Don's Patch #99, August 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: Lisa and I have downsized our sections in this issue to speed things up and make more room for the extra reader contributions I have (on account of I didn't list any in the last issue so they've ganged up on me). While my mother was alive we were always pressed for time and couldn't go anywhere together (because mom needed 24/7 care). Since mom passed away, right at a month ago, we've been extremely pressed for time and have few opportunities to go anywhere together because we're running in different directions. I keep asking myself "When are things going to get back to normal?" and myself keeps answering "Normal? What's that?". I guess it's a learn-as-you-go sort of thing. Our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who emailed condolences, your supportive words were much appreciated. Stay tuned because, as always, the adventure continues... Happy surfing, 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 while back I spent several days finding computer wallpaper sites that I felt wouldn't be severe security risks (as are many such sites) but I saved them to their own separate folder and I keep forgetting to list any of them. Here are a few of them. http://www.washburn.edu/ur/wallpaper/ http://www.utexas.edu/friends/wallpaper.php http://www.utexas.edu/inside_ut/download/wallpaper/index.html http://www.aggieathletics.com/index2.php?&pageID=115 http://thinkbig.tamu.edu/freebies/wallpapers.php http://allmyeye.com/photo/v5/wallpaper.html http://www.pomona.edu/wallpaper/home.shtml http://athena.cornell.edu/popups/wallpaper/index.html http://www.lsu.edu/now/downloads/ https://alumni.wm.edu/downloads/wallpaper/ http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_to_go/downloads/wallpaper.html http://www.semo.edu/wallpaper/ http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/wallpaper.html (very cool!) http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/campuslife/wallpaper.html http://www.wellesley.edu/About/Wallpaper/ http://www.alumni.ilstu.edu/merchandise_services/wallpaper.shtml http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/wall.html http://www.haverford.edu/forparents/wallpaper.php http://www.gmu.edu/alumni/wallpaper.html 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 Matt Stein, Garage Sale Philanthropist, a great garage-sale tool, and tips on having your own successful sale. http://web.me.com/mattstein/gss/Home.html http://gsalr.com/ http://garagesalehunter.com/ http://www.wikihow.com/Hold-a-Successful-Garage-Sale Katinka Matson has developed an art form from a well-known technology; scanning. The images she creates are mind-boggling. http://www.katinkamatson.com/intro.html Some nice utilities from Synth Zone. http://www.synthzone.com/utilities.htm David Dusina is an exceptional basket maker. http://raffiabasketry.tripod.com/index.html If you love logo design. http://www.logodesignlove.com/ Find pages similar to the ones you like. http://similicio.us/index.html http://www.googleguide.com/similar_pages.html Thought it couldn't be done? Clean limericks. http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/limericks.html Small business trends can be significant. http://www.smallbiztrends.com/ End of Section Two. At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was 392. This issue's collection of online news, blogs, magazines, videos and/or other informational sites (chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ). http://www.escapistmagazine.com/ http://www.jewishjournal.com/ http://www.satirewire.com/index.shtml http://valleywag.com/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ http://www.smbtechadvice.com/ http://www.kurdmedia.com/ http://www.iconeye.com/ http://www.eetimes.com/ http://www.beet.tv/ http://www.inhabitat.com/ http://flyinghamster.com/ http://www.automobilemag.com/index.html Section Three by Don. Medical resources. http://www.emedicine.com/ http://www.medhelp.org/ http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/home http://www.merck.com/pubs/ http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html http://www.medgle.com/ http://www.intelihealth.com/ Full-text U.S. patents including advanced patent search capabilities and full image retrieval. http://www.patentstorm.us/ Parents keep asking me about web filtering software for their kids and I keep telling them that the best filter is an educated child. Filtering software is like the built-in firewall in Windows XP; sufficient to give persons who know no better a false sense of security. Why do I say that? Here's one good example. http://www.go-fish.info/ The study of light. http://id.mind.net/~zona/mstm/physics/light/light.html Does the earth really need a good lawyer? http://www.earthjustice.org/ Picture this. http://photo.net/ The mathematics of rainbows. http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/education/calc-init/rainbow/ 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. Haider Wady, a wonderful Iraqi sculptor. http://hhwady.googlepages.com/home The Kashi company has an informative, interesting site. http://www.kashi.com/ If you're into climbing. http://www.rockandice.com/ The search for safe, clean water continues. http://www.historyofwaterfilters.com/ http://www.wikihow.com/Purify-Water Lapidary Journal Magazine. http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/ The Official Peanuts website. The gang's all here. http://www.snoopy.com/ Take the time to explore this fascinating site. It's about taking care of the land-and ourselves. http://www.thisland.uiuc.edu/ A loving look at a tough subject, carrying a baby with a fatal problem to term. http://www.erichad.com/wwl/ We must band together and force Hollywood to bring back Captain James T. Kirk! http://www.bringbackkirk.com/ Spellchecker for one word or 20,000. http://www.spellcheck.net/ Taking sport and life to the next level. http://www.tothenextlevel.org/ 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. Here's some fishy stuff: Fish as pets. http://fins.actwin.com/ http://www.fishlore.com/ http://www.aquariumfish.net/pages/information.htm http://www.fishinfocenter.com/index.html http://www.bettafish.info/ http://www.aquaria.info/ Fish as sport. http://www.takemefishing.org/ http://www.sport-fish-info.com/ http://www.info-fish.net/ http://www.anglersfishinginfo.com/ http://www.fishin.com/ http://www.fishtheoutdoors.com/ Fish as big business. http://www.infofish.org/ Fish science. http://www.bentham.org/open/tofishsj/index.htm http://www.fishbase.org/search.php 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. 47 years ago, Newton Minow called TV a "vast wasteland". Looks like nothing's changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Minow The Antiques Roadshow. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/index.html There is a plastic garbage patch the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. We can't fix it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch Heading out? Bring your pet. http://www.bringyourpet.com/ History of the American supermarket. http://www.groceteria.com/ A viable alternative to REALbasic, FutureBASIC. http://www.stazsoftware.com/index.php Rolling Stones song lyrics. http://www.keno.org/songlistnlyrics.htm#Top An over-40 social networking site, family-friendly, clean and fun. http://notoverthehill.com/ Fighting ignorance since 1973. It's taking longer than expected. http://www.straightdope.com/ Comparison-shopping guide. http://www.streetprices.com/ Strip forwarding carets from emails. http://www.dsoft.com.tr/stripmail/index.html Stong password techniques. http://strongpws.notlong.com End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. Here's a review on Amazon from a fellow who bought a copy of Ubuntu. I think it's a spoof but it's still good for a smile. http://yeah-right.notlong.com PCLinuxOS, Lisa's favorite Linux distro, has a very nice online magazine, in PDF format. http://pclosmag.com/html/enter.html Tuxpaint is a very cool Linux application you should know about. http://www.linux.com/feature/137233 Steven Rosenberg's Linux-centric blog. http://www.insidesocal.com/click/ If you're a geeky guitarist who thinks Linux has nothing for you think again. http://rakarrack.sourceforge.net/ Wolfgang's in depth Debian users resource. http://blog.thedebianuser.org/ Heavy duty geeky stuff from Mike Chirico. http://souptonuts.sourceforge.net/ Lots of geeky info here. http://www.unixref.com/ Ramblings of programming experiences, the occasional hardware tweaks and other errata. http://www.yakalot.com/ A collection of Unix/Linux/BSD commands and tasks which are useful for IT work or for advanced users. http://cb.vu/unixtoolbox.xhtml Guide to IP Layer Network Administration with Linux. http://linux-ip.net/ A geeky Linux/Unix techno-blog. http://bashcurescancer.com/ Trans American Software Linux Research Project and Star City Linux User Group. http://linux.dbw.org/ A Little Humor. A guy goes into a bookstore and asks the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She replies, "If I told you that, it would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?" When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. Did you hear about the mystic and the hot dog vendor? The mystic said, "Make me one with everything." Q: What did the fish say when he hit the concrete wall? A: Dam! Q: Why did the dentist and the manicurist get a divorce? A: They kept fighting tooth and nail. Q: Why do they put bells on cows? A: Because their horns don't work. A guy complains to his psychiatrist that he's been having strange dreams. "One night I dream I'm a Porsche, the next night I dream I'm a Trans Am -- every night, I'm some kind of sports car. It's really starting to get to me." The psychiatrist responds, "Relax, you're just having an auto-body experience." A patient says to his doctor, "You've got to help me. I keep dreaming that I'm Donald Duck, then the next night I dream I'm Mickey Mouse. What's going on?" The doctor replies, "That's very interesting, how long have you been having these disney spells?" A guy goes to his doctor for a check-up. After conducting a thorough examination, the doctor says, "I have some bad news. You're dying and you don't have much time left." "Oh no, that's terrible! How long have I got?" asks the patient. "Ten," says the doctor. "Ten? Ten what? Months? Weeks? What?!" the patient asks desperately. The doctor continues, "...nine, eight, seven...." A guy rushes into his doctor's office and shouts, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!" The doctor calmly responds, "Please settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient." Tips for This Issue. http://www.geektips.net/ http://www.computerhelpatoz.com/ http://www.terryscomputertips.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/ ) As seen by the color blind. http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/07/24/as-seen-by-the-color-blind/ Books, books and more books! http://www.wowio.com/index.asp] Hard to find 800 numbers. http://www.hardtofind800numbers.com/ An important security issue. http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/fbi-facebook.asp From our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) Click on any element to get hundreds of pictures, stories and facts. http://www.periodictable.com/ Pakistan's decorated vehicles are quite beautiful. http://www.pakistanphotos.co.uk/pakphotos/index.html Oceans Alive will bring you face to face with all kinds of oceanographic topics. http://www.mos.org/oceans/ This is where knowledge junkies get their fix. http://www.mentalfloss.com/ Nirvana for your sweet tooth. http://www.yumsugar.com/ It astounds and disappoints me that, in this day and age, there are still nations which permit whaling. http://splashypants.notlong.com The web's biggest show and tell. http://www.instructables.com/ A good site for dog and cat owners. http://www.petside.com/ A web community of artists and those who appreciate them. http://www.humblevoice.com/ The Food Bowl is for pets and their people. http://www.thefoodbowl.com/ From our web sibling Vinette (Vi) DePhillipe: ( Vi's site: http://360.yahoo.com/vinette1 ) Web lies aimed a women. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/abduction-tips.htm Photogenic apparitions. http://www.photographymuseum.com/believe1.html More cool stuff. http://www.photographymuseum.com/ What's popular on the web? http://www.populair.eu/ Unnecessary knowledge. http://www.unkno.com/toplist/ Still more unnecessary knowledge, some of which is TMI (too much information). http://www.unkno.com/ I can't read the language but I love the photos. http://www.vogliaditerra.com/animali/gatti.htm Craft recipes. http://www.seedsrootedinlove.org/Recipes Cultural, historical and statistical country information. http://www.countryreports.org/ High altitude photography (without an airplane). http://www.wild-landscape.com/ Apartment therapy. http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ A five foot newborn. http://funtasticus.com/20080130/giraffe-baby/ Here's an interesting link from our daughter Lily Keltch. http://www.ussnewyork.com/ From our web sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) Gizmo's tech support alert. http://www.techsupportalert.com/ A nice coupon site. http://www.wow-coupons.com/index.php The public library in Cedar Rapids Iowa (where John lives) was destroyed in the recent floods but they have a new home on the web. http://crlibrary.info/ John and I miss the Langalist but John discovered that Fred Langa has a blog! http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/ Giraffe Heroes are people who stick their necks out for the common good. http://www.giraffe.org/ John got a kick out of this simple animation entitled 'Simon's Cat TV Diner'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg RIP Skidboot, what a dog! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4VMntSUskg Our web-sibling Terri Martin-Goin sent this link to a media presentation on the dangers of plastic bags from the Pocono Record. http://ecotips.notlong.com From our web sibling Jon Reed. Check out the disappearing car door. Very cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK56Ttte8Sw Google has been my primary source of information for years now so I figure this is only natural. http://www.google.com/goog411/ From our friend and neighbor, Stevie Scott. Geeky stuff and great photos. http://www.humus.name/ Here's an interesting discussion about alternative Operating Systems which took place in 1998. Wow, who knew? http://www.cni.org/Hforums/roundtable/1998-01/0174.html An interesting way to discourage burglers. http://picasaweb.google.com/Zn000h/Xeyes An interesting blog. http://thewrongadvices.com/ Here's a way for experienced Windows power-users to do some serious customizing. http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html An article on OS installations from practical-tech.com http://linux-vs-win.notlong.com Windows vs Linux real world RAM and disk tests. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19553/1141/ There's always something cool to see on NASA's homepage. http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html Real people, real questions, simple answers. http://www.pc.com/ Face off: Windows vs Linux real world RAM and disk tests From our web sibling Randi Simon-Serey. National Novel Writing Month. http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Diet, health, weight loss, anti-aging, and more. http://www.prevention.com/cda/homepage.do The unofficial smiley dictionary from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. http://eff-egi-smileys.notlong.com Emoticons are those little typed thingies, like smilies, which people like to use on the web. There are many of them. Here's a list. http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/emoticons.html More stuff from the same source. http://www.computeruser.com/index.html A humorous, politically oriented, spoof video. http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bush_tours_america_to_survey This touching video, sent by Lisa's high school best-friend Anita Long, is in Spanish but never fear, there are English sub-titles. http://sign-story.notlong.com Thank you Patrick, Jo, Vi, Lily, John, Terri, Jon, Stevie, Randi and Anita. Last word, from Lisa: I've entered the Wonderful World of Garage Sale-ing in order to downsize, organize and clear the flotsam. Since I've never enjoyed or shopped at garage sales, the process has been educational to say the least. I did some research on the subject and they all say the same thing; it's a lot of work for little reward. The upside is that we'll be more organized (a relative term) and more mobile. That's a good thing. '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, August 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