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 Monday 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.

You will be aware that there are various women's associations around the globe that help promote women and women's issues. Many of them I applaud for their work in bettering the lot of over half of this planets population. A site was brought to my attention called NAFE which stands for the National Association for Female Executives. The organization is US based, though they state that they have Canadian members. They are also in Australia (Perth), India, Israel, The Netherlands, Virgin Islands, Romania, and Trinidad/Tobago. Visit their site and see what you think. Maybe you might consider starting a branch in your own country. Many of the larger countries are significant by their absence and one can only hope that is a temporary situation. Have a look.

We often look for software on the net to do specific jobs we may need to get done on our own computers. The Computer Software in the Yahoo! Directory site is just as it says, the directory where computer software is stored (or rather links to the software are stored) on the Yahoo search directory. That deserves a bookmark for the next time you need software.

Speaking of software you may or may not have heard of the music download software called LimeWire. I've tried it and I have to say it's the best one I've found to date, and, if you're careful, you can also ensure that all of your downloads are absolutely legal. Hop over to the LimeWire The Official Site for the Fastest File Sharing Program on the Planet site and have a browse around. I think it's great and I think you might as well.

If you're a frequent visitor you will know I love good food. And no, contrary to popular belief I don't weigh 250 lbs to prove it. Indeed, being 6'2" I weigh in at 193 lbs, which is moderately overweight but certainly not excessively so. One reason is the way I and my family look after my diet; keeping in mind the diabetes I have as well as the heart attack I've already been through (see links to diabetes and heart sites on the right side of this page). The Delicious Decisions from the American Heart Association site may be of real use to you as well, even if you don't have, or don't consider yourself to be a candidate for heart problems. Diets like this will help to keep you out of the operating theatre and trust me, it's not a fun place to come out of. Have a look and enjoy your food.

Many folk find that they have to read enormous amounts of documents to keep up with their job, their studies, or simply their interest. I've always been a painstakingly slow reader as I love to savour every word I read. However, there are times when I also have to digest documents in no time flat, and thus the How to Learn Speed Reading - WikiHow site will be of great help in learning how to speed read. You may find it equally useful.

If you have little ones in your home, especially in the pre-school category, you might like to take them with you to the N O G G I N site. It's full of great games and puzzles, and lots of activities for the younger folk to have fun participating in as well as learn from. Guess where Kai (my grandson) and PomPom (his name for me) are headed soon. *chuckles*

When I give lectures I also love telling the latest jokes I've heard, especially about the computer business and the net in particular. The Computer Jokes site has some great ones to see and some of the jokes are classics. For instance, have a look at the one titled "Bill Gates meets his match". *chuckles* I loved it. Enjoy.

If you are among the many who have switched from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Firefox in the hope of leaving behind all those security holes that I.E. has, think again, and get to the Desktop Pipeline Firefox Updated With Critical Security Fix site and download and implement this fix as soon as possible. The real reason Microsoft has so many holes is that the hackers and crackers head for their software, not because it's particularly worse than any other, but the fact that most people have their software to begin with, so the target is bigger. Looks like Firefox must be growing in popularity. The first holes have been found and need to be plugged.

Did you ever wish there was an online calendar that you and your family members or team mates might be able to share so that conflicting dates and times might be avoided? Well, it's arrived in the form of HipCal. This is a great calendar that stays online and that you can share with whom ever you choose. I'd say it was about time one did that little thing for those of us who need such a device for those meetings or family gatherings. As this is a great piece of software for you to use, have a look.

Many old typists would much rather use key combinations to make things happen in their word processors or spreadsheets or even databases, rather than lifting their hand from the keyboard and using the mouse to do things. The Microsoft Office Assistance Office keyboard shortcuts page will show you heaps of keyboard shortcuts to help with those applications. This is a definite must see for any real typist.

I know lots of folk have interesting hobbies and yes, the Net is probably one of my biggest. However if you're a real computer wiz, you're going to love the Winston's Lego Computer site. Imagine taking Lego blocks and some electrical equipment and making a computer. Well, it's been done! You might say this is a real nerd happy place. Have a look.

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. ;-)