may easily do so from online forms in these two locations: http://www.don-guitar.com/subsmanager.html http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list.fcgi?list_id=4343 ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª My feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html I welcome all comments, suggestions, or criticism. The form doesn't access your email client (it's a CGI form), so your privacy is assured. If you know of a website that would be a good candidate for this ezine, please pass it on via our online feedback form (link above). Archives for this ezine are available online here: http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª Websites Everyone Should Know About These aren't sponsors, they're the best of Internet publications and I highly recommend them all. http://askTCL.com http://www.langa.com http://www.tourbus.com http://www.lockergnome.com http://www.neatnettricks.com http://www.scotsnewsletter.com http://www.tricksandtrinkets.com http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html ============== Humor ============= Being a musician, I love jokes about musicians and have found a nice collection but it's a little too large to publish in one issue so I've chosen to "serialize" the list. Here's the first installment. A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both." Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist's arm? A: A tattoo. Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion? A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo. Q: What do clarinetists use for birth control? A: Their personalities. Q: What did the drummer get on his I.Q. Test? A: Saliva. Q: What do you call a guitar player without a girlfriend? A: Homeless. Q: What's the similarity between a drummer and a philosopher? A: They both perceive time as an abstract concept. Q: What is the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner? A: You have to plug one of them in before it sucks. Q: Why do some people have an instant aversion to banjo players? A: It saves time in the long run. Q: What's the difference between a folk guitar player and a large pizza? A: A large pizza can feed a family of four. Q: What's the difference between a jet airplane and a trumpet? A: About three decibels. Q: What is another term for trombone? A: A wind driven, manually operated, pitch approximator. Q: What's the difference between a SCUD missile and a bad oboist? A: A bad oboist can kill you. ============== Tips =============== Useful information for XP users. http://windows.about.com/library/weekly/aa020127a.htm ================================= That's a "wrap". Sorry about being a few days late. See you next time. Don Crowder - September 5, 2004 2:46 AM CST - Tow, TX, USA ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª Privacy: I will never share, sell, or otherwise compromise your email address. Freelists.org Privacy Policy. http://www.freelists.org/privacy.html ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª The most important people on the Internet, for you and I as computer users, are software developers. The world's coolest computer, without software, is like a car without fuel. It might look great, but what can it do? It doesn't matter who produces the software you love and use regularly, the developers of that software need your support. A bit of advice from Internet veteran Bayard J. Fox: New computer users are often in awe of the things you can get without cost on the Internet. There can be hidden costs for the unwary. Use a "throw away" email address to register, and be constantly on guard against giving away personal information. Use a firewall, and provide only the barest minimum of information on questionnaires. ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª You can show your support for this publication by making a contribution in any amount you choose: http://www.don-guitar.com/donations.html ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª ___________________________________________________________ Subscription management for this publication is available online here: http://www.don-guitar/subsmanager.html