OVER 2 YOU, 115 (28/01/03)

BUSINESS CARDS

I have a hobby business with a low number of financial transactions. Can anyone suggest an online system of accepting payments that does not cost an arm and a leg?

John Osborne, via email

Last year I set up a system for my company that is totally secure and accepts all known credit and debit cards. I have always tried to help embryonic businesses and would be very happy to offer access to the system to people like John Osborne. Our system can offer a simple transactional process without the vast majority of the very high start-up and operational cost and red tape that is normally associated with these systems. The only proviso is that the product is honest and legal.
Clive Higgins, IGI plc

I would suggest he investigate PayPal, www.paypal.com, who can provide an intermediary function to allow customers to pay via credit cards to an email address. They are one of the only practical online payment methods since accepting credit card payments direct would normally require the expense of setting up a merchant bank account. 

Les Lumb

KEYBOARD TUTOR

I was given an expensive Electronic Keyboard for my birthday and, as an absolute beginner, I am experiencing great difficulty in finding software tuition. I could not face the embarrassment of having a "live" tutor. Can anyone help?

Frederick Parsons, via email

Dream has such software available at www.eDream.co.uk

Mike Northcutt

STUDENT TRACKING

Does anyone know of a system that could be used to track and monitor student attendance with the aid of bar codes or swipe cards.
Meenesh Patel, via email

There is such a system produce by a UK based 

company called Celcat. Go to www.celcat.com and 

click on products, it will list a new product they call 

SAT (Student Attendance Tracking). The company 

claims that they can integrate the software with either 

an existing card system, or they can supply a system 

with their software. The attendance data can also be 

entered using PDAs, Notebook PC or via a Web Browser.

Vernon Chapman  

Meenesh is certain to find something to suit her needs at www.clear-time.co.uk

Trevor Keene  

My company has completed a bar code system which tracks individuals and also company assets, time logged in/out and provide reports etc; The system is simple, scaleable and could easily work for such a purpose.

For more information please look at www.godeltech.com.

David Tattersall, Godel Technologies Europe Ltd,

Have a look at:  www.schoolTechnologies.co.uk where 

the product (School2000) does exactly what you require

Ebby Sargunar

ONLINE MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS

Does anyone know of a web site where you can 

compose music online, on manuscript paper? 

I have been looking for ages.  

P. H. Evans, via email

Go to http://ace.acadiau.ca/score/others.htm where you will find the majority of the commercially available music writing and scanning programs with their Internet links, with brief descriptions. There are a lot of them and navigating through all the alternatives can take a long time!
H.A.Smedley

By chance a similar query appeared in PC Advisor of Sept 2002. The answer was that Software Technology has a shareware sheet music designer that can be downloaded from www.simtel.net/pub/pd/55993.html. Also, if just treble/bass staves were needed, their magazine cover CD for that month included an MS Word RTF file for the task.

John Gimson

ROCKET BACKPACK

Does anyone recall the rocket backpack in the James Bond film Thunderball? I believe such a device did actually exist but did it ever go into production and if so, where can I get one?

D. Lewin, via email

Just out of interest, my wife and I were at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro last year. On the last night of the carnival one of the samba bands featured a rocket backpack. It was flown the whole length of the Sambadrome, which must be about 1.5 kilometres long, right over the floats at an amazing speed and fully under control.

Angus Moorcroft

HEARING DIFFICULTIES

I wear two behind the ear Widex analogue hearing aids.  I have been denied the use of a mobile phone because every one I try to use results in a high pitched noise rendering reception to be totally inaudible.  Has anyone else
experienced this problem and how have they solved it?
Geoff Jackson, via email

I find the 'T-Link', available from the RNID or direct from the manufacturers (www.sensormatic.co.uk) extremely useful.  It works using the T setting on hearing aids, cuts out all interference, and is available for use with most mobile phones.

Derek Hiscoke

ACCESS THUMBNAILS

I am trying to create an Access database of the major events within my family history showing date, title, major players etc. with a brief description of the event and the option of viewing a group of relevant photographs. Can anyone suggest an easy way of displaying photographs as a page of thumbnails and/or a slide show from within an Access application?

R. Kilvo, via email

Your correspondent would find it easier to use Front Page or a similar web design program to create his family album. I too contemplated the Access route, but found the web site approach much easier and more flexible.

My site, called Dynasty, now contains 1.8Gb of information with over 26,000 hyperlinks so that navigation is extremely easy. I use Gallery Maker to create thumbnails (it also makes web pages) to access pictures, 6400 so far and growing. (I have now reached 1973 with my photographic slides) and links to each picture page gives a slide show with captions and sound commentary. I have also managed to include videos of the grandchildren with a music background to cover all those "look at the camera" asides. Being disabled and retired I now have the time to do this project, but because I keep including other facets of family life, I doubt I will ever finish it! Something for the grandchildren to carry on.

Mike Cotton

STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION

Does anyone know of a piece of mathematical software or a website, preferably free, that will show if a data set fits a statistical distribution, such as normal or Poisson distribution?

Roger Thornhill, via email

The excellent shareware Curve Expert (available from
http://www.ebicom.net/~dhyams/cvxpt.htm) will do all that Roger Thornhill asks, and much more.  It allows one to fit one of around 30 predefined statistical models to a data set (including the Normal and Poisson distributions he mentions), or to define a model oneself.
Adam Thorn

CAN YOU HELP

It looks as though our local library will close in the next few months. We may have to run our own (one of the so-called "Book Cafes").  Does anyone know of a suitable software package to help us do this?

Mike Brazier, via email

I am thinking about buying a GPS handheld device to add interest to map treks through the countryside, but want to be able to follow the route I actually take back at home, by plotting data from the GPS into or onto maps stored in PC. Where can I obtain CDs of UK Ordinance Survey Landranger series and any suggestions about suitable GPS kit gratefully received?

John Oaktree, via email

I have a collection of parish baptism/marriage/burial records on microfiche negatives, and I no longer have access to a microfiche viewer. There are 70 of them on postage stamp size microfiched foolscap pages on each 100x150mm negative. Is there any attachment available for a PC that will magnify the microfiches so they can be read onscreen?    

Steve Norcliffe, via email