 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
25 July
2005
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| Webscape |
July 14th 2005 Kate
Russell gives us a guide to the sites in her Favourites
folder.  Travelling the world can be an exciting experience,
but few of us get to actually do it. Our first website can give you
a glimpse of it, through the eyes of a bunch of disposable cameras
that have been sent out to fend for themselves in the big bad world.
Phototag is the home of this interesting experiment, and there are already some cameras that have made it home safely. The site's creators basically labelled up a bunch of standard disposable cameras and left them lying around for people to find. The instructions on the camera are pretty easy to follow - just take a photo and then pass it on. The person who snaps the last exposure has simply to drop the camera into a post box for it to be delivered back to its original owner. Most of the interesting information is under Camera & Travel Stats link at the top. Have a browse through the images returned on the first few cameras to make their way home. It really does make for fascinating browsing. I just hope the 40 cameras still at large make it home too, and then this project can truly be crowned a success.   Are you a bit of a bookworm? Like most
people I enjoy a good read and, as a result, I have a growing
collection of old paperbacks stuffed away on shelves and in boxes
gathering dust. But then Phil Rogers from Jersey
sent me a link to Bookcrossing. The concept is basically to provide a forum where one can pass on a treasured read so that other people can enjoy it too - and hopefully enter feedback on the website, so you can track the journey each book makes, and what its readers have thought of it. The idea is that you then leave your book somewhere where it might be found. Hopefully the finder will participate in the project, and in turn pass on the book when they've read it. If you find a book yourself, then add your comments to its online history. There's even a section on the website allowing you to 'go hunting' for books that are 'out in the wild', as it lists the locations of books recently left lying about for someone to find. To participate in the project you need to register first; the privacy policy looks fine to me. Once joined you can start registering your books. There are full instructions on what to do, and they even provide a pre-designed label for you to print out and stick inside the front-cover.  Wayne Parker from New Zealand sent us
this next site, and it could prove to be the new way to submit your
suggestions to Webscape. PageQ is the home of an application that allows you to create a slideshow of selected web pages, which can then be saved for future reference, or emailed to a friend to share. The program you want is the free one, which allows you to work with one 'page q' at a time. Just click the link and follow the prompts to install - and as usual, take a look at the information on our website about what you should consider before downloading strange software. I've checked this download out, and cannot find fault with it - all it contains is a really cool program. Use the tutorial option that comes up when you launch the software to get a more detailed run through, but in simple terms you just surf the web using the PageQ software as a browser window. When you find a page you want to save, hit the capture button on the toolbar at the top. The page display time can be changed in Q Properties under the File menu, and when you've finished, use the email or save as html features by clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar at the top. This sequence can now be viewed by anyone in their own preferred browser, and you don't need to have PageQ installed to do so.  Finally a little bit of fun for the office, and if anyone out there is about to start their first desk job, you definitely need to have a look here to hone your office skills. Lancer de boulettes is the game, and the object is to catch the balls of paper your colleagues throw to you, which you do this by positioning your hand in the right spot, then clicking and holding the left mouse button as the paper ball passes through it. You have to swing your arm in the correct arc, letting go of the mouse button at the perfect moment to launch the paper boulette into the litter bin. That's it. It's incredibly hard. I am rubbish at it. And you can turn off the extremely annoying sound effects by clicking the almost hidden speaker icon in the bottom left hand corner of the playing area. Annoying, but addictive that one. I hope for your sakes you're all better at it than I am.
Kate's Caveats: Obviously you need to be informed
and aware when downloading software off the Internet, so here
are some simple guidelines to help you surf safely.
|
|