Don's Patch #91, April 1, 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: Lisa and I seem to be constantly on the run. We wave at one another in passing. I'm not sure what's causing the problem but I'm beginning to suspect it must be some sort of conspiracy. Wasn't there a song lyric that went "paranoia runs deep" *shrug* wudever. Lisa's been talking with her mom (who lives in Florida, almost 1300 miles from here) computer-to-computer, using Skype (which costs us nothing) three or four days a week. Lisa's giving her mom computer lessons and they both seem to be really enjoying themselves. They've discovered that lolcats puts up new images regularly, which they both love to laugh at. Been there lately? http://icanhascheezburger.com/ Mostly silly, true, but nonetheless cute. We're not hearing much from our readers just lately either. I wonder what's up with that? Is the conspiracy more extensive than I imagined? Is everybody too-darn-busy? How about you? Don Our feedback form (goes to both of us): http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Our personal news page (which hasn't been updated in forever). 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. A few of my childhood memories. http://vintageads.oldsads.org/ http://GM-ads.notlong.com http://www.oldsads.org/ http://www.amphicars.com/ http://museum.eaa.org/collection/aircraft/Taylor%20Aerocar.asp http://www.toontracker.com/beanytoon/beanytoons.htm http://www.doodyville.com/ http://www.autry.com/home.php http://www.skyking.com/ http://members.tripod.com/~ClaytonMoore/ http://www.lonerangerfanclub.com/ http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/hannabarbera/index.jsp http://www.dccomics.com/mad/ 2008 may well be remembered as the year of the blog. Have you got yours yet? It couldn't be any easier. http://www.aeonity.com/ http://www.blogates.com/ http://blog.com/ https://www.blogger.com/start http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/journal/ http://clearblogs.com/ http://www.livejournal.com/ http://mytypes.com/ http://wordpress.com/ Learn something, or teach if you prefer. http://www.tutorialized.com/ I like Ellen DeGeneres and I agree with her on this topic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMEL3_YsVI&feature=related Taking the long view and rewarding humanitarian innovation. http://www.xprize.org/ Television and the web seem to be gradually merging. I'm not at all certain that this is a good thing. http://secretsofy.blip.tv/#244429 High-tech tax info. http://www.w2express.com/ A paper V8 engine. http://www.yeesjob.com/v8engine.htm PC mythology. http://www.vmyths.com/ Could'a hadda wut? http://www.v8juice.com/ Fun, happy, sociable or is it just plain bidnez? http://www.vsocial.com/ It's about protecting women. http://v10.vday.org/homepage The only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. http://www.wto.org/ 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 Devoted to Astronomy and the deep-sky in particular, David Ratledge's Virtual Home is the result of "a life well-spent." http://www.deep-sky.co.uk/index.htm Ever wonder if cloth-diapering was economically feasible? http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dollar.php Simply the best wildlife photography I've ever seen. Place your mouse on the right-hand side of the photos to navigate, or click on Slideshow at the bottom. http://www.wildthingsphotography.com/ My mom has shingles, has been to the doctor and is on medication. I researched natural remedies for shingles and every reputable holistic site says, in essence, "Go to the doctor quickly, get diagnosed and take all the medications you are prescribed." 'Nuff said. A good, comprehensive holistic wellness site. http://holisticonline.com/ Guide to tipping. http://www.tipping.org/ Even in medicine, "Everything old is new again." http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/09/65117 Everything barbeque. http://thesmokering.com/default.jsp The Hubble Telescope has expanded our knowledge of, and interest in, our place in space. http://hubblesite.org/ Changing your Social Security Number is a drastic measure, but occasionally necessary. Here are some of the procedures and risks involved. http://www.esia.net/Social_Security_Numbers.htm Knitting help and videos. http://www.knittinghelp.com/ A revolting object has had unexpected benefits. http://yuckypoo.notlong.com I found I have been under-utilizing the many sister sites of Wikipedia. The amount of information is mind- boggling. Here are a few highlights; Many languages, including Simple English. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Freely usable media files. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Life is in the public domain. http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Library of open content publications. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page Participate in active learning projects. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page Collaborative multilingual dictionary. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page Up-to-date news. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page End of Section Two. At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was 391. This issue's collection of news, magazine, and/or informational sites (chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ). http://www.mongabay.com/ http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/ http://www.realtimearts.net/ http://www.wrap.org.uk/ http://www.multilingual.com/index.php http://www.iht.com/ http://www.nvnews.net/ http://wouldashoulda.com/2006/10/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/ http://thesemoments.blogspot.com/ http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/ http://www.independent.ie/ http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/ Section Three by Don. Try FunBrain's "Where is That" game. http://www.funbrain.com/where/index.html Yee is a Canadian artist. http://www.yeesjob.com/ What's your geek code? http://www.geekcode.com/ http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html Funny ads? http://www.veryfunnyads.com/ Send your kids here. http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/ Service manuals for various electronic gear; find one, share one. http://www.eserviceinfo.com/ UK comedy. http://www.funny.co.uk/ Australian maps. http://www.whereis.com/ I've seen a couple of these but not lately. http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ Where's the money? http://whereisthemoney.org/ Where the heck is Matt? http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/ An interesting social networking tool. http://whereisme.com/ Lotsa online games. http://www.freeonlinegames.com/ Ever tried to leave a comment on someones blog and been asked to log in first? Here's a possible solution. http://openid.net/ If you have time on your hands and money in your pocket here's a place you can unload both. http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/ You too can boldly go where at least a few others have also gone. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/index.html Art to your heart's content. http://www.deviantart.com/ An interesting screensaver. http://electricsheep.org/ End of Section Three. 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 Lisa. Short stories are often considered to be the most perfect form of fiction writing. http://www.bibliomania.com/0/5/frameset.html Convert just about anything to anything else. http://www.onlineconversion.com/ Is there such a thing as cow-tipping? The controversy rages on. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_363.html "Help" your personal packrat, like it or not. http://www.stretcher.com/stories/01/011119f.cfm Experience Shamu. http://www.shamu.com/ All about equine health care. http://www.thehorse.com/ Will Sampson was an accomplished, successful artist before becoming a renowned and beloved actor. http://willsampson.notlong.com http://www.kvskvnv.com/will_sampson_art.htm A comprehensive fishing resource. http://www.fishing.com/ Short stories and games. http://www.eastoftheweb.com/ Dave's Short Course in Trigonometry. http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/ Medline Plus health information. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ The art and science of fifteenth-century navigation. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~feegi/ A few thousand science fiction magazines. Hover over one, then click to see it. Wow. http://www.coverpop.com/visco.php Fairly hideous site has great fireworks labels. http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/firecracker-labels/ Collier Classification System for Very Small Objects. http://www.verysmallobjects.com/ For those of you who like such things, a poem called "Snow, Aldo" by Kate DiCamillo. http://snowaldo.notlong.com Blue Note Records cover art. http://www.gokudo.co.jp/Record/BlueNote2/index.htm 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 Don. To protect my email address, on the contact page of our website, I use Hivelogic's Enkoder Form http://hivelogic.com/enkoder/form and there's a less sophisticated form at Dynamic Drive. http://www.dynamicdrive.com/emailriddler/ Here's another, similar, form I recently discovered. http://www.methylblue.com/detritus/emunger.php Dan Benjamin of Hivelogic, along with his cohost John Gruber now has a podcasted talkshow. http://thetalkshow.net/ Give a young man a truly awesome technical education and what does he do with it? http://www.reallyslick.com/index.html More spiffy stuff for your PC. http://www.wincustomize.com/ http://interfacelift.com/ http://winpenguins.sourceforge.net I don't recommend you buy one of these but I found it fascinating to read about them. http://laboratorycomputers.com/index.html Virtually simulated humanity. http://www.diguy.com/diguy/diguyAI_home.htm Interesting robots. http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=robotics An interesting illusion. http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html As often as it's "made the rounds", this remains an interesting clock. http://www.yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html A newspaper house? http://www.iconeye.com/articles/20080306/ Yet another take on social networking. http://www.chatterous.com/ Streaming video from your phone. http://qik.com/ Insects. http://www.bugbios.com/index.html Christopher J. Falvey's BaseballRace. http://www.baseballrace.com/ Have you checked out Molecular Expressions lately? http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/index.html romainguy's photos on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/romainguy/ Speaking as someone who has a steel pin and a 3" machine bolt holding his left leg together, I heartily embrace the concept presented in this short video. http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ (I was hit by a car in 1974 while riding a small Honda motorbike. My left leg was crushed.) Tipping Points in Social Networks (an essay by Brad Hunter). http://www.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/tipping_point.html 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. The American Orphan Trains. http://orphantrains.notlong.com Learn more about the planets. http://www.nineplanets.org/ An interesting blog. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/ Emergency and First Aid. http://www.healthy.net/scr/MainLinks.asp?Id=170 Druids in America. http://www.aoda.org/ Naval Historical Center. Lots of cool info and images. http://www.history.navy.mil/index.html English languages activities, exercises and tests. http://www.world-english.org/ The Way of the Sushi-Ya *smile*. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6v8IUe_0g How to eat properly. http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Properly Richard Stallman's home page. http://www.stallman.org/ Holocaust personal histories. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/phistories/ Science for real life. http://www.livescience.com/ It's the wrong time of year, but doesn't a Thanksgiving turkey sound great? Here's how to cook one. http://www.howtocookathanksgivingturkey.com/ Bugs are just cool. http://insects.org/entophiles/index.html All about fundraising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising A site for Civil War Historians. http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/ Some nice German recipes. http://recipesbycindy.homestead.com/germanrecipes.html End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-badunixhabits.html One of the coolest things about Linux, in general, is that ordinary users, like you and me, can make contributions to its development at sites like these. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Test_issues Christophe Pallier's Linux tips. http://www.pallier.org/ressources/linux_howtos/linux_howto.html "If you would like to learn the basics of Linux quickly, try this entertaining online Linux tutorial." http://linuxsurvival.com/ A beginners guide to the Unix and Linux operating system. http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/ Linux tips & tricks. http://www.patoche.org/LTT/ Tutorials from Linux Planet. http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/ Tech news with a Linux spin. http://linux.slashdot.org/ SaxonOS seems to be evolving and growing. http://saxenos.de/sx/index.php Paul ( http://remsset.com/ ) is an Emu rancher and member of our local HLLUG http://www.hllug.org/ Here are some links he posted to the HLLUG email list ( http://www.freelists.org/list/hllug ). This looks like a very nifty network tool. http://www.freenas.org/ If you have a chronic, compulsive need to organize your email, thus needing to be able to edit email headers for proper sorting, and Thunderbird is your email client of choice, here's a tool you can use. http://forum.addonsmirror.net/index.php?showtopic=1906 Here's a link posted to HLLUG by Lee Parmeter, our founder and principal Linux guru. The sale of new PCs with Windows as a percentage of the PC market is declining sharply (news article at desktoplinux.com). http://ceiwai.notlong.com Thank you Paul and Lee. Linux newbies: Most Linux User Groups (LUGs) have an email list for their members. Email lists are a wonderful resource for Linux beginners whether or not you're able to attend their regular LUG meetings. For example, I belong to the email lists for two LUGs in Austin and one in San Antonio. Even though there's no way I can attend their meetings (if I had the time, it's just too far to drive) they've made me welcome on their email lists. similarly, whether or not there's a LUG near you, or you belong to one or more LUG email lists, you're welcome to join the HLLUG email list. We'd be proud to have you among us. http://www.freelists.org/list/hllug A Little Humor. A guy complains to his psychiatrist that he's been having strange dreams. "One night I dream I'm a teepee, the next night I dream I'm a wigwam; every night, either a teepee or a wigwam. It's really starting to get to me." The psychiatrist responds, "It's clear what your problem is. You're two tents!" Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils. "Hello, is this the Fire Department?" "Yes." "My house is on fire you have to get here right away!" "Okay, how do we get to your house?" "You don't have those big red trucks anymore?" A snail got beat up by two turtles. The snail went to the police, who asked, "did you get a good look at the two turtles?" The snail replied, "no, it all happened so fast." Tips for This Issue. http://www.pctipsbox.com/ http://www.worldstart.com/tips/index.php http://www.komando.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 Stranger photos have happened. http://theplug.net/28/strangerphotos.htm A great place for books but you might have to provide proof of identity to join. http://www.wowio.com/ From our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) How to have a 36 hour day. http://jon.gaia.com/blog/2006/3/how_to_have_a_36_hour_day A social network with pizzazz. http://www.gaia.com/community Patently silly. http://www.patentlysilly.com/ Items which are parodies of Dr. Seuss books, parodies of the Dr. Seuss style, or just plain have a lot to do with Dr. Seuss. http://www.seuss.org/seuss/seuss.parody.html Alice in Wonderland (an interactive adventure). http://www.ruthannzaroff.com/wonderland/index.htm Lenny's Alice in Wonderland site. http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/ Keith Lim's Jabberwocky variations. http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/index.html More to explore from Keith Lim. http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/ Bloggers favorite fictional characters. http://www.rightwingnews.com/special/fictionalcharacters.php Right wing news. http://www.rightwingnews.com/ Nancy Keane's children's literature page. http://nancykeane.com/ The illuminated Middle Ages. http://www.moyenageenlumiere.com/themes/index.cfm?sw=EN Neuroscience For Kids. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html From our web sibling Jerry Fox. the funny Side of Aircraft Maintenance. http://birdmandotorg-humor.notlong.com Schubert's unfinished symphony (humorous piece). http://www.jumbojoke.com/schuberts_unfinished_symphony_1438.html An amazing performance by talented brothers (video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEjykuEuZG8&e From web sibling and old friend Kenneth Hale,"Here's a monster start page for you". http://www.allmyfaves.com/ From our web sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) There's lots of interesting stuff to explore here. http://www.gocomics.com/ Do you have an FBI file? http://www.getmyfbifile.com/ Here's a few links from our good friend, neighbor and favorite web-geek-in-training, Stevie Scott. Is Windows spying on you? [article] http://www.pctipsbox.com/is-windows-spying-on-you/#more-601 How genuine is your Windows? [article] http://www.pctipsbox.com/tag/wga/ Firewall leak tester. http://www.firewallleaktester.com/ ReactOS is an Open Source, Windows XP compatible Operating System. http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html Microsoft responds to accusations of "stealth updates" (article). http://techXpert-MS-stealth.notlong.com Microsoft updates Windows without users' consent (article). http://winsecrets-MS-stealth.notlong.com Confirmation of stealth Windows Update. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=779 Microsoft facing yet another antitrust suit (article). http://tech-yahoo-MS-antitrust.notlong.com If you hanker for games you once played on an MS-DOS machine, you can find those old games on the web (with google) and DosBox, available for Windows, Linux and Mac is the way to run them. http://www.dosbox.com/ Here's a piece that describes how to set up DosBox on a Windows machine. http://polishlinux.org/apps/dosbox-part-i-installation-and-configuration/ Thank you Patrick, Jo, Jerry, Kenneth, John and Stevie. Last word, from Lisa: I'm sure you're quite well informed (ahem) about our busy lives. In point of fact, everyone I know has much too much to do. I'm going to try to take one day "off" per week, just to do nothing-or play in the yard. Now, what day shall it be? I'll let you know how the experiment goes. 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 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 Tuesday, April 1, 2008 1:10 AM 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