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.

Blogging is becoming a world wide phenomenon, so much so that the World as a Blog site lists some by showing you a map of the world and allowing you to click on various points on the map to read the blogs from there. Nice idea but they need more blogs. Why not submit yours?

I love it when companies actually put things on the net for free. For instance, the folk at Hewlett Packard run the Activity center from HP site, which allows you to do various projects such as make albums, cards, wrapping paper, business templates, and the list goes on. This site deserves a bookmark. Well done HP.

You'll no doubt know the phrase "... like grandma used to make." Well, I don't know about you, but even my grandma didn't use the books listed on the Medieval-Renaissance Food Homepage to wow her family. The cookbooks listed here include a French cookbook written between 1375 and 1390, a 14th century German cookbook, a 17th century Spanish cookbook and one from England of the same vintage, all with translations. There are many very old cookbooks translated here, and on reading one is left with an understanding of why folk died so young back then *shakes head*. Have a look. This is a major piece of work (translating and collecting them all) and the Web Person deserves a round of applause for doing and sharing the work. Well done.

When one shows children the web one wishes them to be safe, to use it for their knowledge and understanding of the world, and to have fun with. The Kids on the Web is a lovely site that does just that and even has things for adults to read about safety on the net. Great site and one I'll take my grandson to one day.

I recently came across another "free for personal use" anti-virus program that I think you should know about. It's called AntiVir Personal Edition Classic and I feel it has good qualities and will work well for most home systems. It's not light in any department I could detect, so if you need a good anti-virus program for use at home, do check this one out.

More and more people have broadband as it finally starts dropping down to reasonable prices. Once you get it you'll be amazed at how fast things download to your computer, even websites you've never seen before. However, you do want to ensure that you're getting the most out of your broadband connection, and therefore the broadband " Tweaking for speed article is well worth a read. Just ensure you back up everything before you start playing with settings on your computer. Enjoy, and "may the speed be with you." *chuckles*

Search engines? I know, who needs another one. Well, how about a site that isn't really another one, but combines two to allow you to compare what they find? Try out the Gahoo!Yoogle.com - Search where you search Yahoo and Google at the same time. You have to admit that they are the two top engines, so give it a try. Don't you just love the name though?

If English is your second language the Confusing Words site is one you're going to want to bookmark so that you can study it. For instance the sentence "I want to meet John and Mary so that the three of us can take a meet over a meat meal" could be confusing. They all sound the same but they sure don't mean the same. Have a look. It may help.

With a name like McLellan you can tell there is Scottish ancestry back there somewhere. Thus the Historic Scotland - Safeguarding our nation's built heritage site is an interesting look at Scotland and the things and places one will find there if one ever travels to that area of the world. Interesting site.

We all want to ensure that our home net connection is secure. Thus Lavalys - Comprehensive IT Security and Management - Benchmark Util for home use is going to help you set up your home system to be as secure as you wish it to be. Don't (in computer terms) keep leaving the front door open when you're not home. Read this site and find out how to secure your computer from the outside world.

Have you ever seen an old manuscript where the handwriting speaks in a ancient form of English and makes little or no sense at all? Then The National Archives Paleography tutorial (how to read old handwriting) site will come into play if you ever need to do that again. It doesn't happen often, but especially if you are doing research that goes back decades, you might wish to have this one handy. Bookmark it. You just never know.

Do you have a favorite movie? How about Pulp Fiction, or Titanic, or Alien (and many more)? Then the Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie site, where cartoon character bunnies give you a 30 second rendition of the movie, might be of interest. Then again, maybe it's just a couple of kids having fun. But then again ... well, you figure it out. 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. ;-)