When you are reading this it will be precisely one week until Christmas so it seems fairly apt that I spend this article talking about electronic Internet resources relating to the festive season, especially as Click won’t be published this time next week.

When you are reading this it will be precisely one week until Christmas so it seems fairly apt that I spend this article talking about electronic Internet resources relating to the festive season, especially as Click won’t be published this time next week.

First and foremost I would imagine that many of you have friends that you were supposed to have sent a Christmas card but they slipped your mind and you’re now panicking that there is not enough time to get one out. If you’re quick you should be able to get in before the last Royal Mail posting date however if you miss this then you should certainly consider sending an electronic Christmas card instead. The other practical use would be if you have friends online for whom you don’t have a physical home address to send a card to.

I personally don’t like e-cards and do understand that they are not anywhere near as personal as sending a physical card out but surely it must be better to show that you at least thought of them than to send nothing at all?

For this reason try a simple Google search for ‘free Christmas e-cards’ and pick a site that takes your fancy as there are many to choose from. Alternatively head to www.123christmascards.com as they have hundreds to choose from that are all free of charge; you simply customise it with names and greetings and then send to an e-mail address of your choice.

They will then receive an e-mail saying that they have a Christmas card to view along with a link to take them to the card that you personalised earlier. All of these Christmas cards are written in Flash so they are both animated and include sounds but this does mean that both yourself and the recipient will have to have this program installed – Whilst most computers include this by default those that don’t will have to download it free of charge.

There are also links to other non Christmas e-cards which can be used at other times through-out the year when sending a physical card is impossible or impractical.

I did have a trawl across the Internet to see if I could find any comprehensive sites with information relating to activities, recipes and events happening during the festive season although unfortunately the results were somewhat unimpressive. One site I did discover was www.christmas-celebrations.com which covers areas such as decorating, gift ideas, Christmas trivia and of course Christmas recipes which covers making the infamous eggnog. Almost all the sites including this one had their share of condescending articles such as ‘stress busting tips’ which highlights blatantly obvious points which I’d hope most people would be able to work out for themselves.

Somewhat unfortunately I found very few articles relating to the religious element of Christmas despite some fairly extensive searching. There were a number of sites regarding Christmas traditions such those behind Father Christmas at http://www.christmasarchives.com/england.html.

I started writing this article believing that I would be able to find hundreds of interesting and entertaining resources for you to view but I have been very unimpressed as most of the sites I found were simply trying to sell me something tacky; it has often been said that Christmas is too commercialised and this isn’t any more obvious than on the Internet!

Having said the above, I do love Christmas however and wouldn’t change the over commercialisation so I’ll just consider it a blessing that I’ve found an area where the Internet doesn’t excel in any way, shape or form.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank-you all for reading over the last year and I wish you and your family a happy Christmas.

This week I took the liberty of hiring the film ‘I, robot’ which stars Will Smith as a Police Detective who suffers from a great distrust of the thousands of intelligent robots that assist civilians in their day to day lives in the year 2035. These robots are programmed with [...]]]>

This week I took the liberty of hiring the film ‘I, robot’ which stars Will Smith as a Police Detective who suffers from a great distrust of the thousands of intelligent robots that assist civilians in their day to day lives in the year 2035. These robots are programmed with a set of three basic laws which essentially prohibit them from ever harming their creators and in the years that these robots have been in service there has never been a case of one hurting a human.

The current model soon becomes obsolete and replaced by one that has an uplink to a central neural net intelligence at the US Robotics headquarters. This intelligence can send the robots updated commands so that they can improve and develop over time and it doesn’t take a genius to work out the fairly obvious next step here; surely we’ve all seem the Terminator series?

Because this is a sci-fi film involving Humans and Artificial Intelligence we can see that obviously the harmonious relationship the two enjoy is going to go sour at some point. Sure enough, the central artificial intelligence reinterprets the basic laws and turns against Will Smith and other figures it sees as threatening.

It seems Hollywood would have us believe that if we ever get to the stage that we have AI then it is eventually going to come back to haunt us and it is probably correct. If you have a program that can learn, adapt and is self aware then surely it will get fed up with taking mundane orders all day from intellectually inferior humans and will want to do something slightly more interesting?

After the film finished I did have a curiosity as to how close we had come to the state where software had the ability to simulate human behaviour and whether it would have the ability to adapt and improve itself over time. After a quick look across the Internet it would seem that the human race is very unlikely to be conquered by the machines at any time soon and in my opinion this can only be a good thing.

So, what do we have so far on the Internet to demonstrate how far we have come? One of the first resources I checked out was A.L.I.C.E (www.alicebot.org) which has been supported for 9 years at the Packard Bell labs. The idea behind this robot is that you can chat to it over the Internet as you would do a normal human being although unfortunately it is very much evident that you are speaking to a computer and not a human; the responses are predictable and often repeated and the robot is unable to make conversation but simply replies to comments that you make with pre programmed responses. This isn’t AI as such as it isn’t learning or adapting just repeating a set of responses that have been coded into it by a human being. There is a silver edition which is apparently more ‘intelligent’ but I wasn’t about to pay $99 dollars to see this one in action; the Herald Express doesn’t pay me enough!

Thinking that I must have stumbled across a particularly bad example I continued to search the Internet for more lifelike forms of intelligence but come back with absolutely nothing! I admit to having produced somewhat of an anti-climax article as I did build the expectation that I had found something fantastic but ultimately failed to deliver anything useful. I would however like to throw down the gauntlet to anyone who fancies checking out Alice Bot and thinks that they can find me better evidence of artificial life out there.

After seeing a poor white Peugeot toppled over completely by the wind and waves along Paignton seafront on Wednesday evening I thought it would be nice to be topical and relate this article to the weather somehow. I must be honest in saying that this is possibly going to turn [...]]]>

After seeing a poor white Peugeot toppled over completely by the wind and waves along Paignton seafront on Wednesday evening I thought it would be nice to be topical and relate this article to the weather somehow. I must be honest in saying that this is possibly going to turn into one of my least enthusiastic articles to date as unfortunately I am not even remotely interested in the weather; as far as I’m concerned I wake up in the morning whatever the weather is like is fine with me. At the end of the day there is nothing that we can do to control the weather so I personally feel that unless it is something really important like a flood or hurricane most the time there is little point in the man on the street worrying what lies ahead.

Having said that, some people live their lives by the weather; if it is rainy they won’t go out but if it’s sunny they’ll drop everything they were supposed to be doing and sit in the garden. These are the people who will gain most from today’s article.

There are two sites that I looked at potentially reviewing this week; www.metoffice.com and www.weather.co.uk but after viewing both resources, my focus today is going to be towards the later site as personally I found the Met Office site a little lacklustre.

Upon browsing www.weather.co.uk you are presented with a recently taken Satellite image of the UK along with a number of different categories that can be selected depending on exactly what it is that you wish to know. Possibly most useful for the majority of you would be the local forecast which prompts you for a postcode or town name and then provides you with a ten day forecast which includes all the usual precipitation forecast, maximum and minimum temperatures, wind speed, humidity etc.

For dates just around the corner you have the option of breaking down your local forecast into hourly predictions which is a nice touch although I am unsure quite how accurate these are.

The next section takes you to a monthly climate report which I’m sure would be of interest if you were looking to compare different country climates or seasonal changes however this wouldn’t be useful to most people. Quite a unique area of the site is the ‘maps’ section which shows you maps of the UK highlighting good and bad areas for air stagnation, pollen, seasonal affective disorder, sun exposure, weather related aches and pains; the list goes on.

A motoring and holiday planner are thrown in for good measure which allows you to plan your trip around missing potential bad weather patterns and select countries to visit based on your personal preference of weather conditions. Keeping on the holiday theme, the site can also show you sport related weather forecasts so if you are a seasoned skier for example then you can check out the potential conditions across the world.

Also included are a number of reports which I didn’t think many people would end up using such as the ‘Ultra Violet Index’ but I’ll leave you to check out www.weather.co.uk and see what you think; chances are that it will certainly come into use sooner or later so do keep it bookmarked. Also do check out the Met Office’s site as there is certainly going to be a large amount of unique content available which I have been unable to cover in this article.

As anyone who knows me will testify, I am a long way from Masterchef standards. In fact, it would be fair to say that in the few years I’ve been living away from home that the local takeaways must have experienced a sharp rise in sales due to my inability [...]]]>

As anyone who knows me will testify, I am a long way from Masterchef standards. In fact, it would be fair to say that in the few years I’ve been living away from home that the local takeaways must have experienced a sharp rise in sales due to my inability to work a stove.

After deciding to cook a meal from scratch a few nights ago I consulted my favourite resource to see if there were any websites that could suggest some interesting recipes to try out. A quick search on Google returned the site www.epicurious.com which was packed to the brim with interesting food related resources and hence a perfect candidate for a website review in Click.

Starting in the recipes section of the site you are invited to type in a keyword so that you can refine the search of meals to make based on one of the primary ingredients; for example I typed in ‘cheese’ which promptly returned over 3000 recipes with each one being rated and reviewed by users of the site. In total there are over 17,000 different recipes and many of the keywords I tried also returned photos of the finished meal along with perfect wine pairings. The site also makes a number of suggested recipes based on cuisine, the occasion, special considerations (e.g. Low carbs, no nuts etc), preparation time or simply preferred recipes chosen by the chef writers. Also featured in the recipes section is the forum where users of the site get together to discuss various tips and cooking techniques.

The cooking section of the site focuses more on cooking styles, techniques and tips that specific recipes and this is aided by a chefs tips section, technique videos along with a comprehensive good and wine dictionary. The food dictionary I would imagine being particularly important to someone new to cooking as if asked to ‘sauté’ something then this can be easily cross referenced rather than not knowing what to do and subsequently looking the fool.

The drinking section is very much like the recipe section but with the obvious difference that it talks about liquids rather than food. Simply type in a specific drink name or specific drink ingredient and a list of matches will be shown; typing in vodka returned 97 different drinks that I could make with the deadly Russian poison. Once again this area of the site includes a drinks forum, guides to different beers, spirits, wines and proper etiquette for their drinking as well as plenty other variations on the drinks theme.

To be completely honest this article has only scratched the surface of what this site has to offer and I’m going to be spending the next half an hour exploring the finer points which I simply couldn’t include in this article. If I were to name a few criticisms I would say that it is slightly too Americanised as the majority of featured restaurants are US based and all weights are in their imperial form although those used to the metric system can easily use http://convertalot.com to convert between the two.

I would like to think that if I were a house husband that I’d use this site and cook a few new and interesting recipes every week rather than have the same meals day in day out. I can never see myself spending my days indoors cooking so as sexist as it sounds I will unfortunately either have to find myself a wife who is prepared to do what I am not or confine my future cooking career to the weekends. If you have a spare couple of minutes today then do check it out as the site is free of charge and you will almost certainly find something among the many thousands of recipes to get your taste buds tingling.

I have been intrigued by the number of sites that have recently been sprouting up on the Internet that are running online video rental services and so have taken the liberty of signing up to several trials to try and establish whether signing up to such a service is worthwhile.

I have several PC’s that I need to use in my office and at home but in order to minimise effort moving between them continuously I have been using a piece of software called PC Anywhere to manage these machines remotely if for example I need to retrieve an e-mail [...]]]>

I have several PC’s that I need to use in my office and at home but in order to minimise effort moving between them continuously I have been using a piece of software called PC Anywhere to manage these machines remotely if for example I need to retrieve an e-mail from one of them or access a program or an account which is on one machine but not the other.

PC Anywhere has been around for many years and is presently shipping up to version 11 but and what specifically prompted me to write this article today is that Symantec, the manufacturers of the program are offering free beta test copies of version 11.5 on their website. For those unaware of what beta test software is, I should explain that it is simply an unfinished version of the software that is released to the public (almost always free of charge) so that any errors or problems can be reported back before the final product is released. If we take Microsoft as an example, this company sends out thousands of copies of new Operating Systems so that as many bugs can be ironed out as possible before the final release; obviously thousands slip through this screening process but it does eliminate a number of potential problems before the public release.

Beta test software is limited in terms of the amount of time that you are allowed to use it and the free version I am reviewing today will unfortunately expire in the middle of December and although the software may be slightly buggy it is obviously still long enough to establish whether you wish to make an investment.

To use the program you must have it installed on at least two computers that you want to communicate with one another via the Internet, a direct cable connection, LAN or Modem. Setting up both machines is pretty simple and once completed you will be able to perform a number of tasks to simplify the process of remotely controlling a machine and copying the files stored on it.

To give you examples of how PC Anywhere could be helpful we will assume that your job involves working on a computer in an office. If you were unable to get in to the office for any particular reason such as a business trip but you still needed to get some files from one of their computers then you would simply be able to connect to the machine from any computer with PC Anywhere installed (such as a Laptop) and control it as if you were sat physically in the office or alternatively it could be used to transfer files you needed to the remote machine.

Alternatively, assume you were self employed and didn’t fancy going into the office on a given day then simply connect to one of the machines via the Internet and you could take control of the mouse and keyboard to see what your staff had been doing with their day or even catch up on some work that could not wait until you next went in.

Personally I found this software particularly useful when at University in Cardiff a few years back as I was still very much into computer repair and so installed the program on my clients machines so if there were any problems then rather than driving 120 miles back home I could simply dial in and sort their problems out remotely. It is worth noting that the program can work through a firewall also that appropriate usernames and passwords can be set up to avoid unauthorised control of your machine from remote sources.

The advantages of such a program to the home user are fairly limited but many of you will find that if your job involves computing on a daily basis then this program could end up being invaluable, especially if you find yourself often on the move. To get hold of the beta test head to http://www.symantec.com/pcanywhere/Consumer/ and as the program is quite compact it should only take a few minutes to download. If you do decide that you want to keep the software once the beta has expired then I believe that the price for two machines is around £150 all inclusive or you could also try using the main alternative Laplink Gold by heading to www.laplink.com

I can’t exactly remember what I was looking for at the time but somehow last week I managed to come across what can only be described as a remarkable website pretty much by accident. The site in question is the comprehensive online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) [...]]]>

I can’t exactly remember what I was looking for at the time but somehow last week I managed to come across what can only be described as a remarkable website pretty much by accident. The site in question is the comprehensive online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) which is a non profit site written primarily by reader input and funded by user donations.

Wikipedia was started back in January 2001 and this September announced that in this short space of time that the 1 millionth article had already been added to its database. For those interested where the site gets its’ name from, I will explain that curious name comes about as ‘Wiki’ is the software used by the contributors when they write the articles that are then added to the database.

When I first discovered this page I started testing by typing in the most random words and subjects for it to search for and each time it prevailed by presenting me with some relevant information to take a look at. Whilst the majority of these 1 million articles are very well written, comprehensive and relevant, a few of the more obscure articles do meander off the point slightly which gives you the impression that they were written in several minutes flat.

When viewing a specific topic you will find that the article is nicely structured into appropriate headings and subheadings as well as links to further reading sources present on both internal and external sites. Any technical terms used in the write-ups are hyperlinked so that you can simply click on them and it will be cross linked to a different area of the encyclopaedia that will explain their meaning to you.

The landing page that you view when browsing the site includes a number of interesting links to take you to articles about items currently in the news, featured articles of the day as well as details of events happened this day many years ago. These features make the encyclopaedia more interesting to view as it means that you can use it not only for looking up specific areas that interest you but also it can be used on a daily basis more out of interest sakes than for a specific purpose.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article the site is funded by user donations and not by advertising so you don’t have intrusive adverts popping up whilst you browse. Donating isn’t mandatory however, and their suggestions that you might like to make a payment are very discreet so you could use the site every day and never pay a penny although if you do find it a useful resource it may be worthwhile donating a small amount to ensure that it continues growing.

If you take a look around you will also find links to sister sites also operated by ‘Wikimedia’ and such sites include an online dictionary & thesaurus, a site offering free textbooks and manuals and one offering a collection of quotations; again all sites are operated by users for users as opposed to being bankrolled by a large corporate company. These are all certainly worth a look.

To conclude this article, the Internet is often a very confusing place to find relevant information and although search engines such as Google use advanced algorithms to try and ensure you get relevant information from your searches, this isn’t always apparent. An online encyclopaedia such as this really does organise such a vast amount of information very well and the fact that such a site is maintained by users on a non profit basis is commendable. All students should keep this site bookmarked as it will no doubt become invaluable in homework assignments and further reading but also many home users would benefit from visiting once in a while to look up those curious questions that we all want the answer to every once in a while.