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.

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.

One of the small applications I have on my desktop, and one that I rely on pretty much most of the time, is the FileForum Weather Watcher application. You can download it for free, then set it up to your coordinates on the globe and you have a weather watcher for your own area that also alerts you when the weather is changing. It relies on some of the major weather sites on the globe so the info you get is pretty close to what is going to happen in your neck of the woods. Try it out.

One of the things that puts off most westerners from making or trying to create Asian food for the family is the little secrets and unexplained herbs that one uses in Asian cooking. Thus the Asian Recipes with herbs, culture, ingredients, glossaries and cooking from Asia site is here to provide you with all the tools you need to produce some pretty yummy things for your own family. Enjoy.

A friend of mine involved with the legal profession in the State of Maine in the US has just obtained 2 young small kittens. They are brother and sister of a particular breed of longhaired cat and, like most cat people she and her family are besotted with them. Therefore knowing how much our own little short haired tuxedo cat, Kylmousky, means to us, I thought I would pass along The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) to our friend in the US and anyone else who might perceive a need for such assistance. Just remember, dogs have owners, cats have staff.

There are various sites online that look for photos that they can display, and thus if you have some you take particular pride in you might like to consider placing them on the PhotoReview.com.au - Home Page site. It looks to me like a nice project and who knows? You might find one of two of my own creations there.

Speaking of creations, did you know that the folk at Hallmark have an e-card (or electronic card - meaning it can be sent on the internet for free) located at the Hallmark E-Cards site? There are some lovely cards available for your use. Have a look then bookmark the site.

There are times when all kids need to have some time off. Thus, it's not a bad idea to take the young ones in your family along with you to the Free Kids Games, Colouring & Jigsaw Puzzles for Children site. Here they will find all kinds of things to amuse themselves with, so if they like what you find there, why not bookmark it for them to return to to have some time to play? I think it's a great idea and a lovely site.

If you frequently visit my little site (looks around at how large it has grown over the years and thinks of other descriptions than little *chuckle*) you will know that I'm a fan of blogs. I've also found that there is simply not hours enough in anyone's day to read all of the blogs I would like to regularly on a daily basis. Recently I came across a couple of interesting blogs that seem to take less time to peruse and so I investigated how one does this sort of thing. That lead me to the Photoblog 2.0 Digital Photographs and Techniques from Harold Davis site which I commend to your tender reading. Photoblogging is an interesting way of letting others keep up with what you are doing, without having to wade through pages and pages of written material. Have a look. It might be just what you're looking for.

Once in a while I try to find things for those visitors who operate on a more technical level than the majority of us. The site named Welcome to Petri.co.il by Daniel Petri is just such a site. Now, before you simply jump to the next link, read what Daniel says about his site. Daniel states that his site is here "To enable those seeking MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) and related Microsoft certifications to build the background knowledge base so they can succeed not only in passing certification tests, but also in the workplace world. On this site, "getting the right answer" is not the major object; understanding *why* the answer is right is far more important." Now, couldn't you use some of that knowledge to make your computing life easier? I know I can and will be visiting this site on a regular basis. You should as well.

Sometime next year I plan on purchasing a new computer that will be built to conform with the optimum configuration for running Windows Vista. Will I be the "first guy on the block" with the new operating system? Not by a long shot. Let's say that I probably have more confidence in this new version being more stable than previous versions were, but I'm also not jumping into a pool unless I can see the bottom and avoid the sharp rocks. Let others map and fix those thank you very much. However, I know I will shop around to find what I feel I need in computing power and one site that can help in that process is the ShopFerret Australia - Compare Prices & Stores Before Shopping site. They don't appear to sell anything themselves, but they do show you the variation in prices charged for almost any item at the various shopping outlets. Have a look. It could save you some legwork as well as money.

When attending a University it would be nice to be able to see the head of departments or lecturers and be able to judge, from their philosophy and subject matter, if that is what you are looking for or not. The University of Texas in the USA appears to have taken that to heart with the Take Five website. Here you get to meet (or at least see and read about) 5 different lecturers at that university, which changes each time you return. Now that, to me, is an innovative idea. Have a look. They might have what you are looking for as well.

Most of us have a dual relationship with officers of the law. We admire their work in many ways, but also hope we never have to meet one in the performance of their duties. There is even a magazine produced just for law enforcement titled Law Enforcement Technology Magazine for Police at Officer.com and though I've chosen only one issue to highlight, if you are a law officer, browse through their archives. It is a wonderful insight into the lives of those who are empowered to protect us all.

You all know that I enjoy good movies. I also enjoy spoofs of them and, being a "Star Wars" lover I had to check out the YouTube - Star Wars The Empire Brokeback one at YouTube. If you have a few minutes go there, turn up your speakers, and click on the stop button on the left and let it download entirely.. then play it. No, it's not specifically Adult Oriented, but ... ummm, I'm not sure I can ever look C3PO in the LEDs again. Can you?

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. ;-)