Stuff we recommend
Our taste is no better and no worse than anyone
else's, with the obvious exception that everyone's taste
is better than Jeffrey Archer's. There's no reason,
therefore, why you should take any more notice of our
recommendations than anybody else's, but where would the
World Wide Web be without people making recommendations
to each other? It's be the California Wide Web or
something, so here's a few words about some of our
favourite bits & bobs on the web.
Our
favourite browser
There's nothing much wrong with Internet Explorer (apart from the
security issues), it's
just that we like Opera
lots better, especially now it is free.
The download is very small, so you are probably
thinking it is a text-based browser. Wrong. It is a
"proper" Windows program by which I mean that
all the tiling, cascading and windowing takes places
within the main program - you don't have to start up 18
instances of Opera if you want to have 18 web pages open
simultaneously, you can open them all up within one
program; this saves on resources in comparison with the
likes of Netscape and Internet Explorer which, unlike
Opera (which was built from scratch), were built by
bolting on bits to an aged browser called Mosaic. The
latest version of Opera allows you to open umpteen
instances of the browser if you like the Internet
Explorer/Netscape habit of clogging up your taskbar with
icons.
It has lots of useful features. Here are a few, many of which Firefox
has not got around to incorporating as standard yet.
- zoom magnification (very handy if you are a bit
short sighted or if you want to to zoom out to
see a page in its entirety)
- open all the pages within a folder with one
click. All the sites I look at on a daily basis
are in a folder called Daily. I open
them all simultaneously by dragging the folder to
the main screen.
- it remembers where you were when you logged off.
I was halfway through investigating the results
of a search before I went on holiday. I closed
Opera, "saved the windows" and when I
came back 2 weeks later and logged on, there were
the results of my search waiting for me. Nice.
- mouse gestures that enable you to page forward & back, open
new windows and various other things, just by wiggling the mouse
- an excellent mail client that enables you to tag e-mails so they
appear in multiple folders (and it is not prone to the security
attacks you get with Outlook)
Opera update: Most of the above was written in the
late nineties. Opera is now up to
version 8. It no longer works on a 386 (maybe the
Windows 3.1 version does) and it has "bloated"
up to a 3+ meg download but on the plus side it has added
new features such as tabs to make it easier to switch
between the different pages you have open (several years before Firefox
nicked this idea). Best of all
for you fellow skinflints, it is now free.
What about Firefox?
Yes, Firefox is very good, largely because it has incorporated a
lot of the features Opera pioneered 5 or 6 years back. I'm still inclined to support Opera, however, for two
reasons.
1) A lot of the cool Opera features that Firefox has ... ahem ....
borrowed, require additional plug-ins (e.g. mouse gestures, where you
can page forward & back with a simple wiggle of the mouse), and
these are a bit fiddly to install.
2) Opera is a commercial product. If people decamp en masse to
Firefox, the company will go out of business, and then where will
Firefox gets its inspiration from for new features?
Small
web sites made easy
Looking at the dog's breakfast
this site has become over the years, you may wonder how I have the
nerve to offer my services as a web designer. Well, it's like
the tale of the cobbler's children whose shoes were always in a state
of poor repair, because Dad was too busy tending to his customers'
needs to fix their shoes. So it is with me. Entrust
me with your web site and, for a remarkably low price, I'll do you
a decent, fast loading, clean and simple web site.
Humour
There's a lot of funny stuff out there on the web but
probably too much of it to spend your life looking for
it. You can generally be safe in the knowledge that the
really funny stuff will find its way round to you via a
chain e-mail.
One thing that has tickled me recently, and which
can't really be demonstrated via cutting and pasting to
an e-mail, is the Dialectiser (spelling?) on Rinkworks. This
converts most web pages into one of several dialects:
Cockney, Redneck, Moron, Jive, Swedish chef, Elmer Fudd.
The thing to do is to convert your company's official web
site into, say, Elmer Fudd's dialect ("oh that
scwewy wabbit!"), and then show it to your Corporate
Communications director without first telling him it's a
gag. Watch him kak his pants! Watch him give you the sack
afterwards!
Try the Dialectiser on our web site, converting it to
Cockney. Result? No bleeding difference whatsoever, mate!
A meeting of like minded
people
I can often be found frittering my time away on the
Usenet group rec.games.board, corresponding with my
fellow gamers. If you fancied something a bit more
intimate, a bit more organised, with the opportunity to
share files, check each other's diaries and other stuff
that Lotus Notes probably still can't do properly, have a
butcher's at www.smartgroups.com.
It offers Group Email, Group Voting, Group Calendar,
Group Database and a Group Document Store.
I'm also using it to enable old school friends to keep
in touch and to try and organise a game of 18xx amongst a
group that used to play 1830 every Sunday but now manage
it only 2 or 3 times a year now. Bit like my sex life
really ....
The Icicle still
Works
I am, so I am told, a very loyal person. This
applies to people and of course my football team, but
also to musicians. Back in the mid-eighties I was
knocked out by the high octane Rickenbacker-based music
of the Icicle Works, the bastard sons of a marriage
between the Byrds and Scott Walker. The band has
long since split up. The drummer, Chris Sharrock, has
served time with the La's, World Party, The Lightning
Seeds, The Lemon Trees and now Robbie Williams. The
bassist, Chris Layhe, has virtually disappeared from view
but does apparently gig occasionally in the north of
England. The band's main songwriter, Ian McNabb, now has a
solo career where the commercial success he enjoys seems
to be in inverse proportion to the artistic merit of the
records he releases. Nonetheless I am sticking with him
for as long as he sticks with us.
Since going solo he has released the following albums:
Truth & Beauty *
Head Like A Rock **
Merseybeast **
A Party Political Broadcast On Behalf Of The Emotional
Party
Live At Life
Ian McNabb **
Waifs & Strays *
The Gentleman Adventurer
Boots's Boots (limited edition, official bootlegs)
Before All Of This (pre-order from Townsend
Records)
The ones marked with an asterisk are recommended, and
those with two asterisks are especially
recommended. You can purchase all of the albums
from lots of places but the outlet I recommend is Townsend
Records. Competitively priced (though not
necessarily the cheapest) and a good service.
Support your independent record store.
If you have a site which you think should be
listed here, drop us a
line.
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