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.

NOTE: After over 12 years of having this website updated each Tuesday Australian (and previously, New Zealand) time, I have now decided to update each Monday. In the scheme of things it may not mean much to the majority of visitors, but to some it may mean that to see the week's picks you expect to see you may have to arrive a day earlier. My apologies for any inconvenience but it does seem to make sense to start the week on a Monday. Enjoy, and thank you for making my site so popular.

As you know by now there are blogs on just about any subject you can think of. One I found recently is the World History Blog which obviously can't cover all of it, but it does a very good job of covering major events in the history of the world. I think you'll enjoy this one.

It has long been known that the Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception is one of the most interesting sites that there is on the net. It has many different pathways to follow and covers so many different things that it's a hard site to describe in one short paragraph. Have a look and I think you'll see what I mean.

However, the Cooking For Engineers - Table of Contents site can be a little more easily explained. Engineers, as you know, are precise in their measurements of things, and this site attacks cooking in exactly that same way. When reduced to these sorts of numbers it all makes perfect sense, or at least they think it does. *chuckles* Yummy concoctions though.

If you are a conservationist of one kind or another you will find that the Conservation On-Line site is for conservation professionals more than for the lay person like you and I. It doesn't mean we can't read it but it talks in terms that the professionals will be used to and thus we may get just a little lost. However, there it is, a valuable resource for many.

So you consider yourself a writer of fiction? How about this for a challenge? Write a story and submit it to the fifty word fiction site and see how it stacks up against the competition. A story in under 50 words? Now there is a challenge.

My son in law and thus, my grandson, are Maori. One of the proud tradition of New Zealand's Maori is what is known as the Haka. If you have ever seen the New Zealand Rugby team play, you have seen the Haka performed. If you hop over to the Learn the Haka site you will not only then understand what it is all about, but also will be able to learn it yourself.

"Now where did I put..." Sound familiar? Peter Morville has been designing things so that they are, indeed, findable. You can see some of them on the findability.org links about findability + the design of findable objects by Peter Morville site. Wish I had known about this before I bought half the things I have. *smiles*

Picture yourself back in ancient Greece. Many things happen around you. At the Winged Sandals Storytime site you can immerse yourself in a story that could have happened then. Take a different kind of trip back in time here.

If you travel a lot (I used to for my job) remembering airport names became a chore. Thus the World Airport Guide (WAG) - Airport Information could have been of invaluable help in that it not only tells you which airport those little letters mean, but what is available at that airport for your use, comfort, and traveling pleasure. Great site for travelers.

If you have photos you would like to share with friends, family, or the general public you might like to try the Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing site which offers you and others space to do just that. I've uploaded many of the photos I previously had stored on my site taken at the WinterSun festival in Coolangatta this June. Have a look for those under my online nickname of kiwinth. *smile*

The name Gutenberg is synonymous with the printing press and moveable type. The PROJECT GUTENBERG OFFICIAL HOME SITE - INDEX site is devoted to an idea that printed material should be available to everyone, and thus publishes books online for you to read for yourself. There are many free books on-line and if you browse around I'm sure you'll find something of interest. Enjoy.

Some artists dream of being able to paint a picture of all they see, all they feel and all that surrounds them in the everyday world. Not many would achieve that goal but the artist who painted thepictureofeverything.com I guess feels he has. Have a look and see what you feel.

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. ;-)