[donspatch] 2010-01-01
- From: Donald Edward Crowder <dondashguitar@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Donspatch <Donspatch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 01:44:47 -0600
#132 January 1, 2010 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:
Two years ago Lisa and I decided that, as our Christmas
present to one another, we'd talk to all our favorite
readers on the telephone. It seemed like a good idea at
the time but Verizon charged us about $500.00 for one
of those calls (to a reader in Australia). That was
slightly traumatic for us in the same sense that ground
zero of a nuclear explosion is slightly loud. Words like
'shock' and 'horror' are simply inadequate to the task.
This resulted in our finding a new long distance carrier.
Since then our monthly charges for long distance service
have been well under $5.00 a month. The long distance
charges don't appear on our Verizon bill, they come
separately by email. I print out the bill each month and
we mail them a check when we're paying the rest of the
bills. We love our long distance provider:
http://www.pioneertelephone.com/
On Christmas day (a few days ago) we called that same
Australian reader again and talked for two hours and
13 minutes. If we had simply direct dialed, Pioneer
would have charged us $11.18 for the call (I logged
in and checked their rates). As it was, the call cost
us $3.99 (three dollars and ninety nine cents) because
we used Google Voice to make the call. Officially
Google Voice is only available in the U.S. but some
folks who live in other countries have found
work-around solutions...
http://gorey.com.au/archives/3970
Calls to folks in the U.S. and Canada, via Google Voice,
cost nothing at all. If you're a U.S. resident you can
request an invitation to Google Voice from this page:
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/
Lisa and I have a few virtual friends who're quite a lot
younger than we are. I was trying to find a word
to describe these relationships and Lisa suggested
'ePaw and eMaw'. I think that's pretty cool.
Virtual parents/grandparents = eParents = eMaw & ePaw.
We're eParents and we have a small collection of eMoppets
(eCendants, eMinors, eBambinos, or eProgeny). :)
Life is good. See you next time.
Don
P.S. Happy New Year.
Our feedback form and contact info:
http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.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 Lisa.
Charles and Ray Eames, American designers of the
mid-20th century. Their concepts and work are still
fresh and influencing design today.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/science.html
Remember this? 'Be kind, please rewind.'
http://www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm
Wouldn't you like to know how your teen is driving?
Let them drive the car, but with this bumper sticker.
http://www.tell-my-mom.com/
Did you get the memo? The customer is in control!
http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/
Learn how to effectively tell a story.
http://www.aaronshep.com/storytelling/Tips.html
Google Wave and why it's important.
http://www.planetsareplaces.com/blog.php?show=11
Improving education through technology.
http://www.arcytech.org/
You should always have control of your own data.
http://www.dataliberation.org/
OpenID is a useful tool for safely and
quickly logging into websites.
http://openid.net/
http://openid.net/get-an-openid/
Is that food still good? Thousands of items;
how to store them and how long to keep them.
http://www.stilltasty.com/
Think a solar water distiller is complicated? Not.
http://sustainabledesignupdate.com/?p=343
The first comprehensive guide to Google Wave. I found
this free ebook much easier to understand than anything
I've read to date. Proof once again that a passionate
user of a new concept or program can be the best teacher.
Here's the online book by Gina Trapani, an opportunity
to purchase the PDF, and her YouTube presentation.
http://completewaveguide.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBpIyHIbb4
It's New Year's Day, do you have next year's
calendars yet? Here are a couple of cool, costless,
portable calendars to consider.
http://www.grafishdesign.it/blog/the-small-calendar-eng
http://davidseah.com/page/compact-calendar
Mozilla Weave, a service that provides a secure storage
location for all your encrypted data, is still in beta but
looks to have potential to make life a little easier.
https://mozillalabs.com/weave/
Repeat famous experiments and inventions.
http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/pathdiscovery.html
Now Firefox is available on your Smart Phone.
http://snipurl.com/trf3z [www_webmonkey_com]
Some of you are already running Windows 7 and many
soon will be. Increase your speed and productivity
with these helpful tip and tricks.
http://snipurl.com/trf6u [www_howtogeek_com]
http://snipurl.com/trf8u [www_maximumpc_com]
http://snipurl.com/trf9k [blogs_msdn_com]
Ever worry (a little) about those shortened URLs and
wonder if they really go where they say they do?
This Firefox add-on lets you know the URL's
source before you click on it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/48582
Heinz will let you create your own condiments. This is a
commercial site but too cool not to share.
http://www.myheinz.com/home.asp#
How to fix a broken pixel on your monitor display.
http://snipurl.com/trxcn [howto_wired_com]
The new and improved Hubblesite. Information and
costless goodies for you to play with.
http://hubblesite.org/
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 Don.
Here's one for adrenaline junkies.
http://www.adventureliving.com/home/index.html
This group of authors is a little backwards.
http://www.backwordbooks.com/
Creative Commons is a worthy alternative to copyright.
http://creativecommons.org/
So is copyleft.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
Oh come on, doesn't anybody want to ask me a totally
anonymous questions? http://www.formspring.me/eldergeek
Who's up for learning some science?
http://www.extremescience.com/
A few good books. http://www.fullbooks.com/
I could never solve a rubik's cube either.
http://www.alientiles.com/
For answers to questions about your physical, mental
or emotional health. http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/
What do you see in your world?
http://www.grapheety.com/grapheety/index.jsp
I don't get it. If you do, tell me about it.
http://www.memeflow.com/goto/
To put it in vernacular language, I'd say 'Lotsa weird
pitchers'. http://www.photoshoppix.com/
Cycles of the earth and atmosphere (for teachers).
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/index.htm
Over and over and over and over...
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/pc/boy.html
Don't do it, don't touch that button.
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/redbut.html
Show off your art, photography and/or designs.
http://www.redbubble.com/
Ok, so you hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete on your Windows machine
and you're looking through all the processes that are
running. You're saying to yourself 'What is all this
stuff and how the heck am I gonna figure out which one
is hosing my computer?'. Maybe this site can help.
http://www.tasklist.org/
A useful wiki for budget minded computer users.
http://freewarewiki.com/
Sometimes art is tasteless, tacky and not particularly
family friendly. http://www.illegal-art.org/
End of Section Two.
At the time this issue was posted,
the current subscriber count for
this publication was 376.
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.
Section Three by Lisa.
Hints and tips to give your pet a better life.
http://petcaretips.net/
Tips and tutorials for geeks and not-so-geeks. Great
how-to's with lots of help and great illustrations.
http://tinyhacker.com/
For the young folks, a fun, interesting destination.
http://www.factmonster.com/
People who play with their dogs stay with their dogs.
http://www.dogplay.com/index.html
American Association of People with Disabilities.
http://www.aapd.com/
A helpful tutorial on good passwords.
http://snipurl.com/ts0aa [www_lifewithalacrity_com]
I like the blog, Life With Alacrity, too.
http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/
A treasure trove of online entertainment.
http://www.rinkworks.com/
Sesame Street e-books.
http://ebooks.sesamestreet.org/
Think you've seen some Bizarre Foods? Look here.
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods
The case for working with your hands.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html
Tips for bloggers.
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
Windows7 tutorials.
http://www.7tutorials.com/
Keizo Ushio, stone sculptor.
http://www2.memenet.or.jp/~keizo/0005.htm
Things that are found.
http://www.foundmagazine.com/
http://www.moderna.org/lookatme/index.php
http://www.grocerylists.org/
Things that are lost and found.
http://www.lostandfound.com/
http://www.thefoundbin.com/
Always be sure to have a mathematically
correct breakfast.
lhttp://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html
Some life-enhancing projects to consider,
or make up some of your own.
http://52projects.com
Some nice apps by Steve Miller.
http://www.stevemiller.net/
A very attractive blog about enjoying tea.
http://multipleinfusions.com/
Listen to any song you want. Really.
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#
Dictionary of art.
http://www.artlex.com/
Remember Paint-By-Numbers?
http://www.paintbynumberz.com/
http://americanhistory.si.edu/paint/picturePlace.html
End of Section Three.
If you'd like to help promote this
non-commercial publication,
please forward this ezine to
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Section Four by Don.
This stuff is waaaay far out.
http://theshadowlands.net/
Arrowhead junkies in some parts of the U.S. will find
this informative. http://www.oplin.org/point/
Have you any good ideas? http://www.whynot.net/
Comparing hospitals (in the US).
http://www.whynotthebest.org/
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy.
http://www.caalusa.org/
Learn to be safe online. http://www.onguardonline.gov/
HP's page of goodies is always worthy of mention.
http://www.hp.com/hho/hp_create/
Wordpress is a very nice Open Source blogging platform
which, in most cases, can be added to your website with
a couple of clicks in the control panel or a phone call
to tech support. http://wordpress.org/
Even if you don't have a website you can have a Wordpress
blog of your own. http://wordpress.com/
Nor is it difficult to learn how to use Wordpress.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
http://allaboutwordpress.com/
http://wp123.info/
http://all4wordpress.com/
Serendipity is another costless and Open Source (to the best
of my knowledge) blogging platform. http://www.s9y.org/
I don't think I'd buy the album but I did enjoy the music
on the website. http://www.everythingthathappens.com/
Now here's band I really love and one album I'd definately
buy. http://www.myspace.com/thezimmersband
What time is it there?
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc
Playing games with your online friends is a logical
extension of social networking. http://www.playfish.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.
http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
Section Five by Lisa.
Import your Contacts to Gmail.
http://snipurl.com/ttqru
Convert files without downoading software.
http://www.zamzar.com/
A cool online drawing tool.
http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/
Lightpainting, a fascinating art form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSeNk5ZE-kw
and how to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeTzUzPfleU
Darcy Prendergast, artist of assorted media.
http://www.deepeestudios.com/
You can Make it.
http://blog.makezine.com/
Free wifi in airports until January 15, a holiday gift from Google.
http://www.freeholidaywifi.com/
Confused about how to Twitter? Me too, here's help.
http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/
Digital designs to improve the real world.
http://www.thingiverse.com/
More free wifi, anywhere!
http://www.wififreespot.com/
http://www.openwifispots.com/
http://v4.jiwire.com/search-hotspot-locations.htm
It's no longer difficult to find the full-length
song you want to hear. Lala takes you there.
http://www.lala.com/
The world's largest network of library content and services.
http://www.worldcat.org/
It's time to stop BadWare.
http://www.stopbadware.org/
The art of Stanka Kordic.
http://www.alternativeportraiture.com/HOME_.html
Photoshop tutorials, templates and training.
http://ladyoak.com/
Help in staying safe online.
http://www.staysafeonline.org/
Graphic design blog with training, tips and tutorials.
http://www.youthedesigner.com/
Voices of Africa is a program designed to train and
utilize the services of young citizen-journalists. They
report via mobile phones, bringing the stories of remote
communities to the attention of national and worldwide
media sources.
http://voicesofafrica.africanews.com/site
Some nice software from Paras Chopra.
http://paraschopra.com/software/
Costless CAD tools to save you time and money.
http://snipurl.com/tv3eq
Learn coding from Google University.
http://code.google.com/edu/
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 Don.
Geocaching started ot as a somewhat obscure hobby venture
but, as hand-held GPS devices become more common, it's
gaining in popularity. http://www.geocaching.com/
GEO-LEO is a library of data on earth sciences, astronomy,
mining, geography, cartography and maps.
http://www.geo-leo.de/geoleo/www-docs/?&language=en
In search of gravity. http://www.geo600.org/
Interactive geography.
http://library.thinkquest.org/10157/
If you're fascinated by geography, here's a 'gizmo'
you'll enjoy adding to your website.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/
Miniature modeling... on steroids.
http://www.geo-metricks.com/
A search portal for things geotechnical, environmental
hydrogeological, geological or related to mining or
petroleum. http://www.geoindex.com/
Search the world, with tags. http://geotags.com/
Images of our planet. http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/
Search for places by name. http://www.geonames.org/
(try searching your surname)
A few things-geo for kids.
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/geomysteries/mysteries.html
http://www.eduplace.com/geonet/
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee/
http://www.kidsgeo.com/
http://www.mccollam.com/fun/
More kids stuff from Lizard Point.
http://www.mccollam.com/
Closely watching our planet.
http://www.earthobservations.org/
http://www.geo-web.org.uk/
http://www.ceos.org/
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/
http://snipurl.com/tw1et [usscar_tamu_edu]
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html
http://nsidc.org/data/hdfeos/
http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://www.eos.unh.edu/
http://eos.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://eos.higp.hawaii.edu/
http://www.planetary.org/home/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
http://www.yale.edu/ceo/
A great DIY resource for guitarists.
http://www.geofex.com/
An excellent world music resource.
http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/
However you look at it, OLPC is a very cool thing.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki
Artistically open. http://www.notclosed.com/
Every tried to open a file compressed in something besides
zip format only to find that zip is all Windows can do?
http://www.7-zip.org/
OpenType is very cool because it separates fonts from the
Operating System, meaning fonts will be the same whatever
type of computer you happen to be using.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType
Even cooler than OpenType, is Open Fonts.
http://openfontlibrary.org/
http://planet.open-fonts.org/
http://openfontlibrary.fontly.org/
http://linuxlibertine.sourceforge.net/Libertine-EN.html
Google is even into education.
http://www.google.com/educators/index.html
End of Section Six.
Lisa's been busy learning about Google Wave and learning
how to publish what we think may be the very first
'wavezine'. She told me she had assembled enough links
to make an extra section for this issue so I rearranged
the order of things to make space for an extra section.
Section Seven by Lisa.
More Things Google
Chromium
Another few days of geeking out has reaped great
rewards. Last week I installed the Chromium browser
into my PCLinuxOS machine and the rest of that evening
learning and playing with it. Chromium is the Open Source
version of Chrome and was available from my PCLinuxOS
repository. That means it's tested and stable for my Linux
distribution (version of Linux). The one feature that's the
most impressive is that it's fast, fast, fast. Obviously it was
developed by people who have tried all other browsers and
know what they want (and what they don't). Of course it works
flawlessly with other Google products. Here's the reason
it's so fast and works so well;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGmO7Oximw8
The appearance is clean and the toolbars are minimized as
much as possible to allow for maximum website real estate.
There is nothing there to compromise what Google stresses is
the most important thing, the user experience.
There's more viewable space on the screen than ever before,
allowing for a clean, crisp uncluttered look and feel while still
having all the features you're used to and more. It is by
default a tabbed browser and the tabs are at the very top
of the screen, making use of the space that used to announce
the name of your browser (as if you didn't know that).
The 'File, Edit, View, History...' bar has been replaced by a
couple of little icons to the right of the address bar, still
quite accessible but tucked away until you need them.
A nifty little feature I appreciate is that when you right-click
a link to open in a new tab, that tab appears right next to
the current one, not at the end of your queue of tabs.
It's very easy to import your bookmarks and bookmarks toolbar
from any other browser. In my case, I exported my bookmarks
from Firefox, an html file by default, into a logical place on my
computer (ok, I dumped it into Documents, willy-nilly). Then
when I installed Chromium, I used the Bookmark Manager to
import that file. Presto! All my bookmarks were back.
Chrome also features Bookmark Sync, which will allow you
to share your bookmarks on multiple computers.
The result? Three skinny little rows of functionality to let me
do what I need to do and the rest of the screen is mine.
The Help files are truly helpful. Having gone from Internet
Explorer to Firefox, then from Firefox to Chromium, and
several other browsers in-between, I can tell you that
Chromium is my hands-down favorite. I started to use it
last week and have spent spare hours working, playing,
writing email, Waving, surfing for links and writing this
in Google Docs, all in the Chromium browser. It's the bomb.
End of Section Seven.
The Linux Corner.
A geeky Linux blog. http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/
Yet another Linux blog. http://linux-blog.org/
Greg Laden on 'How to Use Linux'.
http://snipurl.com/tv4lz [scienceblogs_com]
Don't mess with the Penquin.
http://snipurl.com/tv4wv [www_informationweek_com]
Warning, funny but not family friendly.
http://bandcamp.tv/linux-demotivators/
A Little Humor.
Fun with snowmen.
http://i.imgur.com/TkJHh.jpg
~~~
From web sibling Norm Koeckritz:
*How To Fix The Economy*
Dear Mr. President,
Here are my suggestion for fixing America's economy.
Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that
will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned
bonuses, use the following plan (you can call it the
Patriotic Retirement Plan).
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement
with the following stipulations:
1) They must retire.
Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They must buy a new American car.
Forty million cars ordered - auto Industry fixed.
3) They must either buy a house or pay off
their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.
It can't get any easier than that!
If more money is needed, have all members of Congress
pay all their taxes.
~~~
Interesting geography from web sibling Norm Koeckritz.
More than half of the coastline of
the entire United States is in Alaska
The Amazon rain forest produces more
than 20% the world's oxygen supply.
The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic
ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the
mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the
ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater
than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined
and three times the flow of all rivers in the U.S.
Antarctica is the only land on our planet
that is not owned by any country.
Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica.
This ice also represents seventy percent of all the
fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds,
however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average
yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although
all but 0.4% is covered with ice, Antarctica is the
driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity
lower than the Gobi desert.
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.
Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest
Polish population in the world.
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the
designation M-1, so named because it was the first
paved road anywhere.
Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand
years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the
oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.
Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city in
the world located on two continents.
Los Angele's full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, and can be
abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.
The term 'The Big Apple' was coined by touring jazz
musicians of the 1930's who used the slang expression
'apple' for any town or city. Therefore, to play
New York City is to play the big time, 'The Big Apple'.
There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin,
Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome,
Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in
Tel Aviv, Israel.
There are no natural lakes in the
state of Ohio , everyone is man-made.
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn
in Polynesia , at just 1.75 sq. miles/4,53 sq. km.
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people
was Rome , Italy in 133 B.C. There is a city called
Rome on every continent.
Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.
The smallest sovereign entity in the world is the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M). It is
located in the city of Rome, Italy, has an area of
two tennis courts, and as of 2001 has a population
of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican. It is a
sovereign entity under international law, just as
the Vatican is.
In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named
Tidikelt, Algeria, which did not receive a
drop of rain for ten years.
Technically, the driest place on Earth is in the
valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island. There
has been no rainfall there for two million years.
Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
St. Paul, Minnesota, was originally called Pig's Eye
after a man named Pierre 'Pig's Eye' Parrant who set
up the first business there.
Chances that a road is unpaved in the U.S.A: 1%,
in Canada : 75%
The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the Kola Superdeep
Borehole, in Russia. It reached a depth of 12,261 meters
(about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles). It was drilled for
scientific research and gave up some unexpected
discoveries, one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen
so massive that the mud coming from the hole was
'boiling' with it.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile
in every five must be straight. These straight sections
are usable as airstrips in times of war or other
emergencies.
The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in
Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters). They are
15 times higher than Niagara Falls.
~~~
Life explained, from web-sibling Dee Jordan.
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village. A tourist
complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their
fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
'Not very long.' they answered in unison.
'Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?'
The fishermen explained that their small catches
were sufficient to meet their needs and those of
their families.
'But what do you do with the rest of your time?'
'We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children,
and take siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we
go into the village to see our friends, have a few
drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs.
'We have a full life.'
The tourist interrupted, 'I have an MBA from Harvard
and I can help you! You should start by fishing
longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish
you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy
a bigger boat.'
'And after that?'
'With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you
can buy a second one and a third one and so on until
you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of
selling your fish to a middle man, you can then
negotiate directly with the processing plants
and maybe even open your own plant.
You can then leave this little village and
move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even
New York City!
From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.'
'How long would that take?'
'Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years.' replied the tourist.
'And after that?'
'Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets
really interesting, 'answered the tourist, laughing.
'When your business gets really big, you can
start buying and selling stocks and make millions!'
'Millions? Really? And after that?' asked the fishermen.
'After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny
village near the coast, sleep late, play with your
children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your
wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying
your friends'
And the moral of this story is:
Know where you're going in life,
you may already be there!
Tips for This Issue.
A pair of useful blog sites.
http://maketecheasier.com/
http://www.simplehelp.net/
Contributions From Our Readers.
Links from readers are always
welcome and you can even write
your own link descriptions if you
like (just tell me when you send
them if that's what you intended).
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/ )
Animated videos (some of which are tacky).
http://video.adultswim.com/
This reminds me of the studid video game my grandkids
seem to love. http://www.vml.com/handbellhero/
The American-Presidents blog.
http://www.american-presidents.org/
Even the site navigation is artistic.
http://www.art-dept.com/
Greg simply has way too much free time on his hands.
http://www.kraftmstr.com/
James S. Huggins' refrigerator door.
http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/bas1/home.htm
Joseph Wu's origami. http://www.origami.as/gallery.php
A strange blog. http://www.cynical-c.com/
From our web-sibling Vinette DePhillipe,
here's a nice portal of quilting resources.
http://snipurl.com/tw2do [blogspot_com]
From our web-sibling Michael Harding.
Learning adventures. http://www.openculture.com/
Another take on a personalized start page.
http://www.netvibes.com/#General
A wordy (virtual) tome. http://www.wordnik.com/
Our other-brother Beeyil (Bill) Lanoue says this
is his kinda country music video.
http://snipurl.com/tva14 [link_brightcove_com]
From our web-sibling John Lepse.
( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ )
If the earth had rings.
http://www.flixxy.com/earth-rings-3ds-max-animation.htm
Few things are more handy than a good knife.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5738120n
The Scouts are one of America's finer institutions.
http://www.scouting.org/
http://www.girlscouts.org/
A couple of fun videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVAvF0IQgxY
http://snipurl.com/tvad7 [www_youtube_com]
The source. http://www.youtube.com/user/ImprovEverywhere
A different sort of comic strip.
http://www.unshelved.com/primer.aspx
(click on the 'Archives' link to view a few)
Web-sibling Bob Tegner's father was an Army radioman
who became a radio and TV tech after WWII and went on
to be a radar specialist in the 50's and 60's who installed
Nike Missile guidance systems (RADAR) all over Europe (and
later became a teacher at MITRE which is MIT Research in
Electronics in Massachusetts). Bob sent this informative
link on the Nike missle system.
http://alpha.fdu.edu/~bender/NYoview.html
Thank you Jo, Vi, Michael, Bill, John and Bob.
---
Here's a reprint of an email I received from Dee
Hughes of freewarehome.com:
Hi Don,
Thank you for your good wishes & a very happy & prosperous
New Year to you both.
I was reading your latest newsletter over the holiday (I
get to it eventually!) & I thought you might be interested
to know that I have now dumped AVG. It's trying to be all
things for all risks & the latest version 9 full version is
a colossal 75 Megabytes! The free version remains anti-
virus/anti-spyware + link scanner which is 2 of the full
version's 10 features - that's crippleware in my book!
I switched to the paid version (to get the real time
protection feature) of MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM)
partly because a good friend of mine is a developer for
them. However, whilst the program as a whole is
excellent & useful for file checking, the real-time IP
protection drove me up the wall. There is now a daily
proliferation of risky sites but web hosting companies,
such as GoDaddy, refuse to respond to the problem
and even make it worse by offering private domain name
registration where all info is hidden. This means that good
IP protection will flag IP blocks that contain multiple bad
sites and, inevitably, a few good sites get caught in the
net. When I'm trying to check a hundred+ links that our
link checker threw out, I don't have time or patience to
find out if MBAM's block is a false positive! Then I
recently listed PandaCloud:
http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/
I decided to try it & so far I definitely approve!
I use both PandaCloud & MBAM to check files I download and,
if it's a file that someone has reported as infected, I
upload it for complete checking to either
VirusTotal; http://www.virustotal.com/
or Wepawet: http://wepawet.cs.ucsb.edu/index.php
Those are 2 excellent services you might like to recommend.
If someone finds a possibly infected file they can find out
if it's a real threat and if so report it properly
including a link to the report.
Food for thought maybe ;-)
Regards
Dee
--
Dee Hughes
If at first you don't succeed...
Look in the trash for the instructions!
Content Director
FreewareHome.com http://freewarehome.com/
---
Thanks Dee, as you can see, I've passed it on :)
---
Last word, from Lisa:
Last word from Lisa
It's been a wonderful year, beyond my expectations.
We've been happy and healthy this year and have
friends and family that we love and appreciate.
Work is good, though a bit thin in the winter, giving me
time at home to geek out at the computer and hang out
with Don.
Here's hoping that the last year has been good to
you and yours and the next is even better. Good health
and good luck to you all.
Life is good, love is wonderful,
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/
Don Crowder and Lisa Miller
Friday, January 1, 2010
1:45 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA
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- » [donspatch] 2010-01-01 - Donald Edward Crowder
