OVER 2 YOU, 050 (04/10/01)

AIRCRAFT KITS

I have about 500 un-made plastic model airplane kits, all makes and sizes, which my late husband collected. I also have aircraft magazines and decals. Does any one know of a web site I might find out their worth as well as try to sell them?

Helen Prentice, via email

As with everything in life there is an easy way and a hard (but potentially more rewarding) way. In both cases I recommend her to buy (or find them in her husband's collection) a copy of the following magazines: Scale Aircraft Modelling (regallitholtd90@atlas.co.uk) and Scale Aviation Modeller (samkit@globalnet.co.uk) most good newsagents will be able to obtain them for her. In these she will find adverts for businesses (for example Comet Miniatures - cometmin@btconnect.com) that purchase complete collections of kits and decals. As for books or magazines she could try Midland Counties Publications (midlandbooks@compuserve.com).

The hard way is to catalogue the models by Manufacturer, Scale and Subject the kits and the decals, and then the Magazines by title and date. Place adverts in the "classified" columns of the above magazines, she can then invite offers for the items individually or in bulk.

She should be aware that all collectors, whether collecting aeroplane kits, Dinky Toys or Royal Worcester Porcelain have the occasional "gem" that is worth "a bit of money" to the right person. Impartial advice is always worth inviting - she could try asking the editorial staff at the above magazines to run their eyes over her inventory list - perhaps he was a member of, or had friends at, a modelling club. Those magazines have lists of the local IPMS Modelling Club Branches. Because of this, the verbal ploys used by the potential purchasers to get their hands on a collection at a bargain price, even down to apparent disinterest, should be treated with a healthy business-like scepticism - just like a car salesman's description of your car, when he's selling it is a "Supercar". Next week when he is buying it back, it is a "heap that nobody is interested in".

Malcolm Hayes,

I have a friend who is an aviation enthusiast with a large collection of unmade kits and with his help I have been directed to www.kingkit.co.uk the website of a specialist dealer in second-hand plastic model kits and aviation books. Panmag publishes magazines for plastic kit constructors and its web site: www.pamagltd.co.uk includes a "kitshop" page, which might give some guide to values.

Michael Hammett,

Helen Prentice may wish to call a shop called Plastic Pastimes on (0120) 274-6964. The address is 95 Commercial Road, Parkstone, Dorset. I had a quantity of kits to dispose of and was very satisfied with their offer.
Geoffrey Tillotson,

Try the website of www.ebay.co.uk and look under their section of toys/plastic models/air. Items shown are for auction and you will soon judge the prices obtainable for the kits you have for disposal. Using this site to sell your collection either in lots or individually should enable you to obtain a fair price for the items.

You may also care to try emailing samkit@globalnet.co.uk, which publishes Scale Aviation Modeller. I am sure the editor would be pleased to point you in the direction of possible purchasers for such a large collection of kits.

Stuart Davies,

Re the plastic aircraft kits, have a look at www.frog.kits.freeuk.com, and if you happen to have a Wyvern or Whitley ...

Andrew Wilton,

FASHION SOFTWARE

My 13-year old daughter wants to design her own clothes and we would like to know if a program is available where 'models' of different sizes can be used on screen with different types of clothes so that she can design or paste her own designs.

Peter McMahon, via email

Although probably beyond the means of a 13-year old it's worth having a look at the professional clothes design software at Fashion Toolbox (http://www.fashiontoolbox.com/). If your daughter's school has an active design/textiles department she may be able to persuade them to buy it

S. Jenner, Cambridge

Barbie Fashion designer and Disney's Princess Fashion Boutique have kept my daughters (aged 9 and 11) enthralled for hours, though I think they might be a just little too young for a fashion conscious 13-year old, even so they might be a good place to start. I've seen both titles in my local PC superstore recently for less than £10 each.

Mike Charles,

There's a good selection of fashion design and makeover software at: http://www.befashionable.com/

software/software.htm. I'm sure some of will be of interest to your daughter

Alison Leachman, Walthamstow, London

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING

As part of my College Computing Course I am investigating the ability of computers and the Internet to provide information to Scottish Country Dancers, such as dance instructions, a note of the appropriate music and/or a
graphic/visual aid model of how any particular dance is executed. I am aware of local Scottish Country Dance Branch Sites and the downloadable programs "Dance Data" and "MiniCrib", but I wondered if readers knew of any other sites or programs.
Alasdair Graham, Dumbarton

Your correspondent may find these websites useful:       

www.tvt.com/dances/SCDINDX/frames

www.i-way.co.uk/~kelpi

Alan Ashment,

There is a huge number of resources on the Internet for Scottish Country dancing, from all corners of the world, the following web sites, in particular the first one, should be of interest to your reader:

http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=rscds&index

http://www.strathspey.org/

http://www.scottishdance.org/

http://home.att.net/~diannashipman/wsb/

html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q4442059/scdring.htm

Neil Langley, Stratclyde

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE 

Does anyone know of a program or website that would allow me to translate several documents into Urdu, Cantonese, Irish and Ulster Scots, for publication on my organisational website?

Gary Shaw, via email

Here are a few comments from my own experience of translating some information leaflets into 30 different languages for download from my website which I have produced over the last two years:

Languages that do not use the normal ASCII (American standard code for information interchange) character set cannot be easily produced on web pages. One solution would be to turn them into graphics. I decided instead to use Adobe Acrobat format (PDF). This has the advantage that most people have the free reader program on their computer and if they download the document the text will print out correctly even if the user does not have the national character set for that language.

Urdu for example uses the Arabic style of script. Therefore, it is written from right to left, so normal word processors cannot be used to produce it even if you had the correct True Type fonts.

Cantonese has many more characters than can be contained in a normal True Type character set. There are about 30,000 Chinese characters of which 3,000 are in common usage today!

As you can see, translation is no mean task. It cannot be adequately accomplished by a machine alone. I used volunteer translators that were fluent in both English and their native language. I got them to produce their translation for me either as a graphic or using the True Type fonts for their language and then I converted it into Adobe Acrobat readable (PDF) format for the website. Examples of the translated leaflets can be found on my website at www.topaz47.freeserve.co.uk/dloads.htm

They should all read correctly if the user's computer has Acrobat Reader installed.
Richard Hourston,

MOUSELESS TEXT READER

Can anyone suggest the cheapest scanner and software that will get text from magazines and newspapers, put it into a Word document and then read it out without any proof reading? It is vital that all this be done without any use of the mouse, as our clients are blind. Obviously, it is also impossible to use the mouse even to select text. RNIB computer volunteers have been trying to crack this for months. We have ReadBack, Readplease and we have used Omnipage and Textbridge as well as various macros, but always, we get to the dreaded point where the mouse has to be used.
Brian Rhodes, via email

Whilst looking for something else I came across the following:

www.uk-software.com/ who advertise specific speaking software, this may be of help?

Johm Gillingham,

CAN YOU HELP?

My sister breeds Rag Doll cats and wants to be able to create her own pedigree certificates, preferably using an Access or Excel database. Does anyone know of any existing files?

K Rayner, Kent

I have recently joined a Barbers Shop harmony group.  It would make life easier if I learnt how to read music. Does anyone know of any PC software I could use?

Jack Lloyd, via email

I wonder if any of your readers who are experts in Access databases could tell me what I am doing wrong. I oversee the games and activities programme at my school (we have a huge range of about 80 activities on offer six days a week) and I have to keep track of who does what so that I can keep Housemasters, games staff and pupils up to date with accurate lists. Entering the data is quick and efficient as I have linked my "overview" table to another table, which contains information on activities and the days they are available. Typing the first letter or two is enough to make the rest of the word appear. It is when I run a query to find out which pupils do, say, basketball (an activity on offer twice a week) that the problem arises. Access gives me the names of those doing basketball but it also tells me what they do every other day of the week. The member of staff taking basketball does not want this information and certainly does not want to waste time hunting for "her" names in amongst the overload of information. How can I construct a database that will give me just the names of people doing one specific activity two or three times a week?

Mr Gösta Luthman, via email

I have a number of discs of personal letters on 5.25-inch disks created on a Commodore PET, with an 8250 double disc-drive.  The disks are dual-sided, quad density (96 tpi), soft sectored.

I would like to transfer them as text to a PC. I still have an ancient Brother BCN 5000 with a 5.25 disc drive and would like to transfer them if possible, before it gives up the ghost.  Is there a PC program, which would help?
Alan Carcas, via email

I do the bookings for our Village Hall.  There are two rooms, and I have recently put the bookings diary on "Outlook".  It is not ideal, however, and I wondered if there was another program, which could separate the bookings for the two rooms, and also produce a written hire agreement for each booking.  Ideally, the booking program should also be capable of exporting data to Quicken, which our Treasurer uses to produce the invoices and to keep the Accounts.
David Jarman, via email