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.

Though I ran Webshots desktop on my computer for a long time, I decided that I needed something a little different as my desktop background. In my search for a new set of images I could use, I found Dave Ellem's Photos Australian Severe Weather Page 01 site and what an amazing collection of photos this man has made of the weather here in Australia. It is truly breathtaking and I suggest you have a look at his amazing work as well. Isn't nature something else though?

I recently ran out of hard drive space (yes, I know, seems unlikely for a fellow who spends the amount of time I do online *shrugs*) and I purchased a new 80 gigabyte hard drive which I now use as my C or primary drive, with the other 40 Gigabyte hard drive backing it up. I then had to reinstall everything and thought - in registering things, why not see if there are any products that I use that contribute to Spam email. Thus, I took out a few accounts at the Free Email Address site and will keep an eye on each, knowing what addresses I used to register what products. If Spam or spyware lands there, I'll know who to blame. Have a look at this for your own use, and also have a read of my recently updated site called Spam Fighter on the right side of this page. Let's all work at getting rid of Spam.

My ancestry was Maritime Canadian, and when I found The Creole and Cajun Recipe Page not only had I found some wonderful taste tempting recipes, it reminded me that the Cajun folk were those French Canadian farmers who were deported by the early British settlers of Nova Scotia, and who landed in the Carolinas and Louisiana on the east coast of the USA. When asked who they were, they said, in their best Canadian French, "Canadian" which, if said in a French accent would sound close to Cajun, and was thus adopted as their name. Have a look at the recipes and see if you can spice up your own dinner table with these.

If you have been a visitor to my site for a while you'll know that I have had many different kinds of medical problems. One site that helps keep a top on things (doesn't solve them on its own - that's my responsibility - but does keep me up to date with things I should know) is the FitnessOnline.com - Exercise Health Nutrition Advice Weight Loss site. I don't, thankfully, have a problem with weight, but someone who is an insulin dependant diabetic, who has had 3 TIA (mini-strokes), and has also had a quadruple bypass operation on his heart after surviving a quite large heart attack a year and a half ago, needs all the help he can get. I would suggest that it would benefit most to look at this page and bookmark it for a weekly read.

Blogs, as you know, are ways for others to talk online about almost anything you wish to. In the USA there is apparently a very popular show called The Kim Komando Radio Show® which has its own site at Komando.com, Website for The Kim Komando Radio Show®, Kool sites. We don't get the show out here, but by visiting the site each week online I should be able to keep up with the things she is talking about. In this particular case, a blog is the perfect way to keep in touch with someone who obviously knows what she is doing. Well done blog and a very interesting read.

Last Friday was a public holiday here on the Gold Coast of Australia, known as Show day. Think of an old county fair and you pretty much have the picture. Having gone for an hour the night before (and unfortunately that's all it took to see it all) we decided to take our grandson to Dream World, a local amusement park. This particular one has all of his favorite people from the Nickelodeon television channel in attendance, and he rode swings, Blue's Skidoo, the Merry-Go-Round, the Soft Ball house, the Train, drove trucks, etc.etc. and tired Gamma and PomPom out. However, I know he'll also love having a look at the Nickelodeon Online at Nick.com site as any 3 year old boy would. Needless to say, Gamma and PomPom slept in rather late this morning, and I've already had another nap *chuckles*.

The plight of women around the world is staggering. You may well be fortunate enough to live in a society where women have at least some ability to gain an education and to remain above the poverty line, but the vast majority of women do not. Want some facts and figures? Hop over to the Women's World Summit Foundation and click on their front page images and follow their reading. The scale of female (and child I might add) abuse on this plane is enough to make one wonder why we men still allow this condition to exist. If it were reversed, one wonders. Have a look and become aware of your sisters who surround you every day.

The law in almost any country you can think of is constructed, so it seems, to ensure that the average person in the street cannot understand it and thus, abide by it. The SCALEplus Home site is an Australian Law Online initiative to bring low or no-cost access to the law for the community. Now that has to be worth a look, especially for all Australians and Australian residents.

Have you ever tried your hand at Origami, the art of making things by folding paper in different ways? It is an amazing skill, and the Robert J. Lang Origami site not only shows how some of it is done, but also shows what this particular man has done. He has a knack of making things out of nothing that is a wonderful display of this art form at its finest. Have a look and see what you think.

Is your local library online? If not, maybe it should be. If you have a look at the Reading Room site you'll find library servers on the web and you may find yours there as well. If not, why not help them get online by showing your library this site and asking how you can help to get yours on this list?

One of the things that so many folk have a real problem with is managing their money and personal finance. However, the Teaching Money, Personal Finance, Money Management, Economics Lessons site does go a long way to dispelling a lot of the myth attached to good money management. We may not particularly like some of the advice here, but you must admit, it does make sense. Have a read and see if this can help you in your own situation.

There are some beautiful sites online, some educational ones, some interesting ones, some fun ones, and then there is the World Of The Strange site. Let's just say it falls into my personal category of a "headscratcher" site. Interesting stuff, but, umm ????

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. ;-)