Click to visit: W W W . F R E E B M D . O R G . U K

—

There are plenty of genealogy themed websites out there but I want to focus on one of my favourites for those of us based or with relatives from the UK. FreeBMD is called that because it freely supplies visitors with information of their ancestors birth, marriages and death data. It has a few points that makes the site unique compared to others out there like it.

The majority of websites only have a selection of information they will allow to be seen before you’re asked to pay. To see the original scans usually has a fee and some years are off limits to guests. Not so with FreeBMD. All the records are available for free and date back to 1837 and up to 1983. The original scans can be downloaded and it’s easy to do a search for the family member you’re looking for.

You may wonder how this can be offered for free when others cannot do the same, but there’s a simple explanation for this which has a good and bad side. Each record is manually entered by volunteers from across the world using the scans of the pages the data was originally recorded on. The good thing about this is that no one is paid so it keeps costs low enough to not charge a fee like other places would. The downside is that it’s a slow process and there are still many entries waiting to be uploaded and, of course, human error can sometimes alter records that what they were intended to be.

Overall though it’s a wonderfully ambitious project that has helped me gather more information about some of my ancestors and encouraged me to volunteer my own time to help out. I highly recommend anyone researching their family tree take a look and anyone interested in helping contribute can look on the website for more details.

Click to visit: W W W . W H A T S O N . C O M

—

I love to listen to music and I feel that there is no better way to relax than to tune into my favourite radio station but that can be easier said than done sometimes. The biggest obstacle is getting a signal and even if you can get one occasionally the quality is poor or tends to cut out. Another problem is that local stations are only for those in the area which stands to reason but can be frustrating if for example you’re visiting another part of the country and miss what you’d usually listen to. Thankfully, whatson.com solves a few of these issues.

Whatson.com is a website with several local and regional stations that you can listen to online. The benefit to this is the superb quality, no need to live in the stations region to listen in and no tuning or aerial moving required! There are a few downsides, of course, such as; the bandwidth used, needing to use a computer and downloading plugins to listen if you don’t already have them… however, I really think these are small issues easily overcome.

The stations are easily arranged into three sections selected by a drop down menu. The first is popular stations such as Kiss, Heat and Magic. The second has the stations arranged by genre to easily find the type of song you want to listen to. The third divides by local stations categorized by their city. Alternatively, there is also the Zoo Radio Guide which lists all stations, highlights, top shows and what’s playing live. Each station page usually lists links to their official website, a competition they’re running or has archives of interviews / clips you can listen to at your leisure.

Whatson.com does have a few flaws I feel worth mentioning. Occasionally the radio will need buffering or will stop playing. Usually you can just refresh the page to get it back, but rarely non of the radios appear to start streaming. Over the many months I’ve used the site though, this is a rare occurrence. The majority of the time whatson.com works perfectly and I highly recommend it to those who love their radio but also want to keep up with the ever-changing technology.

I’m getting my computer upgraded very soon so I might not be able to post a new website for a few days.

Best case scenario, I’ll be back before you know it with a fantastic rig in tow. Neutral case, the upgrade will fail and I’ll go back to what I’m using right now. Worse case… I’ll be gone a little longer than I’d hope to be due to complications (hence my update here so it’s clear why updates may be sparse).

Wish me luck that all goes well!

Click to visit: W W W . B R O W S E R S H O T S . O R G

—

As someone that runs a few websites it’s important to me that my sites are accessible for people no matter how their computer is set up. It can be awkward testing how a website will display due to different browsers and their versions, operating systems and resolutions and catering for each option can be difficult to juggle as it takes away from the content.

Today I happened to find an excellent open-source website that will go a long way in helping me figure out what appears as it should for everyone, or falls short of my expectations. The website is called Browsershots and it lets you configure a list of displays (including those factors I’ve already mentioned) and processes them using computers run by volunteers. Several snapshots are taken of the required site with the specifications you gave and then uploaded to Browsershots so you can view them, and even download them to do further comparisons.

My testing on the site is fairly preliminary however it does look like a worthwhile tool, especially if you’re like me and don’t have access to a Mac or perhaps only have one version of a browser installed. I should warn that it does take quite a while for the entire process to complete, and some show that the browser never made it to the website (presumably the site it was loading took too long so it sends you a blank screen) but I feel these are minor inconveniences.

In closing I think it’s a great site for webmasters but don’t expect instant results. I’d also recommend checking one component at a time as, in my experience, the more I compared the longer I was waiting in the queue. I definitely think it’s one to watch for the future though!

[Edit - 6:31pm, 16th May 2008]
I should add that I don’t know either way whether adding more or less comparisons will change the length of time you’re in a queue. It might just depend on what else is on the queue, it could have been my web host’s server or any number of factors.

Click to visit: W W W . T V G E N I U S . C O . U K

—

Not to be confused with www.tvgenius.net, the company that the develop the technology so it can be used on their client’s websites.

Sorry for all the international visitors, but this is another UK friendly site that wouldn’t be as useful to those living abroad.

TV Genius is a fantastic site that does what it promises, and does it well. It’s a free online TV guide, but it’s better than any other I’ve tried for a few reasons. The guide lets you select your channels based on your criteria of your region and TV package and then, any that fit, can be manually added or removed. The site lets you look at your full list of stations or by a category such as films or sport.

Automatically your page will show today’s schedule within a few hours of what time it is when viewing the site. Thankfully there is a drop down list for the following ten days, and arrows opposite that to select previous and following hours so you can easily plan ahead. If that wasn’t enough there is also a search so you can find out when your favourite programme is on.

All programmes can be hovered over with your mouse for a brief description, and clickable for more in-depth information including how many shows will be on if it’s part of a series and how many times it will be repeated. Plenty of shows result in clips you can watch too.

Finally, a feature from TV Genius I highly recommend is their reminder service. There is a text option but it does cost money (although half hour before a show starts is a very handy reminder to have) and I haven’t used it. I have, however, used their free email reminders. Each morning I get an email listing all the programmes, films, actors, or keywords I wished to be reminded about that will be on that day. You can click on what you’re interested in and sign up for reminders individually through there or sign up for a free account so you can easily keep track on the website itself.

Since using TV Genius I actually remember when my favourite tv shows are on and rarely miss something new that has an actor or band I like in it. The searches and reminder services do sometimes give you more results than what you want, but the majority of the time it’s very accurate.

Who needs magazine tv guides when you can go online?