It's time to have fun

2004-04-19 12:40

Louis Nel

Cape Town - With the elections behind us, it's time to get down to the serious business of having fun again. I can help in that department - and it's no empty politician's promise. I've got it all lined up: free and ready for your enjoyment :)

Cool sites

You've got these wonderful pictures or great program you want to share with someone, but it adds up to quite a sizeable attachment if you want to mail it off.

What's more, you will probably irritate your friend more than delight him/her with such a big surprise clogging up their mail - that's if you can even get it passed your internet service provider's limit on the size of attachments it allows. So what do you do? Drop the file off at Dropload.

Dropload is a website where you can save such files for someone to download later. Recipients you specify are notified about the file waiting for them and they receive instructions on how to download it.

Files remain available for download for 48 hours, regardless of whether it has been picked up or not.

You have to sign up for this great free service.

The site's privacy policy is that it "will never share your e-mail address with anyone". I'm always somewhat wary of such undertakings, though, because even though it might be genuine, you never know what could happen in future when such a site is taken over by a less scrupulous person.

I usually provide a secondary e-mail address (some web mail account or even an alias) in such cases, one I only use for such and other kinds of registrations at sites I don't know or whenever I have any doubts. It's your best insurance against spam.

Also, if you register for something at some site and the spam at such a secondary address suddenly increases, you have a good idea why. (Unless, of course, you didn't read properly and merely accepted an option put to you on registration that you agree to receive mail from "selected third parties".)

It's also wise to never send personal and confidential stuff to any such site even despite undertakings however well-intentioned.

You can save up to 50 MB of files at Dropload. Be sure to read the site's acceptable use policy and to adhere to it.

Ever heard of a site with the strange name of sixbillion.org? Neither have I, until recently. The six billion refers to the number of people on earth and the idea behind the site is that each of these people has a story to tell.

The site is described as an "online magazine of narrative journalism". Stories behind the stories are told and depicted by illustration, text, photography, film and video, interactivity and sound.

I didn't expect much when I first visited, but was more than pleasantly surprised by the content, as well as to the calibre of the team of journalists/writers.

To give you an idea of what you'll find at the site: In the film and video section there's the following story: "More than two decades after Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime fell from power, many of his surviving agents live as everyday citizens in Cambodia.

"Rithy Panh confronts a rice farmer who led executions in the regime's most infamous torture prison."

The site has contributors like Scott Carrier, who, apart from radio work, has published in Harper's, Esquire, Rolling Stone and GQ.

Definitely a site not to be missed.

Got something you want to convert? OnlineConversion.com will convert just about anything you can throw at it. It boasts support for over 5 000 units and 50 000 conversions.

Just to give you some idea, you can convert length and distance, temperature, speed, volume, weight, computer sizes and speeds, date and time, cooking volumes, angles, area, power, energy, density, force, pressure, astronomical, number, finance, clothing sizes, light, torque, viscosity, frequency, flow rate, acceleration and more.

But it was the Fun Stuff calculators that I enjoyed most. I worked out how much I would weigh on other planets (some can really boost your confidence and self image if you have a weight problem), in how many days (yep, days!) I will retire, my age down to the last second (and counting). And this weekend I'll calculate my blood-alcohol content (or maybe not ...)

Hot software

You don't have to stick to Microsoft's standard fare when it comes to things like browsers and mail applications. There are some excellent free alternatives out there, so why not give it a try?

For instance, have you ever tried Mozilla's browsers and/or mail software? Mozilla is constantly developing a next-generation browsers and it's getting better and better. You'll find the Mozilla browser and e-mail suite, as well as its lean and mean browser, Firefox, on the homepage.

Thunderbird is Mozilla's acclaimed e-mail client packed with features.

It has powerful features to deal with spam, state-of-the-art security features, is extremely customisable (there's a large collection of downloadable themes to personalise the program), views you can customise to enable you to quickly and efficiently sort and organise your mail, and you add additional features as you need them through extensions. Extensions are described as "a powerful tool to help you build a mail client that meets your specific needs".

Thunderbird gives you IMAP/POP support, support for HTML mail, labels, quick search, smart address book, return receipts, advanced message filtering, LDAP address completion, import tools, powerful search, and the ability to manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts.

It runs under Windows 98 or better, Mac, Linux and other operating systems.

Here's software to put a new face on your humble PC clock: The Digit Skinnable Clock for Windows XP. It enables you use any font for the display, set the transparency level for the clock, choose any background (bitmap or jpeg) you want and use freeform shapes. It's got many more features, including a quick way to launch your screen saver or put your monitor into standby mode.

The program is free, 677 KB (download size) and, as already indicated, only for Windows XP.

Bug and virus watch

Microsoft has just released its Windows Security Bulletin Summary for April. I won't repeat all the info here - go check it out for yourself over here.

There's information about and patches for newly discovered security holes affecting all versions of Windows, Microsoft NetMeeting, and a cumulative security update for Outlook Express.

Tip of the Week

If you find Windows XP's "helpful" pop-up reminders about newly installed software irritating, here's how to get rid of it: Click Start, and right-click on the top blue bar of the Start Menu (where your user name and picture is) and select Properties.

Choose the Start Menu tab and click on Customise. Click the Advanced tab and untick the box next to "Highlight newly installed programs" under the Start menu settings. Click OK, and click Apply and OK on the next screen and you're done.

Have a good time ;)

Louis

- News24