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 a focus on the family as a whole, 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 evening Australian (Queensland) time (GMT + 9 hours according to the world clock). Please come back and visit often.

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Please note: There will be a double issue of Mac's Picks next Monday, the 25th of December, which will cover that week and the following week as I take a break to spend time with friends and family. Enjoy your holiday celebrations, travel safely, and the best of this festive season from my family to yours.

Happy Chanukah (from Sunset 15 Dec 2006 - 22 Dec 2006) and a Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.

As you will be aware, the Gregorian month of December is filled with various religious celebrations, including Chanukah in the Jewish Faith and Christmas in the Christian Faith. Thus, I will add some extra sites for you and your family to see in this week's offerings. To begin with the celebration of Chanukah or Hanukkah (it has various spellings) begins this year on the evening of the 15th of December and runs until Sundown on the evening of the 22nd of December. To find out more about this holiday hop over to the Chanukah On the Net - Welcome - Chanukah, Hanukkah, Hanukkah, Hanukah, Chanuka, Chanukkah, Hanuka, Channukah, Hanukka, Hanaka, site and have a read, and then take your younger folk over to the Kids Domain - Chanukah site where they will find all manner of things to educate and amuse them. If you are preparing food for the remainder of the celebration you might like to check out the HANUKKAH site for some interesting food, and the Hanukkah Recipes - Holiday Cooking - All Recipes site as well as the Open Directory - Home Cooking Holidays Chanukkah site for some good ideas to fill that appetite with lovely food. Enjoy.

And on the 25th of December the Christian Holy Day of Christmas is celebrated. On the eve of that day however, many children will want to keep a close eye on the Welcome to NORAD Tracks Santa 2006 site, where the North American Air Defence Command keeps a track of his journey through the night, delivering presents around the world. Also, it might pay to have a look at the Christmas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia site as it gives a good basic description of the reason for this celebration. Again, the younger folk might enjoy visiting the Santa Claus and Christmas at the North Pole site, while the adults, preparing for the Christmas feast of food might like to have a browse of the Koala's Australian Christmas Recipes. to see how to make the Christmas fare many Aussies will be having this Christmas, as well as the Recipe Finder - Christmas site and the Christmas Recipes Backyard site. If you need more recipes than that you'll never fit into those new clothes in the new year. Enjoy.

Travel is a big component of many people's celebrations at this time of year, and thus the Welcome to Airfarewatchdog.com site might be worth keeping an eye on. Getting there is one thing. Doing it without it costing you a year's wages is another. Have a look - you might just find the flight you need.

One of the websites that deals with things like helping women find rewarding jobs, and providing information useful for the female half of our world, is the Webgrrls International site. I've had a browse around it and I think it does a good job of helping those who want or need that help. Have a look. You might find that they can help you as well.

Have all your holiday shopping done? Any idea how you will keep track of how much time you have left to complete it? If you have problems remembering things like that, hop over to the TimeLeft site, download and install their free application and at least you'll know how much time you have left to panic over. As their site states "TimeLeft is a countdown, reminder, clock, alarm clock, tray clock, stopwatch, timer, sticker, auction watch, web countdown and time synchronization utility." What more could you want? And it's free to boot. This is a 'gotta have' application I think.

If you are stuck for ideas, maybe a bookmark and daily visit of the Zazz! One Day. One Thing. One Chance site is exactly what you need. This site sells one different and unique product per day each day, and that's it. You get one shot at some pretty good looking deals. My initial impression of this site is that I feel it and the concept will go far. See what you think.

Now here is a unique idea and one that might help you clear some bookshelf space as well. The BookCrossing - The World's Biggest Free Book Club - Catch and Release Used Books site asks you to sign up (free) and then find a book you like (in your bookshelf, the garage, or even buy one for yourself from your bookseller and one for this project), then register the book here, and leave it somewhere (on a train, a bus, in a taxi, a restaurant) for someone to find. Think of it as sharing the things you enjoy or have found useful, with others. Great idea? I think so.

In case you don't have the hard drive space for Google Earth but would still like to explore this marvellous planet of ours, hop over and have a look at the Flash Earth ...Google Local and Windows Live Local in Flash site. It may not have all the bells and whistles of Google Earth, but it's close, very very close, with none of the hard drive space usage included.

Maybe, over the holidays, you are planning on a little renovation around the home? Here in Australia it is summer remember. Therefore the Home At Yellow (Beta) site, which basically shows you renovation resources and outlets in the Aussie yellow pages could be a great bookmark to have handy.

Many folk search for music online using the normal search facilities like Google, Yahoo, MSN search, HotBot, Netscape search, to name but a very scant few places to look. However some folk do research on music, looking to get into the score, the instrumentation, and even the various recordings of the song or piece. While normal search facilities do a good job of searching for country or pop music, they don't to all that well with classical, jazz, or even blues music. Enter the Music Research Guide - Internet Resources for Music site to fill that gap, hosted by Oregon State University. It doesn't contain country or pop music but it does a very good job of finding classical, jazz and blues, which are harder to find. Give this one a try. I think it deserves a reward.

You finally have broadband and your head is still swimming from the numbers quoted to you about your connection speed right? Umm, have you tested it to find out how fast it actually is working at? If not, you can find out by hopping over to the Speakeasy - Speed Test site and putting your connection to the test. You might be in for a rude surprise.

Getting ready to make that family call for the holidays to wish everyone the greetings of the season? It might first pay to find out what time it is there. Trust me, being woken at 3am by your family who called to wish yuo a happy Christmas isn't something you need have happen, nor something you should inflict on others. The answer? Simply bookmark The World Clock - Time Zones site and just before you make that call, look up their city and find out what time it is. Your family will thank you for your thoughtfulness.

Unfortunately a lot of alcohol is also consumed at this time of year. Please drink responsibly and do NOT drive if you have been consuming alcohol. Superman you're not. And as a test, if your vision looks anything like the Counter-Rotating Spirals Illusion ALL the time, then you need to stop bending that arm and go get some sleep.

And finally, can you believe that it is two years since the terrible Tsunami at Christmas time that devastated so many places in the Asia/Pacific region? I thought it appropriate, at this time of year when many of us gather as families, to think of our brothers and sisters who faced such terrible tragedy just two short years ago, and catch up with what is going on now in that region. Think they are on the road to recovery? Well, maybe at the beginning of that road but friends, they have a LONG way to go. Have a look at these news stories about what things are like there now: There is the News World News Tsunami Victims Buried After Two Years site and the Two Years After Tsunami Thousands Live in Barracks site. Of course the Oxfam International - The Tsunami Two Years On Land Rights in Aceh site gives their perspective, and then the International Medical Corps South Asia Tsunami - two years later site does as well. I could go on and on and if you want more info simply go to your favourite search facility and enter the term "tsunami - two years after" and you'll be surprised at how many sites there are. I ask but one thing dear reader, and that is that you and your loved ones remember the aid organizations listed on the right side of this page and continue your contribution to the suffering of others through these internationally recognised aid facilities. May you and yours enjoy this festive season.

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