Meet the fencemaster

2001-07-20 12:31

Louis Nel

Once upon a time, there was a man who didn't take kindly to fence prohibitions. He took offence, in a manner of speaking. Our knight on a horse of steel went on a crusade, armed with teapots, stuffed tigers, cutlery, pots, pans, refrigerator doors and more.

Now you can witness the fencemaster's epic and tireless battle online.

Read all about it!

Cool sites

"We'll help you become one smart puppy!"

That's the promise made by a site called Knowledge Hound - and it's no idle promise, either. If you ever wanted to learn to do something - one is tempted to say *anything* - visit this site first.

There's a good chance you'll find a tutorial here - for free. It's not known as the Web's biggest directory of free do-it-yourself tips and tutorials for nothing. There's also a free monthly newsletter you can subscribe to.

There was a transport strike in England and this guy went to work on his bicycle. As he was about to attach his bicycle to a fence near his workplace, he saw a notice that any bicycles leaning against or attached to the fence would be removed.

Now, most ordinary folk would be mildly upset at worst. But then, The fencemaster ain't no ordinary guy. Oh no, to him it was a declaration of war, and he's been waging the battle tirelessly since.

Not only did he start attaching all kinds of other objects, like a stuffed tiger, a teapot, a refrigerator door and a frying pan, to the fence on a regular basis, he also created a website to show the world. He registered his own domain name - aptly named: whatshouldiputonthefence.com. Go check it out.

So you missed the 4th of July celebrations in America. And the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes) is still way off. But that doesn't mean you have to forgo the fun of fireworks altogether.

Shoot your own virtual fireworks online over a city of your choice. A word of warning: patience is required - the software download that's needed can take a *long* time. There's also a fireworks screen saver you can download.

Hot software

If you're anything like me, you were born with typing fingers, not writing fingers. Which is (one of the reasons) why I hate filling out forms. To make life a little easier for the likes of us, there's a neat freeware programme called FormFill (1.3 MB).

Use a copy of the form and FormFill will print a grid for you to supply it with line and column data for each field. Once it's got that, you're ready to fill out the form using your typing skills.

I haven't tried this one, but it sounds good: "E-Clips has released the amazing new product 'Desktop Wizard 2000'. Desktop Wizard unlocks the power and fun of the Microsoft Agent. This technology brings to your desktop or website, interactive characters that you can talk to and they can talk back.

With Desktop Wizard, you can browse the Web using voice commands. You can also listen to your email, schedule appointments and reminders (using the features of Microsoft Outlook), you can also control various functions of your PC by voice alone." You can download it here (3.9 MB).

Here are the minimum requirements to run the programme: Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0; Internet Explorer 3.02 or later; Pentium 100 Mhz PC or better; 16 MB of RAM; 1 MB free disk space for the core components and an additional 2 - 4 MB for each character you install (check the file size of your desired character); an additional 32K for each language component (dll); Microsoft Agent Core Components including the necessary files for speech recognition (if required); a suitable microphone or other input device if you intend to use speech recognition.

Q: What do you call a firewall for cookies?
A: a CookieWall! A neat, small and free cookie monitor that lets you decide which cookies to allow and which not.

While it's running it actively watches which cookies are created and can be configured to automatically delete them, notify you when they're created, or just add them to a queue for you to examine at a later date. A mere 228 KB.

Latest updates

Oops! Sorry, but I couldn't access my info on the latest updates in time for this column (it's a long story ...) But hang in there - I'll get you up to speed next week.

Tip of the Week

What do you do when you're out of the office for an extended period (like on holiday) and have no access to your mail? Do you inform everyone on your contact list? And what about that urgent e-mail from someone not in your address book?

Thankfully, there's a better way. In Outlook Express you can create an Autoresponder like this: Write an auto-reply message and save it. Go to Tools, Message Rules, Mail, and click on New to create a new message rule.

In the first field, select "For all messages". In the second field, choose "Reply with message." Name the rule and you're done. You'll have to keep Outlook Express running, though.

Enjoy ;-) Louis

For more great sites to surf, read my weekly Internet column in Rapport's business section every Sunday.

Louis is the author of Pretgids tot Rekenaars en die Internet - Afrikaanse vertalings en verklarings. It can be ordered directly from the publisher for R49,95 (P&P included) by E-mail ([e-mail]) or phone [phone]).

- News24