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.

One of the most prestigious and better known news services on the planet is the BBC World Service Home Page and their web site is well worth a look. If you are a news buff, then it's also worth a bookmark. They are renown for giving good news coverage. See how you rate them.

I am a firm believer that children need to play. In playing, they learn interactive skills, personal skills, and all kinds of things that hopefully will help them become better able to live in and work with society. Thus, the Welcome to Play Kids Games.com site is actually a good site to take your younger family members to. Note I said take? Not send? Enjoy.

You will know that there are all kinds of blogs on the net (blogs = weB LOGS) and if you haven't started your own, or even if you have, you might find the Blogstyles site worth a visit and a bookmark. It houses some interesting templates for your blog. So hop over and see if anything appeals. Nice site and full of helpful hints.

Did you know that there is a site maintained by NASA that is primarily devoted to watching the sun? Yup, that bright yellow orb in the sky does some pretty interesting things and, though it isn't a good idea to look at it with the naked eye, this site does that for you and shows you what's happening with it. Hop over to The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and have a browse around. I must admit, one shot of the sun now occupies pride of place as my desktop wallpaper. Nice stuff here, and educational as well.

You've tried making French cuisine, German cuisine, Indian cuisine, etc. but have you ever attempted Latin American Recipes? If you hop to this site you'll find some pretty taste tempting recipes just dying to be made to entice your family's taste buds. Have a look, and then give some of them a try. Yummmmmmmmm

Did you know that there is a major killer of the population that is preventable, and may indeed take the top spot away from the tobacco problem? There is, and it is inactivity. The Small Step site will not only show you that inactivity may take over the tobacco problem as the main cause of preventable death, but what to do about it. Yes, it's a government run site. It also hopes to spur you out of your seat and into some activity. Have a look. Even old insulin dependant diabetic heart patients like me can benefit from this site. Give it a look. What do you have to lose that you shouldn't have lost years ago? *chuckles*

Spam (unsolicited email advertising), as you well know, is a major scourge of the net. Where does it come from? Many times from advertisers who actually do convince you to click on their site mentioned in that unsolicited email you just received (don't do it for heaven sake). If you are tired of getting spam, live in Australia, and want to do something about it, visit the ACA Consumer Information SPAM site, read the info contained therein, then report it by forwarding your spam to reportingspam@aca.gov.au. It may not help, but it may. If it is generated here in Australia they will be onto it in a flash. By the way, that email address is a good one to keep in your email program, for future use as well. *smiles*.

One of my personal all time favorite female vocalists is Barbra Streisand. Her achievements are legion, and though she has turned her fantastic talent to movies and the directing and production of film, her vocal talents are still nothing short of fantastic. Hop over and visit her website. This is truly one magic performer, with a voice unmatched in decades.

The name Winston Randolph Churchill should be familiar to you. If it isn't (or even if it is) you should have a look at the Churchill and the Great Republic (A Library of Congress Exhibition) site. Here many of the fantastic things about this statesman are archived and revealed for you to see. Without him at the helm, one wonders what the course and outcome of the Second World War would have been. Well worth a good look at a piece of history.

Almost by accident I heard this past week about a conference and forum being held in Barcelona Spain that you should know about. It is a gathering of people from all around our little green marble to talk about how we can all get along together without hatred, prejudice, or intolerance of anyone. This important conference, named Forum 2004 - Barcelona, is well worth the time taken to visit, even if your only access is online. If you can attend it, and you do believe in the equality of mankind on this tiny planet in a small solar system in our galaxy, then have a look and join in.

Most of us use one or more of the Microsoft ® suite of products. Why? Like it or not, because they still produce the best word processor and spreadsheet program around. Face it, like everything else in our consumer driven world, if it didn't do the job, it simply wouldn't sell. It does - and leaves the competition for dead. However, because you have it doesn't mean you really know how to use it. The Microsoft Office Online Home Page will give you all kinds of useful and free information and downloads to gain the most out of the product you have. You have to love online free training of any kind, and this one is exceptionally well done. Have a look.

You think some of the things I put on my site are useless information? Nope - not when compared with the information contained on the Welcome to the Useless Information Home Page! Now that is useless information for you to have - or is it? *chuckles*

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. ;-)