Don's Patch #98, August 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: On July 15, less than 12 hours after I posted our last issue, my mother died quietly in her sleep at a little after 2:00 PM. Thus ends a chapter of my life. I moved to Tow in 1990 to take care of my parents. My father died in 1996. We thought we'd be able to keep mom's house, where we've lived for the last few years but, as it turns out, that won't be possible. We've got to sell the house, find another house and move so we'll be fairly busy for the next few weeks. I've always said that life is change and change is good but it isn't always easy to accept that notion right away. Some silver linings stay hidden longer than others. *sigh* Oh well, the adventure continues.... 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. Heavy reading matter. http://www.editlib.org/ http://www.ejds.org/ Need a calendar? Print your own. http://www.eprintablecalendars.com/ The European Science Foundation. http://www.esf.org/home.html A semantics search engine. http://www.hakia.com/ Social networks for academicians. http://www.ibreadcrumbs.com/ http://discover.theiet.org/ https://www.researchgate.net/ http://scientistswithoutborders.nyas.org/ http://scispace.net/ ThoughtMesh generates tags to connect scholarly essays published on different Web sites. http://thoughtmesh.net/ Webcasts from the Institution of Engineering and Technology. http://tv.theiet.org/ Infolit Global. http://www.infolitglobal.info/ The Journal of Life Sciences. http://www.tjols.com/ Official Statistics on the Web. http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/ An open window on the Australian government. http://www.openaustralia.org/ Peer-to-Patent opens the patent examination process to public participation. http://www.peertopatent.org/ Wikipedia search. http://www.powerset.com/ Almost 50 years ago Newton Minow became famous for his contention that television is a vast wasteland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Minow I agreed with him, then and now, so I've no use for this but if television is "your kind of wasteland" this one's for you. http://www.getmiro.com/ This is a very cool way to read ebooks but too rich for my budget. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=pe_btn Women in technology. http://blog.techgirlz.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 If you're in the market for a car, this will chill you to the bone. http://carsalesman.notlong.com Here's a thought. http://tossurtv.notlong.com What would you like to learn? Safety. http://www.free-training.com/ Misc.. http://www.learnthat.com/ Photoshop. http://www.photoshopcafe.com/index.htm Life. http://www.gcflearnfree.org/everydaylife/ Java. http://www.michael-thomas.com/tech/index.html HP classes. http://h30187.www3.hp.com/?mcID=hpsbso1 Code. http://code.google.com/edu/ Ear training. http://eartrain.notlong.com Boxing. http://www.rossboxing.com/ Business. http://www.myownbusiness.org/ Interactive math for parents, teachers and students. http://cut-the-knot.org/index.shtml Meg Wolff has beat breast and bone cancer through diet. Her courageous story. http://www.megwolff.com/index.html Kids can learn about government. http://bensguide.gpo.gov/ The many movie Tarzans. http://movietarzan.notlong.com Studying abroad; do it right. http://matadorstudy.com/ Costless tools from Spadix Software. http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools/# 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://www.woostercollective.com/ http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia http://www.slackerastronomy.org/slack-live.xml http://www.switched.com/ http://www.ynetnews.com/ http://www.style.com/ http://www.vmagazine.com/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/ http://www.metro.co.uk/ http://www.gunguys.com/ http://www.larknews.com/ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/ http://www.japanprobe.com/ Section Three by Don. Here's an unusual looking search engine. http://www.ujiko.com/ Would you care to be lectured? http://www.world-lecture-project.org/ Relatively timely. http://worldtimeengine.com/ Who wants guitar lessons? http://betweenthelicks.com/ http://www.playgtr.net/ Incidental info. http://www.inciweb.org/ Website forwarding, email forwarding and more. I'm not sure I understand its usefulness but it's interesting at any rate. http://welcome.to/ Glossaries and dictionaries on all subjects. http://www.glossarist.com/ A collaborative build space for Art and Energy, http://www.theshipyard.org/ Create and vote on public opinion polls, share knowledge and express opinions. http://www.sodahead.com/ Alternative Energy info. http://www.earthtoys.com/index.php This seems to be a sort of eco-friendly wiki. http://www.hugg.com/ Eco-tech. http://www.ecogeek.org/ This site has a commercial foundation but could be a useful resource if you intend to build or remodel a home. http://www.builderswebsource.com/ It's still ego-publishing but the price has come down a lot. http://www.blurb.com/ Take a quiz, make a quiz. http://quizfarm.com/ DIY glitzy avatar/icon images. http://www.goodha.com/default.aspx Digital art on steroids. http://www.povray.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. Wouldn't you love to get your inbox down to zero? http://www.43folders.com/izero Scientific American is still around. http://www.sciam.com/ I love this comic. http://www.boasas.com/?c=1 Never use more than 5 sentences to answer email. http://five.sentenc.es/ Beyond Craigslist. http://www.rewardprograms.org/thefreegeek/ Help for those with anxiety, panic and agoraphobia. http://www.encourageconnection.com/ How to get up right away when the alarm goes off. http://getupmorn.notlong.com A reminder screensaver. http://www.fairlogic.com/reminder/index.shtml Dave Cheong is an Australian software engineer. http://www.davecheong.com/ Reading is Fundamental is still around. http://www.rif.org/ Do you have a need for self-destructing email? http://www.kicknotes.com/ Web tools; lots of them. http://webtoolslots.notlong.com Want to have more fun at work? http://www.somethingtodoatwork.com/ Pretty cool personality test. http://www.scientificpsychic.com/personality.html Customizable photo gallery for your web page. http://marginalhacks.com/Hacks/album/ I have to agree, these are the worst photo album covers of all time. http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/worst-album-covers A human-powered search engine, Mahalo. http://www.mahalo.com/Main_Page Old fashioned living. http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/ Cool little apps from Iconico. http://www.iconico.com/download.aspx?type=free 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. Roll your own chat room. http://www.lively.com/ Education and video. http://www.edublogs.tv/ Mom knows stuff. http://www.opmom.com/ A compendium of poetry. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/index.html Here's a new concept; an open movie. http://www.elephantsdream.org/ http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/ A handy way to graphically compare nations. http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php U.S. energy statistics. http://www.eia.doe.gov/ I enjoy a fast paced game of Hearts. http://vex.net/hearts/ Board games, card games and more. http://www.playok.com/ An online graphic novella (comic book). http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/zot/index.html Got any old bottles? http://www.sha.org/bottle/index.htm Someone else starts it, you finish it. http://www.finishstory.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. High resolution screen capture utility. http://www.nouveux.com/software/capture/capture.html Tools and goodies from Smaller Animals Software. http://www.smalleranimals.com/index_free.htm City Stories. http://citystories.com/ The Miami Nation of Indiana. http://www.miamiindians.org/index.html Short stories in the style and essence of Isak Dineson. http://isak.typepad.com/isak/ How to speak Southern. http://www.kaos2000.net/backpages/southerntalk.html Restart your computer from the command line or a batch file. http://ahzeiv.notlong.com Spice up your website. http://www.sitegadgets.com/ Robert A Hienlien's home page. http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ Costless apps from Skynergy. http://www.skynergy.com/index.html Artist and multitalented artist Steven G. Chipman. Check out the drawings and drawing blog. http://slayeroffice.com/ Tips, tricks and training in HTML, CSS and programming. http://www.slackerhtml.com/ Create a quick web gallery of pictures. http://www.onfocus.com/snap/ Some costless apps from Softology. http://www.softology.com.au/software.htm 2 Paul Simon tunes I had missed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnnsAAGjXWU&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUiMbY-4xfU&feature=related Something Decent Software. Lots of goodies. http://somedec.com/downloads/ The bacon-wrapped hot dog: so good it's illegal. http://sodarngood.notlong.com End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. What's your favorite Open Source app? http://fossawards.notlong.com Running a business on desktop Linux (an article). http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7506682379.html A cool comic. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080608 A blog about FOSS. http://fosswire.com/ This and that from Pádraig Brady http://www.pixelbeat.org/ Linux commands, info and help from Computer Hope. http://www.computerhope.com/unix.htm Command line "cheat sheets" for serious Linux geeks. http://fosswire.com/2007/08/02/unixlinux-command-cheat-sheet/ http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/linux/excerpt/LinuxPG_quickref/linux.pdf Unix tutorial and command reference. http://www.cgi101.com/help/unixhelp.html A nice collection of Linux info. http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/ Extensive Linux forums. http://www.justlinux.com/ There's a wealth of Linux lore on this site from O'Reilly. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/ A Little Humor. This one's from my sister Jo-Ann Burton. An elderly man in North Carolina had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nicely: picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence, and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!" The old man frowned, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked. Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator." Moral: Some old men can still think fast! A guy goes into a restaurant for a Christmas breakfast while visiting his hometown for the holidays. After looking over the menu, he tells the waiter, "I'll have the Eggs Benedict." When his order comes, it's served on a large, shiny hubcap. The customer asks, "What's with the hubcap?" The waiter replies, "Oh, there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!" Tips for This Issue. Gaming and gadgetry info. http://www.ambster.com/ Lots of info for Windows users. http://malektips.com/ I've never seen Kim Komando's on TV or heard her on the radio, and probably never will, but there's plenty of info on her website. 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 Sorry, I have plenty of links from readers but don't have time to get them into this issue so there'll be that many more reader contributions in the next issue. Last word, from Lisa: There are few events in our lives as memorable as the death of a loved one. The death itself, the details that have to be attended to, the funeral and coming together of the family are just the beginning. Needless to say, we've been stressed and stretched, but didn't even consider not doing the ezine. It's an obligation, but one we've placed on ourselves, we love doing it. We enjoy sharing small bites of our lives with our readers, we hope you enjoy reading them. '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, August 1, 2008 1:15 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