OVER 2 YOU, 077 (23/04/02)

My 10-year old son is disabled and cannot hold a pen but he goes to a mainstream school. I would like to scan his class work and homework, mostly text on A4 paper, so that he can use either his laptop or the PC at home to complete his work. I have used the software that came with the scanner but I seem to spend more time correcting it than if I had typed it in. Can anyone recommend any other software or is scanning really only for photographs?
Mike Roe, via email

Scanners are definitely not just for images but the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software supplied with most budget scanners tends to be of the ‘lite’ variety and is really only suitable for scanning crisply printed or typewritten documents. Even the best OCR programs, and I personally recommend Readiris (http://www.irislink.com/), can’t cope reliably with poor printing or handwritten text, no matter how neat it might look to you.

Alice Nichols, via email

A DATE WITH HISTORY

I have compiled a family tree going back to around 1650. I now want to write up the history of my family, but associate people from each period of time with a well-known historical event in English history. Say, for example, Joe Bloggs from my tree was born in 1650, lived in London, so must have been around for the Great Fire of 1666. Can anyone suggest a program or website whereby I can type in a year date, and it will come up with such historical events?
David Mayo, via email

I use Britannica (www.britannica.com) for exactly the same purpose: just type in the date and Britannica comes up with a mass of items.

David Leppard, Tonbridge, Kent

British History by Rodney Castleden, published by Paragon (ISBN 1-85813-418-8) is a 400 page chronological dictionary of dates and is remarkably cheap (four years ago it cost £1.99).

Keith  Hackett,

Two ways that I know of: go to Yahoo and type in the date  "1650AD" or whatever year might be needed, then click Search. The other is to go to: http://ns.zeuter.com/~tburden/atg/

history/regional/Britain

Nice website this one!

Ron Cruickshank,

If David Mayo doesn't mind working on paper to relate his family members to historical events, there is a product called Time Map on http://twistedfish.com/ainwhel/ Also on that site, a kit called Family History includes a Historical Perspective, which should meet his requirements.

Tony Ainscough, via e-mail

Personal Computer World magazine recently included a CD of Compton's Encyclopaedia 21st Century. This has a Timeline of significant world events over the centuries. There may be enough English history for David's purpose. If unavailable retail, try email to pcw@vnusupport.co.uk, quoting PCW February 2002.

David Minor,

There are several web sites where all you have to do is type in a date and it will display all the significant events that happened on that day. Have a look at these two:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/

and

http://www.scopesys.com/anyday/

Mike D, via email

The History Channel maintains a database that can turn up all sorts of interesting facts and historical events, simply by entering the date.

http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/

G. F. Berry, Colchester, Essex

SCANNER QUESTIONAIRRE

I would like to be able to scan questionnaires, received through the post, into my computer and then use this to write the answers so that they will print correctly into the boxes on the original questionnaire.  This is possible with an ordinary typewriter but I have been quite unable to achieve this with MS Word.  As soon as I try to make the scanned in questions hidden or deleted, all the answers that I want to print loose their position and spacing.  Surely there must be a program for printing to spaces on a form, which will solve my frustration and save my ballpoint?

Peter Stovin, via email

May I suggest you try the www.mercator.co.uk site and check out a program
called SNAP.
Alan A Armstrong,

EROTIC BUT NICE

Recently I have been investigating some of the erotic sites on the net and they are unsatisfactory. As an elderly and housebound widower in need of entertainment I would like to find something gentler, in the way, perhaps, I might visit the Follies Bergere or similar if in Paris, but going to Google on such a search gives reams of crudity. Can anyone recommend anything, which has class and style?  The cost of entry is of little importance.

Richard W., via email

Your reader may want to take note of a soon to be launched web site that is designed to make peoples lives more romantic, sensual and loving. www.stayinbed.net will be on-line in the next few months and promises to be top draw, not top shelf, erotic, not pornographic.

Robert P. Watford, via email

GETTING A BEARING

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

As a radio amateur interested in microwave telecommunications, I often have to calculate transmission path distances, accurate to within a few tens of metres and bearings, accurate to within a degree or so. I use a simple program called ‘distbear.exe’ (written by another radio amateur who is professionally engaged in microwave telecommunications), it is written in Power Basic and will run in a DOS window in Windows9x/ME. It is "freeware" and available from the Radio Society of Great Britain's Microwave Committee (http://www.rsgb.org.uk/society/mc.htm). The program is self explanatory (simply enter the "home" NGR, e.g. SD123456 and the distant NGR, e.g. SX 345261). It is part of a bigger suite of programs, which goes much further than calculating distances and bearings - it will also plot ground profiles and earth curvature between any two NGRs entered and produce contoured maps of the UK.
Mike Dixon, G3PFR, RSGB Microwave Manager

My company is about to launch a product, available from mid April, which will do just this. It is intended for walkers to plan and time their routes based upon conventional mapping and entering grid references. Interestingly, whilst it is possible to calculate bearings, we have opted to give only a general compass direction. This is because grid references are to specific points, whilst the actual intended points will be within a 100 metre x 100 metre square. Over long distances the error is relatively small, however over a short distances the error could be serious. The web site is www.trailmate.net or for more information write to info@trailmate.net

Harry Webb,

WIND UP PC

Is there such a thing as a ‘wind-up’ computer or can anyone suggest a reliable portable power source, as I’ll be off trekking in various out of the way places later this year. Solar cells seem like a possibility but are they small or efficient enough to drive a laptop and mobile phone?

Linda King, via email

Whilst on holiday in the US recently I came across a handy little device called iSun, which jogged my memory about an Over 2 You query a while back. It’s a compact fold-up solar panel that can supply around 2 watts of power and it’s designed specifically to power or recharge electronic devices like pocket computers, organisers and mobile phones. Several iSuns can be connected together to increase the power and you could probably recharge a laptop PCs battery using two or three of them. I saw iSun in a Florida branch of Radio Shack, which I believe trades as Tandy in the UK, though I doubt they sell them here. You might have more luck contacting iSun direct, the company’s web site is: http://www.isunpower.com/html/index.html

S. Walker, via email

CAN YOU HELP?

As a philatelist who lapsed long before the home PC era I am surprised to find so few hobby-related programs or web sites on the Internet. Are there any which would encourage me to take up the hobby again?

Bill Saunders, via email

I have a large quantity of sound samples on Amiga (880k) discs. Is there any software that will allow my PC to read these? I don't need to emulate the Amiga completely. I used Octamed Sound Studio on the  (superior) Amiga and wish to use the PC version of this excellent program.
Alan Pywell, via email     

I have an ancient Olivetti ETV240 word processor on which are stored all my business prices.  I would like to convert all of the data into a spreadsheet or table (in MS Office) on my Win98 PC.  I have tried printing it out and scanning it in with an HP ScanJet 4100C scanner but the OCR won't make sense of it.  Is there any way of converting what I have into a format recognisable to my PC?

Peter Wiseman, via email