Have You Learned Anything From The Celebrity Round of Shiavo Mania?

It's been appalling to see this family feud played out on television and exploited by so many people with an agenda (an agenda that did not include the husband and wife involved). If the Shiavo family's misery leads to anything good, then perhaps their pain will lead to something good.

If you haven't figured out the importance of a Living Will/Advance Medical Directive, perhaps you've been in some sort of vegetative state lately. The entire circus would have been avoided if Terri Shivao had a Living Will/Advance Medical Directive. Today I will help you with this task.

A conservative approach to this would be to have a lawyer prepare the documents for you. A less conservative approach - especially if you are a cheapskate (as I am) - is to look for some other way to prepare the docs. Remember that the Internet operates under the law of the jungle - caveat emptor - and then Google it.

Googling "living will" gave me 974,000 hits. I narrowed the search to + "Living Will" +"Advance Medical Directive" + free and got 1,220 hits. Naturally, I looked for free resources first.

I looked at quite a few sites from that search and decided to use one as an example.

Legal Documents Online® allows you to prepare customized legal documents and legal forms directly online. Choose any of the documents offered, complete the questions, click the "Submit" button, and the finished document is ready for you to either download to file or print to your printer (downloadable or printable). Many documents are free. All others are available from $5.50 to $89.75, depending on the complexity of the document.

Almost all documents can be previewed for free.

Wave-riding/blogging buddy Neon suggests a different site - with free forms!

Another "thrifty" choice is to buy legal advice from Nolo Press. No doubt there are other sources of competant DIY legal assitance, but Nolo runs their business more admirably than 99.999% (I'm guessing that number) of all businesses. I have looked to Nolo for legal education since the late 70s. These are exemplary people.

Note: if your situation is complicated beyond what free/low cost help can handle, see a lawyer. I am not a lawyer (I just play one on the Internet).

You're still here? Why are you wasting time surfing the web? You should be preparing your own Living Will/Advance Medical Directive. We'll wait....

Your Feet Don't Have To Hurt

The most comprehensive source of foot health and foot care information on the Web.

Foot.com provides information on foot pain, foot conditions, comfort footwear, sports injuries and foot health for diabetes. Shop our online store for products that prevent and treat forefoot pain, heel pain and toe pain, as well as the best athletic, comfort and therapeutic shoes available.

Easter Eggs

Chocolate? Nope.
Boiled and Dyed? Nah!

In the cyberworld, Easter eggs are undocumented bits of code that come hidden inside operating systems, applications, Web browsers, games, and other programs. Easter eggs are usually very well hidden and requires knowledge of arcane, undocumented commands.

Click in the proper place, edit the right file, or type in the secret sequence, and you'll be rewarded with anything from a simple scrolling list of the names of the programmers who created the product to a full-blown game you can play. They're fun to look for, fun to find.

Once Easter eggs in software became popular, people started looking for eggs in movies, music (as in "The Walrus is Paul").

With a little help from your friends.....
Eggscentral
EEggs
Graphicssoft
E-How

http://webguide.webmagic.com/EasterEggs.com/Types/Programs/" target=_blank>

Addicting Games

Addicting Games

The largest source of great free online games including arcade games, action games, sports games, puzzle games, flash games and more. Updated weekly.

Do You IM?

Do you use Instant Messaging on your computer to carry on real-time conversations? It's a good way to send images and digital sounds, and to "talk" over the Internet. If you and your communicatee both have IM and microphones, you can really talk over the Internet. It can definitely save on long distance bills. A friend IMs & literally talks to friends and family on the far side of the Pacific.

Warning: it can be addicting.

The most common complaint among IMers is that if you IM with lots of friends (or business connections), you wind up with several IM programs (and IM names, and IM passwords, etc.) AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, and IRC all provide IM services - and each one has its own way of doing things. Naturally, none of those company's programs will talk to each other.

But wait!

Now we have Cerulean Studios, who produce Trillian, a program with which you can connect to AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, and IRC - all at the same time!. Trillian supports video and audio chat, message logging, identity management, etc.

Plain Vanilla Trillian is free. Trillian Pro is $25. Get Trillian from Download.com or Cerulean Studios