[donspatch] 2008-05-01
- From: Don Crowder <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Donspatch <donspatch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 00:11:44 -0500
Don's Patch #93, May 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:
Until ten days ago I needed a dose of Albuterol, administered with
the nebulizer, every four hours just to get through the day. On
Monday, April 21 I visited the Hoerster Clinic in Llano (TX).
My favorite Physician's Assistant, Joanna Schork, looked in my
ears, nose and throat, announced that allergies were causing my
asthma and gave me some sort of steroid shot (I didn't ask what
it was because I trust her to know what she's doing). I needed
a nebulizer treatment that evening before going to sleep and two
more the following day (Tuesday) but I haven't needed one since.
When I was a kid, having problems with asthma, I went to the
clinic more times than I can count and nothing they did ever
helped much so that's what I expected. Isn't it nice to receive
an occasional pleasant surprise? I sure think so.
Don
Our feedback form (goes to both of us):
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Lisa's blogs.
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/dirtgoddess
http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/
Section One by Don.
A pretty cool "bidnez" resource. http://www.coreindex.com/
Another great way to learn or teach if you're so inclined.
http://www.epnweb.org/index.php
7 Things You Should Know About Google Apps.
http://google-apps.notlong.com
Get a head start on Earth Hour 2009.
http://www.earthhourus.org/
An automotive resource for Canadians, eh?
http://www.justcars.ca/index.html
Multilingual artsy smartsy stuff. http://www.artfacts.net/
I could have used up an entire day listening to the podcasts here
but I forced myself to move on. http://twit.tv/
The most critical single word in any Windows user's vocabulary is
"security". Windows is the least secure OS because it's the most
frequently targeted by "evil"ware but the compensation for being
more vulnerable is having more options. No Windows user should
be without AV protection and here are some good options.
http://free.grisoft.com/ (our personal choice; 8.0 was just released)
http://www.free-av.com/
http://www.avast.com/eng/free_virus_protectio.html
http://www.clamwin.com/
Another vital tool for Windows users, especially those who're on
a fast connection, is a firewall.
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/download_firewall.html
http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpostfree/download.php
If you know your Windows machine has already been infected, and
you're willing to invest the time, specific solutions are available.
http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp
http://vil.nai.com/vil/Stinger/
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=vrt
http://bughunter.it-mate.co.uk/
http://free.grisoft.com/ww.virus-removal
http://www.f-secure.com/security_center/malware_removal_tools.html
http://www.megasecurity.org/Removaltools.html
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/
http://www.kaspersky.com/removaltools
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/removaltools.jsp
http://www.eset.com/download/free-virus-remover.php
This preventative maintenance tool is in beta, meaning it's liable to
cost something eventually. https://psi.secunia.com/
Here's a product that's not "ready for prime time" but it's got
potential so I'll be watching it. http://www.openantivirus.org/
End of Section One.
This publication is only mailed to verified
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to you by me, Don Crowder, my wife,
Lisa Miller, and http://www.freelists.org
Section Two by Lisa
Very small things and the stories behind them.
http://fairycastle.notlong.com
http://www.nmra.org/
http://miniaturesmuseum.org/index.htm
Bald is beautiful. http://www.baldrus.com/
Recently the Dutch have taken a whole new look
at water. http://dutchreverse.notlong.com
A directory of wonderful things.
http://www.boingboing.net/
Vintage gadgets and technology.
http://www.retrothing.com/
The United States Power Squadrons was founded in 1914
as a nonprofit organization dedicated to making
boating safer and more enjoyable for everyone.
http://www.usps.org/
People come together to lend money or find a loan.
http://www.prosper.com/join/
Wired's Geekipedia is a terrific magazine.
http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/geekipedia
You've heard the phrase 'bit torrent'. Know what
it means? http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/
Today in History. http://histoday.notlong.com
Today in Literature. http://www.todayinliterature.com/
Central Park was the first landscaped public park in
the United States. It's history is rich and diverse.
http://www.centralpark.com/pages/history.html
The International Clown Hall of Fame.
http://www.theclownmuseum.org/index.php
Research that makes you laugh, then think.
http://209.164.178.202/
Malaria has had a profound effect on human history.
http://www.malariasite.com/MALARIA/History.htm
The original condiment packet museum.
http://www.clearfour.com/condiment/
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.get-outdoors.org/
http://www.allotment.org.uk/
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/
http://www.mobilia-gallery.com/artists/kokubo/
http://www.falkenart.net/contents.html
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/
http://h30240.www3.hp.com/
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/
http://www.phrases.org.uk/index.html
http://www.43things.com/
http://www.wisegeek.com/
http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/index.html
http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html
Section Three by Don.
Search thousands of e-prints in scientific and technical disciplines.
http://eprints.osti.gov/
Make stuff and sell it or buy stuff somebody else made.
http://www.etsy.com/
European digital library, museum and archive.
http://www.europeana.eu/
Promoting further education in the UK.
http://education-community.co.uk/
Geeky reading matter. http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=0-102-0-0-0
Investment reading matter.
http://www.googleinvestornews.com/page-one.html
Community, blogs and a nice library for socially conscious persons.
http://www.igloo.org/
Who's who in the global industrial marketplace?
http://www.industrialleaders.com/
I don't get feeds, I mean what's the big deal? How many takes can
there be on the same basic news story anyway? Still, here's a nifty
looking feed "thingy". http://grazr.com/
Who needs a job in Scotland? http://scotland.jobjourney.co.uk/
I admit, I'm no world traveler but I'm embarrassed to admit that
I had no idea where Karnataka was. http://karunadu.gov.in/
Something else I don't exactly get is tags... http://www.keotag.com/
...nor was wikipedia any help... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags
...but these blokes say it's dead easy.
http://www.mansized.co.uk/answers/answer.phtml/30
Kwout is geeky but interesting. http://kwout.com/
Learning activities. http://learning-activities.org/
One way of presenting an online tutorial/course/class is
with something called a "moodle".
http://www.newcurioshop.com/proddetail.php?prod=NCS9992
Make your own poll. http://www.micropoll.com/
Nature India. http://www.nature.com/nindia/index.html
eBooks (check it out Patrick)!. http://www.planetebook.com/
End of Section Three.
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Section Four by Lisa.
Your choice of how much junk mail to receive.
http://www.catalogchoice.org/
Turn the rest into costless mulch.
http://mulchit.notlong.com
Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelly,
and a force to be reckoned with in her own right.
http://wollstonecraft.notlong.com
I'm trying this because of severe sensitivities and
will let you know how it works out.
http://naturaldsm.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/25/
A very nice recipe site. http://betterrecipes.com/
It's time to visit Nurse William again. Go ahead,
dude, tell us how you really feel.
http://nursewilliam.blogspot.com/
Digital library of tobacco documents.
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/
There are many kinds of portraits, here are a few;
Portrait art tutorials. http://portrait-artist.org/
Historical portrait art. http://portr.notlong.com
My Family Health Portrait. https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/
I had never heard of Pickleball. Here's the scoop;
http://pickleball.notlong.com
Resource for obituaries.
http://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp
The amazingly prolific writer Howard R. Garis. You may
not recognize his name, but you know his work.
http://www.elliemik.com/garisetexts.html
Opt-in or opt-out of offers of credit or insurance.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
Diagnosing, treating, and preventing common
sports injuries. http://www.sportsinjuryinfo.com/
Carrie Villines, a photographer.
http://carrievillines.com/
Thyroid, parathyroid and other endocrine disorders.
http://www.endocrineweb.com/
Marketing at its best, and worst.
http://alphapups.notlong.com
End of Section Four.
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Section Five by Don.
An Open Source alternative to MS Project. http://openproj.org/openproj
A peer network for scientists. http://www.scilink.com/start.action
I find it interesting that scientists too are trying to find innovative ways
to deploy web technology. http://searchingforscience.pbwiki.com/
A community portal for people who want to use, exchange and
share Open Source Software and resources to support learning.
http://www.bazaar.org/
Exploring Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art.
http://www.theoi.com/
OpenCourseWare from the United Nations University.
http://ocw.unu.edu/
The nitty gritty on web security. http://www.viruslist.com/en/
Maybe I'm just being obtuse but I don't thing a dictionary should
be a graphic experience. http://www.visuwords.com/
Yet another take on social networking. http://www.webjam.com/
Online document sharing and/or collaboration.
http://writewith.com/
10 tools to combine, mix, blend multiple RSS feeds (article).
http://2PC-article.notlong.com
A categorized and searchable RSS directory.
http://www.feedage.com/
What's up with your favorite website? http://www.alertle.com/
A patent wiki. http://www.wikipatents.com/
It seems to me that Open Access is, or should be, part and
parcel of Open Source. http://www.openstudents.org/
We have a couple of senseless pear trees in our yard. I say
"senseless" because every year they put on so much fruit that
limbs wind up getting broken off by the weight of the fruits.
They are hardy trees so they just keep growing new limbs but
I think about those trees every time I consider trying to make
a family tree. Maybe you family is different. If so, here you go.
http://www.geni.com/
A pictorial celebration of the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland.
http://www.streetsofedinburgh.co.uk/
A virtual world tour with commercial infrastructure (i.e.
ad supported). http://www.touropia.com/
End of Section Five.
Archives for this ezine
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Section Six by Lisa.
The very best American Rhetoric.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
Hey kids! What time is it?
http://doodytime.notlong.com
The world's nicest outhouse.
http://outhouse.notlong.com
Renewable energy site for do-it-yourselfers.
http://builditsolar.com/
An in-depth site on Johannes Vermeer.
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/
Ansel Adams, the very best photographer.
http://www.anseladams.com/
Once again, we'd like to recommend PaperBackSwap,
SwapaCD and SwapaDVD.
http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php?f=cds
http://www.swapacd.com/index.php
http://www.swapadvd.com/index.php
The Taco Bell dog.
http://www.everwonder.com/david/tacobelldog.html
The voice of the Taco Bell dog, but I bet you knew that.
http://www.comediansusa.com/php/featuredartist.php?id=106
The Cooperative Extension System is a nationwide
educational network.
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/
The Netizen's guide to Flame Warriors.
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/
Thousands of costless books. I just started
"The Invisible Man". http://www.readprint.com/
The strings and catches buried in the fine print.
http://www.mouseprint.org/
There are 13.7 million images in the prints and
photographs division of the Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/
Conscience and the Constitution. What would you do?
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/conscience/
Carnivals all over the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival
End of Section Six.
The Linux Corner.
BSDTalk: Talking about the BSD family of (costless) operating
systems. http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/
Any more, it's possible to use Linux while knowing nothing at
all about the Command Line Interface (CLI) but some users
like to dig deeper and learn about the CLI and one thing those
users will eventually want to know about is CHMOD.
http://www.zzee.com/solutions/chmod-help.shtml
Here's a very nice little distro for hardware challenged
machines. http://pcfluxboxos.wikidot.com/
I admit, this should have been in our April 1st issue, but I
just found it. http://www.linux.com/feature/131064
Konqueror is only so-so as a web browser but it's the most
awesome file browser I've ever used, bar none. Of course
Konqueror is a KDE app and if you aren't using KDE and
don't want to install all the dependancies required to run
Konqueror on your system you might consider giving this
little Firefox extension a try.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3076
A couple of cute youtube videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLHjT5-XM9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAr3XbqUbjo
Ok, some of these guys are from Poland, true, but this
English language version of their site isn't the least bit
provincial and contains a wealth of information.
http://polishlinux.org/
A Little Humor.
A group of chess enthusiasts had checked into a hotel and
were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament
victories. After a while, the hotel manager came out and asked
them to disperse, explaining, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting
in an open foyer."
A guy goes to his doctor, who has bad news for him. "I'm sorry to say
that you have a fatal disease." "Oh, that's awful! I want a second
opinion!" "OK, you're ugly too!"
A guy gets a call from his doctor, who says, "I have bad news, and
worse news. The bad news is that your test results came back and
they showed you only have 36 hours to live." The guy responds, "Oh,
my God! What could possibly be worse than that!" The doctor replies,
"I've been trying to reach you since yesterday."
A doctor made it his regular habit to stop off at a bar for a hazelnut
daiquiri on his way home. The bartender, who made sure that the
drink was waiting for the doctor when he arrived, was dismayed
one day to find that he was out of hazelnut extract. Thinking quickly,
he threw together a daiquiri made with hickory nuts. The doctor
came in, took one sip, and protested that it wasn't his normal drink.
The bartender explained that he'd run out of hazelnut and said, "so
this is a hickory daiquiri, doc."
Q: If you're American when you come out of the bathroom, what
are you when you're in the bathroom?
A: European!
Q: And what are you when you're going into the bathroom?
A: You're a Russian!
Q: How much dirt is in a hole 6 feet deep, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet
across?
A: There is no dirt in a hole.
Tips for This Issue.
http://www.onlinecomputertips.com/
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/
http://www.computerhope.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/ )
Here's an easy way to convert files from one format to another.
http://www.zamzar.com/
Create your own customized calendar.
http://www.dayweekyear.com/en_index.jsp
From our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton:
( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ )
Castles of Tuscany. http://www.castellitoscani.com/index.htm
Images and text, be they magnificent or mundane,
from SimpleBits. http://www.simplebits.com/
Web sites by and about cranks, crankism, crankishness, and
crankosity. All cranks, all the time. http://www.crank.net/
World mythology, folklore, cultures and classical studies.
http://www.gods-heros-myth.com/
Lady Gryphon's Mythical Realm. http://www.mythicalrealm.com/
In search of myths and heroes. http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/
Rate the dead U.S. presidents.
http://starship.python.net/crew/manus/Presidents/ratings/index.cgi
Read what U.S. presidents have said about each other.
http://www.diplom.org/manus/Presidents/ratings/prez.html
History of the U.S. Whitehouse. http://www.whitehousehistory.org/
A mini-feature on Sudoku puzzles.
http://www.paulspages.co.uk/sudoku/howtosolve/
http://www.sudoku.org.uk/helper.htm
http://www.sudoku.com/howtoplay.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Solve-a-Sudoku
http://theory.tifr.res.in/~sgupta/sudoku/algo.html
http://www.simetric.co.uk/sudoku/
http://www.nikoli.com/en/puzzles/sudoku/
The blog of death is mainly about obituaries.
http://www.blogofdeath.com/
The mythology and folklore of death.
http://www.alsirat.com/deathlore/indexb.html
From our web sibling Vinette (Vi) DePhillipe:
( Vi's site: http://360.yahoo.com/vinette1 )
This is a sweet story which will touch your heart.
http://rahulmalhotra.com/?p=3
From our web sibling John Lepse.
( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ )
A funny Candid Camera clip on google videos.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3434714271274189234
How not to build a Navy ship (article).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/25ship.html
Mark Raymond's humor. http://mrhumor.net/
In this case, IE isn't "Internet Explorer", it's
"Improv Everywhere". http://improveverywhere.com/
Honor Flight is a non profit organization created solely to honor
America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. They fly our heroes to
Washington, DC to visit and reflect at their memorials.
http://www.honorflight.org/
Pollen levels in the U.S. (a resource for those who have allergies).
http://www.pollen.com/home.asp
An archive of U.S. presidential recordings.
http://millercenter.org/academic/presidentialrecordings
Web sibling Terri Martin-Goin says this is a huge archive of
funny videos. http://www.sonnyradio.com/amusing.htm
Subsequent to my opening statement in our last issue, reader Ted
Whitford wrote to say "Yes you are correct. There is a conspiracy,
it is vast and growing. I know this because they are all after me
too." He included this link to a suspicious video clip.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x5FHOYGVD80
Thank you Patrick, Jo, Vi, John, Terri and Ted.
Last word, from Lisa:
It's been a wild and crazy couple of weeks, folks. Got
my new-old car back from the mechanic, now I have some
semi-snazzy (1990 Buick LeSabre with peeling paint)
wheels. Put in a new stone border at the side entrance,
gardening like a mad person, keeping up with my Master
Gardener webmaster duties, working, caring for Don's mom.
At the bottom of it all is a slow, abiding, rock-solid
base. A good life, a great love. What else is there?
'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
Thursday, May 1, 2008
12:10 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA
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