Mac's Picks is a collection of family friendly interesting and useful sites, updated weekly. These sites are family friendly, and cover subjects dealing with search, internet, internet radio, news, health, medical resources, household hints, education, educational resources, recipes, food, strange, different, help pages, homework, kids, diy, 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 How Info" link on the right side of this page.

This page is updated on a weekly basis, each Monday 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.

Something New

1. If you look near the bottom of this page you will see a poll dealing with the categories of sites you might like to see more of. I don't collect personal data from you at any time, but ask that you take a moment and let me know, by clicking on your favourite category, what type of site you would like to see. If the category is not listed, then please email me with that information (see the right side of this page for the "Contact Me" link) and I will try to add that as well. You have, by your regular weekly visit to my family friendly category site, made this site into one that receives over 500 people per day at times, so why not have your input into what I show as well? Please also read the "Why How Info" link on the right side of this page to see the criteria I use. Thank you in advance for your help.

You have to applaud an Internet business that keeps coming up with new and innovative things. Like them or not, you must admit that the folk at Google do come up with a raft of interesting innovations, not the least of which is the Google Librarian site. It's really Google help for librarians, and let's face it, trying to find good competent answers for the many questions a librarian faces each day is a daunting task. Hopefully this will be of help to those in the library sciences. Looks pretty good to me.

I know there are different humour sites out there, many of which are interesting and some which are, let's say, politically incorrect. However, the Clean Funny Jokes, Jokes for Women, Baby Boomer Jokes site really is a good move in the right direction. I'm super critical of humour sites, but I must admit, even I thought it was funny. Hop on over and see if it tickles your funny bone as well.

Most of us at one time or another will download freeware or shareware applications from the net. Unfortunately there are also times when the net simply is slow running, and thus it can take very long times to download things like this, so long that some folk just give up out of frustration. Enter the Free Download Manager which is an absolutely free download accelerator and manager you can download, install, and use. And it works as well. That has to be a useful tool to have handy. Download and install it and see if it improves the download times on your connection or not. It's worth the effort.

Are you a 'bacon and eggs' sort of person? Or do you use your eggs in a different way? For those of us who do love good fresh eggs, the Golden Eggs - Recipes site will certainly show you different ways to have them. Have a look. It could open up all sorts of taste avenues for you.

If, like me, you enjoy listening to music over the net while working or even while surfing the Internet, you might like to try the LuxuriaMusic.com Internet Radio Outré lounge and Latin jazz, groovy 60s go-go, Surf site. It's simply good sounds to help you through your day. Give it a try.

I recently tried to send a rather large file to a friend, only to find that his email account wouldn't accept anything that large. However, all was not lost as I simply uploaded the file to the Fast and Free File Hosting site, emailed my friend a message from there saying where the file was located, and he simply clicked on the link enclosed in that message and downloaded it at his leisure. This site is a simple free way to distribute those larger files. Worth a bookmark for when you need to do the same, don't you think? I have as I know I'll use this excellent service again one day. You may as well.

My oldest grandson is very interested in dinosaurs of all descriptions. Thus I know he is going to enjoy going with me to the BBC - Science & Nature - Prehistoric Life site. It really does contain a lot of information about that era in the development of the planet. Have a look. It may help someone you know to better understand those times and the magnificent creatures that stalked the earth then.

Most of us in today's world use transportation vehicles of one sort or another to move about in our daily lives. We also are normally concerned at the rising costs of the various fuels we use to power them. We usually also agree that it's a complex problem, but that fossil fuel is not the answer long term. Thus, the Alternative Energy Blog is an interesting way to keep abreast of the current thinking on the development and use of other forms of energy. Have a look. It's an interesting read.

Depending on where you are on the globe, most likely you enjoy one or another of the cold non-alcoholic beverages on a warm summer's day. When did you last try a new one? Indeed, do you know what there is out there to try? The BevNET.com The Beverage Network site is by and for those who manufacture and stock those delicious drinks that we all use, and it's an interesting read for you and I as well. After all, as a consumer it's good to know what that is you're drinking. Enjoy.

As a child I owned my own microscope and found great pleasure in seeing things like the amount of life in a drop of pond water or some small animal or leaf I may have found evidence of. Therefore the site named Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc. Microscopy and Science Education Web Site is an interesting site to browse around. It has picked my interest enough that I think I may take my grandson there for a look as well. I suppose one could call this site a close look at ... (pun intended).

Before printing as we know it became a regular everyday thing, folk found other ways to print things to pass on to others to read or see. One site that explores this avenue of communication in our past is the Heavenly Craft The Woodcut in Early Printed Books (A Library of Congress Exhibition) site. I found it fascinating to see the other methods of printing our forefathers used and you might as well. Have a look.

If you've been online for long you'll be aware of at least a few of what are known as smilies, keyboard character sets that depict a picture or emotion. For instance :-) or even :) are seen (if you lean your head onto your left shoulder and look) as a smiling face composed of eyes, 'nose' and smiling mouth. Using normal keyboard characters like this is known as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) art. Thus the chris.com - ASCII Art Collection site is both interesting and is also entertaining when you see what other 'emoticons' there are. What pictures could you draw with only your keyboard? You'll be amazed to see how inventive folk can be. This one is well worth a look.

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. ;-)