|
OVER 2 YOU, 090 (23/07/02)
PAPER AEROPLANES
I seem to remember a few years ago seeing programs
for designing paper aeroplanes, which were apparently superior to the
traditional paper ‘dart’ type design. Does anyone know if they’re still
available and if so, have any improvements been made?
Ian Douglas, via email
MS
Publisher 2000 contains a few templates (not that I have had time to try any
of them). Later versions may also have them.
Apps Harry, Sqn Ldr 3 AF/RAFLOARM
There are three paper aeroplane sites I
can recommend:
http://www.geocities.com/peterkunzmann/
paperaeroplaneworld.html
http://www.hp-webworld.com/country/uk/
eng/webworld/familyworld
/paperaeroplane/email.asp and
for "The best paper aeroplane in the world" try
http://www.paperang.com/indy.htm
Nigel Dunn, Computing Services, City University
Try http://www.auntannie.com/planes.html
Johm Gumbleton
Ian Douglas should visit: www.khs.com for his paper aeroplanes.
Peter Hedges
Just
look for "Paper Aeroplanes" in Google and you will find all you want.
Lucas
Sonnino
PC VIDEO RECORDERS
I keep seeing adverts for ‘hard disc’ video
recorders which claim to be able to record for up to 40 hours at ‘VHS’ quality,
does anyone know of a way of implementing this feature on my PC which is a
recent multimedia model with a large (20Gb hard disc drive), preferably with a
timer facility.
J. Hughes, Brentford, Essex
A company called Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/) markets a
product called PVR USB (Personal Video Recorder USB), which will record in
MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 formats onto a PC. It is an excellent product unless you are
running Windows XP, in which case the timer facility will not work and its
video signal detection falters unless some annoying rigmarole is performed. For
other windows operating systems it is a good product and fairly cheap at well
below £200.
Peter
Dickinson
DOMESDAY BOOK
Whatever happened to the ‘Domesday Project’ where an
updated version of the Domesday Book – compiled I believe in the late 1980’s –
was put on to the now defunct laserdisc format for use in schools and
libraries. Was it ever made available on CD-ROM, and if so where can I obtain a
copy?
T. L. Simmonds, via email
Gone, but not forgotten, various plans to resurrect
the Domesday Book project have come and gone; for an up to date view on the
present situation have a look at the following web site: http://www.atsf.co.uk/dottext/domesday.html#whtd
Peter
Law, via email
I
was one of the County co-ordinators for the Domesday Book project which took
place in 1986 organising which squares would be allocated to which schools and
passing on the information collected. The data together with a variety of video
clips and a fascinating 'gallery' of pictorial material went on to two
Laserdiscs but because the equipment and discs cost a few thousand pounds, not
many were sold and distributed. We had one in our local education centre.
Soon after it had finished, I retired and I have often wondered whether it had
been re-mastered.
Basil
Lewis from the former County of Humberside.
MODERN MANNERS
Can anyone recommend an up to date guide to email
etiquette? I am never quite sure how people should be addressed; so many emails
seem to begin with just ‘Hi’, which I do not feel comfortable with. Also, how
quickly should one respond to a personal email? To do so immediately often
prompts the sender to write back just as quickly and the correspondence quickly
runs out of steam.
Jean Copeman, via email
The
beauty of personal email is that you are free to negotiate a style with which you and your correspondent are comfortable. There is no ultimate authority on the Internet and so you cannot be sure of doing the right thing
for everybody by just following "the rules". Why not be
yourself and stop looking for another person's pronouncements on how to correspond? You may
irritate someone (e.g. by using capitals to someone who regards this as shouting) but so what? YOU CAN LEARN TO ACCOMMODATE THEIR WISHES IF YOU
WANT TO!
If you would never say Hi to anyone in the street, then why would you say it to someone in your email unless it is a way to shorten your typing?
However if you want to keep what you are typing short, then why use salutations and valedictions at all to people for whom you would leave a note on a slip of
paper? Your email program probably makes it clear who is writing to whom anyway and you may deprive your correspondent of the useful ability, when scanning through their emails, to gauge what your email is about from the first couple of lines. If however you want to write your email as a
traditional letter then why not if that is your choice? Just don't assume that your correspondent will wish to (or even be able to) open attachments or read anything other than plain text in their browser. Attachments are after all often used to spread viruses. Your correspondent may not
have your version of your word processor or a reader to read your word processor file.
Your correspondent's habits will guide you as to what they want but do not forget to let them know what you find helpful or unhelpful. For instance, you may have decided, for extra security, to prevent your browser from running scripts. Do you wish to compromise your security to
read their mail?
Just try to avoid sending people things that will inconvenience them like viruses and large unsought attachments that might fill their inboxes and stop other mail getting through to them. So update your virus checker regularly and download critical Windows updates if either of you is at risk; and do not send attachments to people who might not want them. Then enjoy
learning to be yourself online.
David Hutchence, via email
BLUEPRINTS
I
have a fairly large number of rare technical drawings, including blueprints, which I would like to archive. Scanning these as line art may be the answer but I can see any number of problems, like how to avoid jaggies and losing thin lines in printouts. A small number of the drawings are about A1 size. Are there any commercial operations that would scan these for
me?
Richard Danik
I
no longer have the full details to hand, so this is only half an answer, but it
might point Mr Danik in the right direction.... What he wants to do is fairly
routine in the engineering industry and there are several bureaux that offer a
drawing scanning service. In a previous life we used one such to archive our
vast collection of paper drawings; they would collect a bundle and return them
a few days later with a CD-ROM containing the scanned images as .tif files. I
can't recall the name of the bureau we used, but I know we sampled a couple for
competitive tender and quality evaluation. If Mr Danik can't find a local one
in the phone directory or the web, I suggest he either contact
the Drawing Office Manager at his nearest large engineering company, or try a trade publication such as MCAD (mcad@edaltd.co.uk)
who may be able to direct him onwards.
Naturally the quality of the file will depend on the quality of the original,
but some bureaux are better than others at handling poor originals.
Once he's got the scanned images, he should try and get hold of a program called Scan2CAD, which converts image files into CAD vector drawings. It used to be available in a free evaluation version and seems to do pretty much what it says on the tin. In particular, I think it is smart enough to be able to identify broken lines as being part of the same entity. I believe it will generate reasonably good .dxf files, which can be opened in AutoCad or compatible programs. Sorry I no longer have a contact for the vendor, but no doubt a web search will track it down. Possibly a scanning bureau will even offer this as a service.
Even with this, though, you still usually have to spend time tweaking the result, so you only really bother as & when you need to modify the design. In many instances, it can be just as quick to reconstruct the design in CAD from scratch.
Kelvin Davis
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
May I offer some clarification? The cassette being phased out by the end
of 2004 is in fact a special cassette used by the R.N.I.B. for their Talking
Book service. This is a totally different item from the standard audiocassette.
This is being replaced by a CD system called DAISY. (Digital Audio Information
System) which allows up to 26 hours of recording on one CD by the use of
high-density compression.
Although
the demise of the standard cassette has been forecast over recent years, its
popularity (particularly with Talking Newspapers) continues, and I am sure it
will continue to be available for years to come. It is true that an alternative
will eventually need to be found, and my own thoughts are that the Internet is
the future. The quality of a 16Kb audio stream – check BBC Radio on line (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/) for a
convincing demonstration -- is quite
adequate for intelligible speech.
Audio
via the Internet is bound to outlast the cassette, the CD, the minidisk or
indeed any machine which requires moving parts for it’s operation. Talking
magazines can also benefit from the use of a website, for example, magazine
items sometimes refer to websites, or e-mail addresses for further information.
A ‘get back to’ page on a
website can contain hyperlinks to these locations thus avoiding the need for
people to note and type in all the http://3ws nonsense otherwise required. The current Guide to Tape Services for
Visually Impaired and Disabled People from TNAUK lists only 25 TNs with
websites, and those sites I have visited don’t seem particularly oriented
towards their members. I am sure this
situation will improve with time. Frank Hesketh, Editor, Southwark Talking
Newspaper Association.
CAN
YOU HELP?
Is
there any device or adaptor that I can connect to my computer to monitor the
various electrical signals running around inside my body, i.e. brain waves,
heart beat, nerve impulses etc?
Margaret
Stevens, via email
My
voluntary civic society want to move our membership list to MS Access and
improve it at the same time. We want to incorporate all conceivable data such
as relevant skills, as well as the usual name, address and subscription amount.
However, members may be reluctant to divulge say ‘disabilities’. A difficulty is how to address the letters
when each partner has a different name, we used to be able to do Mr & Mrs
A.A. Smith but it now seems that another field must be included.
Can
anyone recommend a suitable Access template for such a database or/and maybe
their own ideas of what to include? I
have approached other organizations but like us, most seem still to use old
card indexes! We only have about 200 members and no funds for dedicated
packages.
Merrin
Molesworth, via email
Can anyone recommend a
computer program that will calculate football
league tables?
Don Starr
|
