[donspatch] 2006-03-01

Don's Patch Issue #2006-03-01 from http://www.don-guitar.com

First words, from Don:

Howdy folks.  We've had some computer adventures and vehicle
problems lately but all that's on the personal news page so I won't
bother with it here.  I'm just going to jump right in and get on with it.

Don

Don's feedback form:  http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
Lisa's feedback form:  http://www.don-guitar.com/lfefo.html

Our personal news page.
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html

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The top ten little-known science stories of 2005.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=112

Lisa and I have both installed OpenOffice.org on our computers and
feel that it's a really great (and costless) thing to have.
http://www.openoffice.org/
But if you're on a dial-up connection and the thought of a huge file
(ninety megs) puts you off, Abiword, at a little over five megs, is
worth considering.   http://www.abisource.com/

The Australian Bureau of Statistics.   http://www.abs.gov.au/

The U.S. National Ag Safety Database.  http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/

I don't often have a use for messengers (ICQ, AIM, Yahoo) but when
you're away from home they offer a way to keep up with friends and
relatives.  Even if you don't have your own computer along with you,
if you can gain access to the web, several sites offer web access
to messenger services.
http://www37.meebo.com/
http://www.iloveim.com/
http://www.e-messenger.net/
http://www.aim.com/get_aim/express/aim_expr.adp
http://webmessenger.msn.com/
http://www.clientless.net/
http://www.msn2go.com/
http://www.icq.com/icq2go/

Abandoned and little-known airfields.   http://www.airfields-freeman.com/

Little known facts about the American revolutionary war.
http://www.state.de.us/facts/ushist/revfacts.htm

American Museum of Natural History.   http://www.amnh.org/

This commercial site is worth exploring just to see examples of
their work.   http://www.animallogic.com/home.html

Archiving Early America.   http://earlyamerica.com/

Enabling Digital Resources for the Arts and Humanities.  http://ahds.ac.uk/

One of my readers asked for some American Sign Language resources, so,
here are some sites that relate to ASL and the hearing impaired.
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/
http://www.montana.edu/cybertour/languagearts/kto5/
http://www.masterstech-home.com/ASLDict.html
http://www.deaflibrary.org/asl.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ia/andycat/asl.html
http://www.signwriting.org/
http://www.lifeprint.com/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/asl.shtml
http://wowway.com/~ggwiz/asl/
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/asl.asp
http://www.signmedia.com/info/asl.htm
http://www.funbrain.com/signs/index.html
http://www.surfnetkids.com/games/signlanguage-c.htm
http://www.aslinfo.com/

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This publication is only mailed to verified double opt-in subscribers,
and is brought to you by me, Don Crowder, my wife, Lisa Miller,
and http://www.freelists.org

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National Song of India. Spellbinding production.
Don't miss it.    http://snipurl.com/n0gm

Public access to info on molecular biology.
http://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/

I wanted a "quickie" image to send to a friend and googled
"Cheshire Cat". Found this talented and bold artist, Pavel Novak.
http://www.hotely-on-line.cz/galerie/novak/index.htm

Multimedia gallery/library of images, sounds,
videos, etc.   http://gallery.hd.org/index.jsp

Resources for East Asian language and thought.
http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/

The history of economic thought.
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/

Animals, their environments, care, and keeping.
http://netvet.wustl.edu/e-zoo.htm

Everything you need to know about email.
http://www.emailbattles.com/

Passion and science, like fork and spoon.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lilyth/

A history and a timeline of evolutionary thought.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/evothought.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/evotmline.html

Lesser-known facts about WWII.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/facts.html

Grid computing in research and industry.
http://www.gridforum.org/

The Guggenheim Museum.
http://www.guggenheim.org/

Unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/

Annoyed with IE-Only sites? So are we.
http://ie-only.com/index.php

An easier way to see if Hurricane Katrina victims
are OK.   http://katrina.im-ok.org/

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At the time this issue was posted, the current
subscriber count for this publication was 307.

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This issue's collection of news/magazine/informational sites
(these are chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ).
http://www.americustimesrecorder.com/
http://www.anti-com.com/weblog/
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/
http://www.betanews.com/
http://www.biblicalrecorder.org/
http://www.boissevainrecorder.mb.ca/
http://www.recorder.ca/
http://www.celebnewswire.com/
http://www.csmonitor.com/
http://countrysidemag.com/
http://www.ciul.ul.pt/EMIS/journals/NYJM/
http://www.nola.com/
http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/index.html
http://www.hollywood.com/news/
http://www.chron.com/
http://www.idnproshop.com/idnworld/
http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/news/default.asp
http://www.informationweek.com/
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=HomePage
http://www.jordantimes.com/
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/

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It's been a couple of years since I mentioned that BaxBex offers
several costless utilities that I like a lot.  I use several of these
but BxNewFolder and Open Expert are particular favorites.
http://www.baxbex.com/products.html

As much as I dislike websites which have embedded sound files, the
percussion track on this page is pretty cool, and if you click anywhere
on the image (shown on the page) it's interactive too.
http://www.antirom.com/sophie/html/latin.html

Hey, I've no use for Buddy icons to use in AIM but if you like them
you can get them here.   http://www.imbuddy.net/

Why am I suddenly listing IM sites?  Well, I've been using instant messaging
to get real-time help with my Kubuntu Linux box.  Messengers can be very
useful things and they're great for keeping up with distant friends and
family,
but I don't like using the ICQ, MSN, Yahoo or AIM messenger clients because
they're large downloads, resource hogs, potential security risks, and
oftentimes
a pure nuisance to set up and use.  I much prefer to use a single client
that will
interface to some or all of the major messenger systems.  Messenger clients
of this variety are usually quite small and lack the ability to access all
of the
bells and whistles offered by the various services.  Unfortunately, some of
those
bells and whistles are valuable advertising but hey, sometimes we're
required
to make sacrifices to get what we want, such is life.
For Windows users, Easy Message is a good choice.
http://www.easymessage.net/
Gaim is not only multi-protocol, it's also multi-OS, being available for
Linux,
BSD, MacOS X, and Windows.   http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
PSI is another multi-protocol, multi platform client.  http://psi-im.org/
For KDE Linux systems, Kopete is a very good multi-protocol messenger
client.  http://kopete.kde.org/
There are other places where one can learn about instant messaging but
take a grain of salt to use with the advertising.
http://www.bigblueball.com/
http://www.instantmessagingplanet.com/

Is it me, or is there something predatory about tracking one's IM buddies?
http://www.imwatching.net/

Why are Internet Greeting Cards dangerous?   http://snipurl.com/n0g7

Once upon a time there was a little desktop kitty named Felix
http://www.don-guitar.com/dltoys.html
who got a gig with Purina.  http://www.catslikefelix.co.uk/index.asp

A few years ago I bought a Schauer Model BX2 six volt battery charger,
manufactured in 1949, for a couple of dollars.  I converted it to a twelve
volt charger and it's been a real workhorse ever since.  I got curious
about the company that made this charger and found them on the
web.  I also found a very nice instructional page written for general
automotive type battery chargers.
http://www.battery-chargers.com/charging_instructions.htm

Charles Nardone, whom Lisa and I know as "Chah-lee Nahd-own"
(accents on the first and last syllables) was once the sort of lawyer
who terrorized everyone in the courtroom with his brilliant wit and
unshakable demeanor.  Nowadays, he's a gentle soul who loves
his beautiful wife Nelda, cooking, digital photography, Italian food,
life, and people.  This is his blog.   http://chasnar.blogspot.com/

Cooperative Institute for Deep Earth Research.
http://www.deep-earth.org/

When it comes to coffee, all I like is Folgers Hazelnut.  I dislike
most other flavored coffees and really dislike Starbucks so I
didn't see anything interesting on this site, but, if you're a coffee
aficionado, check it out.  http://www.coffeegeek.com/

Connexions is a growing collection of (costless) scholarly materials
and a powerful set of (costless) software tools.  http://cnx.org/

This page is dedicated to the admirable works of Douglas Adams.
http://www.empirenet.com/~dljones/

Diabetes UK.   http://www.diabetes.org.uk/

Periodical images.   http://www.picture-newsletter.com/

images piratical.    http://beej.us/pirates/

Things old and mostly commercial.  http://www.plan59.com/

I'm not making a moral judgment hear, I watched the video and
found it interesting.  If you're patient enough to wait for it to load
you might agree.   http://www.pokelondon.co.uk/index.php

This is interesting.  Click on the About link to learn what Andrew
Lee means by Portable.   http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php
More Portable apps.   http://portableapps.com/
Stand-Alone is, in this case, a synonym.   http://standalone.atspace.org/

Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought.
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html

PovertyNet.   http://snipurl.com/n0hq

Every time I clicked on Start/Programs, my Win2K computer only
showed me the programs I'd used most recently.  That really annoyed
me, so I found a fix.   http://snipurl.com/n0hs

Scholarly journals online.   http://muse.jhu.edu/

Quick Measure is a U. S. Customary / Metric measurement converter.
http://www.voguemechanics.com/index.asp?Page=quickmeasure

Old time radio, for a fee.   https://umdrive.memphis.edu/mbensman/public/
Otherwise.   http://radiolovers.com/

Recently we had an interesting house guest who, for health reasons, prefers
to consume only raw foods.   http://curezone.com/blogs/f.asp?f=67&t=58990

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This is so cool. Type in your zip code and find the field
strengths for all the radio stations in your local area.
http://www.v-soft.com/ZipSignal/default.htm

Kerry Mitchell's beautiful fractal art.
http://www.fractalus.com/kerry/index.html

Costless fractal generators.
http://www.eclectasy.com/Fractal-Explorer/index.html
http://www.fractovia.org/uberto/

Like most fun things, this can make you a little dizzy.
But you always end up home.   http://earth.google.com/

Believe it or not, there was a "real" science called Phrenology
that claimed to establish a link between the human character
and the shape of a person's head. Get real.
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/overview.htm

Restoring faith in humanity, one story at a time.
http://www.heroicstories.com/

An unusual and elegant painter, Pierluigi Isola.
http://www.spamula.net/blog/archives/000235.html#000235

Exploration of global ethics.
http://www.weltethos.org/dat_eng/index_e.htm

Google beta. Find, create, or browse groups.
http://groups.google.com/

We, like a lot of people, loved Herb Alpert's sound.
http://www.spaceagepop.com/tjb.htm
http://www.tijuanabrass.com/

All kinds of graph paper. The designer may be obsessive,
but, who cares?   http://incompetech.com/

Weird research, anomalous physics. Tons of very cool
science stuff.   http://amasci.com/weird.html

Home remedies for people.
http://barefoot_lass.tripod.com/index-4.html

Home remedies for pets.
http://kitchen.robbiehaf.com/PetHomeRemedies.html

Hone your communications skills.
http://www.toastmasters.org/

Glass and porcelain insulators are collectors' items.
http://www.insulators.com/

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Back in 19(mumble) I bought a nifty little musical instrument
that I liked and have since owned several of them.
http://www.americanrecorder.org/
http://www.srp.org.uk/index.htm
http://www.hants.gov.uk/hrs/index.html
http://www.earlymusic.gil.com.au/history.htm
http://www.diabolus.org/guide/recorder.htm
http://snipurl.com/n0io
http://www.recorderhomepage.net/index.html

While researching the preceding musical instrument, I found
this site on the History of Recording Technology.
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/notes.html

It's about nostalgia.   http://www.retrojunk.com/

Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources.
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/psr.htm

A Photo History of Richmond, Virginia.
http://richmondthenandnow.com/

I'm going to rate this film PG-13 for strong language.
http://www.ecvogel.com/rothschultzproductions/

Role Playing Games, World Wide.
http://zeke.tzo.com/rpgww/

International rural development.  http://www.iirr.org/

Telecommunications history and info portal.
http://www.samhallas.co.uk/telecomms.htm

Saraphina.   http://www.saraphina.com/

Scanner Recorder is a (costless) audio recorder that is
primarily designed to record speech.
http://www.davee.com/scanrec/

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Archives for this ezine are available online here:
http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/

The current issue is also available on my website.
http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html

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Organization to promote communication among researchers,
scientists, artists and writers. Image and meaning. Great images.
http://web.mit.edu/i-m/image13big.htm

Auto insurance tips from a commercial site.
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/insurance/articles/index.html

Shakespeare Online from the University of Victoria.
http://ise.uvic.ca/index.html

A nice power-users toy for Windows.
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/

Wildfire is an Open Source, cross-platform IM server.
http://www.jivesoftware.org/

Joey Green's Famous Brands and wacky uses for products.
http://www.wackyuses.com/index2.html

Internet file sharing need not be illegal. This project was
developed by Penn State University for research facilitation.
http://lionshare.its.psu.edu/main/

Sound recording software for Windows.
http://www.looprecorder.de/

All about the Middle Ages.
http://www.themiddleages.net/index.html

Multi-touch graphical computer interactions.
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

National Geographic has lots of great stuff.
http://snipurl.com/n0kf
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html
http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/

National Lightning Safety Institute.
http://www.lightningsafety.com/

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.
http://www.newadvent.org/

NASA's Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

The National Security Archive.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html

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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

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Scientific news.   http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/

Very nice work from some very talented people.
http://www.secondstory.com/

If you live anywhere near San Diego, California and
are a lonely senior citizen, here's a resource for you.
http://www.seniormuttmatch.com/

Are you over 55?  Would you like to make a new friend?
Meet Walter.  http://www.seniorloop.com/

Interactive inanity.   http://www.antirom.com/sophie/html/minigen.html

Email inanity.  http://www.siglets.com/

Simpsons archive.   http://www.snpp.com/

SPI is a non-profit organization which was founded to help organizations
develop and distribute open hardware and software.
http://www.spi-inc.org/

Tursi's Dolphin page.   http://www.harmlesslion.com/dolphins/

On eating disorders.  http://www.something-fishy.com/

An informational page from Microsoft.   http://snipurl.com/bw1v

A wealth of diverse information.   http://www.suite101.com/

Stephen Wolfram:   A New Kind of Science.
http://www.wolframscience.com/

Mark Stivers' cartoons.   http://www.markstivers.com/Cartoons/

============== Humor =============

Musician's Humor, Part XII

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says
before he gets kicked out of a band?
A: "When do we get to play MY songs?"

Q: What's the difference between a tuba and a vacuum cleaner?
A: You have to turn one of them on before it sucks.

Q: How do you define a perfect pitch?
A: When the Saxophone lands in the MIDDLE of the dumpster.

Q: What do you call a musician with a college degree?
A: Night manager at McDonalds.

Q: Why are violas larger than violins?
A: They aren't. Violists heads are smaller.

Q: How are trumpet players like pirates?
A: They're both murder on the high Cs.

============== Tips ===============

http://www.itarchitect.com/tutorials.jhtml
http://www.komando.com/
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/index.html
http://www.livinginternet.com/
http://doit.ort.org/course/index.htm

======== Reader Contributions =========

Reader George says Flashmute is a worthwhile tool.
http://www.indev.no/?p=projects#flashmute
George's favorite browser is Opera
http://www.opera.com/
and he suggested this site as a good Opera resource.
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera

My friend Irving Stein is a hopeless "email junkie" who
sends me occasional links and endless volumes of
forwarded articles and jokes.  Irv's also one of the online
computer experts at http://www.allexperts.com
where his identity is "Irving S".  you might also enjoy his
website:   http://www.irvings-info-page.cityslide.com
Here are a few sites that Irving sent me:

When hyperlinks don't work in Outlook Express or MS Word.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823301

 Information Avenue from CloudEight.
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/

Test your connection speed.
http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/

Who want's a disposable email address?   http://www.jetable.org/en/

Need to be reminded of anything?  http://www.memotome.com/

Tech help from Michael Stevens.  http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/

A sort of music search engine.   http://www.pandora.com/

Photos of Paris.   http://snipurl.com/kqyj

Jo-Ann Burton is a wonderful friend.  We didn't grow up together,
and we've never met in person but she's my sister.  I harvest
links that she posts to her Yahoo group (to which I belong).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/
Here's a few, from Jo-Ann:

The Center for Public Integrity.   http://www.publicintegrity.org/

An online scrapbook community.  http://www.scrapbookeronline.com/

The Slip-Up Archive (bloopers, mistakes).  http://www.slipups.com/

Which Internet phone service is best?
http://www.slate.com/id/2121742

When you need to get off the phone.   http://sorrygottago.com/

The sports cliche list.   http://sportscliche.com/

Sports KnowHow.   http://www.sportsknowhow.com/

Political cliches.   http://www.sportscliche.com/politics/

Sushi pictures.   http://msittig.freeshell.org/imgs/bento//

The Internet Tourbus archives.   http://archives.tourbus.com/

Vice Presidents magazine.   http://www.vicepresidents.com/

WBAI Public Radio from NYC.   http://archive.wbai.org/


Here are a few links from reader and friend John Lepse.

Bored?  http://www.bored.com/

I can't figure out the purpose of the main site (John probably
couldn't either) but we both loved the 404 page.
http://www.lookitsme.co.uk/404_me

Artistic, interesting and humorous if not 100% family friendly.
The films of Mitchell Rose.  http://mitchellrose.com/

Bikers with meaningful attitude.   http://www.patriotguard.org/

Iraqi artist, Qassim Sabti.   http://www.qasimsabti.com/

Would you care to participate in a somewhat explosive manner of
rating internet videos?   http://www.videobomb.com/

Here's one from my long-time friend, reader, and web sibling
Vinette DePhillipe.  The Hunger Site is but one of a family of
sites where anyone can make a real contribution to a meaningful
cause, every day, simply by clicking on a link.
http://www.thehungersite.com/

Thank you George, Irv, Jo, John and Vi.

=================================

Last words, from Lisa:

We've had an interesting week, interesting because we
find balance everywhere. For example, because we've
become so aware that time is fleeting and the most
important thing is relationships with people, we've
consciously made the time to make friends, keep friends,
and strengthen family ties. We have found that with a
little bit of temporary difficulty, friends and family
offer whatever they have to help.
We thrive on balance. And coffee. And soft peppermints.

Lisa

Lisa's feedback form:  http://www.don-guitar.com/lfefo.html
Don's feedback form:  http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html

Our personal news page.
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html

Don Crowder and Lisa Miller
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
12:30 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA
Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas

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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.

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http://www.don-guitar.com/donations.html

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