Mac's Picks is a collection of family friendly interesting and useful sites, updated weekly. These sites may be search engines, medical resources, household hints, educational resources, recipe sites, sites I call "head scratchers", and/or new sites dealing with all kinds of things of use to the general internet community. To find the criteria I use, simply click on the "Why and How Info" link on the right side of this page.

This page is updated on a weekly basis, each Tuesday evening Australian (Queensland) time (GMT + 9 hours according to the world clock). Please come back and visit us often.

Important Note: If you are returning to my page, welcome back! Please click your "Refresh" or "Reload" button on the top of your Internet browser to ensure you are seeing the current week's page of my "Picks of the Week". Also, I would love for you to make my site your home page. Simply click on Tools - Options in Explorer, or Edit - Preferences in Netscape, and click Use Current and it's done.

You know I find some blogs interesting. I found the Media Blog - The Lack of Objectivity in the News one particularly interesting in that it appears to be written by someone in the media who knows their craft and isn't afraid to talk about it's underside. If you think your own local media is unbiased - think again. This particular blog will certainly make you think.

Thinking of doing some redecorating around the home? Or a little DIY perhaps? If so then the Home Improvement Net Tips site will really be helpful to you. May your DIY dreams come true. Enjoy.

Though you may not have noticed, I've been on a kind of vacation of sorts in New Zealand for the past three weeks (returned home today actually). The online news-source of note there is THE PRESS New Zealand's leading news and information website. You might like to have a browse around their site and see what is hitting the headlines in this part of the world. Interesting site with lots of New Zealand as well as international news.

Have you made the move to broadband yet? I'm still waiting for the prices to drop and download limits to disappear before I take that plunge. I will, but at the moment they are still too high. Making a choice as to which ISP and plan is the best for your needs is difficult, which is why the Broadband Choice website is so valuable to Australian Internetters. If you are in the land of Aus, hop over and tell them what you're looking for and they will find the right one for you.

Have you tried one of the other blog readers yet? You could do worse than hopping over to BlogExpress.com - Fresh News Comes Fast and checking out their free reader. It's quite a piece of software and can give you access to more blogs than you'll have time to read in any one day. Nice software for a growing part of the web.

If you are a frequent visitor you'll know that I love good food and food sites on the net. However, to my knowledge, I don't harbour any superstition about any food in particular. But apparently there are some. If you hop over to the Food and Superstitions site and browse around, you're liable to find superstitions attached to your favourite comestibles. Don't let it put you off. Enjoy your food.

One of the things students need to learn is how to study. Yes, not only do they need to know what to study, but how to study it as well. The TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE STUDYING site will go a long way to doing just that. Unfortunately they don't know not to use all caps in their title page (see the second to last site for this week) but hey, the site is still very good. Pass it on to those who are in need of some good study tips.

I've awarded a few car maintenance sites recently, but this one really is a great site. First of all, I love the name. Secondly, the information is good, understandable, and very useful. Hop over to the GMGoodwrench.com - Car Maintenance & Repair Tips site and pick up some good ideas for maintaining your car in top condition.

As a part time lecturer both here in Australia and in New Zealand when I lived there, I know that ESL or English as a Second Language students have a really hard time learning the English language and it's uses. Needless to say that one can rely on most spell checkers to ensure your words are correctly spelled, but, because of the vagaries of the language, many can be used in the wrong context and also punctuation and other errors are commonplace. The Common Errors in English site points out many of these pitfalls and is certainly worth your time browsing through. And, I don't mean it's useful only for ESL people. Those of us who have English as a first language can use it as well.

Way back in the Hippie and folk singers era I did some folk singing myself. I also owned what I considered to be, and still do, one of the finest guitars made. It was a Gibson, but the model I had was a short round hole steel string guitar. If you hop over to the Gibson.com site you'll see most of the ones they ever made. Some are historic because of who played them, some simply because of their masterful tone. My son in law and ultimately my grandson now own my guitar. May they both enjoy it as much as I always did.

If you're reasonably new to the Internet, like every other community you've ever resided in there are certain etiquette rules that should be obeyed. Indeed, non-compliance with some of them will bring the rathe of other net citizens down on you. So, before you put a foot wrong, have a look at the Netiquette Home Page -- A Service of Albion.com site and follow what they say. And, the term Netiquette? It's etiquette for the net of course :-)

Most of us get heaps of junk mail in our email boxes, offering everything from get rich quick schemes (does anyone still get caught out with the Nigerian scam?) to Viagra prescriptions, to other "enhancement" products that most of us are simply not interested in. However, to we old timers on the net, some of them are funny as well. Though this site doesn't deal with junk mail per se, hop over to the Pop Culture Junk Mail - Get your daily dose of Web Weirdness!! site and have a browse around. It's a comedy site that may amuse you for a while. It has me. Enjoy.

Rebecca Game of "Digital Women - Women with their modems running...", is a graphic designer who is superb to say the least. Rebecca designed this "new look" web site specifically for me, and I can't praise her work enough. Her site, dedicated to women on the net, is worth seeing and bookmarking for future reference. If you are looking for links of interest to women, please visit her site. And if you need the best graphic designer on the planet, I seriously can't recommend her more highly. Oh yes, and when you visit her site, tell her Mac sent you. Thank you Rebecca. I am eternally grateful for your assistance and expertise. ;-)