[donspatch] 2006-09-01
- From: "Don Guitar" <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Don's Patch" <donspatch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:47:33 -0500
Don's Patch #53 from http://www.don-guitar.com September 1, 2006
First word, from Don:
Back in 1988 I had an Apple II+ that I bought used, from my
employer, and I just loved it. Then I got a 'good deal' on a
used-but-like-new 386 with Windows 3.0 and I hated it.
Windows was awkward, kludgy, buggy, and hard to figure out.
That was several computers ago and, by now, Windows makes
a little more sense to me but I'm still not excited about it.
Debian Linux excites me. My friend Mark L. Donaldson 'nailed
it' when he described Linux as 'counter-intuitive'. In retrospect,
it was a lot easier to learn Windows 3.0 but that's just part of the
story. The only extra software that came with my Windows 3.0
box was Word Perfect and it didn't have a modem so no internet.
The only graphics application it had was MS Paint and it cost me
over $500. My 333 MHz Dell OptiPlex cost me $10 at a flea market
(complete with mouse, monitor and keyboard). I added better video
& sound cards, a larger monitor and expanded the RAM before
installing Debian Linux so by now my total investment has gone
up an order of magnitude to around $100. Debian Linux cost me
nothing and as for software, well, I don't have room to list it all here
but the highlights are, Firefox, The Gimp, Open Office dot org,
and, if you're interested, you can see the rest of the list here:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/
I catch a lot of flack from 'serious' Linux users because Debian
is harder to learn than any of the distributions which are based
on it, like Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix, Kanotix, Xandros, Freespire
or DSL, to name a few but every obstacle I've overcome in Debian
stable has remained overcome. I haven't had to 'fix' anything, I've
just had to learn it. They aren't kidding when they say 'stable'.
It really is a rock solid, dependable, reliable, steady,
good-to-go operating system and as time goes by it just gets
better instead of becoming less secure and more costly.
Sure, I'll keep my Win2K box for a while longer but when the folks
at Microsoft decide to stop supporting it I'll know enough about
Linux to make a relatively non-traumatic changeover because I
have bought my last Operating System from MS. That's just
how it is.
Don
Don's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
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Lisa's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/81825549
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Good site for teachers. http://www.4teachers.org/
American Folklore. http://www.americanfolklore.net/index.html
What's the greatest software ever written? http://snipurl.com/v0yr
I think this one may be on the musical fringe.
http://www.aural-innovations.com/main/main.html
Australasian legal info. http://www.austlii.edu.au/
The Internet, like any meaningful human endeavor, has as much
potential for harm as good. There aren't too many caped crusaders
on the web but there are good guys and bad guys. Ben Edelman
is one of the good guys. http://www.benedelman.org/
ecto is a desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows.
http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/
Performancing is a similar app for Firefox.
http://performancing.com/
Reading matter.
http://www.bookblog.net/
http://www.litblog.com/
http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/
A brief overview on the Internet.
http://www.chaffee.net/theinternet.cfm
Chris Pirillo's blog. http://chris.pirillo.com/
An online religious resource. http://www.churches.net/
College humor (Warning: Not necessarily family-friendly).
http://www.collegehumor.com/
Link sharing for the seriously educated. http://www.connotea.org/
Forums for crafty folks. http://www.craftster.org/
Wherever you find people, you will find people who point and make
ooh, ooh noises. http://www.crank.net/
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Cathay Williams, the only documented female Buffalo Soldier.
http://snipurl.com/7va8
Documents in law, history and diplomacy.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
Ashes and Snow, an artistic media experience. Stunning.
http://www.ashesandsnow.org/en/index.php?page=/home.php
A mom's eye view and resources on amblyopia.
http://www.tfn.net/~kate901/amblyopia.htm
How to break all 10 commandments before breakfast. Short film,
has sound. http://www.coudal.com/smithvideo.php
For people who make websites. http://alistapart.com/
100 words and pictures that define today. http://www.tenbyten.org/
Gluten-free recipes. Real food, real good.
http://www.celiac.com/st_main.html?p_catid=20
The Gluten-Free Girl.
http://snipurl.com/vl87
Tons of computer tips and software.
http://www.worldstart.com/tips/index.php
Virtual baby album. http://www.virtualsoft.biz/en/index.html
One of my favorite comics. http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/
Would you like to be an escribitionist?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escribitionist
Here are several choices.
http://snipurl.com/vl65
http://snipurl.com/vl68
http://www.tsm-soft.com/diary/index.html
Erich Maria Remarque was a very interesting person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maria_Remarque
How to find lost objects.
http://www.professorsolomon.com/index.html
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subscriber count for this publication was 341.
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This issue's collection of news/magazine/informational sites
(these are chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ).
http://www.netmag.co.uk/
http://www.dotnetrocks.com/
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
http://www.ctv.ca/
http://www.current.org/
http://www.energybulletin.net/
http://jaie.asu.edu/index.html
http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/
http://www.mediavillage.com/
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/
http://www.apa.org/monitor/
http://www.nationalreview.com/
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Spending money isn't always the only way you can get stuff.
http://www.barternow.us/
http://www.tradeaway.com/
http://www.u-exchange.com/
http://www.ctebarter.com/
http://www.mistrade.com/
http://www.swapace.com/
http://www.swapthing.com/
http://www.trashbank.com/
Michael Arrington's web 2.0 blog. http://www.crunchnotes.com/
A useful source of Debian Linux info. http://wiki.debian.org/
General resources for Linux.
http://www.faqs.org/docs/minis1.html
http://www.linux.ie/newusers/beginners-linux-guide/
Diana Mertz Hsieh warts and all. http://www.dianahsieh.com/
Museum Victoria now has two websites devoted to dinosaurs
and other prehistoric animals.
http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/dinosaurs/
While this material was put together for use in the ACES 100
Discovery Class, much of this information is usable in many
different classes covering a variety of topics.
http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/ACES100/
a dot net resource. http://www.dotnetbips.com/
Eurovision Song Contest Helsinki 2007.
http://www.esctoday.com/
Excel Tutorial. http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel/index.html
To get a closer look, use a lens. http://www.squidoo.com/
A home for storefront fiberglass mascots from around the world.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/fiberglassmascots/
A site for anyone who's still using Windows 98.
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec060902.html
A huge recipe repository. http://www.foodyoucaneat.com/
A book which belongs to whoever finds it.
http://freewords.org/front.html
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Fascinating, vast site about World War I.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/
Flash cards of all kinds.
http://www.chinapage.com/flash/love.html
http://education.jlab.org/elementflashcards/index.html
http://www.edu4kids.com/index.php?page=12&TB=2
http://members.tripod.com/spanishflashcards/
All about heraldry. http://www.heraldica.org/
Ever wonder if you're being gaslighted?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)
We've listed this before but it's a hoot. Click on the
horses one by one to hear them harmonize. Has sound, obviously.
http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf
Make your own hypertufa creations. Costless instructions or buy
the books. http://www.timpyworks.com/about/what-is-hypertufa.php
I've been playing this Google video every couple of days for
the last couple of weeks. Amazing. Thanks, Chris (the juggler).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640&hl=en
Resources for parents, teachers and students.
http://www.lessontutor.com/
The articles on stress are particularly good.
http://www.livingonadime.com/
Defeating violent memories. http://www.witwords.com/memories.cfm
The FBI's Ten Most Wanted. Is that you, Uncle Bob? Dang!
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted.htm
This site's just for Military Brats, there are a lot of them!
http://www.military-brats.com/
Crossword puzzle help. http://oneacross.com/
Funny poems for kids of all ages. http://www.gigglepoetry.com/
Commercial art of mid-century America. http://www.plan59.com/main.htm
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Independent music in the finest American tradition.
http://www.garageband.com/
Where the girl ends and the Geekette begins.
http://www.girlgeekette.net/
A horse named Gonzales Joe Bailey.
http://www.gonzalesjoebailey.com/
Ivy League Google. http://scholar.google.com/
What's that book worth? http://snipurl.com/vof0
An interesting site but for some reason it made me think of
Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. http://www.thegreenlife.org/
A football (American) blog. http://heismanpundit.com/
The History Place. http://www.historyplace.com/
I don't think I've mentioned the Internet Movie DataBase recently.
An excellent resource for movie lovers. http://imdb.com/
All the facts and figures of the world.
http://www.maya.com/infocommons/index.html
It's about empowerment. http://www.empowerinfo.com/
The Institute of Physics. http://www.iop.org/
Internet Basics 101. http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/start/
Have a nice chat with a computer. http://www.jabberwacky.com/
Joel Spolsky's blog. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
Justin Mason's blog. http://taint.org/
Edible lawns
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/007611.php
and other interesting stuff.
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
Easy, hip environmentalism.
http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com/
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Insight into abusive relationships.
http://psychcentral.com/library/id88.html
Useful clipboard utility. http://www.shortkeys.com/lite.htm
Simple fermented beverages. http://www.homebrew.net/ferment/
Sunrise, sunset calendars. http://www.sunrisesunset.com/
Artificial skin.
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1298/de98ski.htm
Tides Online. http://tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/
Do not adjust your television set...
http://www.scifi.com/outerlimits/
"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it
is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of
sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of
both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just
crossed over into... the Twilight Zone."
http://www.scifi.com/twilightzone/
Made up words. http://www.unwords.com/
The how-to manual that anyone can write or edit.
http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page
Nemo Concepcion, master yo-yo man, in this Google Video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1521652625313866419&hl=en
Yo-Yo history and fun in this informative site.
http://www.mryoyo.com/index.html
Beginner to advanced winemaking.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/index.asp#menubar
Free yourself of lip-balm addiction.
http://www.kevdo.com/lipbalm/
Big bands database. Cool music instruction pages. http://nfo.net/
Bet you didn't even know you had a vomeronasal organ.
http://neuro.fsu.edu/~mmered/human.htm
In my opinion, a valid anger-management technique involves
1 1/2 yards of duct tape and a baseball bat. Perhaps it's
a little more complex than that.
http://www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html
Why optimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
http://www.youmeworks.com/selffulfillingprophesy.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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Librarian's blog. http://www.librarian.net/
The Digital Library of India. http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/
Costless audio books. http://www.librivox.org/
A searchable database of potentially useful information.
http://lists.evolt.org/harvest/
Night photography of the abandoned American west.
http://www.lostamerica.com/
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
http://www.mackinac.org/
Mars time data. http://www.marsbase.net/
The Virtual Body. http://www.medtropolis.com/VBody.asp
Who likes Musicals? http://musicals.net/
The Myelin Project is an international grassroots
organization whose mission is to accelerate medical
research on myelin repair. http://www.myelin.org/
This looks like a sort of over-the-back-fence forum.
http://www.mylot.com/
Militant-sounding eco-consciousness. http://www.nrdc.org/
don't really know what the "Marcel Duchamp Studies Online
Journal" actually is, but the site navigation is pretty darn cool.
http://www.toutfait.com/
To me this looks like MySpace without the hype.
http://www.freeopendiary.com/
'OSI' Sounds like a government agency but it's anything but.
http://www.opensource.org/index.php
AFS is a distributed filesystem product.
http://www.openafs.org/
Don Genova is a Canadian journalist who specializes in writing
and broadcasting about food and travel.
http://www.pacificpalate.com/
Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to
be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or
Server 2003. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects,
and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
============== Humor =============
A little humor courtesy of my
web sibling, Vinette Dephillipe.
A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not
saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument
and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As
they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the
husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?"
"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."
A husband read an article to his wife about how many words
women use a day; 30,000 to a man's 15,000. The wife replied,
"The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything
to men." The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"
============== Tips ===============
Ask Dave Taylor. http://www.askdavetaylor.com/
The Digital Education Network. http://www.actden.com/
Firewall Q&A.
http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/reference/firewalls1.html
======== Reader Contributions =========
Links from readers are always welcome and
you can even write your own link descriptions
if you like. Guidelines are available here:
http://www.don-guitar.com/descriptivetext.html
=================================
Here's a mini-feature on unwanted mail/email inspired by reader,
and friend Frank Brown. Useful stuff.
http://www.41pounds.org/
https://www.directmail.com/directory/mail_preference/
http://preference.the-dma.org/
http://www.stopthejunkmail.com/
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
http://snipurl.com/von3
http://www.emsl.com/
=================================
From reader and friend, Irving Stein.
http://www.irvings-info-page.cityslide.com
=================================
Computer problem report form.
http://www.onethirty.org/problem_report.html
Throw a note in a bottle. http://www.oceangram.com/
A site for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or
experimental music and instruments.
http://www.oddmusic.com/
Old time radio. http://www.radiolovers.com/
Designed for everyone who wants to avoid computer crashes.
http://www.secretmaker.com/
Irv says that this is a useful app despite having no support.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~philippo/PolderBackup.htm
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From reader and friend Ken Thomson
=================================
The BBB online. http://www.bbb.org/
A fun time-killer. http://www.bored.com/
BrowserSpy can tell you all kinds of detailed information about
you and your browser. http://gemal.dk/browserspy/
Fred Langa's Browsertune. http://www.browsertune.com/
Here's how you can access some popular media sites without
being required to register. http://www.bugmenot.com/
Lots of stuff for cat-lovers. http://www.catchow.com/
=================================
From web sibling Vinette DePhillipe.
http://360.yahoo.com/vinette1
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http://snipurl.com/vonw
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From my web sibling Jo-Ann Burton.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/
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Alive in Truth: The New Orleans disaster oral history & memory
project. http://www.aliveintruth.org/
The dark side of the web. http://www.darklinks.com/
The official two letter abbreviations for U.S. States.
http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/usps_abbreviations.html#states
Worldwide tropical cyclone names.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml
Who's a chocoholic? http://www.cadburydairymilk.co.uk/
Healthy food. http://www.whfoods.com/
The best ads on TV. http://www.bestadsontv.com/main.php
Einstein Light. http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/
Vintage comics. http://www.barnaclepress.com/
The best thing since...............
http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/
Do I need a jacket? http://www.doineedajacket.com/
=================================
Last word, from Lisa:
Lately we've been having some adventures in e-shopping for not
only tangible goods but services such as insurance, financial
advice and online education. See our personal news page for
more. I will be starting a job soon that will require
food-safety certification and TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage
Commission) certification. These two courses and exams are
now available online in Texas, very convenient in a state
where long-distance driving is a fact of life. When I first
moved here I was fond of saying, "These people work for gas!"
That's not far from the truth.
So, next time you need something, whether it's a bicycle tire
or financial advice, just "Google it", you may be pleasantly
surprised.
'Til next time,
Lisa
Lisa's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/lfefo.html
Don's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
Lisa at myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/81825549
Lisa's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/81825549
Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar
Don's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/donguitar
Our personal news page.
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html
Don Crowder and Lisa Miller
Friday, September 1, 2006
8:47 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
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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
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