OVER 2 YOU, 056 (13/11/01)

WEB WEDDING

Next year I shall be getting married (that's not the problem BTW) and I want to stream the wedding over the net as I have a lot of family in Canada who won't be able to make it, now what I am trying to track down is a wearable (i.e. very small) remote web cam, I've tried various spy gadget sites but with no luck. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Adam Davies, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

I think you will find help with everything you need at: http://sdots.com/bike/

Here you will find a fantastic amount of information about setting up web cams and video streaming, the equipment and software you will need, how to set it all up and hundreds of links to other useful resources.

Terry Dealey, via email

There’s a lot of information about ‘wearable’ computers and wireless webcam projects at http://wearcam.org/, though I have to say that none of it looks particularly elegant and I imagine all of the trailing wires, or bulky boxes and batteries might be difficult to disguise as you walk down the aisle!

Jeff Dennis, Croydon

I know it’s a sort of coals to Newcastle solution but if Adam doesn’t mind moving his wedding venue to the Little Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas he can buy a package that includes live Internet video streaming.  For a taste of what’s available you can see it in action at: http://www.littlechapel.com/liveweddings/

liveweddings.html

Michael Ellis,

BARN DANCE TICKETS

From time to time we do tickets for fundraising events like Barn Dances, and  we wondered if there is any way of numbering each ticket?  Numbering whole pages is easy, but we do six tickets to each page and cut them up afterwards. Any ideas?
Reg and Margaret Brown, via email

I use Avery Designer Pro for a somewhat similar activity. Tailor made templates can be designed to match the ticket sizes. A handy insert number option will fit the bill. Once set up the "labels" can be printed on plain paper.

Howard Warren,

Try Access. I set up a Table with an autonumber field, and added sufficient records to it. Then used a Labels layout to print the tickets, 6 to a page, on to lightweight card. When designing the Label, the text for the ticket goes in to one or more label fields, and the number in to a textbox field. I used another field in the database table to record to whom I had given the tickets to sell, so that I knew that Fred had had numbers 6 to 10 to sell.
George Herrick,

Draw a six-celled table in Word, autonumber it, then repeat at will. To produce multiple pages you can put a page break after the table, Select All, and Paste as many times as you like -- Word will continue the number sequence. You can control the appearance of the numbers from Format, Bullets and Numbering.
N. Blake,

I do this by making a custom label template, in Word, with each label the same size as the tickets, set up a database with the numbers i.e.. 001 -100. then print to the back of the labels.

Brian Marshall,

It is best to generate a series of numbers in a spreadsheet (Excel). Use the first row to generate six labels say N1..N6 in A1..F1. Then create the numbers for the first two sheets on the next two rows (A2..F3). Further rows can easily be generated by highlighting these numbers and dragging the + in the right hand corner down until the required number have been created. Now create your tickets six to a page and place a letter say a..f where each number will be and print a test page. Now methodically cut the sheet and stack the tickets exactly as you will for the production run. Then open your number database (Tools|Mailmerge in Word 2000). Now replace the letter on the top of the ticket pile with the N1 label and work down to N6. Finally Mailmerge the entire database and slice up the sheets and they will be in numerical order.
Ted Rodgers

Open a new Excel worksheet and in cell A1 put the number "1" (indicating the first sheet to be printed). Lay out the tickets 6 to a sheet with the text required adjusting row heights and column widths to give a good layout. Don't forget to put wide rows and columns between tickets to match the margins at the top and sides of the sheet. When laying out do not include column A and exclude column A from the print area.

Each ticket should include a cell to hold the ticket number. Let's suppose
these are cells B5, B11, B17, D5, D11, D17. Now put the following in these
cells. In B5 "=A5+1", in B11 "=A5+2" In B17 "=A15+3", In D5 "=A5+4", In D11 "=A5+5", In D17 "=A5+6". Now in Cell A5 put "=A1*6-6". You should now find the tickets numbered 1 to 6 and you can print them. Change A1 to "2" and you should find the corresponding numbers for the second sheet to tickets and so on. A more polished presentation can be achieved by replacing the formulae in Cells B5 etc by something like
"=CONCATENATE("Ticket No ",A5+1)" etc.
The final result should reveal no vestige of its spreadsheet origin.
Charles Cooke,

I have found the Print Merge function in CorelDRAW, very useful.  Designing the page of tickets, putting text unique (on page) on each ticket. Then with a specially generated merge file (a list of numbers), the "Print Merge function" will generate of as many uniquely numbered tickets as desired as defined in the merge file.

A similar method could be used with a Word processors mail merge function place the ticket design as the background, aligning mail merge fields to generate the numbers. If combining the numbers and design proves too difficult, you could always run the tickets though the printer twice - once to print design and once to print numbers.

Finally to quickly generate a list of numbers for a merge file - a simple macro (MS Word) as below will do the boring bits.

Sub GenerateTicketNumbers()
For TicketNo = 1 To 100 Step 6
Selection.TypeText Text:=Str(TicketNo) + "," + Str(TicketNo + 1) + "," +
Str(TicketNo + 2) + "," + Str(TicketNo + 3) + "," + Str(TicketNo + 4) "," +
Str(TicketNo + 5)
    Selection.TypeParagraph
Next
End Sub

KenMiles,

CINE TO PC

I'm seeking to input old black & white 8mm cine film directly into a PC (rather than the indirect method of projection and filming with a camcorder) for the purpose of editing etc. Some scanners can take 35mm film, but has anyone had any experience with 8mm movie film?

Bryan Bedwell, via email

Personally I don’t think it can be done ‘at home’ without recourse to a lot of expensive and highly specialist equipment; 8mm cine film is simply too small to be useable on conventional 35mm film and document scanners. I suspect that your correspondent will have to use the services of a company providing cine to video (telecine) conversion services. If his films are recorded in the DV (digital video) format they can be imported directly into a PC, from a digital camcorder, using a FireWire interface card.

Arthur Henley,

BIRD RINGS

I am working with a large spreadsheet on which is entered data on netted birds. The data is collected very quickly because birds have to be released in a short time. Consequently there are entry errors particularly the alphanumeric sequence ring number. I want to find all instances of any ring number being entered more than once. I can of course find a particular number duplicate by using FIND but I think there ought to be a way of finding any string that appears more than once in a column.  At the moment I sort by the ring number column and then search by eye.
John Bonell, via email

I had a similar problem with a book index of 40 local history books with some 15,000 entries the way I found duplicate entry was to Sort, by letter or number to a master copy, then alter the text colour to say Yellow then when a new entry is made in black, and sorted again any duplicate is easy to
spot. When the duplicate is removed, or integrated, the whole sheet can be saved in another colour ready for the next impute. Or in my case add another book.
Andrew Hawkes,

CAN YOU HELP?

I recall seeing an item in Over 2 You a few months ago about crystal radios. In a similar vein, does anyone know where one could get the plans and the parts to build a valve type radio, preferably in kit form? Are valves still being made? I well remember making one as a teenager (some fifty years ago) and now I have a bit of time on my hands I would dearly love to have another go.

Bill Jefferson, via email

My physio has heavily criticised my sitting posture - which has added to the strain on my neck and the deterioration of my cervical vertebrae.  He suggests that I find some way of regularly reminding myself to check my posture when operating the PC.  Can anyone suggest a way of "posting"
reminders to my screen at regular intervals, irrespective of software I am using at the time?
Tom Busby, via email

I use clipart quite a bit for a wide variety of personal and business projects (not websites). I feel I have exhausted the resources available in my (very expensive) off-the-shelf packages, and have turned to the Internet in an attempt to find new supplies.  However, I have found most clipart websites woeful in terms of quality, variety and styles.  Can anyone point me to some website gems with tasteful, stylish/arty, high quality clip art available for download, free or otherwise?
Felicity Berkeley, via email

I am trying to find out the populations of towns and surrounding areas in England as part of a business plan. Can you offer any suggestions as to where I might find this information?
J. I., via email