Portent

This is a bit of a curious site. Thousands of books and some magazines in text form. I haven’t checked out all the books but most that I have seen are out of copright. Eg works by Dickens. I’d hazard a guess that many originated in Project Gutenberg.

A quick check on Google returns nearly 50,000 pages but many books are split into 4 or more parts.

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Well I’ve been attacked a few times but having joined a big clan TIE-II – currently 8th in the ratings) helps. If I notice an attack on me, I can request help and repulse the attacks (hopefully!)

There’s a lot of resource management though not quite as much as Inselkampf. I’ve now got 4 villages. The first took 5-6 weeks to get it to the point where I could establish a second one. Now it’s about 8-10 days to create a new village (it’s constrained by culture) and I’m near to maxing out at least one village. You can’t build all building types so I’ve got one big military city and the rest are resource feeders.

The capital village can have resource (Wood, Clay, Iron and Wheat) producers raised to level 20 (That will take a long time!) whereas all other villages are limited to 10.

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This is particularly impressive. Wikivid is a collection of free videos that show or teach you how to use Software. The range is very impressive and the links go all over the web. The number of viodeos varies, so something like Flash has a lot of instructional videos from the likes of lynda.com, vtc.com , teach-ict.com. creativecow.net and lot’s more. The open source package nvu for creating websites has 11.

It’s still in “alpha” stage, content is limited to software tutorials only, but their vision is to add video uploads and more. As it’s a wiki, you can add your own video links, edit existing pages, etc!

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This is an excellent (free with optional subscription) file synchronisation service. After signing up, you download a setup exe (one for each of Windows, Linux and Mac) and create a folder or use the default one. The free subscription gives you 2GB of storage.

You can then allow others to access your shared folder by inviting them (by email). I installed the free Dropbox App on my Mac, PC and iPhone and took a photo of the Mac screen from the iPhone (which to be fair was on Wifi) and the photo appeared within a couple of seconds in the shared folder accessible from the Mac and PC. It’s very slick and worked flawlessly. I set up a shared folder with an artist friend and moving the graphics between us was very fast. Moving files between computers has never been easier. Recommended.

Link (Link contains Referrer code – if you sign up with it, we both get a little extra storage free).

If you’ve ever wondered how much people get paid at small, medium or large companies then this is the site for you and it’s completely free. You can view companies (over 11,000) generally or enter your own and see a lot more.

What is quite surprising for example that at JP Morgan Chase a personal banker is paid between $30K and $48K with an average of $35K. That’s from 41 submissions. Not everyone who works in a bank gets paid well! It’s an interesting site but as it depends upon people submitting details, so you will get back more if you submit yours. Just be careful not to submit too much or you might accidentally provide enough for your employer to identify you!

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This is my mini city- not much to look at, but the more visitors it gets the higher the population becomes and then I can add industry, set up proper transport infrastructure, security, business and the environment. I’m not sure if they have to be unique visitors but would guess so or else repeat visits would clock up the numbers.

For once the link goes to my city called Portent999 rather than the site itself but you can set up your own free city and invite visitors. It’s a neat idea so long as people visit so come on everybody- turn my humble patch into a sprawling (but green!) metropolis…

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This is a bit of a strange idea- you enter age and gender and similar for whom you’d like to talk to and it connects you.

Its nicely implemented but on the odd occasions I’ve tried it, I’ve found no one as the message above shows. It reminds me of the old joke “You’ve got two chances- fat chance and no chance!”. Hopefully more publicity will encourage people to try it.

There’s a strange appeal to it- sort of like being in a deserted building and hearing a phone ringing in an old disused room. Who is phoning and why?

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This is probably one of the oldest as it originated back in my 2nd year at school in 1971. Michael Hart was given a lot of free (and very expensive back then) computer time and decided to try and store everything that could be stored electronically (and out of copyright).

So the concept pre-dates the web by 20 years and was there almost from the inception of the internet. Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books. Of course the book have to be proof read so that is why there are currently 20,000 titles available for download and 100,000 titles amongst all the partners of Project Gutenberg. If this is your kind of thing they are always looking for volunteers.

The website is of course a more recent addition to the project and is a Wiki.

Interesting the five most popular authors over the last 30 days.

1. Twain, Mark (56676)
2. Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir (25434)
3. Ralph, Lester (24461)
4. Shakespeare, William (24378)
5. Dickens, Charles (23915)

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This is an interesting idea. Authors (in the UK, USA, Australian and Canada) who are doing a book tour to promote their books can connect with audiences via this free site. Likewise the audiences can find out- it’s not the easiest thing to find out- where do you look for information about forth coming book tours?

The site itself is well done, though restricting search to zip codes is perhaps a little limiting (hey guys- we use Postcodes!), so perhaps the majority of stuff there is US based but with provision for the other countries. But a good idea nonetheless. You can also read about some of the worst tours from the authors themselves!

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I started off doing table wargames with my father in the early 1970s. This was in Belfast, so an interesting time but I made many friends and became the N. Ireland wargames champion in 1979 (Really!). Back then there were far fewer sets of rules, but now with the internet you can find many.

This website provides hundreds across every genre there is, including fantasy. Some are links but many are hosted on the site itself. I could waste serious numbers of hours here!

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Hard to believe but this came out in 1995, 12 whole years ago. If you’ve been stuck in a cellar since then or are not into computer games then you should know that this was the first (more or less- there was Dune 2 before it) of a whole new genre. Real time Strategy. Many other games have followed and also other EA Command & Conquer games but this was the first one.

Building bases, tanks, ships, infantry and aircraft you have to defeat the enemy- whether you are playing the goodies (GDI) or the Baddies (NOD).

It’s available as a free download that works under Windows XP.

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I haven’t played this yet, so this is more of a preview. Duels is a free game where you battle other players one by one. You advance your duelist by battling others in the arena, collect and trade thousands of items and customise your avatar’s appearance and attributes all for free.

Interestingly, you don’t fight the battles, just set things up for it. So your duellist can fight even when you’re not logged in. If you win, you get a pack which could be a weapon, two scrolls or a bit of in game currency.

It looks interesting and possibly as bad a timewaster as Inselkampf became!
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For whatever reason, people go missing each year, around the world, in the UK. They might drop out, or have amnesia, opr more likely be involved in an accident or even be abducted.

Whatever the reason, this site, which was launched in 1998 offers a FREE instant on-line message-posting service designed to help enable you to locate missing persons, lost friends, relatives, workmates, forces pals, etc, that are thought to be anywhere in the UK.

For former workmates, you might have more luck with friends reunited but for genuine missing people, this is as good a way as you can get, short of advertising on TV, or on posters, milk cartons etc.

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I’d heard of bookcrossing before but on Sunday actually found the first book I’d ever seen in a lift in the Brittania Hotel in Nottingham, left by a Dutch visitor. If you’re interested, it was by Daphne Du Maurier (no not Rebecca!) and I’ll update the Bookcrossing website later today. Not all books get journalled but I like the idea and with over 3.5 million books released by half a million readers that means sodo a lot of people.

Bookcrossing is a clever form of viral marketing. Well it’s actually about giving books away. You put a sticker on to identify the book, then leave it somewhere it can be found. Each book has an ID number (a BCID), and this is put on the front of the book on a sticker.

The idea is that you read a book then “send it on its way” by leaving it somewhere where someone can find it. As they say I’”m looking at your site here, and I can’t believe what I’m reading. Do you actually want me to give away my books? – Registering your books with BookCrossing.com, then giving them to a friend, a charity, or otherwise releasing them “into the wild” and following their progress and travels, is infinitely more fulfilling than the small satisfaction you’ll get by looking at your books in your bookcase every day.”

It’s a form of sending a message in a bottle. “Make the world one big library!”. A very laudable aim. Of course once electronic book readers (that you can safely read in the bath) emerge then maybe it will be no longer useful. But until then, maybe 20 years in the future…

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I used to have to some of the Robert Harbin books on Origami and was quite a paper folder aged 12. I’ve got a black belt in Origami- made it myself! (Boom boom!).

But these days, those waterbombs and flapping birds would not cut the mustard. Instead of the typical 20 or so steps needed to produce the figures, very complex patterns, up to 100 steps are needed and the results speak for themselves. The origianl rules apply- one sheet of paper, no tears or cuts. The dragon picture above illutrates this. Clicking the picture takes you to an article on Discover.com

These days, as with much else, software is used to design the shapes. Treemaker is an open source application written by Robert Lang and this is what makes these amazing shapes possible. It takes design complexity way what past man alone can produce.

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