#113, March 15, 2009 from http://www.don-guitar.com Online version: http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ First word, from Don: Years ago I had a friend named Gene Vance who allowed guilt to run his entire life. If he forgot to take out the trash, he'd do something nice for his wife because he felt guilty. If he missed his son's Little League game because he had to work he'd do something special for the boy because he felt guilty. Nice guy? Yes, one of the nicest fellows I've ever known but he never did anything just to be nice; every act of kindness was attributed to some real or imagined occasion where he felt he had somehow failed. I used to tease him relentlessly about it and if he became annoyed and made a snippy remark he'd immediately feel guilty about mistreating a friend and, of course, I'd laugh at him for feeling guilty, again. These days I think of Gene a lot. I feel guilty because I rarely see my grandkids, or spend enough quality time with my wife. I feel guilty because we've done such a poor job of keeping in touch with the many friends we normally contact frequently by email or telephone. I feel guilty because... well, for a host of reasons I can't really do much of anything about right now. We're both happy, well fed, in good health and busy. Too busy in fact. Time is zipping away on invisible wings, where the heck did it go? When did I lose track of it? Who says I'm not paying attention? Yes I am! Argh! I feel so guilty. Don Our feedback form and contact info: 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 blog. http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ Lisa at myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/81825549 Lisa's blog. http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ Section One by Don. Halls of fame (continued) Alabama sport. http://www.ashof.org/ U.S. Lacrosse. http://www.uslacrosse.org/museum/ International clown. http://www.theclownmuseum.org/ Missouri sport. http://www.mosportshalloffame.com/ US national racing. http://www.racingmuseum.org/ Blues. http://www.blueshalloffame.com/ US mining. http://www.leadville.com/MiningMuseum/ Slashdot. http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml Cincinnati Reds. http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/cin/ballpark/museum/ Hall of Fame Cafes. http://www.halloffamecafes.com/prod/hofc/ Nebraska HS sport. http://www.nebhalloffame.org/ Women divers. http://www.wdhof.org/ Presidents (US). http://www.presidentshalloffame.com/ World sport humanitarian. http://www.sportshumanitarian.com/ US ski and snowboard. http://www.skihall.com/ Kansas sport. http://www.kshof.org/ HOF magazine. http://www.hofmag.com/ (to be continued) Some interesting music videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heZ6EcE3zeU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfDoPUqOklA http://www.youtube.com/user/wagnerdfguitar Just for kids. http://pbskids.org/ http://kids.yahoo.com/ http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ http://kidshealth.org/kid/ http://www.scholastic.com/kids/stacks/index.asp http://www.kids.gov/ http://www.nickjr.com/ http://disney.go.com/index http://www.fi.edu/fellows/payton/rocks/create/ http://www.missdorothy.com/ http://www.deeqs.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 //www.freelists.org Section Two by Lisa Coffee and chocolate are not merely edibles, they're a lifestyle. http://cocoajava.com/index.html Make your home a better place. http://www.curbly.com/ A collection of personal financial management spreadsheets. http://goodspreadsheets.notlong.com Monty Python's Completely Useless Website. http://www.intriguing.com/mp/ Always wanted backyard chickens? Me too. http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/index.html You can participate in the Seti Project. http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ Urban sustainable living with Patti Moreno. http://www.gardengirltv.com/ Patti's YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/GardenGirltv Excellent advice about insurance. http://insanswers.notlong.com Clara gives us stories and recipes from the Great Depression. http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking Instructional videos from over 1,700 websites. http://www.wonderhowto.com/ Consumer Reports' Annual Auto Issue. http://autoissue.notlong.com Guide for car buyers and owners. http://www.samarins.com/ Views of the Solar System. http://www.solarviews.com/eng/index.htm When menopause comes early. http://www.earlymenopause.com/ The first highway across America. http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/ The nation's record keeper, and how to use it. http://www.archives.gov/ Supporting wounded heroes and their families. http://www.operationfirstresponse.org/ End of Section Two. At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was 374. 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. Note: This section is being temporarily expanded until my media folder gets thinned down a bit. http://www.popsugar.com/ http://royal.pingdom.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/squirmelia/ http://wurdygirl.wordpress.com/ http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/ http://emusician.com/ http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/ http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/ http://www.beatlesnews.com/ http://researchnews.osu.edu/ http://www.bismarcktribune.com/ http://www.philly.com/ http://gizmodo.com/ http://allthingsd.com/ http://www.computeramerica.com/ http://www.justhungry.com/ http://www.pcworld.com/ http://foundinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/ http://www.chestjournal.org/ http://www.nowpublic.com/ http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/ http://www.ebu.ch/ http://www.journalism.org/ http://erin-gungle.blogspot.com/ http://www.blogdenovo.org/ http://www.goodnewsdaily.com/ http://www.globalgoodnews.com/ http://www.goodnewsinc.net/ http://www.syracuse.com/ http://www.vdare.com/ http://www.satirev.com/index.php http://www.flickr.com/groups/11417482@N00/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/75382418@N00/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/360243@N24/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/328839@N24/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/390531@N25/ Section Three by Don. Eric Weisstein's World of Physics http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/ A sophisticated calculator for Mac (and some Linux systems). http://w-calc.sourceforge.net/index.php The official website of Professor Stephen W. Hawking. http://www.hawking.org.uk/ Combine two faces into one. http://www.morphthing.com/ Interesting thing of the day. http://itotd.com/ Could you live with just 100 things? http://linkasa.com/m91 A daily DIY for crafters. http://www.oneprettything.com/ Understanding the language of computer/internet geeks. http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html Explore the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and 19th to 20th century sub-Saharan Africa. http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/MidElem_Home.html Anika's Odyssey is an online game. http://www.kongregate.com/games/Trickysheep/anikas-odyssey/ An interesting and impressive online magazine. http://www.suite101.com/ A brief googlish digression. This isn't a search engine. http://www.google.org/ This is for Australians. http://www.google.com.au/ For folks from the UK. http://www.google.co.uk/ For Canadians. http://www.google.ca/ Google is also on twitter. http://twitter.com/google Google has a sense of humor. http://lmgtfy.com/ Google has adamant critics. http://www.google-watch.org/ Adamant supporters. http://www.googlefan.com/ Google has tutorials. http://www.googleguide.com/ Sightseeing. http://googlesightseeing.com/ A long list of products and services. http://www.google.com/options/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products Even a blog where you can learn about new stuff at google. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ Let's end violence against females. http://newsite.vday.org/ The media player I use, and love, everyday on my Linux machine is also available for Mac and Windows. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ Interesting tools for Vista and XP. http://www.vlite.net/index.html (Vista) http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html (XP) All about coins. http://www.vcoins.com/ 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 either of these two locations: http://www.don-guitar.com/subsmanager.html //www.freelists.org/list/donspatch Section Four by Lisa. You can obtain a copy of your own FBI Identification Record. http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/fprequest.htm Over 400 first and early printed editions of musical compositions by Frédéric Chopin. http://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu/ Energy, technology and policies for Sustainable Mobility. http://www.greencarcongress.com/ Internet Modern History Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html Useless facts. http://www.amusingfacts.com/ Offbeat tourist attractions. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/ News, reviews and articles about jazz. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ All you need to know about worms. http://abtworms.notlong.com The official Hubble web site. http://hubblesite.org/ Pete Seeger has had a solid impact on American culture. http://www.peteseeger.net/ Phineas Gage is a legend in the annals of neurology. http://phineasgage.notlong.com Tech news and reviews. http://www.engadget.com/ How to replace your Vital Documents. http://vitaldocs.notlong.com Good Housekeeping Magazine. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/ Make the most of your digital camera. http://digital-photography-school.com/ An amazing group of artists. http://www.http-design.com/index.htm Techniques and tools for web design and development. http://wellstyled.com/ How to upholster. http://www.upholster.com/howto/ 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 and contact info: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Section Five by Don. On the topic of 'Productivity'. http://www.dumblittleman.com/ http://lifehacker.com/ http://www.43folders.com/ http://www.lifehack.org/ http://webworkerdaily.com/ http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/ Looking for music (mp3) files? http://skreemr.com/ http://www.wuzam.com/ http://www.bresso.com/ Current status of the polar sea ice cap and snow. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ An interesting CSS learning site. http://css-tricks.com/ This video makes a powerful statement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA Videos of genuine dancing fools. http://www.lindylibrary.com/main/index.php Presto bunny (cute disney/pixar video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0v09U30eE Optical Illusions and visual phenomena. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ Mozilla news. http://www.foxiewire.com/ This is an odd animation that may take a bit to load but it's worth the wait for the music alone (if you like jazz). http://michalevy.com/giantsteps_download Privacy rights clearinghouse. http://www.privacyrights.org/ They describe themselves as an 'economic think-and-do tank. http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/ A collection of US military sites. http://www.army.mil/ http://www.usar.army.mil/arweb/pages/default.aspx http://www.goarmy.com/ http://www.marines.com/ http://www.marforres.usmc.mil/ http://www.navy.com/ http://www.navyreserve.com/ http://www.af.mil/ http://www.afrc.af.mil/ http://www.airforcereserve.com/ http://afreserve.com/ http://www.airforce.com/ http://www.uscg.mil/ http://www.uscg.mil/Reserve/ http://www.gocoastguard.com/ http://www.ngb.army.mil/default.aspx http://www.arng.army.mil/default.aspx http://www.ang.af.mil/ http://www.military.com/ http://www.usmilitary.com/ End of Section Five. Archives for this ezine are available online here: //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. //www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/feed.rss Section Six by Lisa. The Free Library. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ Official Three Stooges site. http://www.threestooges.com/ The answers to Everyday Mysteries. http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/ Keep up-to-date on unsafe products. http://www.cpsc.gov/ The virtual museum of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. http://museum.nist.gov/ Reviews of popular frozen foods. http://www.iceboxdiner.com/ A book-review-a-day. http://www.powells.com/review Welcome to Seussville. Lots of fun here, it was kinda hard to leave. http://www.seussville.com/ With Spring comes a renewed interest in birds and how to help and appreciate them. http://www.wildbird.com/content/nbs.index http://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/wild-bird-food.html http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/ http://whatbird.wildbird.com/mwg/_/0/attrs.aspx Highway route markers, past and present, from around the world. http://www.routemarkers.com/ Vegetable gardening in containers. http://pottedveggies.notlong.com Help and advice for expatriates. http://www.expatexpert.com/ All about mushrooms. http://www.mushroomexpert.com/ Business and website tools. http://www.allprofitallfree.com/index.html Mac user forums. http://mac360.com/ End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. The UK's best-selling Linux magazine. http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/ Creating a live CD of your Linux machine. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7246 http://linkasa.com/q91 http://linkasa.com/r91 http://linkasa.com/s91 http://linkasa.com/t91 http://www.linux-live.org/ http://librenix.com/?inode=3608 A Little Humor. From our other-brother Bill (Beeyil) Lanoue. ( Bill's blog http://ncvietvet.blogspot.com/ ) A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude to try to figure out where he was when he spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I appear to be a little off course. I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.' The woman below replied, 'You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.' Amazed by what she said, the balloonist stated 'You must be in Information Technology!' 'I am,' replied the woman, 'How did you know?' 'Well,' answered the balloonist, 'everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact is that I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip.' The woman below smiled and responded, 'You must be in Management.' 'I am,' replied the balloonist, 'but how did you know?' 'Well,' said the woman, 'you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault.' From Terri Lanoue. A Retiree's Thought... My wife said, 'Whatcha doin today?' I said, 'Nothing.' She said, 'You did that yesterday.' I said, 'I wasn't finished.' Tips for This Issue. http://www.computerhelpatoz.com/ http://www.terryscomputertips.com/ http://www.online-tech-tips.com/ http://www.computertips.com/contents.htm 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/ ) The random distribution of camera memory cards is called 'photochaining'. http://www.photochaining.com/ Who wants their credit report? http://www.ftc.gov/freereports From our web-sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) Here's a far more visual version of the periodic table of the elements. http://www.periodictable.com/ Artistic vehicles. http://www.pakistanphotos.co.uk/pakphotos/index.html Oceans alive. http://www.mos.org/oceans/ You're going to want a bite. http://www.yumsugar.com/ Mister Splash Pants is doing a whale of a job. http://linkasa.com/u91 A self-proclaimed site for knowledge junkies. http://www.mentalfloss.com/ Make, how-to and DIY. http://www.instructables.com/ Pet stuff. http://www.petside.com/ Artists and those who appreciate them. http://www.humblevoice.com/ A social network for contemporary lifestyles. http://www.blisstree.com/ It's a blog, no it's a news thingy, no... um, well it's Canadian anyway. http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/ From our web sibling Vinette (Vi) DePhillipe: Is your social network vulnerable? http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nf/20090305/tc_nf/65095 From our web sibling Foggy. Still more cheap shots (targets) for gun geeks. http://www.survivalblog.com/targets.html http://www.huntingcircle.com/targets.php http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.free-rifle-target.html http://www.airhog.com/targets_1.htm http://www.koniaris.com/archery/targets/ (archery) http://cksinfo.com/signssymbols/targets/index.html http://www.waterproof-paper.com/targets/free-targets.pdf http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tphaller/page3.html http://www.larrywillis.com/Free-Targets.html http://warhammer.mcc.virginia.edu/ty/targets.html http://www.airgunsmith.com/target/free_targets.htm http://www.tuffsteel.com/Targets.html http://waterandwoods.net/2008/11/free-printable-targets/ Sites for teachers (portal). http://www.sitesforteachers.com/ A good site for kids, parents, student teachers and teachers. http://www.abcteach.com/ Mark Donaldson's portal site is an impressive collection. http://luem42.com/ Greg Sheppard's extensive portal is a new one for me. http://www.can-do.com/usefullinks.html A political portal from the Sunlight Foundation. http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/resources/ Got an itch to build something? Need plans? http://www.buildeazy.com/ http://www.freeww.com/ http://www.mybackyardplans.com/ Tools for learning Chinese. http://www.chinesetools.eu/ Electronics product manuals (in PDF format). http://www.retrevo.com/ From our web sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) The eyeborg blog. http://www.eyeborgproject.com/blog/ The creation of 3D street art captured on video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SNYtd0Ayt0 Meet Tim. Tim is a real homeless man. http://www.ascendgence.com/pimpthisbum/index.aspx Multicultural bluegrass. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LALgWz0xc0 Thank you Patrick, Jo, Vi, Foggy and John. Last word, from Lisa: A friend recently asked when she should start planting her garden. I told her to hold off for a bit and do some planning, cleanup, start seeds, lay out irrigation, anything but plant. Two years ago here in Central Texas, we had a light snow on Easter. The photos of snow on bluebonnet blossoms was charming, but the gardeners who planted too early were busy covering their baby plants in the howling Texas wind. Sure enough, we've had a cold, miserable, rainy last 4 days, which means that when the sun comes out, dry, brown Texas will explode in every shade of green imaginable. Then, the famous wildflowers of Texas will start to bloom. Life is good. 'Til next time, Lisa Our feedback form and contact info: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Lisa at myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/81825549 Lisa's blog. http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar Don's blog. http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ Our personal news page. http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html Don Crowder and Lisa Miller Saturday March 14, 2009 12:52 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. //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.