Don's Patch #90, March 15, 2008 from http://www.don-guitar.com Online version: http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html Archives: http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ First word, from Don: I was doing some research on audio cables, for a friend of mine, this afternoon when it occurred to me that I'm no longer consciously aware that I'm using Debian Etch (Linux), this is just "my computer". Once in rare while I turn on my Windows machine to find a file that I never got around to transferring but, for the most part, I never think about it. In our last issue I didn't get the reader contributions posted and by now I've got a fair accumulation of links. In case you haven't puzzled out the method in our madness, each issue contains six sections, each of which contains at least eighteen links. I compose three of those sections and Lisa does the other three. The media section contains a baker's dozen (13) links and the Linux section usually contains everything I've gathered into my Linux folder or thirteen links, whichever comes first. I let the readers section grow to whatever size is required but for this issue I've made some temporary changes to accommodate a couple of busy readers. Our lives have become relatively frantic of late but I still wake up in love every morning so life can just bring it on. I'm ready for it. May each of you also enjoy the best of love, luck and happiness. 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 blogs. http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/dirtgoddess http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ Section One by Don. I quit drinking years ago but still find the ads amusing. http://www.absolutad.com/ Speaking of ads, some of these are also amusing. http://adbusters.org/spoofads/index.php As are these. http://commercial-archive.com/ I don't list a lot of goodies for the Mac, because they seem to be few and far between, but sometimes I get lucky. http://www.adiumx.com/ Is your birthday in Pi? http://www.facade.com/legacy/amiinpi/ A hot issue? http://www.anti-dmca.org/ A hot issue! http://www.antispywarecoalition.org/ This audio illusion is weird, but cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugriWSmRxcM I personally have less than no use for all the cutesy things people post on myspace but if you're a junky, here you go. http://www.bigoo.ws/ These folks spend a lot of energy trying to sell stuff but there's also some interesting reading on the site. http://www.bmonster.com/default.php Lot's of folks consider this app a must-have for Windows. http://www.ccleaner.com/ Elementary folks, it's elementary. http://www.webelements.com/ Um, I think this is another form of social networking site. http://clipmarks.com/ Strange and interesting videos. http://creativity-online.com/ Teaching resources from what Walt Kelly's Pogo characters used to refer to as the gumint. http://www.c-spanclassroom.org/ An odd sort of multimedia, anti-tobacco site. http://www.ownyourc.com/ It's got wings. http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ Depending on where you live in the U.S., you might find this site helpful at some point. http://www.generalcode.com/webcode2.html Multimedia History at OSU. http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/ 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 An ancient Hispanic tradition, milagros have evolved into interesting comtemporary jewelry. http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa052.shtml The FBI will teach you how to take legible fingerprints. http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/takingfps.html Morbid but kind of cute. http://www.weddingringcoffin.com/index.php I didn't know this, now I do, grapes and raisins are poisonous to dogs. http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/raisins.asp A taste of home for our troops. http://www.treatthetroops.org/ Welcome to the Thinking Fountain. http://www.thinkingfountain.org/ Soapmaking and soap bubbling. http://members.aol.com/oelaineo/soapmaking.html http://soapbubbler.notlong.com http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/bubbles/bubbles.html Taking control of your diabetes. http://www.tcoyd.org/homepage.php The Whole Mouse Catalog. http://www.rodentia.com/wmc/ There's an old saying that how a person treats a waiter is a window into their personality. Perhaps it's true. http://treatwaiter.notlong.com A wonderful site celebrating the Art of the Print. http://www.artoftheprint.com/index.html Coin collecting is a fascinating hobby. http://www.mycoincollecting.com/ http://coincollector.org/ http://www.coinsite.com/ Patent medicine, the Great American Fraud. http://nostrums.notlong.com The history of eyeglasses. http://www.teagleoptometry.com/history.htm End of Section Two. At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was 390. This issue's collection of news, magazine, and/or informational sites (chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ). http://www.nss.org/adastra/ http://www.advertising.com/index.php http://www.adweek.com/aw/index.jsp http://www.antiwar.com/ http://www.architecturaldigest.com/ http://www.britishv8.org/ http://www.constitutionpreservation.org/index.htm http://www.culinate.com/home http://www.datelinehollywood.com/ http://www.democraticunderground.com/ http://www.encircling.us/ http://www.ew.com/ew/0,,,00.html http://www.guidrynews.com/ Section Three by our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) Note: Jo doesn't actually send me links; I subscribe to the digest version of her Yahoo group and save the digests. Later I extract a few links which she herself has posted to the group (to which other list members occasionally post) to use in each issue of our ezine. I'm two years behind her list postings and some of the links have gone bad but that's ok because a few of them have evolved into even more interesting sites. A lexicon of invented words. http://www.intellectualpoison.com/newwords.html Numbers from 1 to 10 in over 5000 languages. http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml GU Jian, or simply Jane, sings beautifully, albeit in a language I don't understand, has some tempting recipes and interesting photos on her personal site. http://www.gujian.net/default.htm A 15,139 word palindrome (or palindromic sentence). http://www.norvig.com/pal1txt.html Ardalambion of the tongues of Arda, the invented world of J.R.R. Tolkien. http://www.uib.no/people/hnohf/ A colorful, visual, graphic alphabet. http://www.pbase.com/abbarich/coloured_alphabet The first international collection of tongue twisters. http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/index.htm Online home of the Brady Bunch. http://www.bradyworld.com/ Famous unsolved codes and ciphers. http://elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html Sacred labyrinths. http://www.logicmazes.com/labyrnth.html Joseph Reed's alphabets. http://www.josephreed.net/alphabets/ The history of sandwiches. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SandwichHistory.htm Greek-American red-dyed Easter eggs. http://www.kued.org/productions/greeks/recipes/eggs.html Useful expressions and greetings in 26 languages. http://www.nypl.org/branch/central/dlc/df/useful.html Lace typography. http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/ Miland Brown's world history blog. http://www.worldhistoryblog.com/ Top skylines of the world. http://www.diserio.com/top15-skylines.html The ultimate guide for sheriffs. http://ultimateguideforsheriffs.com/ End of Section Three (Thank you Jo-Ann). 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/list/donspatch Section Four by Don. If you use online email (via website interface), here's a good resource for you. http://www.emailaddresses.com/ Using up to date communications to help preserve archaic communications forms. http://emeld.org/index.cfm How much is your foreign currency actually worth? http://www.x-rates.com/ disquieting. http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm If you have a fast connection, you should be using a firewall. http://www.firewallguide.com/ A geeky, strange comic. http://www.comics.com/comics/fminus/ Have time to kill? http://www.funshun.com/ Gravity Probe B. http://einstein.stanford.edu/ Imagine the universe. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Are you a Java greenhorn? http://www.javaranch.com/index.jsp Can you remember some strange little song that kids sang on the playground. Here's one I recall. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/Bunnyfoofoo.shtml English Lit. http://www.luminarium.org/ Online medical dictionaries. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ http://www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd/ http://www.online-medical-dictionary.org/ Mike Walker's blog. http://www.fullduplex.org/ An odd sort of blog. http://www.oddee.com/ The Open Source analog of Skype is Wengo. http://www.openwengo.org/ My niece Genie's photoblog. http://genierobinson.blogspot.com/ Supporting blind and partially sighted people in the UK. http://www.rnib.org.uk/ Computer wallpaper. http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=wallpapers http://www.asu.edu/alumni/association/wallpaper.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southwest/nature/lookandlisten/wallpaper/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southwest/fun/wallpaper/pages/pond.shtml http://www.tc.umn.edu/~sorem002/wallpaper.html http://www.bucknell.edu/x995.xml End of Section Four. Our feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html We 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). Section Five by Lisa. We have actually had this argument at home. http://www.snopes.com/science/nailgrow.asp Refining the life you live into the life you love. http://www.polishingstone.com/index.html The Acedemic Skills Center of Dartmouth College. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/ Taking medicine safely. http://nihseniorhealth.gov/takingmedicines/toc.html Television addiction is a reality. http://www.tri-vision.ca/documents/TV_Addiction.pdf Beautiful Natural Metal Art. http://www.beetlesculpture.com/index.htm Kodak has some nice tips, tricks and projects for you. http://photoprojects.notlong.com History of the non-medical use of drugs in the United States. http://drughistory.notlong.com Test-taking strategies. http://taketests.notlong.com Taking time off from a traditional classes before, during, or after college. http://www.takingoff.net/ The geometric sculpture of George W. Hart. http://www.georgehart.com/sculpture/sculpture.html Teacher resources and lesson plans. http://www.theteacherscorner.net/ The photography and philosophic perspective of Kay Westhues. http://www.fourteenplacestoeat.com/ The Literacy Web at the University of Connecticut. http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/ A vast repository of cartoon knowledge. http://www.toonopedia.com/ Lisa Shea is a multitalented naturalist. http://www.lisashea.com/ This one has sound, but it's worth looking at. http://www.timebanks.org/ Everything you'd want to know about tree-rings. http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/ 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 a reader known only as Lesley. ( Lesley's blog: http://miraclehands.blogspot.com/ ) Good computer security info but not for the technically challenged. http://security-wizardry.notlong.com love of music. http://www.imeem.com/ http://www.slacker.com/ Make your own community. http://www.simplemachines.org/ Generate a website, download for free. http://www.dotemplate.com/ CSS menu maker. http://www.cssmenumaker.com/ Great list of freeware apps. http://www.mnsi.net/~jhlavac/freeware/ Find Ebay spelling mistakes. http://www.fatfingers.co.uk/Default.aspx Free Computer Training, some with videos. http://www.gcflearnfree.org/ Interesting 5 minute videos. http://www.5min.com/ 3D Building Universe, many beautiful worlds inside. http://cybernetworlds.com How-To Videos. http://learnhowto.tv/ Love of movies. http://tesla.liketelevision.com/ http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/ http://www.archive.org/details/movies http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/public_domain.php http://emol.org/movies/ http://publicdomainmovies.info/ http://www.publicdomainflicks.com/browse/title/1/ http://www.pdcomedy.com/ http://www.movieorganizer.com/default.asp Funny videos. http://www.bobandtom.com/gen3/laugh_hole.htm Open Source Living. http://www.osliving.com/ Web app that lets you quickly and easily create photo galleries that can be added to your website or blog. http://www.pictobrowser.com/ Service which you can use to create customizable forms, surveys, or databases. http://foigo.com/ With this service, you can enter in a keyword, hobby, or interest into the search box and Buddy Fetch will search for matches from the following networks: AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, Skype, Paltalk, Myspace, OKCupid, IMVU, Hot or Not, NETLOG, Tagged, Black Planet, MocoSpace, WAYN, Zwinky, eSPIN-the-Bottle, YouTube, Hi-5, Stumble Upon, Book Of Matches, Plenty of Fish, LavaPlace, Consummating, and Facebook. http://www.buddyfetch.com/ Collect your favorite videos. http://vodpod.com/ Monitor in real-time who is actually reading any pages of your blog. http://whos.amung.us/ Social Poster and increase traffic to your blog/site. http://www.socialposter.com/ 40+ Free Blog Hosts. http://mashable.com/2007/08/06/free-blog-hosts/ Graphics Generators. http://www.redkid.net/generator/generator.html On This Day In History sites. http://www.brainyhistory.com/ http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day http://today.answers.com/ http://www.scopesys.com/anyday/ http://www.scopesys.com/today/ http://www.nationalpastime.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/default.stm http://www.capitolhillblue.com/todayinhistory2.shtml http://www.boston.com/news/history/ http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/tih/tih_e.html http://www.canoe.ca/CanoeClassic/home.html http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TodayInHistory/ http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/history/ http://www.historychannel.com/today/ http://www.historyorb.com/today/index.php http://www.iisg.nl/today/en/ http://www.imdb.com/OnThisDay http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/archive.html http://datadragon.com/day/ http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/today.html http://snipurl.com/lkyw http://www.rotten.com/today/ http://www.todayinsci.com/ http://search.teach-nology.com/today/today2.pl http://www.historynet.com/today_in_history http://www.on-this-day.com/ http://www.440.com/twtd/today.html http://www.todayinhistory.com/ http://www.tnl.net/when/today http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/history/EventCalendar.html http://www.weatherforyou.com/history/ End of Section Six (thank you Lesley). The Linux Corner. The top 50 proprietary programs that drive you crazy and their open source alternatives. http://50-OSS.notlong.com Amazon's MP3 downloader for Linux. http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html Another 'Linux inside Windows' alternative. http://www.andlinux.org/ A very nicely done, Fedora based, Linux distro from Canada. http://www.blagblagblag.org/ Info on Linux home networking. http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/ HowtoForge provides user-friendly Linux tutorials about almost every topic. http://howtoforge.com/ If Linux ever rules. http://pctonic.blogspot.com/2008/03/if-ever-linux-rules.html Recent adventures have helped me find two alternative Operating Systems which are superlative replacements for Windows 95/98/SE/ME on older hardware. One is Linux and the other is BSD. [ What is BSD? http://kb.iu.edu/data/agom.html ] The first, KateOS (Linux) is an installable live CD so it's easy to give it a try without altering your existing computer. http://www.kateos.org/ PCBSD, unfortunately, doesn't offer a live CD; it's installable from two CDs. http://www.pcbsd.org/ Both Operating Systems run nicely (and quickly) on 400 to 600 MHz systems and offer the best off Open Source applications like, Firefox, Thunderbird and the Gimp (to name a few). Once upon a time, a fellow named Linus Benedict Torvalds took an Operating System, called Minix, which was designed as a classroom demonstration and started tinkering with improving and enhancing it. Before long he made a post to a Minix group and Linux was born. http://beginningoflinux.notlong.com Linux forums. http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/ Section Seven by our good friend and neighbor Steven Scott. Steven recently purchased a new Dell laptop equipped with Windows Vista and he's been exploring Linux via the use of live CDs. He's on the fast-track to becoming a very knowledgeable web geek. He also plays a mean guitar. I don't know anything about Adobe Air but it sounds interesting. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7254436.stm Creating a Windows based live CD can be done using BartPE but it's legality is questionable and some technical acumen is required. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/intro/ Occasional defragmentation of the hard drive is vital to the continued health of any Windows computer. Here are some alternatives to the built-in tools Windows provides. http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/ http://www.vcsoftwares.com/SpeeDefrag.html http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/ http://wincontig.mdtzone.it/en/index.htm This site can help you keep up with some Windows apps. http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm Speeding up Firefox. http://www.pctipsbox.com/firefox-can-be-faster-4-easy-tricks/ Become a high-flying virtual pilot. http://www.flightgear.org/ Add video to your website. http://flowplayer.org/player/ Dosbox sounds fairly geeky but it's not that complicated... http://www.dosbox.com/information.php?page=0 ...and, once it's installed, it opens the door for some cool games. http://www.jrok.com/games_orig.html One way to beef up your geeky side is to watch Jimmy Ruska's videos on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/jimmyrcom There's a confusing array of media players out there. This site can help you decide which one suits you best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_media_players After researching some of the many user complaints about Vista, Steven got interested in the possibility of giving himself ready access to one or more additional Operating Systems. http://apcmag.com/node/5162/ http://pctipsbox-db.notlong.com http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/ End of Section Seven (thank you Stevie). A Little Humor. Q: How do you get down from an elephant? A: You don't get down from an elephant, you get it from a goose. What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about? Q: What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A: A nervous wreck! Two guys walked into a bar. They should have ducked. A hot dog walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and says, "We don't serve food here." Q: Where does a test tube baby live? A: In a womb with a view. Andrew: Dad, do your socks have holes in them? Dad: No, they don't. Andrew: How do you get 'em on your feet? Tips for This Issue. Barry's best. http://www.barrysbestblog.com/ info HQ. http://www.infohq.com/Computer/computer_maintenance_tip.htm Easy. http://www.easycomputertips.com/ 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/ ) Wallpaper from Patrick. http://www.don-guitar.com/romanrw.html Patrick and I both have young relatives in our families who thing a great deal of author Tamora Pierce. http://www.tamora-pierce.com/ Patrick isn't as old as I am so he doesn't remember when "stereo" was a brand new concept in home audio and everybody who could afford a stereo record player had at least one record which was made to dramatically demonstrate stereo speaker systems. This audio presentation is best listened to with headphones but you can get most of the effect by separating your computer speakers as much as possible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA From our web sibling Jerry Fox. Ugly guitars. http://guitarsite-uglyguitars.notlong.com A musical tribute to veterans of WWII. http://www.managedmusic.com/Music/PlayBeforeYouGo.php A musical gadget for songwriters and singers. http://research.microsoft.com/~dan/mysong/ From our "other brother" Bill (Beeyil) Lanoue. ( Bill's blog http://ncvietvet.blogspot.com/ ) No matter what Operating System you use on your computer, if you have small children in the family, you'll love Childsplay. http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/ If Childsplay leaves you wanting more, try EDU-nix. This is a very cool live CD. http://www.edu-nix.org/ The Missing In America Project. http://www.miap.us/ From our web sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) Brain fitness. http://www.sharpbrains.com/ "Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies" (humorous article). http://onion-idiom.notlong.com National Geographic magazine online. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ PBS, American Experience, The Presidents. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/2008/ Lots of interesting words. http://www.wordcrafters.info/ Thank you Patrick, Jerry, Beeyil and John. Last word, from Lisa: Spring has been delivering short, tantalizing bursts here in Central Texas, giving those of us with "The Itch to Grow" a very hard time. We tend to have a lot of lovely days, a hard freeze, a lot more warm days and another hard freeze. The only reliable indicator of the last freezing weather is the mesquite trees. When they leaf out you can plant, mesquites take no chances. I'll let you know how it works out. Meantime I'm mulching like mad and dreaming of spring. 'Til next time, 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 blogs. http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/dirtgoddess http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ 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 Friday, March 14, 2008 4:10 PM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas Privacy: We will never share, sell, or otherwise compromise your email address. Privacy Policy on our website. http://www.don-guitar.com/privacy.html Freelists.org Privacy Policy. http://www.freelists.org/privacy.html 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. ___________________________________________________________ Subscription management for this publication is available online here: http://www.don-guitar.com/subsmanager.html or here: http://www.freelists.org/list/donspatch