OVER 2 YOU, 089 (16/07/02)

WORLD MAP

Can anyone help me? I'm planning a round the world trip, and need to produce a picture of my route. As my photographic editing skills are minimal, I cannot simply edit a world map picture in a graphics package to show a route, but instead I am looking for a website or program that enables me to simply click on destinations around the world, and then draw a line between them, which I can then print off. I have searched and searched, but with no joy so far, as most packages only seem to be car-related and exclusive to Europe.

Patrick Foster, via email

I have a shareware program called 'On Top of the World', which has the facility required to plot routes around the globe; I seem to recall it cost me $30. Unfortunately the web site is no longer available but the address listed in the help panel is Exploration Software, PO Box 961, Groton MA 01450 USA.

Paul McMahon

You can do this with a Garmin (the GPS people) program called MapSource
and their World Map CD, available at: http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/
Lucas Sonnino, Argentina

It is a simple process to draw a route on world maps, provided you have the map available! Just copy the map to the clipboard (say, in Microsoft Encarta, or from an internet site).  Then open 'Paint' - start/programs/accessories/paint.  Paste in the map picture.  Select desired line thickness and colour for the route.  Click on the 'line' in the toolbox, position cursor where you want to start and drag to the first destination. Repeat.  If you want to show the seaward route, rather than the straight-line route, click the 'bendy line' in the toolbox; click your departure point, drag to first destination.  Then click just away from the line and drag to shape around the land.  Add text boxes where required.  It's that simple.
H.T.H

WILDLIFE SCANNER

I work for a small wildlife charity and have been delegated to identify a scanner that can scan very old books and texts from a reference library with minimum risk of damage to the spines and bindings. It is essential to have high quality images, and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities. Ideally, we wish to rent or short-term lease the machine. Can anyone recommend a scanner or a company that could help by supplying a suitable machine with any necessary training?
Iain M W Boardman, Wildlife Information Network

Log onto www.archivecdbooks.org. This is a non-profit making organisation
that copies documents to CD-ROM to a very high quality.
M J Close

Mr Boardman might like to contact the British Library at Thorp Arch,
Wetherby, Leeds, which offers a photocopying service and have every conceivable reference book.  It may be cheaper and higher quality in the long run than to try to copy himself.  All he would have to do is supply book details and page.  It may well be that they can supply in electronic format these days. It has to be worth a phone call before purchasing a scanner.
Roger Curtis

Please see http://www.earlypaper.com. The imaging system in question has been bought by, amongst others, the Royal Horticultural Society. It is primarily intended for the high quality imaging of watermarks and paper structure of old books it also gives high quality images of the surface content of the pages. We can offer a variety of solutions - supply, advice, training and imaging on-site using the mobile form of the system.
Dr Ian Christie-Miller,

NUMBERS ANNOY

I am irritated by the ever-increasing number of companies using 0870 numbers (which give them a share of the call revenue). Services like OneTel do not save money on these "non-geographic" numbers. According to Oftel, all these numbers sit on top of a normal number. Does anyone know of a site listing these normal equivalents, or any way of discovering what they are in any particular case?

Peter Brown, via email

Unfortunately for Peter Brown, the final destination number is hidden from the public view and will not be listed in any accessible database. This is because most of the 0870 translation services offered by BT and other telecom companies are much more sophisticated than a simple one-to-one number translation (i.e. 0870 123456 = 0123 456789). In all but the smallest cases, the translated number (the destination number) can be one of a pre-selected set of numbers.

Usually there are facilities to route the customer call depending on some combination of time of day and day of week, originating location, what percentage of calls should go to which destination as well as a number of more subtle inputs. Generally the decision trees are multi-tiered so that a call that comes in at 9am on Monday from London is routed to one destination whereas a call from Glasgow at the same time is routed elsewhere.

The advantages? The company using the 0870 number can route to several different call centres etc during the working day, to a single over night service outside of office hours, and to a standard message service at the weekend. Too many calls at one call centre can be balanced by routing to another centre.

How do I know all of this? The company that I work for supplies software and hardware for telecom companies to offer 0870 and similar number options!

Simon Davies, Infitel International N.V., The Netherlands

MAPWARE

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced computer program that can be used for mapping historical sites, the distribution of artefacts and places? I particularly need the ability to place a symbol at a precise spot on the National Grid reference and the facility to draw in and colour features such as rivers, roads and escarpments etc.

Ann R. Elton, Sevenoaks, Kent

I suggest she visits www.mapmaker.com based at Carradale in Kintyre, Scotland. They make available free, a simple mapping program which is easy to use and which is aimed at students wanting to learn about the basics of making maps and GIS. The program is easy to use and well supported. If she wants to use it as a simple GIS attribute data can be analysed using data files in dbf format. I have used a more complex version of this program [MapMaker Pro version 2.4] for several years in my research on field enclosure and historical land use in Cumbria. 

John Penny, School of Science & Technology, Bell College, Lanarkshire

TABLEWARE

Does anyone know of a program that helps in the preparation of a table plan for formal dinners for large numbers without the need to cut up little pieces of paper to move people around until you get it right and then having to write it down?
Richard Hopkinson-Woolley, via email

I used to own a hotel and over the years I tried all sorts of programs. Eventually we came down to Lotus 123. With a little practice you get quite fast at it.  First you set up a basic layout plan or plans to suit the venue.  You keep this and simply add names. You might like to know that if you put the name list into Lotus 123, this links by OLE into Lotus Approach, and you can then print mailing labels which make wonderful place cards.  You can do this either on A4 sheets or set up “tent” cards – or as I do for club meetings – on ordinary adhesive labels. You can draw the plans equally well in MS Access, but Lotus is much easier for producing the labels.

Francis Laugharne

This task is a trivial one for users of the excellent !Draw vector graphics program which comes free with all versions of the RISC operating system, as used in the former Acorn computers and subsequent current equivalents such as RISCPCs and RISCstations.

For those who prefer, or have been forced, to use Windows instead, a version of the program is provided by Aspex (www.aspex.co.uk) as Aspex Draw. The Virtual A5000 emulation (www.virtualacorn.co.uk) of RISCOS 3 also includes !Draw. Meanwhile TextEase (www.softease.co.uk) has similar vector graphics amongst its many features and is available for all three of the currently popular formats.
Miss Di Hillage

CAN YOU HELP

Having taken up geology in my retirement, I want to branch out into petrology, which involves using a polarizing microscope to examine thin sections of rock. However, failing eyesight (AMD) is an increasing handicap, albeit a slowly growing one.  Has anyone experience of using an optical microscope with a PC? I have Windows 95 PC with a 21-inch monitor, what other hardware would I need, apart from the microscope?  Being able to show the angular direction of the polarizer on screen with the magnified section is the dream, but not the expectation! If the idea is technically/financially beyond reach of anyone outside a well-endowed laboratory, is there a program simulating a range of rock sections?

Douglas Hague

I’ve made bird scarers with them, ‘papered’ the kids bedroom ceiling and even used a few for airgun practice (satisfying but messy…) but I’m still left with scores of freebie Internet signup CDs. Has anyone come up with a sensible use for the cursed things yet?

Geoff Belling, via email

I’ve often seen wildlife programs where animals are fitted with tracking devices, to monitor their movement and migration. Is there any way I can access this sort of information in the Internet, with real time maps showing the movement of various species, I’m particularly interested in wales and other large sea mammals.

Richard Ellis, via email