Is my blog working?

ismyblogworking.com Is your webpage/blog working? How do you know? Veronica Belmont of tekzilla.com has shown us the way .. again. She reported a new free utility website called ismyblogworking.com that checks for you and reports back all sorts of neat techie info. You just enter in the site you want to check on their main page, or append it to the end for a quick shortcut e.g. ismyblogworking.com/magrath-ab.net/news/blog

Yay .. along the same lines, I like the whatismyip.com website which is extremely handy if you need to know what IP address (kinda like a call display number to the web) you are using. You need this info if you want two computers to find and talk directly to each other over the internet. It is also a quick and easy way to see if your internet connection is still working.

And if it is working .. just how fast is it? Go to speedtest.net for a free utility to measure how long it takes to upload and download a test file. Cool.

Now, how can they afford to provide free services like these? I don't know, but I like using them. Perhaps is is a public service provided by a beneficent business who make their money in other ways .. kind of like the content on this website.

Ratings You Can Use

Family Movie Time?

Check out kids-in-mind.com (http://www.kids-in-mind.com). It provides parents and other adults with objective and complete information about a film's content so that they can decide, based on their own value system, whether they should watch a movie with or without their kids. It's like a food labeling system which tells you what a food item contains. It is a reliable, content-based alternative to the confusing MPAA (US) movie ratings.

You may also find http://parentpreviews.com/in-theaters of use. Family Movie Reviews, Movie Ratings & More .. links to Expert Studies, Articles and Reviewer Blogs. Only rates movies less than R ratings.

They Googled my Van in Magrath, AB

I be googled! My daughter informed me today that her friend saw our van in front of my mother-in-laws house on Google Maps. Apparently last spring the Google cam-van was here and I never knew. No one tells me anything.

Googled

To see what YOUR house looked like last year, you can go to Google Maps and drag the little person icon to your street. Street view lets you navigate the same paths the cam-van took and you can look around and up at each point.  Click the while arrow heads on the white path line to move along the streets. Click the blue arrow heads on the compass icon to rotate left/right or look up/down. Click the +/- below the compass to zoom in/out. Also, in the mini map at lower right you can move to other streets by dragging the person icon around. Neato.

So go to maps.google.com and search for Magrath, Canada. That should get you to the current map of Magrath or just click here to view our town on Google Maps