OVER 2 YOU, 028 (17/05/01)

FRETTED CHORD SYMBOLS

Does anyone know of a program that will let you to print the fretted chord symbols (e.g. for guitar or other fretted musical instrument) allowing you to make your own chords for either 4 or 6-string instruments?

Fred Pearson, via email

I went to http://download.cnet.com and searched for "guitar chords". The two most promising programs were: Guitar Pro 3.0 - shareware $49 and TablEdit 2.33 - shareware $55. Both of these offer the ability to create and print chord diagrams for guitars and other lots of other fretted stringed instruments. There is also a freeware program called Tablature 2.1 but this is a bit trickier to set up and run and I haven't had a good look at it.
Bob Boffin,

A music notation program called "Capella" caters for this. More info on their web-site http://www.software-partners.co.uk
Rory Wilson

COPY ORDERS

As a good salesman but poor computer operator I am looking for a published software package that would allow me to produce copy orders from my laptop quickly, ideally so I may leave a copy with my customer before leaving his premises. What I need is a program that would allow me to build a database of customers connected to a program of product codes, descriptions and prices so by inputting a customer code, product code and quantity I would be able to produce a complete order with a few key strokes. I can't find anything at the likes of PC World, can any one out there help please?

Mike Boon, via email

I am a freelance consultant and use a software package called 'Administration Assistant'. This is personalised by the supplier and includes my business logo and enables me to easily raise and print Quotes, Orders and Purchase Orders as well as keeping track of my customer base and all letters, faxes and action points. It is extremely simple to use. I can also use database replication with this software to update between my laptop and my desktop PC as required. The Company is called 'Simple Systems' and can be contacted on intaactive@aol.com or Tel. 01606 550691

Gary Bartles,

I publish a unique office system called PROMOS which was designed principally for the promotional merchandise and business gift industry although it can be quite easily used by any sales company. It will do all that he wishes plus many other important and useful office tasks. It has a comprehensive database which, apart from keeping the contact information, will provide merge mail, send faxes, e mails and regular correspondence and can be customised to incorporate the users logo etc. There is another database within the system that holds details and prices of products, which can be incorporated into quotations and orders.

There is a descriptive website at www.promos-solutions.co.uk that fully describes the system and provides the opportunity of downloading an interactive demo to try out.

David Tauber,

Re Mike Boon's problems as a salesman working from a laptop. In the USA this practice is increasingly the norm, and it's impressive. I have a small business selling there and when talking to some sales agents, they point-blank refuse 'paper' presenters!  If it isn't on CD (interactive as well) they don't look at you!

However, I suggest Mr Boon (and also perhaps Nigel Morton – see next query) look at http://www.freedomsoftware.net/index.htm.  This is the 'voice' of a small business run by an English chap now resident in Normandy and it offers a program called 'Freedom'. I've had a copy for some time and, as a relational database, it's unimaginably versatile and simple to use! It 'piggy-back's access, but that's just the start. I heartily recommend a peek and maybe a 30-day trial.  So far as I know it costs just £75 and there is a superb one-to-one facility where the software designers will gladly receive suggestions and, if workable, install them into the suite.
Ken Tickle,

FILOFAX PRINTING
Can you tell me if you know of a PC software diary/schedule package, which will specifically produce a hard copy of a diary that can be printed off in hard copy format suitable to be put into a Filofax (Personal size paper)?  What I am looking for is a diary that I can maintain on my PC, but print off to update a hard copy every now and then.

Nigel Morton, via email  

I have used Time & Chaos for years and it will do exactly what Nigel wants. If a Palm is bought later it will synchronise perfectly. Contact www.isbister.com.

Michael J Boxall,

MS Outlook has been able to do Filofax for years. That's how I've maintained my physical diary, address book, phone lists etc for many years now. Gaze deeply into your PC and say Microsofftttt .....

Ian Murray,

Lotus Organizer - part of its Smart Suite Series but available (I think) as a single entity is a perfect program for providing a Filofax appearance with the opportunity to print out the diary as well as all its other sections - address book, scheduler, etc.
E W Lighton, Crewe

RUSSIAN TRANSLATION

Can anyone recommend software that can translate letters I send to a friend in the Ukraine, from English into Russian, and translate the replies back into English?
G. Barnett, via email

Letters can be translated from English into Russian and vice-versa by going to the web site http://www.translate.ru/eng/erre.asp. The translations although quite good are still only approximate. You cannot yet beat a human translator. Why not take the plunge and enrol in a Russian course? The University of Westminster offers courses in Russian for complete beginners and for those wanting to continue in their studies. Enrolment is in September. Further information can be found at http://www.stanwardine.com/uwmin/ learn_russian.htm
William Bridge,

As a professional translator, I am always amazed at the number of people who think that just by putting a document through a piece of software they will come up with a flawless translation.  If it were so easy there would not be so many of us making a good living at this work. 

It may seem odd, but translation software can only really be used by professionals.  There is no way machine translations can understand the many, varied nuances of language.  Some phrases may have a literal and an idiomatic meaning which might not be the same if translated into another language.   Also, language is constantly changing and it would be impossible to keep translation software up to date. 

I have often had to pick up the pieces after something has been machine translated. The mistakes vary from the comical, the totally inaccurate and the totally incomprehensible.  How would your correspondent know that what he was sending out did not contain the same sort of errors, or worse, something offensive?

Translation is not just taking one word and translating it into another language.  If this were so, anyone armed with a dictionary would be able to translate anything.  Translation is a question of translating concepts and meanings, something no machine has been able to tackle with success yet.

The best advice I can give your correspondent is either to learn Ukrainian himself, (or persuade his friend to learn English), or have his letters professionally translated.

Annette Hennessy,

http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran does this and many other languages for free and you can cut and paste text to and from it and it will even translate a complete web page, but no program comes close to a human translation! I am a member of the Saab e-group in the Netherlands and as I don't speak Dutch have tried sending a message using a computer translation with hilarious results! Now they insist I write in English!
Tom Noonan,

RANDOM ACCESS

I use MS Access database to hold a list of names and addresses/phone numbers for a club. Using a query I produce a list of qualifying names each month for a publicity list. I would like to randomise the order to prevent the same names appearing at the top each time, but the best I can manage is to alter the alphabetical ordering A-Z or Z-A. I can also vary it by ordering different fields e.g. first name, telephone no. etc. but this is clumsy. Does anyone know of a way of truly randomising the order produced by a query each time it is run?
Duncan Cumberlidge, via email

If you wish to randomise the order of the data in your query use the following trick: Firstly place an auto number column called Counter in the table you wish to randomise. Then in the query used to produce the list, type the following as a field value: sort: Rnd([Counter]).  Finally set the sort order on the above field to ascending. Each time the query is now run, the value sort will be randomly generated.

Jeff Myers,

To randomise a list of names in Access add to existing table 2 new fields - [rec no] autonum and [random no] number single. Create an update query, which updates the field [random no] to Rnd(), and for field [rec no] criteria 1. Copy this query as many times as you have records in your table, changing the [rec no] criteria to 2, 3, etc. Add the field [random no] to your existing query, sorted ascending. Create a macro, which opens all these queries, including your modified existing one at the end - the names will appear in random order, and different each time you run the macro.

Andy James,

I find this works very well. Create a module or edit an existing one. Put the following code in the module:

Function RandomRecords() As Integer
Static intDone As Integer

If intDone = False Then
    Randomize
    intDone = True
End If
RandomRecords = 0

End Function

Save and close the module

Create a new query, close the 'Show Table' window without selecting any tables. select SQL from the view pull-down and paste the following code in the SQL window.

SELECT TOP 100 tblName.* FROM tblName WHERE (((RandomRecords())=0))
ORDER BY Rnd(IsNull([tblName.FieldlName])*0+1);

Change tblName to your table name and FieldName to your name field. If you have more than 100 records in the table change TOP 100 to a number higher than the recordcount.
Rick Sprague,

One solution would be to add an Autonumber field to your personal details
table , and then create a query based on the SQL syntax below:

SELECT TOP n Name, Address, Telephone
FROM tblPERSONAL
ORDER BY Rnd([ID])

Cut and paste this code into the SQL viewer in the Access query viewer.  The
[ID] field is the new Autonumber field you have created.  Replace 'Name', 'Address', 'Telephone', and 'tblPERSONAL' with your own field and table names.  Also replace 'n' with the number of qualifying names you would like the query to return.  The query works by assigning each record a value between 0 and 1, and then sorting the values returned in ascending order. Therefore each time the query is run, it should return an arbitrary sample of records from your database.  This solution isn't perfect, as it requires altering the structure of your table.  However it is easy to implement.
Paul Marfleet,

BRIDGE SCORES

I run the handicap system for a small bridge club by entering the weekly scores onto an Excel spreadsheet.  The first column of my spreadsheet is a list of player's names, the second column the latest scores, the third column the previous week's scores. I need to average each player's last five scores which I do by using the IF and COUNT functions.  My formula takes the form if the count of the array B1 to F1 equals 5 then average, if the count of the array B1 to G1 equals 5 then average, etc.  However this dumbo method of working out the averages is very clumsy and is also very restrictive as the number of scores I can pick up automatically is restricted by the number of IFs permitted in a cell.  Can anyone tell me how to pick up and average the first 5 scores in a row?

Jan Elsworth, via email

I suspect that the root of Jan Elsworth's problem lies in the fact that the table she has contains many blank cells for weeks when people do not play. The answer may well be to write a simple macro that copies the previous five contiguous entries into the leftmost cells if the leftmost cell is blank (empty) because the player did not play that week.  If the leftmost cell contains an entry copying will not take place. A more complex macro could extract a true average after entering the latest week's results by ignoring blank cells, summing and dividing by 5 the most recent entries.
R Ball

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

Try Education Otherwise at http://www.education-otherwise.org/ and the Home Education Advisory Service at http://www.heas.org.uk/.  Both of these include a large number of links to other relevant sites.
Alfred Pauson, Glasgow

BARN CONVERSION

I have recently bought a barn for conversion and I would like to find some software that would enable me to design the interior "virtually". For example putting in furniture, kitchen, bathroom etc. Ideally I would like to download something over the Internet and I must be able to enter the actual floor plan of the building and be able to save this as a record, so that if I want to change the design around, I can do without having to reload the floor plan. Does anybody out there know of any such program? 

R & M Heys, via email

3D Interior Designer 2 Lite (www.europress.co.uk) may just do the trick. It is not expensive and the system requirements are low.

Leonard Walczak RIBA,

CAN YOU HELP?

I've been asked to get 150,000 medium format negatives onto the Internet. If I scan them I estimate it will take about 5 years. Does anyone know of any equipment that could speed the process, or any companies that offer this kind of service?
Michael Clift, via email

How can I make rectangular a photo or painting on a wall in a photo when the wall is at an angle to me, and conversely how can I make a straight-on photo look as if it was being seen from an angle? I wish to insert images into picture frames, which may be at an angle to the camera. Architectural cameras with a moveable lens and a bellows used to be able to do this in order to stop buildings tapering away from them.

Brian Stephens, Penarth, Glam.

Do you know of a method, using (say) Outlook or Excel, or of a commercial product which will print a calendar of recurring events with actual dates across a period from an input of fixed date formats - in the form of (say) 3rd Tuesdays in May, August and November?

Eric Trodd, via email

I run a golf competition at my Club & the competitors each play 6 rounds over a period of 3 months.  I have to select the best 4 scores out of the six & then assemble the totals of the 4 scores in order to determine the highest 16 qualifiers.  Can anyone produce a formula, which will automatically make this calculation?

Lindsay Macdonald, via email

I want to devise a quiz in which one of the questions entails placing a 2-letter word within a capital O. Can anyone suggest how this can be done within Word 2000?

Heather Catterfeld, via email