[donspatch] 2007-12-01

Don's Patch #83,  December 01, 2007  from http://www.don-guitar.com 
 
First word, from Don: 
 
I'm typing this on the same computer I've been using for the last two years
but there has been a change.  Last week its Operating System was Windows
2000 Pro; this week its operating system is Debian Etch.  I bought a used XP
machine on eBay.  I can't very well give up using Windows when most of
our readers are still using it, but I'm making Windows my secondary
computer and Debian Etch (Linux)  will become my primary Operating
System.  I was awfully tempted to go with PCLinuxOS because it would
run wonderfully on this computer and doesn't require any geeky post-
install tweaking, it's pretty much plug-and-play, but Etch is, by now, a
dear and trusted friend who's earned my loyalty.  That was geek-speak
by the way, so let me give you the behind-the-pretty-words analysis.
1.  In apples-to-apples performance tests PCLinuxOS and Debian Etch
ran at the same speed.
2.  No other distro offers the range of software choices available in
Debian.  PCLinuxOS has newer versions of most applications but
most serious computer users know that "newest" doesn't always
equal "best".  Nuff said.
3.  The relatively minor amount of geeky tweaking required by Etch
is my personal substitute for alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs.
I enjoy every moment of it.

Another thing I enjoy every moment of is reading the rare but
precious email we get from our thoughtful, insightful and very
erudite readers.  Have we heard from you lately? 
 
Don
 
Our feedback form (goes to both of us):
http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html 
 
Our personal news page. 
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html 
 
Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar 
Don's blogs. 
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/eldergeek/ 
http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ 
 
Lisa at myspace.com.  http://www.myspace.com/81825549 
Lisa's blog.  http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/dirtgoddess 
 
 
Section One by Don. 
 
Olive is 108 years old and I've mentioned her before but I
find myself visiting her blog often because it's good reading.
http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/

Making fun of English.   http://www.innocentenglish.com/

Get the word out.   http://messagebot.com/

Obsolete computer museum.   http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/

What's the best time to call your web friends other countries?
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html

Talk about your evil-bad stuff on the web.
http://www.malwarecomplaints.info/

A Central U.S. Genealogy resource.
http://www.looktothepast.com/

Need a wiki for your club, organization, social group, school or
business?   http://www.socialtext.net/open/index.cgi

An interesting keyboard customization.  The videos wouldn't play on
my Linux system but the images are sufficient for demonstration.
http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml

If you threw "Show and Tell" into a blender along with MySpace
and the Library of Congress I think it'd all come out looking like
the LibraryThing.     http://www.librarything.com/

Seems to me like comic strips aren't quite as good as they used to be
but there's certainly a lot more of them out there now.  Note:  While
I screened these for content, you may not see the same strip I did.
http://www.starslipcrisis.com/
http://www.beaverandsteve.com/
http://www.tangentine.com/index.php?go=zoo
http://www.digitalstrips.com/
http://www.patrickgreyonline.com/
http://www.hatesong.com/
http://www.moderntales.com/comics/almamater.php
http://www.headinjurytheater.com/
http://www.scenelanguage.com/

I found this site when I lost sound on my Win2K system.  It didn't help
me any and the sound is fine now that the computer is Debian Etch but
maybe it'll help someone else.   http://www.nosystemsounds.com/

Crafts, recipes, games, health, holidays, parenting, and more.
http://www.kaboose.com/

End of Section One.  
 
 
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 
 
 
Section Two by Lisa 
 
Well, 'tis the season to send out cards and *some* of us don't know
how to print envelopes in Open Office.  Once again, I've found that
Solveig Haugland, Open Office instructor, has come through with the
best tutorial I've seen.   http://Ooenvelopes.notlong.com

As an added bonus, to get a hint on the most likely orientation for
envelope-printing for your printer, check under the paper on the tray
itself.  Sometimes there are little icons stamped on the tray itself that
includes envelopes.

Reference library for reading and writing PNGs.
http://www.libpng.org/

Would you like to learn how to podcast?
http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/index.htm
http://www.wise-women.org/tutorials/podcast/

Remember the Bitter Beer Face commercials?  Perhaps
I'm easily amused.   http://bitterbeer.notlong.com

Web site tutorials, tips and resources.   http://websitetips.com/
and even more;    http://webdesignfromscratch.com/

A wonderful illustrator, Alex Dukal.
http://www.circografico.com.ar/

Simple, genuine site for wine lovers.   http://corkd.com/

Very nice resource for Photoshop tutorials.
http://tutorialmad.com/

Being allergic to all corn products, I can only have sodas
that are still made with real sugar, not corn syrup.
Here are some of my favorites.
http://mexicoke.notlong.com
http://www.dublindrpepper.com/
http://www.novamex.com/jarritos.sstg
http://www.jonessoda.com/

This commercial site has lots of interesting info about
alternative energy.   http://home.altenergystore.com/
 
Will Harris is a talented, literate web maven.
Beautiful site, too.   http://www.will-harris.com/index.html

Find your favorite famous person.   http://www.who2.com/

Radio Hall of Fame Inductees.  Find your old heroes.
http://www.museum.tv/rhofsection.php 
 
End of Section Two. 
 
 
At the time this issue was posted, 
the current subscriber count for 
this publication was 386. 
 
 
This issue's collection of news, 
magazine, and/or informational 
sites (chosen for maximum 
diversity regardless of "spin" ). 
http://thispublicaddress.com/
http://gnuhaus.com/iblog/index.html
http://www.paradoxicallystrange.co.uk/index.asp
http://www.townhall.com/
http://www.fresnobeehive.com/
http://www.online-information.co.uk/index.html 
http://www.reviewforreligious.org/new.html
http://www.hollowear.com/
http://www.nimblespirit.com/index.htm
http://www.therevealer.org/
http://www.christiananswers.net/
http://www.cssr.org/
http://www.somareview.com/
(here's a cool video I found on the last site)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvB3FWk8Xss

 
Section Three by Don. 

I was researching free web space and I found some sources...
http://www.freewebspace.com/
http://www.150m.com/
http://members.freewebs.com/
but nothing like the list they keep at thefreesite.com:
http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space/

The war to end all wars.   http://www.firstworldwar.com/

I'm an animal-lover, how about you?   http://www.bestfriends.org/

This is just another take on link-collecting; content collecting.  Some of the
things listed aren't the least bit family-friendly so tread lightly.
http://www.clipmarks.com/

Share your expertise.
http://www.answerbag.com/
http://wiki.answers.com/

Folks chipping in.   http://www.ephilanthropy.org/site/PageServer

Everybody wants in on the video market now don't they?  Here's a good
one from myspace.   http://myspacetv-cats.notlong.com

I had a guitar moment a couple of days ago and had to go googling.
http://www.johngoldie.co.uk/home.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8902201048813633160
http://www.donalder.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vocEYP0NsI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPISjNvBuo4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35vLDWE50I
http://www.rogerwang.net/

I have a friend who's link to the web is with a glorified cellphone.
He's got no keyboard and typing is a tedious endeavor so he uses all
sorts of odd spellings, abbreviations and acronyms.   I'm often forced
to refer to netlingo in order to "translate" his email.
http://www.netlingo.com/inframes.cfm

I'm pleased by the fact that most of my childhood heroes, like superman...
http://members.tripod.com/~davidschutz/supermanmusic.htm
...keep coming back, again and again.
http://www.supermanhomepage.com/news.php

Here's a midi collection of movie theme music.  My Linux computer
won't play midi files, I think I need a particular software app from
the repository but don't know which one it is and haven't googled for
it yet.  *grin*  I don't like midi music anyway.
http://www.elite.net/~gurpal/movie1.htm

If you're one of those Windows users  who says "I'd use Firefox but IE is
just faster, this is for you.   https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/

If you've seen Linux users who have a cool little system performance
meter/monitor thingy on their desktop and felt envious, here you go.
http://www.tiler.com/freemeter/

I love digital clocks.  No single piece of technology liberated me more
that ten dollar Casio watches.  I have trouble reading an analog
clock.  Weird, but true, still, if you like them, this is for you.
http://clocx.php5.cz/

This is a totally unacceptable security risk to me but a total must-
have for some folks.   https://www.logmein.com/
 
End of Section Three. 
 
 
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Section Four by Lisa. 
 
State of Entropy web graphics.
http://www.state-of-entropy.com/home.htm

Useful, costless software from Serif.
http://freeserifsoftware.com/

Here's a cool toy!  Man-in-the-Dark; pull him around with
your mouse, click to make new men and neat patterns.
http://www.maninthedark.com/ 

Ever wonder which Content Management Systems CMS would fit
you or your company best?  Here's a way to test-drive the best
of Open-Source CMS apps.   http://opensourcecms.com/

Make your own giant-size poster from your image with this app.
http://www.posteriza.com/es/index.php?lang=en_US

Mark McIntyre offers his web album generator, website builder and
musical alarm clock.  Thanks, Mark.   http://www.ornj.net/

Our friend Dean Hamack (http://www.bushidodesigns.net/) sent us
this link, stating this site is invaluable for learning about web design.
http://www.sitepoint.com/

I enjoyed this site.  The author tells you how he became interested
in frugal living, the hard way.  http://www.thesimpledollar.com/

Lost your password?  Google can find it for you, yikes!
http://lostyourpassword.notlong.com

ZenCart is the OpenSource (costless) shopping cart application
for your commercial website.   http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php

The average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year.
Reclaim your mailbox.   http://www.41pounds.org/

Wouldn't it be cool to borrow almost anything?
http://neighborrow.com/index.html

Thousands of great costless fonts.   http://www.dafont.com/

I've heard a lot of good things about this costless web site
development site for beginners.   http://www.1stsitefree.com/

Resources for teachers and parents.
http://www.teach-nology.com/

One of the best costless blogging platforms, used by everyone from 
major corporations to political campaigners to personal bloggers.
http://www.movabletype.com/

Need a legal form of any kind?  Bet you can find it here.
http://www.ilrg.com/forms/

It's estimated that up to 10% of computer users have disabilities,
so designing and maintaining a site for accessibility is crucial, for
business and personal applications.  Here's a costless e-book
addressing the subject.   http://diveintoaccessibility.org/
 
End of Section Four. 
 
 
Our feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html 
 
We welcome all comments, 
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Section Five by Don. 
 
Most of us eventually learn, usually the hard way, to back up the files
which are most important to us.  A catastrophic computer crash can,
and probably will, wipe out all of our most precious files and there's
no good reason why we should have to experience such a traumatic
event. There are just too many good ways to avoid such problems.
If you have a CD or DVD burner on your computer, there are many
software solutions for backing up your valuable data.  For example,
read through at least the first page of alternatives offered by
majorgeeks.com (many are without cost).
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads3.html
XP has built in CD burning capabilities, if you happen to have a
CDRW drive, but it's not very user friendly so the Ultimate CD/DVD
Burner is a nice little utility you can add to your toolbox.  There's
not a worthwhile information page on this one so here's the actual
download link.   http://www.mispbo.com/burner30.zip
If you'd rather get to it via their circuitous navigation, start on
this page.   http://www.mispbo.com/index.htm

Lisa and I have purchased three USB drives which each hold two
(2) Gigabytes of data.  We periodically back up our most important
files to these drives as well as burning CDs.  There are several
brands of these available and they can be purchased in about
any office product, variety chain, or electronics store but we
bought ours online at newegg.   http://www.newegg.com/

Just lately, since I've been swapping from one computer to
another, I've been using a great plug-in called Foxmarks
http://www.foxmarks.com/

Even if you only have one computer, there are plenty of places
where you can store your browser favorites/bookmarks  and
in most cases you can "visit" them from just about any computer.
http://www.mybookmarks.com/
http://del.icio.us/
http://www.linkagogo.com/
http://www.frech.ch/online-bookmarks/
http://www.spurl.net/
http://www.myvmarks.com/
http://www.backflip.com/
http://murl.com/splash/
http://www.myhq.com/
http://www.netvouz.com/
http://www.zoogim.com/
http://www.onlinebookmarkmanager.com/
http://www.startaid.com/
http://google-bookmarks.notlong.com
http://sitebar.org/
http://www.finety.com/index.php?lang=uk (language challenged)
http://www.easybm.com/ 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scuttle/

Do you need a social network for your social networks?
http://www.flock.com/
 
End of Section Five. 
 
 
Archives for this ezine 
are available online here: 
http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ 
 
The current issue is also 
available on our website. 
http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html 
 
RSS feed is available via this link. 
http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/feed.rss 
 
 
Section Six by Lisa. 

Dilbert's Unified Theory of Everything Financial.  No joke.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/10/dilberts_unifie.html

Thirdage, a magazine for our Third Age.   http://www.thirdage.com/

This is just the time of year to think about knitting.
http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com/

Do you know your online rights? 
http://www.chillingeffects.org/index.cgi

Biography of James Garfield, the twentieth President
of the United States (1881). 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jg20.html

Dwayne Melancon's s lifehacks, tips, opinion, and information.
http://www.genuinecuriosity.com/

News about the heart/mind connection.
http://www.thegoodheart.com/

A smart treatise on stupidity.   http://gandalf.it/stupid/home.htm
The whole site is intriguing.   http://gandalf.it/home_en.htm

Relatively new MRSA (methillicin-resistant S. areus) staph infection
has been a concern for some time in the medical community, now
the rest of us need to know more about it.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_mrsa_ca_public.html

Play Hangman while learning the Table of Elements. This is fun!
http://education.jlab.org/elementhangman/prob221.html

The Audio section of Salon.com has lots of free music in "Song of
the Day".    http://dir.salon.com/topics/audio/

There are many occupations that can be second or third careers.
http://www.discovernursing.com/
http://chronicle.com/jobs/2004/08/2004081101c.htm
http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/success/20021008-richards.html
http://secondcareer.notlong.com

If you can't find your favorite list of bests here, write your own
and send it in.   http://www.listsofbests.com/

Gearlog, gadgets by geeks, for geeks.  http://www.gearlog.com/ 
 
End of Section Six. 
 
 
The Linux Corner. 

Linux still doesn't have much of the desktop market but the IT industry
loves them.   http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9821140-16.html

Most Linux applications come with a manual which is accessible from
a command line terminal.  They're referred to as "Man" pages and many
of them are also available online.
http://linux.die.net/man/
http://www.penguin-soft.com/penguin/manpages.jsp

The Linux Foundation.   http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Main_Page

Linux self-help.   http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/

One of my favorite Linux applications is Konqueror, the KDE browser.
Of course it's a lot more than just a browser.  Here's the story.
http://KDE-Konqueror.notlong.com

Good news for non-profits.   http://nosi.net/


Our friend Lee Parmeter is the driving force behind our local 
Highland Lakes Linux User's Group   http://www.hllug.org/ 
Here are a few links he's posted to that list.

Windows users who skip our Linux section are simply going to miss a
very good thing by not seeing this one but this is where Lee's contributions
go and he's a diversified, and highly knowledgeable fellow so here's one
for Windows users.  If your XP system is running slow and nothing
you've tried so far has helped, try this.   http://ms-pagedefrag.notlong.com

I think this may be the newest member of the *buntu family.
Minibuntu.   http://minibuntu.crealabs.it/


A Little Humor. 
 
http://humormatters.com/jokeof.htm

 
Tips for This Issue. 
 
Linux Tips.
http://www.pallier.org/ressources/linux_howtos/linux_howto.html

James Eshelman's Windows Support Center.
http://www.aumha.org/

A beginner's tutorial on Windows 98.
http://www.bcschools.net/staff/Windows98.htm

 
Contributions From Our Readers. 
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 

From our web sibling Patrick Barden. 
( http://rrwbushangel.blogspot.com/ )

New and used books, movies and music.   http://www.alibris.com/ 

A social network for music and video.   http://www.orbitdownloader.com/

For the most popular news.   http://groxx.com/

Very cool images of Washington, DC.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musely/1977925616/ 

Anybody want a shark break?   http://www.sharkbreak.com/


From our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton:
( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ )

Odd information.   http://www.odd-info.com/

A sort of new take on the concept behind a viewmaster.  Some
folks can't see these.  What works for me is to cross my eyes
slightly.   http://www.aolej.com/stereo/gallery.html

Complain in annonymity.   http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

An interesting blog (Almost a newsletter).
http://www.boogiejack.com/AlmostNews/aan135.html

Gadgets for the home.   http://www.smarthome.com/_/index.aspx

Life in America.   http://www.lifeinamerica.us/

The reference desk.   http://martindalecenter.com/

Antique Corsets.http://www.antiquecorsetgallery.com/
This one reminded me of another.   http://www.corsetiere.net/

Biblical manuscripts project.   http://alpha.reltech.org/BibleMSS.html


Our web sibling Jerry Fox sent us a link to this interesting
flash media presentation from the Canadian Bible Society.
http://Ecclesiastes3-1-8-11.notlong.com


Our web sibling Bill Lanoue (who's decided he likes the Texas version
of his name, "Beeyil") sent this link to a DIY paper Tux (the Linux
penguin) toy.   http://makeatux.notlong.com


Our web sibling John Lepse sent this link to a very interesting
history-oriented blog.   http://delanceyplace.blogspot.com/


Our new web sibling Terri Martin-Goin (who's also Beeyil's
significant other) sent a couple of good links for this issue.
Do you have trouble remembering birthdays?  This should
help.   http://www.birthdayalarm.com/Default.jsp
Here's a few Christmas funnies.
http://d21c.com/emma3/hoho/funnies.html

New contributor Dan Urban sent links to the art of Guido
Daniele...   http://www.guidodaniele.com/   ...and this cool
video.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le3IYfz0uak

My daughter Catrina Lofgren sent this link for a toothpaste
sample.   http://www.tryarmandhammer.com/


Lastly, here are three links from new contributor Tom Lumsden.

Trade stuff online.   http://www.tradestuff.com/

Used stuff exchange.   http://used.recycle.net/exchange/

The One Red Paperclip trading post.
http://www.1redpaperclip.com/tradingpost/

Editor's note:  There may actually be a few of you who haven't heard
the "one red paperclip" story, so here's a link to that interesting tale.
http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/


Thanks Patrick, Jo, Jerry, Bill, John, Terri, Dan, Catrina and Tom.


Last word, from Lisa: 
 
Time for a change here in Texas and in the Crowder household.
The weather's getting chilly (finally; it's mid-November), there's a
hint of anticipation in the air.  Maybe it's the season, maybe it's the
fact that mom's entered the Hospice program.  Anyway, we feel a
change in the air, and in our lives.

As usual, the adventure continues...

Lisa 
 
Our feedback form (goes to both of us):
http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html 
 
Lisa at myspace.com.  http://www.myspace.com/81825549 
Lisa's blog.  http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/dirtgoddess 
 
Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar 
Don's blogs. 
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/eldergeek/ 
http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ 
 
Our personal news page. 
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html 

 
Don Crowder and Lisa Miller 
Saturday, December 1, 2007 
1:15 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA 
Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas 
 
 
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