OVER 2 YOU, 121 (11/03/03)

CHURCH PRESENTATION

We are seeking assistance with regard to the use of PowerPoint (or similar) in our Church where we currently use three hymnbooks: Methodist Hymns & Psalms, URC Rejoice & Sing and Songs of Fellowship (all of which are rather bulky).

Is there readily available commercial software that would enable us to display the words (and numbers) of hymns from each of the three hymnbooks for use by members of the congregation?

The Choir will require the use of music editions of all three hymn books, could the words and music also be displayed for them? Have any readers tackled (and solved) similar problems or have experience or advice for sourcing such a system for a Church with around 500 members; any help would be much appreciated and acknowledged.

Ray Mackintosh, Music Co-ordinator, Trinity Church (Methodist/U.R.C.) Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE3 3BT

This issue is not just about software but there are also legal implications, as the question of copyright raises its head. First the church will require (and may already have) a Church Copyright Licence from CCLI (www.ccli.co.uk). This permits them to project the words of most (but not all) of the hymns in the three hymnbooks he mentions, provided a specific copyright acknowledgement is reproduced along with the
projected words.  Some material published in these books will require a projection licence from Calamus (www.decanimusic.co.uk/Calamus.html). This specifically applies to material from the Taizé Community. Something to watch out for is that many of the older hymns in Rejoice and Sing have been altered to make their language more "inclusive".  These changes have brought the updated text back into copyright, even though the original text is public domain.

CCLI have a comprehensive software program, SongSelect, which includes over 4000 of their most popular hymns and songs, plus many well-known public domain hymns.  Probably the most popular piece of software designed specifically for church projection is Words of Worship (www.springh.org/wow/), which comes with 600 popular hymns and songs included and allows you to import other material prepared as text or Rich Text files, as well as play PowerPoint presentations from within the program.
Alistair Knox

Your correspondent might find EzSong helpful from http://www.kings-church.org.uk/ezsong/.  It costs about £30 and would probably meet his needs. A much more sophisticated, but also more expensive, product called SongBase is available from www.worshipmusic.com. and is a software database that contains the lyrics and transposable chord charts for over 800 Mercy/Vineyard songs. The songs database is linked directly to the built-in Video Presenter. SongBase lets you enter and transpose your own songs.
Demo copies of both are available from the web sites.
Richard Aust

In our church we use a program called SundayPlus, which is available for both Apple Mac and PC. There is a very useful website run by The Peat Group in the USA which, among other things reviews most of the programs designed for this kind of use - it can be found at: www.thepeatgroup.com/MforM/presentation.html; it shows which platform (i.e. Mac or PC), US price, link to the manufacturer's site and a review. Many of these programs are also distributed and supported in the UK; in some cases a demonstration version can be downloaded free of charge.

Alistair Prentice

LOGGING ON

We have a number of PCs running for a considerable number of hours every day. We are looking for a data capture or logging program that runs in the background that can record the date, time, total hours run at each start-up and total hours run for a given machine. Any suggestions?

John A Murray, via email        

This sounds like a job for a program called E-Surveiller. It can monitor activity on both stand alone PCs and those in a network, and it can show you what they’re seeing on their screens form your PC, very sneaky! It logs everything that’s typed, all of the programs used and files modified and it’s invisible to the user. For more details and a trial download (it normally costs $30) go to http://www.e-surveiller.com/

Mike Singleton, via email

HOUSE WIRING

My house was built in 1986 and fitted with a combined security and central heating microprocessor based control system. The supplier, Futura, has long since vanished. I would like to obtain a wiring diagram and technical instructions for the system, can anyone help?
Chris Bond, via email

Only a small handful of systems were installed in the mid 1980's and I had one of the original ones as a trial in my home.  I kept copies of all the documents, including the installation manual, operating instructions, wiring diagram and a few spares, as it was clear that company was unlikely to survive. It didn't. I am happy to let him have copies of the various documents, if he cares to write to me.
Peter Smith

FTSE FIGURES

I used to download a set of historical FTSE figures (100, 250, 350, Allshare and Smallcap), every month or so from Marketeye.co.uk. As an amateur investor I found them very useful, and I have the figures back to 1995.  They are no longer on offer and I can't find an alternative.  The advantage of a download of "several months worth" is that you don't have to take it every day or every week.  Does anyone know of an alternative and hopefully free source?

Chris Walton, Broadstone, Dorset

Historical Stock Market Data can be obtained from Yahoo Finance at: http://table.finance.yahoo.com/k?s=^FTSE&g=d
Yahoo Financial Ticker Symbols for INDICES usually begin with a circumflex ^ Enter Ticker Symbol (see table below), then start and end dates, indicate daily or weekly or monthly data. Click on Get data.Last date will be at the top of the list. Data can be down loaded in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format. If required Microsoft Excel can then be used to sort data to give Start date at the top of the list and end
date at the bottom.

Below is a list of the main UK Ticker Symbols or Ticker codes
^FTSE FTSE 100 INDEX
^FTAS FTSE-A ALL SHARE
^FTII FT30 INDEX
^FTGS FTSE GILTS INDEX
^FTGM FTSE GOLD MINES INDEX
^FTMC FTSE MID 250
^FTAI FTSE AIM INDEX
^FTT1X FTSE TECHMARK
^FTTMT FTSE TMT
^FTT1X FTSE TECHMARK
^FTTASX FT TECHMARK AS
^FTSC FT SMALL CAP

For FTSE100 And FTSE250 Individual Stock Ticker Symbols and quotes see: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=@

^FTSE&f=snlcvi&o=S

Derek Worswick, via email

MILITARY RECORDS

Whilst researching my family tree, I discovered that my father apparently deserted whilst serving in the army in 1944, and may have spent time in prison. The very few remaining family members are understandably sensitive about the event. Is there a web site or source of military records for this period that would show this sort of detail?
R.L, Essex.

The only information RL can hope to obtain from the MoD is a record of the units with which his father served. Presuming the MoD will follow the pattern from WW1, information concerning each individual serviceman from WW2 and courts martial will probably only be released from 2030 onwards.

The War Diaries and Operational Record Books of the various Army, Navy and Air Force, units from German and Allied side, are however available, and things of interest can be found there.

I have with a fellow Norwegian researched the fate of his English RAF father, reported missing and later declared dead in February 1942. After having established the various units with which he had served, and searching at the PRO the ORB of his last squadron and the WD of the Group, I was able to find his name amongst the crew and the area his aircraft had operated. In the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv in Freiburg South Germany and through other sources we were able to find out which German units had operated in this area in February 1942. Searching the ORB's and WD'ies of these units, we were able to get a satisfactory picture of what had happened.

I should think that a similar model could be used in the case of RL's father. An incident such as a desertion (if that actually was the case; hopefully just a POW-situation) has certainly been mentioned in a battalion/regiment/ division/Army Group's WD-s. The WD-s of these units is available at the PRO, Kew.

By knowing the place and time RL's father's unit at the actual time was operating, one could find the German units operating in the same area at this same time. Receiving a deserter was definitely worth mentioning. The „Oberkommand der Wehrmacht“ and the Army Corps, Divisions, Regiments also had an intelligence (S!) report attached to the WD where such an interesting incident certainly is mentioned.

If the incident took place in UK, we of course have another situation. But then it also could have been an AWOL (absent without leave) situation for which there also would be a jail record.
K. Skjelbred-Knudsen

CAN YOU HELP

My Great-grandson is coming up to four. He is mad keen on cars and can recognise most models at a thousand paces! I would love to do him a birthday card of all the car manufacturer logos. Does anyone know of any suitable clip art?

Arthur Barwell, Bromley

Can anyone recommend geographical landscape builder software? I would like to make a rough 3D plan of Cherbourg and the Cotentin and add salient features, such as roads, towns and villages to the basic land contours. I'd rather it was cheap and easy to use than completely accurate.

David Jordan, via email

I am working with a travel timetable list, which contains 200 "premium rate" date/time entries. By entering a date and time (separately or together) I would like my Excel spreadsheet to identify whether or not this particular date/time combination matches any one the 200 "premium rate" date/time combinations on the list and return a result, in another cell which indicates, by copying another cell value, whether it is a "premium" or "standard" fare category.   

I see the problem as follows: e.g. IF the entered day/month/year (Cell B5) AND entered time (Cell C5)  = any of the 200 premium dates/times (these could be listed), THEN , if true, Cell G7 = N13 (premium), otherwise, if false, G7= J13 (standard).

I've wrangled with the formula syntax and got so far, but this one has become an obsession and it's got me beaten - I give up!  Please can anyone help?

‘Wren’, via email