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 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.

If you're one of those who use Microsoft Excel as your work or home spreadsheet application you need to visit the ExcelTips Online - by Allen Wyatt site, bookmark it, and come back frequently to see what other tips he's covered in using this particular piece of software. He also has a link to his tip on MS Word as well on the same site which is well worth a look as well. Well done and informative site.

When thinking of Middle Eastern Recipes many folk simply think of one particular country's food. If that's the case you're missing out some pretty fantastic and healthy dishes from that area of the globe. Hop over and see what you might find to tempt your taste buds here. There are lots of ideas and most are YUM.

If you're planning on taking an overseas trip and writing friends and family back home about your adventure, then spend a bit of time at the World Hum Travel Dispatches from a Shrinking Planet blog. It's about "the art of travel writing" and learning how to make your dispatches worth a read to those back home. This is a great site written by someone who does this as a job. Well worth a read.

Young people have special needs when using search engines, not the least of which is keeping them safe while doing their searches. The BBC - CBBC - Search site has a UK focus, but is a good search engine for kids to use as not only is it comprehensive but it is also easy to use as well. Have a look and maybe bookmark this one for the younger members of your family to try.

Still getting spam email? Feel like maybe tackling some of them head on? Then visit SamSpade.org and fill in a s much as possible and you might be able to back-trace a spammer. Once that's done, write their ISP and let them be informed about your feelings. It works in some cases, as long as the ISP isn't a spammer as well. Hey, it's worth a shot though. Try it out.

The past few weeks have seen a massive news blitz on the story about the young woman whose family fought back and forth about allowing her to pass to the next world or not. I am NOT going to get into this argument in any way, so don't bother flooding my email box with the email on it. However, the Printable Living Will site is maybe one that is timely for many folk to visit, print out, and fill in. In that way NO ONE gets to make your decisions for you but you. Isn't that what we all want? My family knows well of my wishes. Ensure your family and friends know about yours too, and this is one legal way to do that.

There are so many freeware applications on the net that it's hard to decipher what is good and what isn't. Thus, the The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities site might well be worth a browse and a bookmark. I'm not saying that all of them are wonderful, but this particular site author has picked some good ones, so have a look and maybe try some of them out.

Did you know that there is something amazing happening in the space around our planet? In fact, there are discoveries made every day that would shock our previous generations had they known. You can keep informed by hopping over to the SPACE.com -- Something Amazing Every Day site on a regular basis and seeing what has been found recently. Fascinating stuff.

If you use MS Word as your word processor you may enjoy having a look at the things available on the Welcome to WordToys! site. I tried them out for a while but I'm an old traditionalist and some, well, almost made it too easy for me *chuckles*. Have a look and see if they are worth your having or not.

Have a need to keep track of the time in far distant places? Then the WorldTime - The Ultimate Virtual Timepiece and desktop World Clock software might be just what you're looking for. It's a neat little application that is reasonably unobtrusive but does give you the time in places you select. Have a look and see if it does what you need it to. It does for me.

If you have a web cam and enjoy or need to have a video conferencing facility then the Best Video Conferencing and online meeting software for PC and MAC free version of this software may well solve your needs. I do suggest that you need broadband to truly take advantage of its capabilities but give it a try and see what you think. I enjoy it.

Ok. I usually put something strange here and yup, this is one of the strange ones. And yes, it's geared to make the women on the net chuckle a bit, but even us guys have to look at some of these REAL photos, and shake our head at how really stupid some folk can be. Hop over to the site called Why Women Live Longer Than Men and have a chuckle, shake your head as well, and promise that you'll never do something as stupid as these photos show someone did. 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. ;-)