Don's Patch #97, July 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: After three months my steroid shot wore off (I'm told that's about par) so my asthma came back with a vengeance. Instead of researching alternative treatments I wimped out and got another shot but now I know for sure that it's only going to hold me for about three months so I'm already researching alternatives. When I was young I was tempted by all sorts of exotic drugs but learned to abstain as I got older and wiser. At close to sixty years old I'm not the least bit tempted by exotic drugs, alcohol or tobacco but I'm completely hooked on certain steroids, Guaifenesin and Albuterol. My young self, who's still in there somewhere, is utterly disgusted with me. *frown* I think I'll make a pot of Ceylon tea (with mint) to console myself. See you next time. 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. A sharing gizmo for your blog or website. http://sharethis.com/ If SNES ROMs has meaning for you then so will this site. http://www.snesclassics.com/ Got a website? Want a blog? http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ Remy is a web star. http://www.goremy.com/ Are you a web junky? http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/internet_addiction_test.htm For 16 seasons, Mark Grace brought enthusiasm, humor and amazing talent to the game of baseball. http://www.markgrace.com/ Online games. http://www.locogames.com/ What's the story on your city? http://citystories.com/ Connect with old friends or find new ones. http://www.oldfriendsandnew.com/ My friend James Bradley Jr., who's a very talented drummer, invited me to join a social networking site I'd never heard of. I found that one must be very careful signing up because they add some commercial offers to the sign-up process and you'll wind up with a service you didn't want if you aren't paying attention but it's a busy social networking site where it's easy to meet people. I think it might be especially good for a mature, single person. http://www.tagged.com Here's yet another new social networking site. http://www.socialsplash.com/ ...and another. http://www.virb.com/ I read where facebook is supposed to be way better than myspace. *shrug* I don't see the difference but I do hear a lot about it. http://www.facebook.com/ Randy Pausch is fighting Pancreatic cancer. http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/ http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html Command line reference for Windows, Bash, Oracle, and SQL Server. http://www.ss64.com/ A resource for readers. http://2020ok.com/ Photoshop and Flash tutorials. http://www.tutorialized.com/ A music resource. http://www.ilike.com/ This seems to be a somewhat abbreviated clone of youtube. http://tapespace.com/ Campware is a platform for open source solutions for independent news media organizations in emerging democracies. http://www.campware.org/ Radiant is a no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams. http://radiantcms.com/ A community- driven platform for producing and distributing educational materials. http://beta.selfplatform.eu/SELF I guess a social networking browser is a logical extension of the recent rash of social networking sites. http://flock.com/ 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7457287.stm A global movement to solve the climate crisis. http://www.350.org/ Losing all the links you've saved in your browser can be one of the really devastating things about a major computer crash. One way to back them up is to save them online, http://www.startaid.com/ http://www.mybookmarks.com/ http://del.icio.us/ http://www.myhq.com/ http://www.spurl.net/ http://bookmarks.yahoo.com http://www.saveyourlinks.com/ http://murl.com/splash/ http://www.myvmarks.com/ http://www.linkagogo.com/ http://www.bookmax.net/ http://www.sitejot.com/ http://www.easybm.com/ http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/ http://www.link2mark.com/ex/l2mlogon.pl http://www.onlinefavorites.com/index.html There are many more and numerous bookmark related Firefox add-ons as well. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ (type in 'bookmarks' and click on 'search') 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 How to find the very best. http://www.tibesti.com/ I've been researching ways to save money. There's a lot of sensible advice on the web. http://aepof.notlong.com http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ http://www.thegrocerygame.com/ http://gassave.notlong.com http://www.tiphero.com/ A double-decker rainbarrel. http://www.instructables.com/id/S3MEW2LF7KZRLWB/ Watch TV without cable or satellite. http://freetv4u.notlong.com Here are those Car Talk guys. We love them. http://www.cartalk.com/ Help for seniors. http://www.help4srs.com/ The Smithsonian Folkways Collection. http://www.folkways.si.edu/index.aspx World music. http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/ For intermediate and advanced Visual Basic programmers. http://btmtz.mvps.org/ Costless educational software. http://www.rayslearning.com/ Find organic food grown close to you. http://www.localharvest.org/ Lots and lots of reference materials. http://www.refdesk.com/ Some costless apps from Home Plan Software. http://www.homeplansoftware.com/freeware.htm Program for renaming files. http://www.kellysoftware.com/software/Rename4u.asp 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 online news, blogs, magazines, videos and/or other informational sites (chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ). http://westwardsagas.com/blog/ http://www.springhousemagazine.com/frontpage.htm http://www.javno.com/en/index.php http://textpattern.kurthanson.com/ http://www.parli.com/newsletter/index.htm http://www.jivemagazine.com/index.php http://www.modelairplanenews.com/ME2/Default.asp http://www.truthvmachine.com/ http://www.pigazette.com/ http://www.hindu.com/ http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ http://www.littlegreenmagazine.com/ http://madhattermommy.blogspot.com/ Section Three by Don. Who's hungry? http://www.foodbuzz.com/ http://www.rasamalaysia.com/ http://www.foodnetwork.com/ http://www.epicurious.com/ http://www.slowfood.com/ http://www.opensourcefood.com/ http://www.foodtimeline.org/ http://www.wise2food.com/ http://www.chowhound.com/ Dan Deacon is musically unusual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Deacon http://www.myspace.com/dandeacon Views and reviews of eclectic, leading edge technogadgets. http://www.shinyplastic.com/ Fringy-feeling sites. http://www.crowdedskies.com/index.htm http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/ The U.S. Social Security site. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/ If you mix journalism and social networking you get Gather. http://www.gather.com/ A few kids sites. http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/index.pperl http://www.coloring.ws/ (ad supported with pop-ups) http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/ http://www.kidsreads.com/index.asp http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/ http://www.kids.gov/ http://www.eduplace.com/kids/ http://www.kids-space.org/ http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/ This site purports to inform Americans about the British Isles. http://www.britannia.com/ John Mark Ockerbloom's Online Books, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ Usenet Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) postings in HTML format and text format. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ Classic books online. http://www.classicreader.com/ Book reviews. http://dearauthor.com/ Who really wrote that book? http://www.trussel.com/books/pseudo.htm Resources for or about authors. http://www.authorsontheweb.com/ http://www.authorsden.com/ http://www.authorsguild.org/ http://www.authoryellowpages.com/ TV obscurities. http://www.tvobscurities.com/index.php TV and more. http://mymedia-forum.com/forum/ 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. The adventures of Science Bob. http://www.sciencebob.com/ Health and lifestyle information. http://healthlifestinfo.notlong.com Resources for anyone interested in Journalism. http://www.reporter.org/ Really Affective costless apps. http://www.reallyeffective.co.uk/home/ Lots of links for Biblical study. http://torreys.org/bible/ Looking for the ulimate Science Fair project? http://www.scifair.org/ A full-featured dictionary that also rhymes, with synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and more. The United States Patent and Trademark Office. Now this is a fascinating site. http://www.uspto.gov/index.html Online Etch-A-Sketch. Try it and send me a link to your masterpiece! http://www.etchy.org/ Resources for writers. http://www.robinsnest.com/index.html Learn all about Building Big. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/ Software to detect plagiarism and links to other resources. http://www.plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/ Goodwill Industries, there when you need them. http://www.goodwill.org/page/guest/about TV Guide online. http://www.tvguide.com/ The Internet Public Library. http://www.ipl.org/ Want to know more about Vegetarianism? http://www.vrg.org/index.htm Discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues: Edge Magazine. http://www.edge.org/ Need a User Manual for something? You may find it here. http://www.usersmanualguide.com/ 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. Home remedies. http://www.myhomeremedies.com/ http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/ http://www.grannymed.com/ http://www.susangaer.com/studentprojects/rem.htm http://www.homeremediesweb.com/ Twitter search. http://www.twellow.com/ I wasn't impressed with this knowledge search engine. http://www.soak.com/ Solar cooking info. http://solarcooking.org/ Still another take on social networking. http://brightkite.com/ How to get rid of stuff. http://www.howtogetridofstuff.com/ Living sculpture, yes, bonsai, no. http://www.arborsmith.com/ An old encyclopedia is new again. http://britannicanet.com/index.php Meta search engines combine results from several major search engines. http://berkeley-on-metasearch.notlong.com http://www.dogpile.com/ http://www.mamma.com/ http://www.metacrawler.com/ http://www.allplus.com/ http://www.ixquick.com/ http://www.pandia.com/metasearch/index.html http://www.widow.com/ http://www.zworks.com/ Slightly different. http://jux2.com/ http://ilectric.com/ Meta-meta search. http://metasearch.langenberg.com/ Meta search for kids. http://kids.ithaki.net/ A digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa. http://www.aluka.org/ Virtual worlds. http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com/ Jobs in the UK. http://www.clickajob.co.uk/ A sort-of wikipedia for history. http://www.concharto.com/ Microsoft quick references (right-click any title and select 'Save As'). http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm This collection demonstrates the U.S. Department of Energy's considerable contribution to scientific progress from the 1940s to today. http://www.osti.gov/doepatents/ 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. I've recently become very interested in Papercrete, a relatively new and eco-friendly building material. I feel a project coming on...oh, no.... http://www.livinginpaper.com/index.htm http://www.evesgarden.org/architecture/ http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/slideshow.php?id=29198 http://papercretevid.notlong.com http://jwpapercrete.notlong.com Andy Darvill's science site. http://www.darvill.clara.net/othsoft.htm#wallopware Feed reader & RSS aggregator for Outlook, costless for personal use. http://www.intravnews.com/ The official website of the British Monarchy. http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp Jon's Homeschool Resources. http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/ This site focuses on system performance. http://www.speedguide.net/index.php Organic Gardening Magazine. http://www.organicgardening.com/ The Sami people of Northern Sweden, Norway and Finland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people. http://samipeople.notlong.com Government made easy. http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml Abandoned stations of the New York City subway system. http://www.nycsubway.org/abandsta.html Popular Science Magazine. Always something cool here. http://www.popsci.com/ Calculators and problem-solvers. http://scattermall.com/freetools/ For the serious varmint hunter and small caliber target shooter. http://www.smallcaliber.com/ End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. The Linux Foundation. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/ You can think if these as applications cross-references for Windows refugees. http://www.linuxalt.com/ http://linuxappfinder.com/ It's time to retire "ready for the desktop" (an article). http://www.linux.com/feature/134808 Acer bets big on Linux (an article). http://vnunet-acer.notlong.com If you've been thinking of setting up a dual boot computer system, here's a tool you might appreciate. http://www.supergrubdisk.org/ Boost the security of your small office (home office) by turning your old computer into a sophisticated firewall. http://www.ipcop.org/ http://m0n0.ch/wall/ http://www.smoothwall.org/ Of course if you're already using a Linux desktop computer you can simply install Firestarter from your distro repository. http://www.fs-security.com/ There are plenty of Windows users who automatically assume that the Open Source world has nothing to offer them. There's a very real chance that they could be wrong. http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page http://cd-linux.sourceforge.net/en/about.html http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/ http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ Google from a command line. http://goosh.org/ Run a Linux live CD on a Windows system without rebooting. http://mobalivecd-en.mobatek.net/ A command line for the web. http://yubnub.org/ A Little Humor. A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, "we don't serve mushrooms here." The mushroom replies, "what's the problem? I'm a fun guy." An Aggie goes to the library and checks out a book titled "How to Hug". He later realizes he's checked out volume six of the encyclopedia. Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A: One, but only if the light bulb really wants to change. Q: Why is 6 afraid of 7? A: Because 7 8 9. Q: What is the capital of Arkansas? A: A. Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's an interesting question. What do you think? If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving probably isn't for you. Q. What do you get when you cross a judge with poison ivy? A: Rash decisions. Q: Why did the dog cross the road twice? A: He was trying to fetch a boomerang. Q: What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A: A-flat minor. Q: How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to change it and one not to change it. Tips for This Issue. Here are a couple of useful tools for experienced Windows users. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ http://www.ubcd4win.com/ Easy computer tips. http://www.easycomputertips.com/ Tips, tricks and help. http://www.worldstart.com/tips/index.php Win95, 98, NT. http://www.computertips.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 Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) Quizzes from MentalFloss. http://www.mentalfloss.com/trivia/quizzes/quiz.php Six awards you probably don't want to win. http://neatorama-6awards.notlong.com Before the galaxy far far away. http://cineleet.com/2008/05/22/before-the-galaxy-far-far-away/ Gasoline prices in the U.S. seems to go up more every day. http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx I'm just happy I don't live in Belgium. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/gas1.html Need a car? Be green, buy a used one. http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/the-ultimate-pr.html Jo dislikes this 200 mpg car because it's ugly. I dislike it because there's no room for my guitar, much less my PA system. http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1617/69/ Cool nerds. http://nypress.com/21/20/news&columns/feature.cfm An interesting commentary on generation X. http://www.cassettefrommyex.com/ From our web sibling Vinette (Vi) DePhillipe: ( Vi's site: http://360.yahoo.com/vinette1 ) America's quilting history... http://www.womenfolk.com/historyofquilts/ ...and more on quilts from womenfolk.com. http://www.womenfolk.com/ Textile art. http://www.textile-art.com/ National (U.S.) quilt register. http://discover.collectionsaustralia.net/nqr/ From the look of the home page on this new social networking site I'd say Vi's been hanging out with her grandkids. http://www.myyearbook.com/ Our web sibling Jerry Fox says this is one amazing aircraft landing. http://www.sonnyradio.com/F15.html From our web sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) Here's one for guys who have mustaches (like me and John). http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/ I'm just going to quote John on this one. He said; "Over 30 years ago my oldest friend, who I had known since I was 4 years old, committed suicide. I was the last one to see him alive when I tried to convince him to come to my parents' house and sleep off the high he was on. He adamantly refused, and I didn't press the issue. I never blamed myself, but the fact that the memory remains indelible to this day illustrates that suicide affects everyone connected to the victim long after the victim is gone. It's far too late to help my friend of course, but maybe it could help others. http://www.hopeline.com/ Ever since I reconnected with Randi Simon-Serey (she was my 'first love' back in nineteenmumble, now she's an old and dear friend) she's been a big advocate for the nanowrimo thing (which takes place in November). http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Now she's all excited about augnowrimo. Since the website says nothing at all about what it is, here's what Randi had to say about augnowrimo: "Instead of having to reach a 50,000-word count (like nanowrimo), you set your own goal in 5,000-word increments. In addition, you don't have to start from scratch if you don't want to, but can work on something you already have lying around." http://augnowrimo.proboards85.com/index.cgi Thank you Jo, Vi, Jerry, John and Randi. Last word, from Lisa: I love new projects; they make you feel energized, a little crazy and happy. I've been looking into papercrete construction techniques and have been enchanted with the process. Now to build a mixer and get started recycling paper, while getting an interesting building material for my trouble. I'll let you know how it goes. '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 Monday, July 14, 2008 11:45 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