OVER 2 YOU 195 (31/08/04)

SPEECHLESS ON THE WEB

I am involved with a very small scale musical production concerning music of the Second World War and I am trying to find a website from where I can download recordings of famous speeches of WW2, i.e. Chamberlain's speech telling the UK that we were at war, Churchill's "we will fight them on the beaches" etc. Does anyone know of a website that I might find useful?

John M. Allistone, Poole, Dorset.

Famous speeches are included in a CD and tape 'Songs that won the War' on the Flapper label (www.pavilionrecords.com/), available from Amazon, music shops and libraries. 

J.Harrison, Escrick

As a fellow Poole resident Mr Allistone might like to know that the Music Library in Bournemouth Central Library has CDs (for loan) of Churchill's famous wartime speeches. For more details, see www.bournemouth.gov.uk/Residents/

Libraries/Info/Bournemouth/default.asp. There may also be copies in Dorset libraries - see http://195.49.180.71/libstart.asp

Vivian Dunn, via email

REMOTELY USEFUL

I have just installed a web cam on my PC. The box vaguely refers to the possibility of being able to access images from it over the Internet. Has any one any idea how this might be accomplished, or suggest appropriate software as I would like to be able to keep an eye on my car and front door on my laptop whilst I am away from home?

David Mayall, via email

I would suggest Homewatcher (www.homewatcher.com). This program's relatively easy to set up, and provides some handy features - for example, it can be set to play footage from the last hour, and it has motion-detection features so that, for example, it can e-mail a picture of your door whenever it detects any motion about it. It can also upload images to a website; if you don't possess one then AnalogX's SimpleServer (www.analogx.com/contents/

download/network/sswww.htm) allows you to host the page on your own home computer. You can then check your camera (and a short history) on any computer simply by accessing the web page you create.

Martin Smith, Lincoln

After trialling a number of security software programs I settled upon Visec Security system (www.visec.net/). At present I use a beta upgrade of the Pro version and am highly delighted with its performance and features. It must be remembered that a standard web cam does have its limitations for security purposes. Using a USB2 capture device plus a standard CCD CCTV video camera and video capture card will give more scope for serious use. I personally use an AverMedia USB2 capture device with its video input connected to the video output of a Quad Colour Processor; both items can be purchased from Maplin.  This then gives the user opportunity for four external cameras plus a USB web cam. The Visec software will accommodate this configuration without any problem. Note also that the main computer source must be "left on all the time" and that in the event of a mains power failure, the computer settings must include automatic re-boot to enable the security software program to continue its function.

A. Milla, via email

David Mayal might like to try Eyeball Chat (www.eyeballchat.com) a free service (for one to one video chat). He would need to load it to both his PC and laptop and have separate ID's for each, setting his PC to automatically accept requests from his laptop to ‘chat’. This would give him sound and vision.

Bob Scanlon, via email

Visit www.y3kcctv.com and have a look at the Xvision PC DVR PCI cards, for one to four or more cameras. These allow hard disk recording, motion detection, remote viewing by dialup or broadband, and alarm call to your mobile or a neighbour’s landline.

See also: www.digital-cybermasters.co.uk for the Voltek USB Quadcam, which is viewable over the Internet, and www.livecameras.co.uk for information on home security and automation.

Steve Sanford, Welton

EXCEL ANNOYANCE

Using Excel I am frustrated by the limits of three conditions under "Conditional Formatting" and seven nested formulae. I use conditional formatting to ascribe different colours to parts of a horizontal bar used for planning and need more than three. A seven-deep nested formula is also seriously restricting. I've tried QuattroPro12 and OpenOffice and searched the discussion pages without luck. Any suggestions?

Michael Falter, via email

I suggest that your correspondent takes a look at www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm#case, which contains an example of using a worksheet-change macro to automatically set colours based on any number of criteria.

Paul Lautman, Southsea

FORM FILLING

I am the Chairman and acting Clerk for the Parish Council. Various agencies send me forms, returns and questionnaires etc. by email in PDF format. Currently I have to download, print and complete the form by hand, take a photocopy for my files and then return it by post. I would prefer to complete these forms on screen, store a copy on the computer and return them by email. Can anyone recommend a cheap software program that would enable me to easily fill out PDF forms? I am using Windows XP and Word.

Alan Jury, via email

This problem is now completely solved, see: www.pdfill.com. PDFill is the complementary utility to Adobe Reader, for filling out a form saved in PDF format on your computer and it costs $9.99. You can also add text and check boxes and save the filled PDF locally and resume filling later without Adobe Acrobat.

Nick Adams

CAN YOU HELP?

My 3 year old grand-daughter likes me to knit for her, but her requests for different pictures is getting difficult to do, what I need is a program or web page that I can use to design the picture (her latest request is for a butterfly!!) and superimpose it onto the basic pattern for her size, so it will still tell me when to decrease/increase etc.  Can anyone help?

Belinda Sexton, via email

I monitor a list of stocks by importing streaming prices into an Excel spreadsheet. In order to analyse the price action, I would like to have a column that automatically displays the highest or lowest value that the price for each stock has reached since being included in my spreadsheet.  In a way the cell must therefore have a "memory", and only change what it displays, if a higher/lower value is achieved.  Can anyone tell me if that is possible? 

Karl von Furstenberg, via email