OVER 2 YOU, 027 (26/04/01)

HOME SCHOOLING

I have taken my ten-year old daughter out of school and want to educate her  at home. Can anyone recommend web sites and resources for home schooling?
J. Condon, via email

I highly recommend www.homegrownchild.com. It was begun by the same people who developed the Phono-Graphix scheme and who wrote 'Reading Reflex', which I first read about in The Telegraph three years ago. The website has many features perfect for home schooling parents and children including an art gallery where the children can post their art, a story board for their writings, educational games, virtual classes in video, a daily news page written for children, and a cultural calendar. There is also a chat board for parents.
Mrs. Rose Paul,

There is plenty of information available for home schoolers! I suggest you email otterhill@compuserve.com, the address of Christian Education Resources, based in Surrey. The lady who runs it has an enormous catalogue of resources, addresses (some but not all, Christian), including websites. She also holds open days to view resources. This information was passed to me by a home-schooling friend who was impressed, having taken her children to open days at C.E.R. I started home-schooling 20 years ago but none of this was available then, and I mostly found what I needed in WH Smith. If you look carefully, there is some good material.

I recommend Bond; Practice in the Basic Skills; if you go for Books 3 and 4, you should quickly find out your daughter's level of attainment. They also do assessment papers of various types, some better than others. Robert Gibson Publishers (17 Fitzroy Place Glasgow G3 7SF) do a tremendous range of really helpful (good old-fashioned) stuff, and prices are extremely reasonable.

The education package of CDs that came with our Tiny computer are okay, but children tend to learn (3Rs) more proficiently at a desk with books. I tended to save it for SATs or research, and the odd essay or letter.

Have fun with your daughter; the world out there is full of resources, and learning need never be dull for either of you!
J Lillie,

OFFSITE STORAGE

I want to protect my articles and books by offsite data storage. I don't want to have to carry round disks, or even CDs and Zips. Can anyone suggest any reliable low cost online storage services, which I could zap my work to at the end of the day, or is there another route I have overlooked?

Linda Wain, via email

Linda could use the services company 'Bravenet'  http://www.bravenet.com/ . They offer 100 megs for free! I have used this company for web counters and other things and I have been very pleased with their quality of service

Roger Morton,

Linda Wain could try www.myspace.com for up to 300mb free space. She can also get 100Mb free at www.x-drive.com.
Keith Paterson,

Most free Internet Service providers such as Virgin offer up to 30mb of storage space as a website which should do the job. If Linda does not know how to set up and use a website there is plenty of advice around including my website at
http://freespace.virgin.net/brian.gilbert1
Brian Gilbert,

PHOTO MOSAIC

Is there any software available to create a photographic mosaic using only one image so that each single tile is a miniature of the complete picture?

David Paul via email

Some months ago I loaded a program from a CD accompanying a computer magazine that would seem to fit the picture. The software is ArcSoft PhotoMontage and this enables the user to create a photomontage portraying a single image made up of many micro images of that single image.  Images can be any already stored on the computer or CD or can be acquired directly from digital cameras or scanners or any TWAIN compliant device. Images can be edited or cropped before use and can be stored in "photo-albums".  Once created the montage can be printed out as mini posters on high quality paper or you can access ArcSoft's on line services to order full size posters. Web sites: www.arcsoft.com , www.photoisland.com and www.zipshot.com .

I loaded version 1 and there was the usual invitation to upgrade to the latest edition at a special rate. I have only played around with the software using images supplied with the software but it does seem to live up to its claims.
Peter Catherall,

SAILING  

I intend to sail -- mainly in the Med -- with my laptop and mobile phone, and wonder if anyone has any advice of how to access Internet and E-Mail on the boat?

B. H. Portsmouth, via email

We are a new company that is dealing with exactly this sort of enquiry. We install complete packages for sailors to be able to access email, the Internet, marine data and
plenty more while anywhere in the world. You can find more details on our website:
www.offshoretele.com
Tim Owen,

RETIREMENT

With my retirement only 12136 days away I thought it would be nice to
countdown these remaining days of toil on my PC.  Ideally I'm imagining a screen saver similar to the 3D Text option that comes as standard with Windows. But instead of displaying fixed text or the current time I want to be able to input the aim date. Then every time the screen saver is used it will display the current number of days I have left to work. Does anybody know of such an item?
Richard Fowle, via email

I spent a few minutes developing a program to do just that. My own retirement is a mere 16,073 days my program informs me (I've yet to start work actually). It uses the standard 3D text screen saver that Richard wanted by changing the .ini file where the text for the 3D text is stored. Place the program and it's own .ini file (Retire.ini) anywhere on your computer (but together in the same directory) and place a shortcut to the program in the C:\WINDOWS\StartMenu\Programs\StartUp folder to ensure the days remaining is updated every time you boot the computer. Edit the Retire.ini file (by double clicking on it) and change the day/month/year fields and save it. To try the program just double click it - you won't see anything on the screen when you run it but it will have changed the text. Oh and remember to switch the 3D text screen saver on! I have only tried this on Windows 98 but it should work on others versions. I have set up a site at http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/alanevans/ where the program can be downloaded. Good luck in your retirement,

Alan Evans,

JULIAN DATES

One of my retirement hobbies is researching aspects of local history. Is there a source on the web for annual calendars for the Julian calendar in use before 1752 to help me put a day of the week to the dates of events or software to create such calendars? There are ways of manually working out the days to match dates but mistakes are easily made.

Barry Redfern, via email

A good conversion between the Gregorian and Julian calendars is at www.mandarintools.com/calconv_old.html. The purpose is to relate them to the Chinese Calendar but it is quite convenient without that.

John R, Batts, Banbury,Oxon

SHADES OF GREY

I have 60 photographs of black and white handprints. I would like to know what area consists of black and white (and also different shades of grey)? Is there a program that can do such a thing? This is for my dissertation experiment, taking 60 Kirlian photographs. I need to measure the change in the corona electrical discharge around the handprints.

Mr.Preston Lee, via email

What you need is access to an Image analysing computer system. If you have an Electron microscope department at your college I would be very surprised if they don't have such a beast or know where to get access to one. Originally they were made by Metals Research Ltd, then taken over by Cambridge Instruments Ltd., both were well known companies in the field and over the years Image Analysis became a science (I should know I used to be a service /sales/ installation / customer training engineer for both companies in my previous life). Once you have set the criteria up the analysis should only a few seconds per photo.
Tom Waugh,

HEDGEHOGS & WORMS

Despite the Internet's reputation for being able to supply every conceivable human desire, I am unable to find anyone selling hedgehogs or slow worms.These are not for occult purposes but as a green alternative to slug pellets. As a gardener who lives in London, I am desperate to deter monopods from eating my bulbs.
Ian C, via email

With regard to slug control using natural methods, there are alternatives to the hedgehog approach. Green Gardener is a mail order company, which has been supplying biological control for the controlling of garden and green house pests for over 10 years. One of our natural products is Nemaslug - a nematode drench that kills slugs but is totally natural and safe for birds, wildlife, pets and children. He may wish to look at our web-site at www.greengardener.co.uk where he can check out not only our natural slug controls but also control for aphids, whitefly, vine weevil, aphids (both outdoors and under glass) and mealy bug etc and much, much more. There is also a secure line for ordering, an ask the experts page where people can get advise and contact numbers should people wish to get in contact in person.

Jonathan Manners,

CAN YOU HELP?

Can anyone recommend Garden Design software, suitable to run on a Mac PC? I am a professional Graphic Designer proficient in Photoshop, but also a keen amateur gardener and allotment holder. What do professional gardeners use? Some time ago I tried '3D Landscape' but it is pretty feeble- only operating with 256 colours.
Linda Sherwood-Page, via email

I have put together a booklet - 32 pages with about fifty illustrations - of a recent trip to Sri Lanka. I cannot find, anything in Microsoft Publisher comparable to the option given in Word to print 'Odd Pages', 'Even pages' or 'All pages'.  My printer is a Canon BJ 620 - I have searched its properties but cannot find a solution there.

This means I have to let page one print out, leap to my feet and turn the sheet over, let page three print out - on a fresh sheet - then repeat the process eight times!  Another option, which exists in "Word" but apparently not in Publisher is Widows & Orphans - so how do I prevent lots of hyphens at the end of lines?

Ian  A. Powys via email

As treasurer of a church, I am involved in Gift Aid procedures, which involves the issue of numbered and printed envelopes which people use each week to put their gifts in. These can be bought from specialist printers, but I would prefer to create my own.  However, I cannot find a way of printing more than one at a time; the system is designed for mail merge or one-offs but not for many that are identical. I am running Word 7.0 on Windows 95.

Malcolm Heron, via email