OVER 2 YOU, 031 (24/05/01)

DRIVING SIMULATOR

Does anyone know of driving simulator software for continental roads? I feel this would help prepare drivers to cope with the new conditions and also give more confidence when on the continent, on the wrong side of the road.
John Wallis, via email

While I haven't ever seen a piece of software that would fulfil John's exact requirements, he could always try Microprose's excellent Formula One Grand Prix 3. Select any circuit. When the lights turn to green, instead of starting the race with the other cars, simply allow them to race off, turn your car around and proceed around the track in the opposite direction. Within a minute or so you will find yourself confronted with oncoming traffic, with no regard for safety or other drivers, travelling towards you at speeds in excess of 150mph.While this will not prepare you for all instances of driving in foreign countries, I believe it will stand you in good stead should you ever find yourself behind the wheel of a car in Italy.
Mike Plowman, Kidlington, Oxon

I cannot point Mr John Wallis in the direction of a simulator, but would warn him that the most important difference between driving here and on the continent - or anywhere else in the world for that matter - is not the side of the road you drive on or the difference in road signs, but the way other drivers behave and expect you to behave.  No simulator is going give him that only careful and cautious observation in each and every country is effective.
Guy Gorton,

WIRE FRAME DRAWING

Can anyone point me in the direction of wire drawing software to draw  various patterned wire spheres and to enable them to revolve on the screen?
Peter Davidson, via email

To make the wire-frame spheres you will need a '3D modelling' application. To add colour, texture and patterns to your spheres you will need a '3D model rendering' application and, finally, to add movement to your spheres you will need an '3D animation' application. There are many software programs available on the Internet that can help you. Some applications bundle all three of the tasks mentioned above into one software program (e.g. TrueSpace, or Blender). Others specialise one aspect of the creative process (e.g. Rhino3D is an excellent 3D modelling program). Make sure that you check the specifications before you download or pay for any software because many require a lot of processing power or special graphics cards.

Prices range from Free to £2000+ depending on the features that you will be requiring. Ok, so here's the conclusion: If you're willing to spend money: If you require total control of the patterns of the sphere's wire mesh I would recommend Rhino3D for modelling and TrueSpace, 3D Max or Maya for the other processes. The Rhino evaluation copy allows about 20 saves before you have to pay for anything, the full version cost $795. The other packages vary in price depending on the number of pug-in features that you require. Freebies: I would strongly advise you to download a copy of 'Blender', which will get your sphere's rolling in no time and it won't cost you a penny. The program will probably scare your socks off when you first open it up, but there are some very good tutorials, which will help you to familiarize yourself with the tools. It is a very powerful program, which will allow you to model, render and animate your spheres, and export everything as an AVI movie. Coding Your Own: The final option is only for the brave...learn VRML. This language allows you to code 3D graphics for use on the Internet. 

http://www.blender.nl Download the latest version here.

http://www.rhino3d.com Top quality modelling software.

http://www.3dcafe.com A very useful website with an active Forum to help you get started.

http://www.pemo.demon.co.uk/links/ Find out about VRML here.

John Walker,

STOCKS AND SHARES

I need, ideally, to run a spreadsheet (Excel) with all my stocks and shares listed on it, and be able to download (off the net) daily or more often prices so it can update automatically. Can this be done without getting tied up with a portfolio with an on-line company, and having to be registered with a supplier of said prices?
Chris J Catton, via email

I made a spreadsheet, as you require with Lotus Improv. But why bother? You will have to get your share prices from many different sources if you have shares in e.g. Orange, Wanadoo or Unit Trusts.   I have abandoned all that and have set up my portfolio on Interactive Investor International (www.iii.co.uk). It is really quite easy to do, and, what's more, it is free! The service is excellent and I have never failed to get a quote on any share.  You can access it at anytime. Charts, news and much more are available too, all for FREE! So forget your Excel spreadsheet and subscribe to iii. You will find life much easier.

Tom Holloway,

The best way is not to use the Internet at all but to take the information from Teletext data sent out with TV transmissions. This has the added advantage that it is free however the downside is that you must purchase some hardware and software. You also need connection to a TV aerial. You need a Teletext receiver card plus a software package called OPT-lll Teletext for Windows. The supplier is Optimum Technology (Tel: 020-8203 0220 Fax: 020-8203 7004 E-Mail:  teletext@opt.com  Web Site: http://www.opt.com/  ).
  

The data on Teletext and Ceefax is updated every twenty minutes. A selected portfolio can be defined, downloaded and linked to an Excel spreadsheet with Direct Data Exchange (DDE). This set-up is not difficult to set up and I have used it effectively for the last five years.                                                       

John Dellow,

FILOFAX PRINTER

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  

My solution to making a computerised diary and address book portable is to print it out on A5 sheets and insert these in an A5 Rexel Presentation Display Book, which has 24 transparent pockets, sufficient for 48 sheets back to back.

I investigated the cost of using Filofax or other branded punched paper or buying a special multi-hole punch but found both to be too expensive.

Geoffrey Warr, Sanderstead, Surrey

RANDOM NUMBERS

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

1. Create a new blank column next to the column of names.
2. Use the random number function to generate a quasi-random number. In
Excel it's =RAND() but in other spreadsheets the formula is slightly different.
3. Use the fill down function to create random numbers for all the rows with names.
4. Sort the two columns based on the random-number column.
5. Use the top few names as winners.

That's it ­ this system is really fast and works whenever we select competitions for Mind Your Own Business magazine.
Will Dalrymple (Assitant Editor),

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

Why not use one of the cheap accounting packages like QuickBooks.  You can use the purchase order generation part, which will cover all your needs including a list of standard priced items.  If you wanted to, you could also maintain stock records of sale items so that on the road you would immediately be able to tell if an item ordered was in stock. Importing an update file from your companies stock control program would allow you to do this semi automatically on a daily basis.

Andrew Binning,

SCRAPBOOK CHALLENGE

I have a scrapbook with a separate page for each year dating back to the late 1800's. I would like to make a computer version of the album but the photos and newspaper cuttings are far too large to fit onto one screen and be legible. Do you know of any software I could use whereby I could click onto a particular year from an index to bring up the "full-page" screen, and then click onto a particular item to bring that item to full-screen.  A "turning page effect" would be a nice touch but am I expecting too much?

Bob Eddleston, Mellor Brook, Blackburn

The best software for this is Adobe Acrobat. This is the full package - not to be confused with Adobe Acrobat Reader - which is free software downloadable from Adobe for reading documents created in Acrobat and some other packages. Mr Eddleston could scan in each of his cuttings separately and place them on a single virtual page for each year. Bookmarks for each year can be created "at a click". The package will also produce instant "thumbnails" of each page of the scrapbook. A PDF file can then be created (Adobe's Portable Document Format) and Mr Eddleston can give it to his family/friends together with a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. The full package even has a facility to publish to the Web if Mr Eddleston's scrapbook is worthy of a wider audience. I recommend Acrobat as I am using it for a similar but quite large-scale project.
Eric Jukes, Enfield Middlesex

CAN YOU HELP?

I am a member of a society that deals with the English Civil War period. I have an excellent 17th Century typeface from Crazy Diamond, which allows me to write in the style of the time, but the pictures are causing me a problem. I want to take a photograph and convert it into something approaching a woodcut or engraving. I am not trying to satisfy academic purists, but merely trying to provide a compatible illustration to go with the words. I could do a drawing to be scanned in, but my hand is not good enough. Can anyone help?
Charles White, via email

I have an interest in swimming and it is a fact that the vast majority of our inter-club galas are recorded and scored by hand. It seems to me that this is an ideal application for a spreadsheet, but the problem is formatting the individual cells to handle time in the format hh.min.sec AND tenths/ hundreds of seconds, i.e. 1hr 06mins 23.54secs. Although most events would only use minutes and seconds (i.e. 6mins 23.54secs). One possible solution would be to split the time into two cells but that would give a number of other problems. Can anyone suggest a solution?

Alan Philips, via email 

I'm a member of Baildon cricket club in West Yorkshire and I'm training some youngsters to do the scoring which is quite complicated at first for them in the traditional score books. Is there a computer program
that can do the same job and print out a page, which
looks like the old books?
Andrew Fold,

Please advise if there is such a thing as a program that will help me to restore damaged Roman mosaics? Tesserae need to be positioned at right angles to curved and rounded shapes with accurate positioning and enclosed in white lines.

Eric Collins, via email

Clearing out my computer shelves I find my children and I have accumulated an awful lot of old software that I will never use again. Apart from dumping it in the local rubbish tip, is there anywhere it could go where it might be of use? Are there any charities, for example, which specialise in this field where my out-of-date software could find a more useful home?

Michael Whitcroft, via email