OVER 2 YOU, 072 (19/03/02)

TALKING NEWSPAPERS

We produce a talking newspaper for the blind and currently record these on cassettes. However this technology is rapidly being phased out and we need to establish a viable alternative as we are led to believe that tapes will cease being available in 2004.

Does anyone know have any experience of using CDs for newsletters or similar? Any help would be appreciated including the best way of getting the recordings onto the PC for editing and subsequent distribution.
Geoffrey Thomas, via email

I represent the Talking Newspaper Association of the UK. We have over 450 local TN members and it is our job to advise on alternative formats so I am sure we can help. We are aware of the cassette supply position. It is not as dire as you suggest but we must be prepared with an alternative. We already produce a weekly CD-ROM holding several dozen national newspapers, magazines and books and have considerable experience of bulk copying CDs.

We also record audio on CDs and are experimenting to establish the best alternatives for local TNs. At Heathfield, in East Sussex we produce nearly 300 national titles for distribution to blind and partially sighted people as part of our National Newspaper & Magazine Service.  We are acutely aware that we have to establish a satisfactory alternative format very soon and are actively doing our research.

For more information contact The Talking Newspaper Association of the UK at the National Recording Centre, Heathfield, E Sussex TN21 8DB  telephone 01435 866102.
Ted Davis, Vice-President, TNAUK,

I have no direct knowledge of the techniques for recording on CD's which Geoffrey Thomas requires but I would suggest that he contact the RNIB Technical Services at Peterborough.  They expend an immense effort on producing talking books and investigating such techniques and provide support to volunteer groups. Their website is www.rnib.org.uk and Technical Consumer Services e-mail address is tcsvolunit@rnib.org.uk

G. Weaver,

SCHOOL DINNERS

I retired from teaching long ago - but still hear horror stories about the clerical time taken up with dinner money administration. Does anyone know of a simple, cheap (preferably free!), stand-alone program, which would help in a largish primary school?

Ray Glover, via email

We are currently writing a suite of programs to assist clubs and schools in managing courses and course attendees. It would be easy to adapt some of our code to your "Dinner money" problem - you could help us by giving us some details of the problem you see and by testing the end program?

Andy Evans, Enigmaware Consultants,

It’s probably a bit exotic for your purposes but the following web site gives details of a catering software program for schools, based on Lotus 1-2-3, that keeps track of student accounts, and food inventory:

http://www.bmpcoe.org/bestpractices/

internal/staff/staff_11.htm

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Terry Mellor, Cambridge

Can’t help with the cheap or free bit but you might like to have a look at Café Terminal and WinCAGI, which are Windows based programs for school cafeterias, you can find more details at: http://www.rediker.com/cafe_terminal.html

http://www.oscarsoftware.com/ProgCagi.htm

W. Lean,

FIRST AND LAST PAGES

What was the first page on the Internet, and is it still there?

Des Peters, via email

In his truly excellent book, Weaving the Web, Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, writes that he started the first Web page with his own notes and specifications of HTTP, URI and HTML with other project related information. It’s worth having a look at: http://www.w3.org/history.This points to an archive directory where, by drilling down, you will find, amongst other things, source code to the software he wrote to create hypertext functionality for his prototype browser.

Brian Grainger, Stevenage, Herts.

FORMAL FORMATS

Dear Sir,

Please could you tell me whether there is an accepted protocol for starting and finishing e-mails in the ‘Dear Sir’ and ‘Yours faithfully’ letter format, according to the status of the person being addressed?

Yours faithfully

Fred Sommers, Wokingham

Ref: E-Mail Etiquette:

I write my E-mails like this!

Best wishes,

Nick Allen.

p.s. It's to the point and perfectly polite. 

p.p.s. Who's worried about this etiquette nonsense anyway!

Nick Allen.

SAILING LAPTOP

Later this year I will be off on a sailing adventure lasting approximately five months. The accommodation on board will be fairly rough and ready, with a damp salty atmosphere. Can anyone recommend a laptop or portable PC that will be able to endure this kind of hostile environment?

Janet Leslie, via email

Ruggedised and waterproof laptops are expensive and unlikely to be needed if there's a sheltered location to use a normal laptop. Salty air shouldn't be a problem provided water is kept off the keyboard. I suggest taking a look at Apple's iBook range. These were designed to withstand the rough and tumble of the school market and have a tough polycarbonate casing over a magnesium frame. As well as the usual Mac advantages of ease-of-use, reliability and low technical support requirements, they have an exceptional long battery life of up to 6 hours. Like all Macs, they have a built-in antenna and slot for an AirPort card enabling wireless file swapping with PCs using the cross-platform 802.11b Wi-Fi standard.
http://www.apple.com/uk/ibook/

For less than the price of a waterproof laptop, you could buy two iBooks and use one as a backup. More economically, a bootable backup system could be held on one of LaCie's rubber clad FireWire PocketDrives:
http://www.lacie.com/pocket/

For an informative discussion on laptops for use on small sailing vessels, see 'The iBook Is Rugged, But Is It Rugged Enough?':
http://www.macopinion.com/columns/

roadwarrior/00/03/14/

Written by an experienced sailor this has many links to suppliers of ruggedised PC laptops and navigation software. To store your laptop, I
suggest one of Pelican Products' waterproof cases:
http://www.pelican.com/product/cases/
Jeff Ross, Stockport

HANDY ACCOUNTS

I am a self-employed handyman and I have been looking for a simple accounts package. Most of the popular accounts programs are too complicated as they include stock control and VAT which I do not need. All I want is something to keep a record of my customers, purchases, sales, print invoices, and do a simple balance sheet so I now how my business is doing week to week. Can anyone recommend a simple and inexpensive software package?

I. Palfrey, via email

Mr Palfrey's probably has something already on his PC. Microsoft's Excel can be made to do the job with a little layout design skill and some formulae to handle the numbers. Lotus's 1-2-3, Microsoft Works spreadsheet and the free Star Office spreadsheet will be equally suitable. For Excel, in particular, I found many free and quite attractive solutions by searching for 'simple accounting package uk' in Google. Much depends upon his existing spreadsheet skills but if he cares to contact me I will happily provide some guidance rather than have him waste good money on unnecessary software. I reckon that 1 Excel file and a couple of Word files will have him as automated as he needs to be.
Andrew Hill

PICTURE PERFECT?

I’m very pleased with the results from my new digital still camera but can anyone tell me how long pictures printed on my Canon printer are likely to last, before they fade, and is there anyway to preserve the original data indefinitely that will save it from the inevitable obsolescence of current recording media?

S. Richardson, via email

I have an Epson 870 printer using Epson inks which although not the latest printer with archival inks, is the immediate predecessor and should have perhaps 20-25 year print life. When using Epson Premium Glossy paper I had very good quality colour prints but found that monochrome prints tended to have a green colour cast.  I understand that this is not unusual.  I therefore made sure that the printer was set to black to try to prevent any use of colour inks.  On one occasion I printed one photo, which was good dense black. I needed three copies and while the second was printing I placed the first to one side and was looking at it.  To my horror it gradually changed to a dark green, so with the second print I placed a sheet of plain paper over one half of the print.  The exposed half changed colour, the unexposed stayed black until I reversed the area covered.  What amazed me was that the end result was a print with a definite green hue and no indication of where the join was where the plain paper had been.

On another occasion I printed a colour photo using a 250gsm paper of a reasonably well-known make which was given to me.  One photo using this was stood unframed in a dark area of a room with no direct sunlight.  After about 3 months the photo faded considerably.  I have since re-printed that photo on Tetenel paper and placed it in the identical position.  To date there is not fading.

The answer therefore is that probably no one knows the answer but my advice is to always use a high quality paper and that does not necessarily mean using the paper supplied by the printer manufacturer. There certainly seems no justification for using the printer manufacturers ink and paper combination, but to experiment with your own preferences.

Finally, I would say there is no way of preserving data indefinitely.  Someone at a cost no doubt will in future be able to recover today's data but I cannot use my current PC to recover data created on a computer bought in 1985!

Brian Henderson,

CAN YOU HELP?

It should be possible to compute bearings and distances on Ordnance Survey maps by just entering the six figure map references of start and finish points.  Does anyone know how?  Do I need a program or just a formula?
Cliff Mallinson, North Somerset

Could you or your readers suggest and/or recommend a program that we might use to run and organise a small charity.

Our Cancer Trust requires an integrated PC package to list members, donors and sponsors and register donations and keep accounting records.  We wish to maintain contact via phone, fax, normal post and e-mail and, at the same time, keep notes on file so that selective searches can batch individuals or specific groups for fund raising activities.  When block e-mails are sent we only wish each recipient to be addressed.  There are numerous programmes that will do parts of this list but for simplicity and ease of use a combined package would be welcomed by our administrator.

Ron Brotherhood