[donspatch] 2008-10-15

Don's Patch #103,  October 15, 2008  from www.don-guitar.com

Online version:  http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html

Archives:  http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ 
 
First word, from Don: 
 
A friend of mine visited this weekend.  He's recently divorced
and feeling socially 'out of the loop'.  He complained that he
had no idea how to meet women and get started dating again.
I explained to him that you have to be patient, suspicious,
skeptical, and persistent but in two hours on the web you can
meet more people than you'd see during a month in the 'real
world' and I gave him links to some popular social networks.

http://personals.yahoo.com/
http://www.friendster.com/
http://www.netfriendships.com/
http://www.reachoutside.com/
http://socialnetwork.com/
http://www.tomydate.net/
http://www.tagged.com/

If none of these work for him I'll point him towards the two
'biggies' which require fees.  Nobody who owns a computer has
any excuse for feeling isolated and lonely.  It's never easy
to find love, the 'real thing' but the web can bring you an
enormous network of supportive friends and that can make a
real difference in anyone's life.

This isn't idle speculation on my part.  Lisa and I have many
wonderful friends, who we've never met in person, who have
helped us through some very difficult moments in our life
together.  Yes, the internet can be dangerous, as anything
genuinely powerful can be, but power is neither good nor evil.
We take our life in our hands when we drive a car but we try
to educate ourselves in order to improve our chances of
survival.  Venturing onto the web is little different.  We
must educate ourselves and surf defensively.

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 traveler's guide to Turkey.
http://www.turkishodyssey.com/default.htm

Before television became our primary
entertainment medium, there was radio...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama
http://davidszondy.com/Radio.htm
http://www.mercurytheatre.info/
http://odeo.com/channels/2102028-Old-Time-Radio-Drama
http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
...and, of course, movies.
http://www.publicdomainflicks.com/
http://www.archive.org/details/feature_films

Who doesn't love Rube Goldburg?
http://rubegoldberg.com/

DIY antennas for wireless services.
http://www.freeantennas.com/

Where women shape the future.   http://www.adhunika.org/

Living on Earth is a great program on public radio but
you don't need a radio to listen to it.
http://www.loe.org/index.htm

As terrible as this 'game' is, it makes a clear
and unmistakable statement about gun safety.
http://www.fingertime.com/bullettime.php

This game isn't as gruesome but is hard to win.
http://www.stickpage.com/matrixbullettimeplay.html

I guess it beats getting shot.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/biscuit.asp

Sayings and phrases (in English).
http://www.phrases.org.uk/index.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 
 
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's powerful and inspiring
talk at TED has made her world famous.
http://drjill.notlong.com
http://drjilltaylor.com/

Clyde Bergstresser, photographer extraodinaire.
http://www.bergstresserimages.com/

Cool Tools, stuff that just works.
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/

For the love of photography.
http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/home/

Study of wildlife migration and seasonal change.
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

How to live well without a job.
http://www.f4.ca/text/possumliving.htm

Well organized, comprehensive site to help you
save electricity.  http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/

More info on energy savings from the Dept. of Energy.
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/

Natural vision improvement.
http://www.iblindness.org/

Offbeat, semi-educational and amusing.
http://www.cockeyed.com/

Opt-in or opt-out of pre-screened credit offers.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t

Useful costless apps from MonkeyBread.
http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Freeware/

Cool shelves built from recycleables.
http://coolshelves.notlong.com

Bible study tools.
http://www.biblestudytools.net/

The science of everything.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/ 
 
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.  These are chosen for maximum diversity
regardless of "spin" and in some cases may
have offensive or questionable content. 
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ 
http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=home
http://www.epracticejournal.eu/
http://eventseer.net/
http://www.rocketnews.com/
http://sciencewatch.com/
http://info.scopus.com/topcited/
http://playthinklearn.net/
http://www.tothepc.com/
http://neekole.com/
http://www.freesfonline.de/
http://www.newspond.com/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/catching_sun/pool/

 
Section Three by Don. 
 
When it comes to my desktop background image I'm a
conservative.  I prefer to find an image I like and
stay with it.  For over a year now I've used this
image.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/107905416/
Whether you stay with the same image or regularly
change it, you need an image.  Here are some places
where you might look.
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/Promote_MDC
http://www.denverzoo.org/kids/wallpaper.asp
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/fungames/wallpaper
http://www.pdphoto.org/
http://www.readersdigest.ca/wallpaper.html
http://www.rollinghillswildlife.com/kids_club/wallpaper.html
http://www.umaine.edu/wallpapers/index.html
http://www.unmuseum.org/wallp/wallp.htm
http://irui.ac/oneworldtosee/travel-wallpapers
http://www.skinbase.org/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/wallpaper
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/photo-contest/wallpaper
Note:  The National Geographic site has far more to offer
but there's no single link to any of it.  To see the huge
array of choices, go to the main page...
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
...and type "wallpaper" (without the quotes of course)
into the search box near the top of the page (and click
on "search").  Be impressed!
For those of you with an interest in Linux, here are a
few more choices for background images.
http://kde-look.org/
http://gnome-look.org/
http://xfce-look.org/
http://www.box-look.org/
http://www.compiz-themes.org/
http://www.73lab.com/
http://art.gnome.org/
http://www.cathbard.com/
http://www.crystalxp.net/
http://customize.org/
http://www.debian-art.org/
http://www.deviantart.com/
http://gdesklets.de/
http://hewphoria.com/
http://www.linfx.com/
http://thelinuxbox.org/
http://www.wallpaperlinux.com/main.php
http://www.linuxwallpapers.org/
http://penguinpetes.com/gallery/index.php
http://www.suse-art.org/
http://systhread.net/pics/digital_art/
http://junauzadotcomwp.notlong.com
http://teknobitesdotcomwp.notlong.com
 
End of Section Three. 
 
 
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Section Four by Lisa. 
 
Contemporary artist Michael Heizer, one of the
pioneers of the "land art" movement.
http://doublenegative.tarasen.net/

Should you take your umbrella today?
http://umbrellatoday.com/

A typographical interactive art experience.
http://www.typeisart.com/

Typography can be a passionate interest.
http://ilovetypography.com/

The American Merchant Marines.
http://www.usmm.org/

The American Legion.
http://www.legion.org/homepage.php

A journey toward self-sufficiency.
http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/

A virtual stopwatch and virtual timer.
http://www.timeme.com/index.htm

Have you ever heard of Soapnuts?
http://www.thesoapnutshop.co.nz/index.php?pr=Home_Page
http://www.soapberry.org/
http://www.sapindusmukorossi.com/

Wildflowers listed by color.
http://www.renyswildflowers.com/color.html

Vintage photos, still fresh.
http://www.shorpy.com/

The photography of Kevin Harris.
http://kevinharris.com/

Picture your dreams.  http://solaas.com.ar/dreamlines/

Sculpture of William Edmondson.
http://willedmondson.notlong.com 
 
End of Section Four. 
 
 
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).
Our feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html 
 
Section Five by Don. 
 
One of my new favorite things to do on the computer is
listening to podcasts. As a confirmed public broadcasting
fan, these two sites are my favorites...
http://www.pbs.org/podcasts/
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php
...but, whatever your tastes, there are podcasts for you.
http://podcast.com/
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/

If you've got good computer skills, here's a tool that
belongs in your arsenal.   http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
Here's another.   http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

"I'd like to give my old computer away but there's too
much personal data on the hard drive."  If this
description fits you, here's a solution for you.
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Here's one man's answer to a dozen common problems.
http://www.crn.com/white-box/59200391

Here are some applications recommended by many
knowledgeable geeks.   http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/

It's about guitars.   http://www.guitarized.com/

A commercial site that has some proprietary, but
costless, offerings.   http://iconfactory.com/home/

There's lots of good health-related info on the CDC
site.   http://www.cdc.gov/

If you've an interest in scriptwriting, here's a resource
for you.   http://www.simplyscripts.com/

Is this a flikr wannabe?   http://tinypic.com/

Think small.   http://www.tinyapps.org/

Like a latter day Liberace, Tiny Tim
has become an iconic character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Tim_(musician)
http://www.tinytim.org/

Lisa featured this fellows house a few issues back;
looks like he's capitalized on his liabilities.
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

Kids stuff.   http://www.tinyplanets.com/

 Ever wondered how babies sees the world or how
they see you?   http://tinyeyes.com/tinyeyes/

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. 
 
Why women should vote.  http://womenvote.notlong.com

A wealth of health info.   http://www.aolhealth.com/

Guide to giving and taking job interviews.
http://www.job-interview.net/index.htm

Small Magazine, kind of yuppie but kind of
cool magazine about children.
http://www.smallmagazine.net/issue.asp

Vintage toy encyclopedia.  http://www.toynfo.com/

Timeline of early cinema.
http://www.earlycinema.com/timeline/index.html

Free minds and free markets.
http://www.reason.com/

Study skills from Columbia University.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/study/

A history of the Temperence Movement and Prohibition.
http://prohibition.osu.edu/

Protect yourself from lightning.
http://www.elec-toolbox.com/usefulinfo/lightprot.htm

Who is your Representative in Congress?
http://www.house.gov/Welcome.shtml

Freedom for all computer users.
http://www.fsf.org/

A collection of early calculators.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/prehp.htm

A vast site on collections and collecting.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/

The most successful art forger of all time.
http://www.meegeren.net/

The depression of 1929 is the wrong model
for the current economic crisis.
http://realdepression.notlong.com

The Better Business Bureau.
http://bbbureau.notlong.com 
 
End of Section Six. 
 
 
The Linux Corner. 
 
An article I enjoyed reading.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_10470746

The Ubuntu online magazine.   http://fullcirclemagazine.org/

The PCLinuxOS online magazine.   http://pclosmag.com/

The UK's best-selling Linux magazine.
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/

Linux magazine.   http://www.linux-mag.com/

Linux magazine (another).   http://www.linux-magazine.com/

Linux Journal.   http://www.linuxjournal.com/

Open Source is evolving into tech regions which were
formerly the domain of proprietary products.
http://gnuradio.org/trac

FUD stands for "fear, uncertainty and doubt".  That
being said, here's an interesting article.
http://groklaw-on-fud.notlong.com

I remember when my female heroes were television and
movie stars.  Times have certainly changed.
http://euneeblic.livejournal.com/165148.html

Some Reasons not to use Linux. Ever. At all.
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/30354

A Linux user's blog.   http://hehe2.net/

One man's perspective on BSD for Linus users.
http://overyonder-net-bsd-vs-linux.notlong.com

Tami’s adventures in LinuxLand (a blog).
http://tamilinux.wordpress.com/category/linux-tips/

A collection of useful information pertaining to
Fedora.   http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/

Ubuntu classroom.    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom
 
 
A Little Humor.

A young man facing a murder charge decided to bribe a
kindly-looking juror to hold out for a manslaughter
verdict. After a long trial and an even longer jury
deliberation, the jury indeed returned a verdict of
manslaughter. Before being led off to prison, the
young man had a moment to talk with the juror he'd
bribed. 'Thank you so much,' he said. 'How did you
do it?' The juror replied, 'it wasn't easy.
They all wanted to acquit you!'

In democracy, it's your vote that counts.
In feudalism, it's your count that votes.

Q:   What happens if you don't pay your exorcist?
A:   You get repossessed.

Q:   What do you call two dumb guys with Ph.D.'s?
A:   A paradox.

Q:   What do you call a Local Area Network in Australia?
A:   The LAN down under!

Patient: Doctor, I think I've turned into a pair of curtains.
Doctor: Pull yourself together, man!

Q:   How do you define 'plateau'?
A:   It's a high form of flattery!


Did you hear about the eye doctor who moved to Alaska?
He's now an optical Aleutian.

First baker:
That's great bread,  can I have the recipe?
Second baker:
Sorry, but I only share that on a knead to know basis.

If a parsley farmer goes bankrupt,
can they garnish his wages?

When I turned two I was really anxious because I
doubled my age in a year.  I thought, 'if this keeps
up, by the time I'm seven I'll be sixty four!'

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that nine
out of ten doctors agree that one out of ten doctors
is an idiot.

You know there is a problem with the education system
when you realize only one of the three Rs begins with
an R.

Q:   What happened when the frog broke down?
A:   He got toad away! 
 
 
Tips for This Issue.

If you want to learn how to do professional quality
editing of your digital images without the expense
of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro
the Gimp is your logical choice (Windows, Mac or
Linux).   http://www.gimp.org/
Any genuinely powerful image editing software comes
with a steep learning curve and the Gimp is no
exception but there are many sites which can help
you learn to use the Gimp.  Here are two good ones.
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
http://glinted.angelskies.net/glinted/

If you aren't prepared to take on a steep learning
curve there are still many options available to you.

Windows users can use either of the web's most popular
image editors to perform an assortment of basic editing.
http://www.irfanview.com/
http://www.xnview.com/

Note:  Linux users, irfanview is supposed to run on
Linux under wine and there's a Linux version of Xnview.
I've tried both on Debian and found them unsuitable
for my porposes but that's only my opinion and a
different distro might give different results.

Another choice for Windows users is the Digital Camera
Enhancer from Mediachance.  This is a simple tool that
can nevertheless do some wonderful things with your
digital images.  It's a good accessory no matter
what other tools you have installed on your system.
http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/enhancer.htm

Linux users, check your repository for DigiKam.  If
you aren't using KDE you'll have to install some KDE
components to use it but ShowFoto, the image editing
engine in DigiKam, is a very powerful, stand-alone
image editing tool.

Most folks who don't use the computer for business or
financial purposes figure they don't really need to
worry about backing up their data.  At least they don't
worry about it until they have a major crash and then
they suddenly remember their pictures, music and those
few special emails they've been saving for years.  Stop
and think about it right now.  Are you certain you don't
have any files you don't want to lose?

An expensive software solution isn't really viable for
something that amounts to a hobby, even if it's a very
important hobby, but for most of us it's not a big deal
to just burn a CD or DVD of our most important files
every week or two but that leads to a huge pile of disks
and, if they weren't carefully marked, it can be a real
chore figuring out which is the most current.

Another option is to save your important data to a
removable drive which you can just add to every so often.
Depending on how much storage space you need, this can
be a very economical option.  So called "thumb drives",
for example, are available in sizes ranging up to several
megabytes and, if you need a great deal of backup storage
space you can build an external hard drive by purchasing
an enclosure, like one of these for example...
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145137
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145136
...and adding whichever sized IDE hard drive, from 40 GB
to 1.5 TB, best suits your needs.
 
 
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/ )

An index of haunted places.
http://theshadowlands.net/places/

 
From our web sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: 
( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) 
 
An interesting, and configurable, home page/portal. 
http://popurls.com/ 
 
Sometimes, before you can find an answer, you much change 
your question.   http://marylaine.com/myword/quesmark.html 
 
Test Pattern tunes into television, movie, music and pop 
culture links, as well as gossip and idle chat from around 
the Web.   http://testpattern.msnbc.msn.com/ 
 
Daryl Cagle's cartoon web log. 
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/blog/ 
 
A blog-like collection of unusual minutia. 
http://blort.meepzorp.com/ 
 
Blogcritic magazine.   http://blogcritics.org/ 
 
The most popular myths in science. 
http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/?cat=myths 
 
Creating French culture (Library of Congress exhibition). 
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bnf/ 
 
Flood myths (in two parts) 
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/titania.htm 
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/puck.htm 
Afterlife myths. 
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/cressida.htm 
 
Asatru is an expression of the native, pre-Christian 
spirituality of Europe. More specifically, it is the 
way by which the Germanic peoples have traditionally 
related to the Divine and to the world around them. 
http://www.runestone.org/home.html


From our web sibling Vinette (Vi) DePhillipe: 
( Vi's site: http://360.yahoo.com/vinette1 )

How can I recycle this?   http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/

A beginner's guide to quilting.
http://www.how-to-quilt.com/patterns/free-quilt-patterns.shtml

Patterns, and lot's more from the knitty chick.
http://www.knittychick.com/index.html

Crochet & knitting patterns.
http://www.allcrafts.net/crochetknit.htm


From our web sibling John Lepse. 
( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ )

The man who reads dictionaries.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7654511.stm

John thought this video was pretty impressive but
Lisa and I both did this on an ordinary playground
swing when we were kids.  That may not seem impressive
but let me tell you, playground swings don't have rigid
hangers and the chains collapse if you don't have
sufficient momentum, driving your head into the cross bar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWbcsEDrmFE


Lee Parmeter sent this link which itemizes references
to linux in pop culture (very cool).
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20863/1141/1/4/


From our web sibling Randi Simon-Serey.

Carrots which commemorate Jimi Hendrix.
http://garden.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/9/1752656.html

Male belly dancers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29HV9aFCaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axUixg0RFaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhN3bWlhQKc


Thank you Patrick, Jo, Vi, John and Randi.

 
Last word, from Lisa: 
 
Learning curves, dontcha hate 'em?  My mom, who is
learning to use the computer, has a Linux distribution
which comes with GIMP, the Open Source equivalent to
Photoshop (Open Source=$0.00).   I just checked the
Adobe website and PhotoShop CS4 costs $699.  Yeah,right.

She's very interested in image editing since I showed
her a few rudimentary improvements that can be made to
photographs.  Now when I send her pictures she wants to
know how I did this, or did I tweak the levels on that.
I've been avoiding the learning curve because I'm
proficient in and comfortable with PaintShop Pro 8
(in Windows).  Now I feel compelled to get up to speed
with GIMP so I can help her plunge right in to the deep
end of a fully-featured professional image editor.
It's going to be an interesting next few weeks.
Fortunately she'll be going slowly for awhile, since
she has yet to get a digital camera.  But we're
working on that...

For now (as always), the adventure continues...

'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 
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 
10:30 PM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA 
Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas 
 
 
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