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.

For the first time in quite a while there is a new Mac's Musing, this one titled The Perfidity of Governments. If you have the time, have a read of two things I think you should know about. Just remember that even though I think these things are of great importance to all of us, as always, these are nothing more than my musings. Enjoy.

No matter what operating system you run, we all could use a little techo help at times. One site that does a superb job at giving that type of advice is Black Viper's Web Site . His site has guides for operating systems like Windows 2000 and Windows XP. And yes, if you're running a system younger than either of these, upgrade. It's worth the effort.

When one shops online (and yes, I do and with a little common sense, it's safe to do so) when a product reaches the "checkout counter" you may have seen a little box that asks for a "coupon code". They aren't necessarily referring to one that happened to come from your snail mail letterbox. More than likely it's online. One site that contains these for your use is the Consumer Information Website plus Coupons, Online Coupons, and Coupon Codes site. Before you ask, no, this isn't illegal. It will possibly, however, knock between 10% and 20% off the price you are about to pay and that's good news to anyone's pocket book. Enjoy.

I know I usually put up a site for you to see that helps kids learn, but kids also need to play - in a safe well protected place. The KidsCom site is just that, fun and safe. This isn't a babysitter. Take your child there with you, and enjoy playing with them while they learn. Great site for the little ones.

Sometimes, when making that speech or giving that presentation, you wish you could have a good quote handy to throw in. Well, the Famous Quotes and Quotations at BrainyQuote site will be a great help as it has over 43,000 quotes by 10,000 authors. If you can't find one in this site, there most likely isn't one. *smiles*

Wonder what the chef is making for lunch? Or maybe a tasty meal for dinner might be in the offing? Why not hop over to the Recipes from ChefShop site and see if you can find something that would tantalize those taste buds, and be nutritious as well. Enjoy. ;-)

You'll remember that .wav files can be used not only to simply play, but also to play when various things are opened or closed on your computer. The ELVIS WAVS site, oddly enough, has .wav files of songs that were made famous by the man himself. Elvis is alive and living in your computer.

Need a break from all your work on the computer? Then why not get a mug of your favorite brew and hop over to the Welcome to PopCap Games site for 10 minutes? Be warned though. There are fun, free, and addictive games here to be had. You may never go back to work again. *smiles*

You have, like most everyone else, a lot of programs on your computer. They may be word processors, various spreadsheet and database programs, Internet browsers, and all manner of things that you use for your computing and Internet needs. At times keeping track of what programs need to be updated can be a chore. Enter the VersionTracker Windows site. If you go there it will track versions of your software for you and point you to newer versions with improved use. Now that has to be a good site to bookmark.

Have you started your own blog yet? Blogs (weB LOGs) can be a great way to publish things you wish to say (see mine on the upper right side of this page, called Mac's Blog), and there are various sites that allow you to do that. One is here in Australia and is called Melbourne Blogs, which is for bloggers, by bloggers, and is Melbourne's first community website for Melbourne Bloggers. Now that's a pretty descriptive title so why not have a look and start telling folk what you think. Nice idea.

When ever you go online, your presence is known by what is known as your IP address. It uniquely identifies you while you are online in the internet community. Some service providers provide a static IP address (which means it never changes) and others change it every time you log online. To find out what yours is hop over to IPAddress.com and it will show you. You don't need this info all the time, but it's worth a bookmark for those very occasional times when you might.

I know that many believe in psychics of all kinds. I don't happen to be one of them (with the possible exception of Peter Hercus when he was still among us). However if this subject interests you hop over to the Insolitology site and have a read. It is also titled "So you wanna be a psychic part 1". You may or may not like the outcome of this site so be warned, it could shake your belief in psychics in general.

There are some strange sites out there, but sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction. To see what I mean, hop over to the ABCNEWS.com The Wolf Files Archive site and browse around.. Even they call it "strange news for a strange time". Apparently it's all true news, but I must admit, you most likely wouldn't see it in the headlines of your local paper. 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. ;-)