#148 September 1, 2010 from http://www.don-guitar.com Online version: http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html Archives: http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ First word, from Don: Busy, busy, busy. What's up with that? Is it just us or is everybody's life running in the fast lane right now? Lisa and I have spent the last couple of years looking for a new place to live. This is supposed to be a great time to buy real estate (and, reciprocally, a terrible time to sell) so how come we can't find a place that suits us? We're not really picky, there just aren't a lot of choices in our area at the moment. We'll keep trying but it's becoming quite a hassle. On the other hand we don't know anybody who's living a hassle-free life and most of our friends seem to be trying to cope with issues that substantially overshadow ours. When I try to count my blessings I never need to count past Lisa. She's one special blessing. Wishing everyone love, luck, health and happiness, See you next time, Don Our feedback form and contact info: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Don on... myspace: http://www.myspace.com/donguitar facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Crowder/1321324044 twitter: http://twitter.com/eldergeek blogger: http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ google buzz. http://www.google.com/profiles/dondashguitar Lisa on... myspace: http://www.myspace.com/81825549 blogger: http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ google buzz. http://www.google.com/profiles/101326359135790262301 Section One by Don. The history of war. http://www.historyofwaronline.com/index.html All about Russia, in English. http://englishrussia.com/ When I was a teenager I thought my friend Sam's dad was a nutcase because he spent scores of hours trying to figure out a way to make a car engine run on compressed air. After seeing this I emailed Sam and asked him to extend my apologies to his dad. http://www.flixxy.com/zero-pollution-automobile.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVIwropRMME A fairly radical approach to mobility on snow. From 1924! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVzj3_MUBjE Automobiles, speed and other, similar stuff. http://www.vodcars.com/fastlanedaily/ A small North Korean girl who plays a mean guitar. http://tinyurl.com/2dxmf77 I don't know what got me started searching out bass solos but wow, was I ever impressed with what I found. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIJhBxu9wTA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piAOXND2vKw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBLitODczzs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmYHY3xGfaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6vO96emArQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWg6iB0Evj0 As a guitarist I'm debating the advisability of simply adopting some Korean kids. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG_dQC-cnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtjvVgNMPtI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaHaRUPfKok Paul Lutus, like a lot of other extremely talented and intelligent people, is an eccentric sort of genius. Check out his Java careware if nothing else. http://www.arachnoid.com/index.html Costless Windows goodies. http://sxsoftware.com/ Need help getting organized? http://hiveminder.com/ Flo's spiffy Scintilla based editor. http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html More Windows goodies. http://www.gena01.com/software.shtml What happens if you jam blogging and scrapbooking together? http://www.scrapblog.com/ DIY comics anyone? http://www.comeeko.com/ End of Section One. This publication is only mailed to verified double opt-in subscribers, and is brought to you by me, Don Crowder, my wife, Lisa Miller, and http://www.freelists.org Section Two by Lisa. I need coffee. http://www.ineedcoffee.com/ http://bit.ly/11b4Vf http://www.coffeereview.com/ The more you know.... http://bit.ly/8c5BJe http://bit.ly/cqyUa2 The billion dollar ladies. http://bit.ly/aMQC2I A better BMI. http://bit.ly/RyIN7 A blog about canning. The photos alone are worth looking a visit. http://www.foodinjars.com/ Do you know about the Shadow People? http://www.shadowpeople.org/ A nice site about plants. http://www.theplantexpert.com/ My favorite African Violet site. http://www.robsviolet.com/ Equal time for Pastafarians. http://www.venganza.org/ Repotting my African violets today. Such a Zen-like pastime. http://bit.ly/9iLSpE What do people with food sensitivities do for a good birthday cake? Oh, ho... http://bit.ly/bjLDbt My new fave blogger, Suburban Matron. http://www.suburbanmatron.com/ Gary Arndt is going to see it all. http://everything-everywhere.com/ The maintenance and repair of mobile homes differs significantly from that of conventional housing. Here's help. http://www.mobilehomedoctor.com/ http://mobilehomerepair.com/ http://www.mobilehome.com/repair.php End of Section Two. At the time this issue was posted, the current subscriber count for this publication was 376. This issue's collection of online news, blogs, magazines, videos and/or other informational sites. These are chosen for maximum diversity regardless of 'spin' and in some cases may have offensive or questionable content. http://sodelightful.wordpress.com/ http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/_new/ http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/ http://www.symphonious.net/ http://www.tampabay.com/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://www.thegrumpyprogrammer.com/ http://www.independent.org/ http://www.queendom.com/articles/articles.htm?a=19 http://txmomof3.wordpress.com/ http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Home http://washingtonindependent.com/ http://thinkprogress.org/ http://www.useit.com/ http://www.tommykane.blogspot.com/ http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/ http://tinyurl.com/3qfyzm [npr dot org] http://twi-ny.com/ http://www.tictocs.ac.uk/ http://thingsweforget.blogspot.com/ http://www.velveteenmind.com/ http://discussions.virtualdr.com/home.php http://www.websavymom.com/ Section Three by Don. Create your own surveys. http://questionform.com/ Some Windows goodies. http://www.zeraha.org/dlcat.1.html Play a while on this colorful site. http://www.colr.org/ A few interesting videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/Pacificmusic http://www.youtube.com/user/OkGo#p/a/u/2/12zJw9varYE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvVKJtLocQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MR2G1tVcLY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__2eeX2dU0 Spelling errors can lead to big bargains on the web. http://www.typobuddy.com/ http://www.typobay.com/ http://typohound.com/ A cultural mosaic on the art of music. http://underyourskin.net/ End your confusion over 'i.e.' and 'e.g.' with a smile. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ie Keeping track of senior citizen discounts. http://seniordiscounts.com/ A firefox plugin for paranoid, highly advanced users. http://tinyurl.com/3ytkxtk [zscaler dot com] News and information about sunspots, solar flares and meteor showers. http://www.spaceweatherradio.com/ To me, Seinfeld is a sleeping dog best left alone but if you can't get enough, this is for you. http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/index.html After reading the text on the home page I'm convinced that the programmer's first language isn't English but that doesn't mean his software wouldn't help you organize your media files. http://users.otenet.gr/~dtou20/ I don't have separate IM clients for AIM, Yahoo, MSN or Google talk. Instead, I have one client, Pidgin, which handles them all. http://www.pidgin.im/ Lisa might enjoy freelensing but we're going to have to purchase a much fancier camera than we have for her to try. http://lukeroberts.us/2009/12/freelensing/ Every wonder what Calvin and Hobbes have to say on a given topic? no prob, try the Calvin and Hobbes search engine. http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/ Whether you're planning to immigrate or just vacationing in New Zealand, it could help you to know some of their slang. http://www.nz-immigration.co.nz/lifestyle/slang-words.html DeepSurplus is a good place to learn about network cabling. http://www.deepsurplus.com/HOME/Free-Training End of Section Three. If you'd like to help promote this non-commercial publication, please forward this ezine to anyone you know who might appreciate it. To spare them the forwarding carets (>> these things) I suggest you copy/paste the ezine to a new email window, or save the ezine as a text file to be inserted, or copy/pasted to a new email. If you've received this publication as a forward and wish to subscribe you may easily do so from online forms in either of these two locations: http://www.don-guitar.com/subsmanager.html http://www.freelists.org/list/donspatch Section Four by Lisa. Practical advice for creative people. http://lateralaction.com/pathfinder/ We need lots more of this. http://bit.ly/8TI02U Remember the Elian Gonzales story? Here's an update. http://bit.ly/9mOgED What a cool idea! http://bit.ly/aYLqk1 The best way to clean windows. http://bit.ly/d494Tn http://bit.ly/cpIxvs How to cut a mango. http://bit.ly/vRN8E There's actually a Doodle Day. http://www.nationaldoodleday.org.uk/ A great laundry idea. http://bit.ly/bLbMgF The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provide grants to improve life. http://www.hewlett.org/ A couple of good (and free) ebooks. http://liveboldandbloom.com/resources/ebooks http://bit.ly/crD4CX Gabriel Schaffer, artist. http://www.outsiderart.info/shaffer.htm A magazine of Polish culture. http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/ Maxfield Parrish, artist. http://parrish.artpassions.net/ Just in case you were wondering... http://www.whatdoestheinternetthink.net/ End of Section Four. We welcome all comments, suggestions, or criticism. The form doesn't access your email client (it's a CGI form), so your privacy is assured. If you know of a website that would be a good candidate for this ezine, please pass it on via our online feedback form. http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Section Five by Don. Sometimes I foolishly assume I've had enough problems to know something about problems. http://www.polarisproject.org/ Sometimes I foolishly assume I know something about courage. http://violenceunsilenced.com/ A Windows utility which some folks enjoy using. http://www.autohotkey.com/ If you find youself typing the same things over and over this tool might be useful to you. http://www.phraseexpress.com/ Eye candy for Windows. http://www.desktopbeautifier.com/ Some websites are about information; some are about the packaging and processing of information. Yippy seems to belong in the latter group. http://yippy.com/ Normally if I'm going to link to a blog I put it in the media section and I list the whole blog rather than a specific post but this is a specific post, in one man's blog, which captures a moment of his never-ending rite of passage as a parent. http://www.billycoffey.com/2010/08/ever-forward-2/ More where that came from. http://www.billycoffey.com/ Windows goodies from I/Obit. http://www.iobit.com/download.html Another Windows toy. http://www.xneat.com/ If you're one of those folks whose computer is always turned on, always connected to the web and you enjoy being involved in mankind's quest for knowledge, there are numerous projects which can make good use of your spare CPU time. Learn about them here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download I'd love to have one of these things but I keep thinking 'they don't have heat or air conditioning and what if it rains?'. http://www.youtube.com/user/HumanCar DIY goodies for your cellphone. http://www.tonethis.com/ Whether you want to install Linux on your Lenova laptop or just learn more about using Windows on your Lenova machine, here's a helpful site. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki iPod to computer transfer tool. http://www.copytoy.com/ Contact friends and family when you are trekking, travelling or have been in a disaster. http://www.shoutsafe.com/ Somewhere between twitter and email. http://three.sentenc.es/ A bachelor friend of ours was looking for a small place to live and, while helping him, we discovered 'Park' model mobile homes. They're way overpriced but very cool. http://www.parkmodelsdirect.com/ http://www.pinnacleparkhomes.com/ I heard about this on NPR; 100 people, 100 dollars, 100 days. http://www.whatisproject100.com/ Is life getting you down? Pick up the phone. http://www.pickupthephone.org/ Marc Gold is a pretty cool guy. http://100friends.org/ End of Section Five. Archives for this ezine are available online here: http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/ The current issue is also available on our website. http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html RSS feed is available via this link. http://www.freelists.org/archives/donspatch/feed.rss Section Six by Lisa. Hitler in color. http://bit.ly/4n0TVJ The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. Srsly. http://crochetcoralreef.org/ Ronald Mallett believes in time travel. Me, too. http://bit.ly/mJLol Sociable. Guerrilla. Bagging. http://www.morsbags.com/ Ray Ceasar's work is quite different. http://www.raycaesar.com/ What to do with that old aluminum folding chair. http://bit.ly/9aAx2u Things NOT to DIY. http://bit.ly/cSE3RA Online time-tracking and invoicing. http://makesometime.com/ Advice on going green. http://www.greenlivingtips.com/ What does your fridge say about you? http://bit.ly/w1B5n Interesting things. http://www.crookedbrains.net/ Free home inventory software. http://www.stuffsafe.com/index.php http://www.whatyouown.org/index.html http://www.allmythings.com/ How to make a difference, in the time you have. http://www.charityguide.org/ Need some help making dinner? What a nice puppy! http://www.recipepuppy.com/ I've had a blast gathering all our CDs in one place, making paper sleeves for them and getting rid of all those space-hogging jewel cases-which went into the plastic recycling. You can use the reverse side of printer 'overruns' to make the sleeves, too. Every commercial CD (or copy) I searched so far has been listed and gave me a track list. Very cool. http://www.papercdcase.com/ (Thanks for the link Patrick) End of Section Six. The Linux Corner. How to learn to use Linux. http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-to-Use-Linux Unix, Linux, and variants from ComputerHope. http://www.computerhope.com/unix.htm Learn About Linux. http://www.linux.com/learn Eleven SSH tricks (geeky stuff from Linux Journal. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6602 The Linux learning zone. http://www.linuxlearningzone.com/ Linux tips and tricks. http://www.patoche.org/LTT/ Linux tips, tricks, tools, news and howtos. http://www.linuxhaxor.net/ A Little Humor. How many dogs does it take to change a light bulb? http://tinyurl.com/6lux9k [animalsneedhelp dot com] --- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) for Etch-A-Sketch technical support. Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen. A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: What's the shortcut for Undo? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I create a New Document window? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document? A: Don't shake it. --- Some of life's little ponderings A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk I have a work station... Can atheists get insurance for acts of God? If they arrested the Energizer Bunny, would they charge it with battery? I believe five out of four people have trouble with fractions. How come you never hear about gruntled employees? How much faith does it take to be an atheist? I don't have a solution, but I admire your problem. A tin whistle is made of tin. What, exactly, is a fog horn made of? If atheists say there is no God, who do they think pops up the next Kleenex in the box? Okay, who stopped the payment on my reality check? I believe the only time the world beats a path to my door is when I'm in the bathroom. Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks? What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men? Tips for This Issue. The low-down on fast connections. http://www.dslreports.com/ Windows 7 forums. http://www.sevenforums.com/ Information assembled for and by actual users of Microsoft Windows. http://www.annoyances.org/ Mac tips, fixes and reviews. http://www.macyourself.com/ Contributions From Our Readers. Links from readers are always welcome and you can even write your own link descriptions if you like (just tell me when you send them if that's what you intended). Guidelines are available here: http://www.don-guitar.com/descriptivetext.html From our web-sibling Patrick Barden. ( http://romanroadwalker.posterous.com/ ) A nifty paper CD case that works great once you overcome the challenge of folding it. http://www.papercdcase.com/ From our web-sibling Jo-Ann (Jo) Burton: ( Jo's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharinglinks2/ ) The original inspiration for the LOLcats. http://apelad.blogspot.com/ Accidental income. http://www.accidentalincome.com/ Medievil stained glass windows. http://home.bawue.de/~wmwerner/essling/english/glas01.html A bit more where that came from. http://home.bawue.de/~wmwerner/essling/english/index.html The history of things that never were. http://www.mts.net/~arphaxad/history.html An online ladies magazine. http://blisstree.com/ A gallery of xrays, in color. http://colorxrays.com/gallerymedical.htm Interesting blog/blog-like sites. http://www.fionacarswell.com/ http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://drboli.wordpress.com/ http://www.futilitycloset.com/ From web-sibling and old friend Kenneth Hale. Jim the Wonder Dog. http://jimthewonderdog.com/index.html A theme park on the web. http://www.yesterland.com/ Cemetary public records. http://www.findagrave.com/ The Skeptic's Dictionary. http://www.skepdic.com/ Spy stuff. http://www.spystuff.com/ Trendy magic. http://www.trendy.org/magic/ UFO folklore. http://qtm.net/~geibdan/framemst.html Guide to lock picking. http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/mit-guide.html Looks to me like a mashup of a web portal and a search engine. http://www.hotsheet.com/ From our web-sibling John Lepse. ( John's blog: http://hucknjim.blogspot.com/ ) An idle brain may be the self's workshop (and interesting article from the Los Angeles Times) http://tinyurl.com/2859jk7 [latimes dot com] Thank you Patrick, Jo, Kenneth and John. Last word, from Lisa: Seems we're constantly ascending learning curves. This evening we played at a local watering hole in a new(ish) adventure. For the past few weeks we have started a musical group we now call 'DNR'-for 'Don-n-Ron' or 'Do Not Resuscitate'. Don plays his electronic piano with its preset accompaniments and sings while Ron Burfiend also sings lead and Beth Heter and I sing harmony and a few leads. Don doesn't understand stage fright so I've 'gotten over it' pretty quickly. Interesting how that happens when the drama is removed. It's a laid-back, friendly bunch and we have several bookings already, much better than we expected at this stage. Life is good, love is wonderful, Lisa Our feedback form and contact info: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html Lisa on... myspace: http://www.myspace.com/81825549 blogger: http://thedirtgoddess.blogspot.com/ google buzz. http://www.google.com/profiles/101326359135790262301 Don on... myspace: http://www.myspace.com/donguitar facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Crowder/1321324044 twitter: http://twitter.com/eldergeek blogger: http://don-guitar.blogspot.com/ google buzz. http://www.google.com/profiles/dondashguitar Don Crowder and Lisa Miller Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:15 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas Privacy: We will never share, sell, or otherwise compromise your email address. Privacy Policy on our website. http://www.don-guitar.com/privacy.html Freelists.org Privacy Policy. http://www.freelists.org/privacy.html The most important people on the Internet, for you and I as computer users, are software developers. The world's coolest computer, without software, is like a car without fuel. It might look great, but what can it do? It doesn't matter who produces the software you love and use regularly, the developers of that software need and deserve your support. A bit of advice from Internet veteran Bayard J. Fox: New computer users are often in awe of the things you can get without cost on the Internet. There can be hidden costs for the unwary. Use a 'throw away' email address to register, and be constantly on guard against giving away personal information. Use a firewall, and provide only the barest minimum of information on questionnaires. The Internet: A Weapon of Mass Construction.
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