Hello and welcome to Mac's Picks of the Week. If you are interested in why this site exists, how it operates, and a little about Mac, then click on the Why and How Info link and see what is there. When you have finished please return to this Home page and see what sites I have chosen this week to receive a Mac's Picks of the Week award. Thank you for visiting and please share this site with friends, family, and colleagues who you feel will enjoy it.

This page is updated on a weekly basis, each Monday Australian (Queensland) time (GMT + 10 hours according to the world clock). Please come back and visit often.

One of the newest and most exciting game consoles to hit the market has been the one by Nintendo called the Wii. It looks like a DVD remote and can be used to play realistic golf games, ten pin bowling, and a raft of other entertaining interactive games as well. However, not only can it do all that, you can now also Access Your PC from your Wii and apparently it's not all that difficult to do. Looks like integrated game machines and internet services are not that far apart any more.

If your younger folk are as keen on dinosaurs as our 5 year old grandson is, they are going to love the Dino Russ's Lair site as it is built on all things dinosaur. Take your young folk there with you and see if it interests them?

Looking for a blog on any one particular subject? You might want to try the Google Blog Search to find it as it seems to be able to find obscure blogs, not only those stored by blogger.com which Google now owns. Give it a try - and/or start your own blog. It couldn't be easier.

If you are doing research on a project for school, or homework on a particular subject that requires you to find other information, you could do worse than try out the MSN Encarta Encyclopaedia Online. Microsoft has finally realised that people will look for information online, not on a CD disk that was outdated the day it was made, and thus have put their encyclopaedia online where it can be constantly updated with the latest information on any subject. Good resource and worth a bookmark for that homework assignment.

If you're looking for free music to download on the net, it can be done at some sites. For instance, the site called Top20Free.com - Free Music (Page 1) has a list of sites that provide you with music to download and enjoy. Have a look. Unfortunately the wonderful application BoomBox Radio, my favourite, created by JAJsoft is no longer made nor supported, so this could be a reasonable second bet to help fill up your mp3 player. Enjoy.

When looking for new and interesting ways to prepare meals that will be nutritious and tasty as well, without having to become a professional chef in the process, can be a daunting task for any good cook. You might find that the food411.com - Your Online Food Directory site can be of great assistance in this endeavour. For instance, this site says it is "the ultimate food resource for everything on the Web related to online food shopping opportunities; gourmet foods, ingredients, recipes, cooking, food blogs, unique gift ideas, & meals". Sound impressive? It may well live up to its goals. Have a look.

When searching on the net you might like to broaden your search a bit by trying one of the new search engines, such as the Quintura search engine. It is what I call a " cloud and list" search facility. You put in your search term, then a cloud of search terms are produced with a list of sites suggested on the right as well. If, however, you hover your mouse over any of the cloud names, the list changes to reflect that terms returns. Think of it as a way to graphically illustrate your search and other terms that may expand on it as well. Give it a try and see what you think. I think it's an interesting way to see results.

How often do you use a thesaurus? Not sure what that is? When you need a word that means the same or similar to another word, you'll find it in a thesaurus. The most famous of the English language ones is Roget's Thesaurus, and thankfully it is now online at the Roget's Thesaurus Online - Yahoo! Education site. Use it if you are writing a report and notice that you use the same word too often. Changing the word does not mean the meaning has to change too and this can help. Isn't English a fun language though? *chuckles and shakes his head*

If you have a video camera, or indeed, have downloaded a video onto your computer, you might want to change it into one of the other video formats, either to distribute it so that others can see it, or to save some storage space as video files are notoriously large in size. If you do need to change the type of file it is from one type to another, you might want to have a look at the Hey!Watch - Just encode site. Here you can encode your video from one format to another online, for free. I think that's worth a bookmark for future use don't you?

If you are in the USA and are in school, hopefully somewhere along the line you will study the U.S. Constitution. You'll read it and interpret it to understand how the American democracy works (or at least is supposed to work). You can find it at the Index Page - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net site and I must say it is an interesting document to read and study. It is the building block that holds together the American democracy and thus worthy of study. If you haven't studied it in school yet, and you live there, you will. Enjoy.

Most of us when making various documents online, end up using maybe four different fonts, tops, even though our operating systems come with about 70 or so built into them. However, if you are involved in making projects that are visual and you have a need for other fonts (typefaces) you will find that you can download many more than you'll ever use at the 9800 Free Fonts, fonts for free, font finder, download free fonts, free typography site. The trick here is to pick and chose. It makes no sense to have almost 10,000 fonts stored on your computer if you are going to use 4. Maybe it's time for you to change your chosen font, or at least consider it. This is the place to find some good ones.

Museums around the world either try to decentralise what they store for our research and knowledge by having so many different categories of things that we almost get lost in the shuffle. Other museums cater for a more selective need or interest. Thus the PMCC Museum - Postmark collection in New York is a museum with a difference. If you are into stamps, this is only a stone's throw away in interest, though it has its own devotees who look on postmarks as THE thing to study and research. Have a look. I wonder what you could use the information for outside of general interest?

Rebecca Game of "Digital Women - Women with their modems running...", is my web designer and a graphic designer who is superb to say the least. 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. ;-)