OVER 2 YOU, 079 (07/05/02)

STAMPS ONLINE

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

Whilst not the most fashionable of hobbies nowadays, it is still one of the most fascinating and multifaceted pastimes, enjoyed by millions. It very much depends what your particular interests are and how much time, money and effort you would want to devote to it. Thus, the first step is to survey the field and perhaps chose a particular theme. These days there are so many stamps issued every year that it is essential to decide early on what one intends to collect. A useful exercise would be to find a local stamp club and go along to a few meetings and visit some of the many exhibitions, some which are often held monthly all over the country.

Apart from some of the publications, which can be found among the hundreds of magazines published and books in the local library, there is the monthly British Philatelic Bulletin, which at 85 pence per copy is splendid value. Many Post offices run by Post Office Counters Ltd. also have a shop with a philatelic outlets where it may be possible to pick up a copy but, if all fails there is always the website www.royalmail.co.uk and the many other sites which give an insight into what is on offer, such as http://www.philatelic.com/ and http://www.philately.com,
There are also several yahoo sites and most search engines will yield many useful sites from the keywords stamp collecting and philately.

Ernest H. Werninck,

I typed in ‘philatelic’ into www.goggle.com and got 142,000 sites! The first site was a well-known useful site: www.execpc.com/~joeluft/resource.html. Lots of stamp companies have a website which will be shown in their advertisement in a stamp magazine try there and use the links they give.I am from New Zealand and here all libraries have books or other information or good websites to try.  Start with say Hobbies then Philatelic and then break the search down further.

Norman Wansbrough,  NZ

The Royal Mail's publication "British Philatelic Bulletin" has recently been reviewing a number of philatelic websites. I suggest a visit to one or more of these would help:
www.royalmail.com

www.gbps.org.uk

www.stamps.org

www.gbstamps.com

www.consignia.com/heritage

www.allworldstamps.com

 
Mike Temple,

Judging by the period in which he became a lapsed philatelist, Bill Saunders might well be interested in www.silverjubileestamps.com, which deals with the 1935 Silver Jubilee stamp issues and, for a wealth of information about that issue, there is a link to http://www.philatel2.com/jubilee

Tony Ainscough, via e-mail

May I commend the following sites to Bill Saunders:
www.ukphilately.org.uk  -- this is the home site of the Association of British Philatelic Societies, The British Philatelic Trust and the National Philatelic Society. Then there is: www.rpsl.org.uk -- the site of the Royal Philatelic Society London and www.stampdomain.com  -- which provides web sited for may local and specialist philatelic societies.

Each of these will in turn give links to many more societies and Mr Saunders should find some, which will be of help to him amongst them. If he has specialist interests, he can contact me and I will give him further information to help him.
Keith Fitton,

Stanley Gibbons has a suite of websites that will help encourage you to revive your interest in philately. Our flagship site www.stanleygibbons.com has everything a collector would need. The content ranges from advice to thousands of pounds worth of stamps and stamp related accessories which are easy to find and easy to purchase online.

There is also www.stampsatauction.com - a dedicated stamp auction site and a global stamp marketplace - the ideal way for you to turn any duplicates in your collection into cash. Other sites include www.stampcafe.com, which covers all new issue from postal administrations around the world and
www.allworldstamps.com, which is the Stanley Gibbons catalogue published
online.

For up-to-date philatelic reading material there is www.gibbonsstampmonthly the web address for the leading publication in the stamp industry – Gibbons Stamp Monthly.

Please also have a look at the newsletter part of www.stanleygibbons.com
where you can sign up to receive a free copy of Through the Letterbox, which covers news and special offer from Stanley Gibbons.

Michelle Stark, Marketing Manager Stanley Gibbons,

NOISY PCS
The noise coming from the fans and whirring motors in my PC is really getting on my nerves. Is there such a thing as a totally silent PC – I have very acute hearing – or is there any way of muffling the noise?

Jean Taylor, via email

Most hardware shops and www.scan.co.uk will sell you acoustic sound proofing material, which you can cover the inside of the PC with. The second approach is to hide your PC away in another room or big cupboard (don't hide the computer in a tight space or it might start over heating) and use a KVM extender (www.kvmswitchdirect.co.uk) so you can have the monitor, mouse and keyboard up to 500ft away. This way you shouldn't be able to hear any sound, but it is expensive and means you don't have easy access to floppy/CD drives.

Al Nicol,

I don't think that you will get a totally silent PC at an affordable price but I have just read a review in the May issue of Personal Computer World of the ‘Armari ultra quiet PC’ (www.armari.com/system.asp?SysID=18). The makers have apparently made every effort to keep the noise down although it is not cheap. Just over £2,000 for a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4.
Dennis Evans,

The iMac I purchased one year ago has no fan and is quite silent, as well as being a very good home computer overall. There may still be some end of line models available new; alternatively there are plenty of places where she can find a second-hand iMac. The new flat-screen iMac does have a fan, although I believe every effort has been made to keep noise levels to a minimum.
Paddy Thompson,

The quietest computer I have heard of was the lovely (but now discontinued) Apple G4 Cube. It had no fan and it cooled itself by convection apparently. Of course the necessity of a spinning hard-drive meant that it wasn't completely silent - but it almost was. But so were its supporters (the human fans) and it fell by the wayside. You may be able to find one second-hand. I too, hate the constant droning of the fan in my old Power Mac. So I try to use it when piano practise is going on in the house above us - remember, some sounds are worse.
Thomas Sharpe,

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

For the past few weeks I have been trying to do just that using software called Sound Forge XP 4.5 from Sonic Foundry. Now that I have got the hang of it I would recommend your reader to have a go. My colleague Kelvin Marsh who is totally blind has taught me over the phone. Kelvin is Editor of the tape magazine QTI which he puts together using Sound Forge Software and I have just completed my first four disks.

The method is to make a normal recording and transfer the sounds to your PC using SF 4.5 or better. Then you can do all manner of editing jobs and finally transfer the work to a CD using Nero. One opens a file for each subject and then moves each file into Nero until there is enough to fill a disk.

For more information go to http://www.sonicfoundry.com/

products/default.asp or contact them at: sonicfoundry@SCVLondon.co.uk

Alan Lovegreen, Alan.Lovegreen@ic24.net

CAN YOU HELP

As a retired typist, retrained as a word processor operator, I find Microsoft Word very limited, I know many will say it is superior, but you ask a typist (and there are some of us left) and they all agree: WordPerfect was more versatile for straightforward typing. Does anyone know of a source of WordPerfect 3.1 or 5.1 diskettes, I’ve tried downloading it from the Internet with no success, PC World said they stocked it until six months ago.

Pip Ward, Tadley, Hants

For several years, I have used ‘cost codes’ on my telephone bill to allocate charges between business and personal calls, monitor Internet access, and analyse usage by different members of the household. This cost code service was originally offered by Mercury then continued by Cable & Wireless and ntl. Now the latest provider, NPower Communications, is discontinuing the cost code service. Does anyone know of any other companies offering a similar service - preferably with competitive call charges, too?
Lesley Webster, via email

My wife looks after the accounts, tax, service charges etc for some flats in London for overseas owners. Can anyone recommend a SIMPLE system that will enable her to keep the accounts in apple pie order, and profit and loss figures? She would also like the facility of putting in the value of a property, using the Halifax Scale and automatically get the value at a specific date. David Hodges, via email