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.

Many of the world's population celebrate holidays at this time of year. Indeed, there are various places online to find ways to even decorate your computer to help with the festivities. You might enjoy having a look at what is available for you to download and install at the Download Christmas Shareware and Freeware Software from the folk at Tucows. I have to admit that, though it isn't my family's gift giving time of year, if it is yours, you'll no doubt find something here to bring a smile to your face in this festive season. Enjoy.

If you visit my site frequently you will know that I love good food. I recently found a woman online from New Zealand (where my family and I spent 30 years before moving to Australia) who has a lovely site called Anne - Maree's In The Kitchen Recipe Site. Recipes, cook book and food. It is indeed a site filled with lovely ideas on all kinds of things to make to tantalize your family's taste buds, so have a look. You might find something different to tempt those stubborn eaters in your family. *smiles*

As this happens to be one of the times of year when folk look for particular gifts to purchase online (and yes, I've done it and though some have had problems with purchasing online, I personally never have), the hardest part of the exercise is normally to find where you can buy the gift you wish. One way is to do a search on the net, and you can do it with software you install on your own computer rather than going to a list of search sites. There is, however, Copernic Meta v1.5 software that you can download and use. If you do searches of any kind online, I suggest you have a look at this (the free version works just fine unless you are doing professional searches and need further search capabilities) so try it out yourself. I use it and recommend it to you for your use.

One of the things all parents and grandparents are concerned with is the welfare of children, especially online. Finding places that children can visit safely is a priority in many homes as it should be. If you have young ones in your home, or might have over the holidays, you might like to have a look at, and bookmark the K.E.W.L. Kids Excellent Web Links site. All of these sites seem to have good content and also are what are known as "family friendly". Have a look and see what you think.

When looking online to find information about most diseases, one can be overwhelmed with information which may or may not be good information. The folk at the Harvard Medical School in the US are world renown for their knowledge and expertise in the field of health, and thus, the InteliHealth InteliHealth Home site, which is sponsored by an insurance company but maintained by the Harvard Medical School, is a good one to use, and indeed, to bookmark for those times you need competent advice. A great site and well maintained.

With friends and family descending on you during the holidays, or, you and yours descending on some other hapless family member, the chances of problems with spills, stains, and general household mishaps increases. Thus, the Barefoot Lass's Household Hints site is definitely one for you to bookmark and keep handy. It is filled with useful tips sent in by folk around the globe and I must admit I was impressed. One particular hint shows how to totally remove red candle wax that was accidentally dripped onto a light carpet. Now that hint has to be worth your time. Go ahead - have a look and bookmark it now for future use.

I have always felt that any repository of knowledge, be it encyclopedia or almost any other medium, is outdated the day it is printed, especially in today's fast paced world. Enter the Wiki. A Wiki is slightly different in nature than most information sources in that you, as a person with knowledge, can add your own expertise to this one at any time, hourly if you wish, thus keeping the information contained in it up to date. And what happens when some character purposely puts in false information? It may last for about 3 minutes, but there are so many folk involved in keeping this thing current that it is constantly being changed and revised. And yes, that isn't an exaggeration - you'll find that the normal time anything incorrect lasts is about 3 minutes. *smile*. So, do hop over to the wikiHow - The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit site, have a read, and consider adding your own expertise on almost any subject to their Wiki. It may well be a shape of things to come.

I normally don't put too much "Geek" information on my site, but even I have to make an exception for this one. There is a particularly nasty way for a producer of spyware and Trojans to hide their very existence on your computer, even from SpyBot and AdAware. It is called a Rootkit, and its main purpose is to superimpose itself between your processor and the intended spyware catcher, and, in effect, lie to it. However, don't be alarmed. There is an answer though it may take your local "geek" or "computer nerd" to make it work for you. Hop over to the Sysinternals Freeware - RootkitRevealer and not only read all about it but download the script to run. I do STRONGLY suggest that you only allow folk who know what they are doing to actually run the final revealer however. You can really mess up your system if you do it wrong, but, it is worth doing. Do away with spyware any possible way you can. Happy computing.

Recently on the east coast of Australia we have experienced some particularly bad rain, thunder storms, and hail storms. In some ways this is good news in that it may (note: May) indicate a reversal of weather patterns here to what they used to be, and thus the long drought that has plagued much of Australia may well be drawing to a close. Having said that, it would be nice to know when a thunder storm is approaching so you can shut down and disconnect your computer - literally - from your electrical power source and your modem from the line it is attached to. One good electrical hit and you have smoldering computer chips. Thus, the Singer's Creations Weather Watcher software, which is free to download and install on your home computer, will warn you about weather alerts and also forecast weather in your area for a week in advance in most places. Yes, it even has the area of Australia that I live in, and it runs on my system full time. Fried computer is not on my menu, and shouldn't be on yours. Download it and install this one. It's a beauty.

I've returned, in a way, to a hobby I once had, that of photography. I absolutely love taking pictures of not only my family but also of nature, flowers, animals, and almost anything you can think of, and then playing with the images on my computer to enhance them and make them even better. If you enjoy photography as well, you may well enjoy the Photodebut.org site as it is a showcase for professional photographers and their work. You simply go to their site and click on the arrows then on a photographers name to see how innovative they are. And believe me, they are, and their photography is well worth seeing. Enjoy, and dust off that camera for the holiday season as well.

I'll bet you thought that I had forgotten to add a blog to this week's Picks, but you were wrong. This blog, named the Science News Forum - SciScoop Science Blog Community is more a collection of blogs by a number of scientists in various disciplines, primarily aimed at keeping each other up to date with what they are doing in their particular field. Have a look. I find it fascinating and you may as well.

Ok. I think I'm as broadminded as the next fellow, and yes, I used to be a smoker too (a massive heart attack and quadruple bypass operation is kind of God's way of saying - "Time you gave up don't you think?") *chuckles*. I also have traveled a fair amount on aircraft around different parts of the globe, and yes, at one point in my sordid past I also was a reasonable drinker. No more however, nor did I ever find myself intoxicated enough to follow the lead of the news item recently published on the BBC which shows you a story called BBC NEWS Asia-Pacific Smoker tried to open plane door. *nods* Read that again, then click on the BBC site and read the story. Um, need I say more about drinking to excess over the holidays? I think not *shakes his old head and goes back to his coffee*.

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. ;-)