Blackstump Australia Issue 9 - March 18, 2009

The latest issue of new family friendly sites listed on The Black Stump.
Blackstump Australia Issue 9 - March 18, 2009

Take Better Self-Portraits

Taking a good self-portrait is both a handy skill and a way to expand your photographic repertoire. Save your next profile picture from the camera-held-at-arms-length cliche with these tips.
Take Better Self-Portraits

BBC exposes global cybercrime risk

The BBC in the UK has reported that it has easily acquired its own botnet controlling thousands of home computers as part of an investigation into global cybercrime.
BBC exposes global cybercrime risk

The magic number

At Google, they're getting ready to celebrate Pi Day, which culminates tomorrow, March 14 at 1:59pm, a date and time that correspond to the first six digits of pi: 3.14159. (Some people celebrate at 1:59am.) Of course, since pi is a member of a select group of irrational numbers, meaning they can't be expressed as a fraction, there are an infinite number of digits in pi. You can even set a world record for reciting pi from memory if you have the spare brain cells to remember 100,000 or so digits. Odds are, you certainly won't remember the one trillion digits past the decimal point that computers have calculated.
The magic number

Downgrade Vista to XP in seven easy steps

Windows 7's arrival is just a few months away, but many people aren't waiting and just want to replace Vista's newness — some say weirdness — for the familiarity of XP.
Downgrade Vista to XP in seven easy steps

How to Stop Being a Workaholic

It is dangerous to be a workaholic. Although you may finish a lot of work, you may endanger your marriage, ruin your relationships with your children, get burnt out, and end up in an early grave. If you want time to live a more enjoyable, meaningful life, the following steps will point the way.
How to Stop Being a Workaholic

Passwords You Should Never, Ever Use?

You can preach the gospel of secure password schemes 'til you run out of breath or typing strength—sometimes it's the bad examples that really teach us what not to do.
Passwords You Should Never, Ever Use?

Quarterly updates to OED Online

Every quarter, a range of entries in OED Online will be replaced by updated versions produced by the OED's revision programme. New entries will also be added across the alphabet.
Quarterly updates to OED Online

How to Green Your Lighting

Given high energy prices, many aspects of the way in which we live have been brought to the fore. And not least of these is our demand for electricity. We can blame politicians and electricity suppliers for bad planning to a certain extent, but we can’t defer our responsibility for continuing to drive demand. Rather than being careless in our approach to the design of our homes, it would pay us to pay more attention to how we use our energy. And the easiest and cheapest place to start, is with our lighting.
How to Green Your Lighting

100 top sites for the year ahead

Two years after we last picked the web's cream of the crop, our latest selection finds that location-based services, work-anywhere collaboration and video are prominent.
100 top sites for the year ahead

Add an extra 14 years to your life

Eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, not smoking, and drinking alcohol moderately could add 14 years to your life, according to British researchers.
Add an extra 14 years to your life

How to Deodorize a Room

We've all been there. Your room has 'acquired' a smell, and you just can't seem to get rid of it. Things that are clean generally shouldn't smell, but some odors have a way of getting all over everything. Here are several ways that really work to lessen odors in a room, in order of effectiveness and relative ease. Use the ones that seem most appropriate to your situation, but for really bad odors it may be worth using multiple methods to attack the smell. Finally, don't panic - these really do work and with a little time and effort the odor can be significantly reduced in a couple of days.
How to Deodorize a Room

7 Tearfully-Pleasing Uses for Onions

People, despite getting teary-eyed, enjoy the numerous culinary uses of the onion. The gas containing vegetable is both a primary ingredient and a flavor enhancer in many dishes. If you think its list of uses end at the kitchen, you better think again. It is proven to be a medicinal wonder, as well as a metal polisher and an insect repellent. With its number of alternative uses, the onion may induce tears of joy to any DIY pundit. Here are seven of its tearfully - pleasing uses.
7 Tearfully-Pleasing Uses for Onions

25 Useful Financial Rules of Thumb

A rule of thumb is a general guideline, an easy way to approximate a value quickly. It’s not meant to be completely accurate.
25 Useful Financial Rules of Thumb

How to Make Work Feel Effortless

Sometimes work feels like a drag. You get caught up in trying to be more productive and suddenly your life turns into a series of to-do lists. You gauge your measure of success by how much you accomplish. You even determine how happy you allow yourself to be by how much you’ve gotten done in the day. When this occurs, work turns into a chore. You don’t enjoy the work, you just to do it so it can be over with. Then you can feel good, right? But wait, there’s that thing you forgot about. You still need to do that. And oh yeah, there’s that other thing you haven’t done yet.
How to Make Work Feel Effortless

Find Free Transport In Most Australian Capital Cities

Australia's different capital city public transport systems don't have much in common -- but many of them do offer free bus services in their CBD areas (along with the occasional no-cost tram or train). Check out this comprehensive listing to save money (and traffic jams) the next time you're in an unfamiliar city.
Find Free Transport In Most Australian Capital Cities

Microsoft Time Zone

There is no build in way to display different time zones in Microsoft operating systems. The clock in the system tray will always display the time of the selected time zone. Users have to rely on third party programs or the Internet to view multiple time zones at once. One of the possibilities is a small Microsoft application that can be used to display the times of various time zones in the Windows system tray. The application will pull the information directly from the default time zone list of the Windows operating system which means that every time zone in the world is covered by it.
Microsoft Time Zone

International Women's Day: Web and Social Media Resources

If you’re wondering why “Happy International” is a top trend on Twitter today, it’s because today is International Women’s Day, an important day that celebrates the achievements of women everywhere. This year will be the 98th celebration of International Women’s Day. And although we celebrate the advances women have made today, we are also humbled by the reminder that there is still a lot of work to be done in the realm of gender equality.
International Women's Day: Web and Social Media Resources

Spoof Magazine Covers and More at WriteOnIt

Your mother always told you you'd never sell enough gold records, or fall hard enough from a high enough office, to make the cover of a magazine. Prove her wrong with spoof site WriteOnIt.
Spoof Magazine Covers and More at WriteOnIt

HTML to PDF Converter Turns Web Sites into PDF Files

If you'd like to save a web site for posterity without the mess of saving the page and all its files, the web-based HTML to PDF Converter can crank out a PDF.
HTML to PDF Converter Turns Web Sites into PDF Files