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.

As this is the last "Mac's Picks of the Week" for 2005 I wrote a set of New Years resolutions that I invite you to not only read, but to join with me in. You will find this last musing by clicking on Mac's Musings on the right side of this page, and then scrolling down to the one titled New Years Resolutions for 2006, or simply click this link to it. Please consider joining me in this set of good computer and internet practice for the next year. It can only help all of us if you do. And, I would like to wish the best of the New Year to you and your family from me and mine. ;-)

If you are a regular weekly visitor you will know that I love blogs and the subjects they cover. Some are personal but some are actually written by people involved in various enterprises, like, for instance the Official Google Blog. Yup, the folk at Google (long considered to be the largest and just about most innovative of all the search engines) have written, and continue to update, their own blog. Here you'll find what's new, what's on the horizon (without giving the game away of course) and what you might be interested in watching for and/or using in the new year. Hop over and have a read. I think I'll keep track of this one myself.

Just about every child loves teddy bears. However you may not be aware that one group of bears have their own website. If you hop over and have a look in The Official Berenstain Bears Website you'll be able to keep up with all the fun and games they get up to. Great site for those who love bears.

Have you ever noticed that the supermarkets are packed out with shoppers just before any major holiday? I have and I find it a constant source of amusement. It's like everyone expects a famine to happen and that we all will simply perish away if the shop is actually closed for a day. While I think a good, well stocked larder is a good thing, I also feel that knowing what to do with what is there to nourish you in a pleasing manner is equally important. Thus, the RecipeSource Your Source for Recipes on the Internet site, you will find, is packed with some delicious sounding recipes for you to try, cataloged by country of origin and also by part of the meal they fulfill. Have a look and bookmark (or favorite) this one for future use.

You have a new digital camera I see. And you'd love to send all those holiday photos to friends and family but wow, the size of some of them is huge. There must be a way to send them and not clog up either email box while they download. Well, you're in luck because of a site called Streamload - Send Large Files which is free to join and free to use just for that purpose. Now you can send pictures, spreadsheets, or any other large file by using this site. I'd bookmark this one too. You may not need it today, but ultimately you will.

How well are you protected while you are connected to the Internet and online? If you have read my new musing you will know that I talk of that very problem there. One way to check your own vulnerability is to hop over to the Shields UP! - Internet Vulnerability Profiling site and run their test on your system. It's free and if you are in jeopardy, they will show you where and how to fix it. Great site and a great service to the Internet community.

You've heard of the Emmy awards of course, and you know that those awards like the Academy Awards, but for television shows. They are generated in part by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and their website is a great place to see old shows and gather information about what is happening in the world of Television. Nice nostalgia trip as well.

What do you do when you get an email that has obviously been forwarded 2000 times? Again, I talk about this in my musing this month. You can stop the problem yourself. If you hop over to the BreakTheChain.org - Stop Junk E-Mail and Misinformation site and heed what they say, you'll help to cut down on a lot of garbage emails that do nothing to help anyone in any way. Please do have a look at this one.

So you have a new computer I see? And you would love the "Office" suite of programs, comprised of a very good word processor, spreadsheet, and utilities to use on your computer, but the cost is horrendous. Well, that high priced one is a good suite of office software, but did you know that if you download Download Central - OpenOffice 2 and install it on your computer you will have one that is almost exactly the same as the high priced one? The difference is that this one is totally and absolutely free. Now you can't balk at that price, so go to it if you don't own the other one already. Enjoy.

The folk at Google have certainly been busy turning out new and exciting things for you to see and use, and for free at that. For instance, if you have a spare 2 GB of computer storage space, and a reasonably powerful and new(ish) computer, you should be able to download Google Earth - Home and run it on your machine. It's one of the most innovative pieces of software I've ever seen. You begin in space, looking at our little planet. You can grasp the planet by clicking and grabbing it with your mouse, and rotate it to what ever part of the globe you wish to see. Once there, zoom in and you may well be able to actually see your own house from space. No, it's not a hoax. Not only did I find my home here on the Gold Coast of Australia, but I also found where I grew up, the grade school, Junior High, and High School I attended as a lad, in the USA state of Connecticut. This truly is a fascinating piece of software so do give it a try. The entire world isn't mapped as closely as it ultimately will be, but a lot of it is very visible. Look up. Someone may be watching you.

If you've visited my site often you'll know that I'm hardly a grammarian, and that I always have my wife, who is a professional secretary, proofread each week's presentation here. However, though my grammar and punctuation may well be lacking, I find the site named My Favorite Word a great place to go to see who loves what particular word in the English language. Yes, I do have one, and yes, it is also a favorite of others according to this site. Have a look and add yours.

Some folk go to extraordinary lengths to share wonderful resources with the rest of the world. The Say It Plain - American RadioWorks website is one of those. It is an archive of different speeches given by African Americans in the past which, in some cases, you can not only read but listen to as well. There are wonderful speeches and talks here and in particular I recommend that you either listen to or read the Dick Gregory speech. Dick Gregory was a fabulously funny and entertaining American comedian and commentator on all sort of things happening around him, especially during the "Freedom Rides" of the 1960s in the USA. This particular talk was given after being arrested because he requested equal service in the southern US at that time. Unfortunately, it is as relevant today as it was all those years ago. Have a read and a listen and enjoy sharing this wonderful history of many of the American people.

I get bored at times, just like the next guy. However, I must admit I haven't gotten bored enough yet to try the things in the Breakdancing with fingers - Google Video. In fact, I didn't even know this form of exercise existed. Now, before you go thinking that this was a pointless waste of time, you do have to ultimately ask yourself "why did you watch it all"? *Chuckles* Enjoy.

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. ;-)