Newsletter No. 85
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Free Pint
"Helping 36,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.com/
ISSN 1460-7239 12th April 2001 No.85
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Diana Nutting
FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Getting Connected in a Rural Area"
By Lindsey Annison
BOOKSHELF
"Poor Richard's Building Online Communities"
Reviewed by Caryn Wesner-Early
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Streaming Media and Broadband Sites"
By Duncan Parry
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/120401.htm>
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is a community of business professionals who use the Web for
their research. Members receive this free newsletter every two weeks
packed with tips on finding quality and reliable business information
on the Internet. Signing up at <http://www.freepint.com/> provides
free access to the substantial archive of articles, book reviews,
industry news and events, with answers to your research questions and
networking at the "Free Pint Bar" and "Student Bar". This newsletter
is best read when printed out and viewed in a Courier font.
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EDITORIAL
Free Pint has always been very British. In the early days (three and a
half years ago) most of our articles were UK focused, and indeed most
of our subscribers were based in the UK. Even the name was designed to
appeal primarily to a UK audience.
However, from about the 10th issue onwards (noting that we're now up
to number 85) we've attracted a much more global audience, with less
than a third of our audience now being in the UK. For instance, we
have a strong presence in North America and also in Australia and New
Zealand (as well as 117 other countries!).
Therefore, to acknowledge this internationalisation of Free Pint,
we're officially moving from the domain <freepint.co.uk> to
<freepint.com>. In fact, this will make no change to the way you use
the site, and all addresses will still work, but we feel that it's
time to bite the bullet and make the move. The Free Pint Newsletter
will still carry the same range of quality original content, and the
site will function in exactly the same way. It's just that the Web
address will be quicker to say (4 syllables instead of 7) and shorter
to write. So there you go.
Along with the domain name change, we're continually enhancing the Web
site and through popular demand have just added American Express to
the cards accepted in our UK company research gateway at
<http://www.freepint.com/icc/>. We're also working hard on the
development of a number of new services and databases which I'm really
looking forward to telling you about shortly.
In today's issue of the newsletter we look at two very topical issues.
The first about getting a reliable connection to the Internet in rural
areas (something of a necessity with the current countryside crisis)
and the second takes a look at Broadband Web resources. This is
particularly timely for the Free Pint team since we've just upgraded
to a much faster broadband Internet connection.
We hope you enjoy today's Free Pint, and I'm sure you'll pick up some
great new sites for your collection. Do join us at the Bar if you have
a question or can help an enquirer, and I'm really grateful to
everyone who's been spreading the word about Free Pint far and wide.
Cheers
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc
Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint
e: <william@freepint.com>
t: +44 (0)1784 455435
f: +44 (0)1784 455436
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Diana Nutting
* This site is about the statutory right for businesses to claim
interest on late payment of commercial debts. It helped me to
concentrate the mind of one tardy client.
<http://www.dti.gov.uk/latepay>
* One of the few UK sites on freelance working from home, I have only
recently discovered Smart Eric. It covers getting started, finding
work, and generally not feeling isolated. <http://www.smarteric.com>
* I use this site to find market reports, published market research,
trade associations and other industry specific sources of
information. <http://www.irn-research.com/database.html>
* Strathclyde University's guide to information sources on the
Internet is invaluable to any business researcher. Whatever kind of
business and company information you need, start here.
<http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business>
* Another University site, this one from the University of Michigan,
it has links to statistics on subjects as diverse as abortion,
commodity futures, e-commerce and the Fortune 500.
<http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents-center/stats.html>
Diana Nutting runs her own marketing and market intelligence
consultancy, which concentrates on providing hands on marketing advice
and help to small but growing companies.
Tell us about your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm> or email <simon@freepint.com>.
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Taxonomies are chic
A new Factiva White Paper entitled "The Value of Indexing" explores
the reasons beyond the current popularity of taxonomies and indexing.
It also describes Factiva Intelligent Indexing(r), outlines some novel
customer applications and provides a comparison of search results from
two popular Web search engines and from two Factiva products. Read it
on http://www.factiva.com/infopro whitepapers and presentations.
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>>> WANT TO TALK DIRECTLY TO OUR MEMBERSHIP? <<<
Advertising in the Free Pint Newsletter is an extremely effective
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Why not advertise annually for one low monthly price, gaining a
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FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/120401.htm#bar>
Free Pint Bar - <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in
the address <http://www.freepint.com/bar/read.php?i=XXXX> or enter
the number in the "Jump To" box on the Bar homepage]
Communication is different now. On the Internet, you can reach people
you would not previously have been able to reach and in numbers that
were impossible in the past. It should allow a cancer research
project to tap into 25 million hours of processing time with people
from all over the world "donating" their computer's time (8717).
It allows important issues to be highlighted and possibly resolved,
such as Microsoft's attempt to claim ownership of any data that passes
through their online tools (8713). You might not even know who is
picking up your message, but you can get a range of solutions to a
problem, such as where to find low cost premises for teaching people
with learning difficulties (8587).
And the Internet can be great for business research, whether it's the
copper industry (8527), pharmaceutical resources (8609) or industries
by sector (8636). And other kinds of research, too. History (8463,
8577), UK ambulance chasing lawyers (8582), future trends (8530), Web
design (8738), non technical diagrams of products (8779), employment
law (8766) and student resources (8549).
Useful resources have been recommended covering private investigation
(8644), importing spirits (8539) and music in TV adverts (8673). And
a request for music about cats seems to have attracted a wealth of
replies (8739). Another area that has received great interest on the
Internet is language and translation. Latin keeps coming back to
haunt us (8715, 8550, 8752) and Tibetan has put in a recent appearance
(8633). Luckily, there are some excellent language resources
available and I reviewed one of them this week (8769).
Ecommerce has been giving many a headache but it is still in its
infancy. So it's good to hear that some people still want to study it
(8600). Anyone know good courses? The mobile branch of ecommerce is
even younger (8552), therefore, as pioneers, we should be cautious.
And questions are still being asked about what ecommerce can do for
their industry (8591).
Library and information professionals have been using the Internet for
a long time for getting advice and sharing knowledge (8574, 8595,
8487), current awareness resources (8592), finding product and
technical information (8508) and generally networking, looking for
jobs, etc. (8777).
There have been a lot of financial industry queries recently and we
are still looking for replies to most of them. Do you know about bond
issues in Central and Eastern Europe (8492), comparisons of US and UK
tax (8490), funding for development projects in Kerala, India (8661),
health insurance for people who have had breast cancer (8733),
insurance companies (8588) and exchanges of information between UK and
Australian tax offices (8735).
I have reviewed several search tools recently and they all show signs
that it is getting easier to find things on the Web (8538, 8573), but
there's lots of work still to be done (8725). And technical questions
have been raised about events calendar software (8452, 8580), decoding
PDF files (8472), knowledge mapping (8442), PDF algorithms (8572), UK
government documents (8754) and software for distributing newsletters
(8576).
We could do with some help with queries about software for tracking
enquiries made on a Web site (8515), statistics on the use of
undesirable content filtering software (8513), C++ programming (8505),
a product called IntegraTEST Series 20 (8541), online wealth
management systems (8589) and the average PC graphics card spec in the
UK (8478).
While we had plenty of answers to questions about women entrepreneurs
(8622, 8569), Red Sailors (8614) and an electronics company in Oxford,
UK (8681), we would still like to hear about sales of flatscreen TVs
(8775), lists of domain names registered by companies (8645), digital
archiving (8629), historical weather data (8768) and email updates of
world events (8764). And then there's the small problem of a
methodology called "Information Economics", which can be used for
prioritising IT projects (8759).
Free Pint Student Bar - <http://www.freepint.com/student>
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in
the address <http://www.freepint.com/student/read.php?i=XXXX>]
Students have been concerning themselves with funding and bursaries
(1281, 1286), work placement (1279), renting property in Edinburgh
(1260), the value of chartership (1322) and lists of individual
companies owned by multinationals and conglomerates (1323).
And they have been researching health information for older people
(1262), branding (1266), 1960s books, records and magazines (1273),
online communities (1275), increasing library opening hours (1287) and
C++ programming (1272). Oh, and genetic algorithms and simulated
annealing in mathematical optimization (1268). And that's about it.
Simon Collery, Content Developer <simon@freepint.com>
If you have a tricky research question or can help other Free Pinters
then do post a message at the Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar> or
the Student Bar <http://www.freepint.com/student>.
Visit daily for "Today's Tipple" - a different Web site reviewed every
working day at the Bar. Every Thursday there is the "Pub Crawl", a look
at full text articles from a range of information and Internet
publications. Access the archive of Tipples and Pub Crawls at
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/tipple.php3>.
To have the latest Free Pint Bar postings sent to you every other day,
send a blank email to <digest@freepint.com>. For the Student Bar
Digest send an email to <studentdigest@freepint.com>.
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/120401.htm#tips>
"Getting Connected in a Rural Area"
By Lindsey Annison
I couldn't possibly cover in one article all the potential pitfalls of
trying to get seriously connected in a rural area, but I'll try and
cover a few issues, problems, and exasperations you might face when
you sell up and move to that rural idyll to run your e-commerce
business in peace.
Firstly, don't do it! Not if you value your cable connection, your
ADSL, your onsite tech support guy being able to find you within two
days of being called out, or if you can't afford insurance, surge
protectors etc. to keep your equipment safe from the ravages of rural
supplies! Oh, and that's without mentioning all the non-connected
things you probably expect like frequent public transport, swimming
pools and leisure centres within a day's drive, a choice of
supermarkets, etc.
If you think you can live without such things which you currently take
for granted in your urban environment, well, this rural one has its
benefits, but in a wired world, they can seem few and far between!
This article is being written at possibly an appropriate time because
of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, but if I sound in despondent mood, I'm
not really. The lack of hustle and bustle in our daily lives buys me
far more time than I could ever imagine having if we lived in a town -
it's just the lack of all the things that you townies have that we
want, and could use, that colours this article! For those who loiter
in the Free Pint Bar, you will undoubtedly have seen my rants about
DSL, amongst my responses to promotion questions - if not, go look in
the Bar, then you'll know where I'm coming from!
It has never been more apparent than now how much the rural community
of Britain relies on agriculture and tourism, and you only need a
disease such as Foot and Mouth to start spreading for the devastating
effects on rural communities to be seen. We have to diversify, and
within rural communities there is a plethora of talent which could
make this possible. However, the outside world, and such does it seem
when you are 35 miles from a hospital, 15 miles from a cinema, 20
miles from a Tesco, 30 miles from a motorway etc., cannot always know
about, or benefit from this talent if telecommunications, IT, even the
Internet, are operating in the last millennium still. And yes, the
Internet is only just reaching the area where I lived until recently -
Upper Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales. I moved to Cumbria in the
vain hope we would get DSL sooner, but it seems it was an ambitious
move.
What are the factors which restrict development in rural areas, and
the problems we face?
The first and most powerful factor has got to be the lack of
population. After all, let's face it, that's why it's rural! If the
countryside were full of people, it'd be a town. But that lack of
population gives the decision makers at large corporations, such as
the telecommunications companies, electricity and other utility
companies, cable companies, you name it, the excuse to say, "It's not
worth the investment". If sheep were connected, we'd have all the
latest infrastructure in place, but it's reliant on headcount of
people only. So, many exchanges are still not ISDN capable, oh, hang
on let's backtrack - many rural houses cannot even count on a decent
phone line.
I recently sent a fax from a business here in Cumbria and it was
totally illegible - the quality of their phone line was atrocious.
They have asked BT to add an extra box to their local pole because
there are now too many phones on that particular 'system' to give any
of them a decent connection. But it appears that you can only add
boxes that allow a certain number of new users, and if BT added one of
these it would mean that they would also have to update the local
exchange as this would push them over the limit for the current
configuration of the system. I don't know the terminology here but I
know that what it means is BT would have to invest money in the
exchange to give one company a decent phone and fax line (don't even
ask what their Net connection is like), and enhance the phone and
data connections of a few domestic users.
That won't happen in a hurry. Is their exchange likely to be upgraded
to ISDN capability in the future? Unlikely. Will a cable be laid?
Pah! None of us, even here in a rural market town, could even dare to
dream of that. ADSL? 2004 was the last date I heard for Wensleydale
to get that far. DSL? ROFL whilst in tears. Will the supply
companies listen to a few voices coming out of the wilderness? Nope.
And there just isn't the density of commercial users of services to
add weight to the requests and complaints about services.
The payback for companies who invest in cable etc. into rural areas
would be minimal. One has to wonder though, with the profits they
must make in large urban environments, couldn't they just share some
of that with us here in the middle of nowhere? Just putting down one
cable would give us the option to think about creating a Business
Park, or even squatting the houses nearest to that cable!
Another problem is those glorious bodies called National Parks. Ah
yes, here to protect and conserve the environment and the beauty of
the natural landscape. The thing is, if they don't encourage
diversity and development, there won't be anyone left to also create
the social and economic culture which is an integral part of the
beauty of these areas. Want to put up a mobile phone mast? Just keep
applying for planning permission, hopefully one day they'll change
their policy. (I had an infra red mobile phone which would work with
my laptop for almost 2 years before it even rang at home! The nearest
coverage was almost 20 miles away, which ironically is near the Orange
headquarters in Darlington whose network I was on). The National
Parks probably will not allow cable to be laid, although I think this
may be an unfair comment really because as far as I know, no-one has
even bothered to apply up here in the North.
An application was submitted locally to trial microwave technology to
allow communication between the dales. It would be useful - the
doctors and emergency vehicles have always had blackspots, and it's a
strong contender for a fast connection - but that was turned down.
Satellite I guess, (I hope) is out of the National Parks remit, but
of course, with our low wages (60% of the UK average wage) we won't be
able to afford it.
And that of course brings me to another factor which affects
development in these areas - low wages, low spending capacity. The big
companies won't look to invest in areas where they won't get a return.
How I wish for a company like Kingston Communications in Hull to leap
on the possibilities of making more money out of this area by charging
what we can afford. The use of telecommunications, the Internet, etc.
would leap by so many thousand percent if people felt they could
actually afford it. Then they would also start running new businesses,
contributing to the local and national economy, growing the area,
sharing their skills and innovation and ideas, etc. I have to mention
her - Sally at <http://www.amplebosom.com/> is a prime example of what
can be achieved in rural areas with a little initiative and
encouragement. She works from farm buildings, employs local people,
has featured in the media internationally, and is going to outlive a
large number of dotcoms who started at the same time on considerably
larger budgets. Imagine all the small but healthy e-commerce
companies that could be running with the talent available in these
rural areas, if there were a decent telecommunications infrastructure
and better connections to the outside world through the Internet.
Too many rumours abound in this tightknit community of just how
expensive computers and connections are. Well, of course they are.
If the nearest place to buy a computer is 35 or more miles away, if it
breaks down, it could be a week before it's repaired. If you need a
professional to set up your network it will cost you more because
they don't have much call for their talents and have to make a living
somehow. If you can only get a really slow connection, your phone
bills will be higher because we have very few cheap services such as
NTL, etc. - you can feel the development and interest slowing down,
can't you?
And that's just a start - then there's the electrical surges which
blow up your equipment if you don't have surge protectors in place
(yes, I lost my first computer this way); the difficulty and expense
of finding a computer geek to fix the latest blue screen problem you
have caused; and the never-ending fight to get your phone bill down
and your connection speeds up. What do we do? Oh, accept it for now,
rant a little in the Bar, and join all the campaigns on the Net we
can. We also pray for that day when someone offers affordable
satellite access, or just happens to lay a DSL connection past the
front door on the way to the nuclear power station you have to live by
to be 'connected'.
I was recently accused of expecting DSL as a God-given right. I do.
Just like we never thought we'd get free or very cheap local calls to
connect to the Net, I, in my eternal optimism, hope that one day I can
log on to freedsl.co.uk (hope that doesn't exist - I know the .com
does) and type in my postcode and it will give me a sign up box there
and then (the .com site didn't!). Within five minutes I too will be
marvelling at fat pipe up, fat pipe down, and our server will finally
be running all of our websites out of the room we deign to call an
office, at an affordable cost.
I had a dream....
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Lindsey Annison is a Web PR Consultant with Cybersavvy UK,
specialising in promotion campaigns, website marketing on shoestring
budgets, website appraisals, and information architecture. She is
hyperactive on the Internet, co-owns a 10 ton Magirus Deutz truck and
is currently trying to work out how on earth she can telework out of
that with a decent connection to the Net from anywhere on the planet.
Suggestions welcome through the discussion group onsite at
<http://www.webpr.co.uk/>. Further articles and commentary by Lindsey
can be found on the site, on Free Pint, or around the Net on website
promotion and marketing sites.
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Related Free Pint links:
* "Telecommunications" links, articles and resources in the Portal
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/industry/industry.php3?category_id=134>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/120401.htm#tips>
* Post a message to the author now at the Free Pint Bar
<http://www.freepint.com/bar>
* Access the entire archive of Free Pint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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>>> FREE PINT FACT <<<
On the Free Pint Bar homepage at <http://www.freepint.com/bar/> there
is a "Bar Statistics" box with some interesting realtime statistics.
As well as a count of the number of postings to the Bar today, in the
last week, month and in total (7654 now!), you can also see which was
the busiest day (23rd Feb 2001) and month (Feb 2001).
There is an up-to-the-minute count of the number of people who have
subscribed to the Bar Digest (4536) which is the summary of postings
to the Bar sent by email three times a week. If you'd like to receive
this then either login to your account online or email
<bar@freepint.com>. Finally, if you look at the Web site homepage at
<http://www.freepint.com/> then you'll see a realtime count of our
membership. It's good to see this rise gradually throughout the day,
and I can tell we now have exactly 36606 members. No, 36607. No ...
William Hann, Managing Editor <william@freepint.com>
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FREE PINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
"Poor Richard's Building Online Communities"
Reviewed by Caryn Wesner-Early
This book contains much useful information, but advanced Web users
looking for help in creating communities, as promised in the title,
may lose patience with chapters of elementary information on finding
and participating in communities. Conversely, many people who need
such explanatory material could overlook this book because the title
sounds like something for advanced users. A better title would have
been "Online Communities: Taking Part In and Creating Web
Communities."
The main part of the book uses alternate chapters for each medium
(newsgroups, mailing lists, etc.), the first explaining what it is and
how to use it, and the second on starting a community in that medium.
The information in the first chapter of each pair is very explicit,
giving URLs of sites to try and explaining where to go and what to do
once the user is there. Each chapter has the same structure: where to
find groups in that medium (e.g. mailing lists), how to join, finding
specific lists to suit individual needs, detailed instructions for
participation, setting options, getting help, and instructions
specific to major list producers (e.g., Majordomo, LISTSERV, etc.).
This is followed by a similarly detailed chapter on the same subject
from a production angle - how to find a place for a list, how to name
it, manage subscriptions, archives, etc., again with a subsection for
each major type of list. But just as the advanced user feels that the
meat of the book has been reached, a new section starts and goes
back to elementary instructions on the next type of community. This
arrangement makes for choppy reading, and many readers will want to
skip every other chapter as being either too elementary or too
advanced.
That said, the reader who adopts this method of using the book, or who
uses the well-constructed index to zero in on topics of interest, will
find answers to questions on all levels. Once past the mechanics of
starting an online group, the book addresses issues concerning
publicizing the community, handling dissension, making money with the
group, as well as spam, copyright, and other legal issues. There is
even a chapter on managing groups of communities, where one entity
will sponsor separate groups (e.g., for suppliers, customers, and
prospective customers). The book closes with a series of case studies
of communities for different purposes, media, and audience sizes.
One problem often faced by books about the Internet is its pace of
change. This book solves that problem with a Web page,
<http://www.netgurus.com/prboc>. It is a live-link version of the
appendix listing all mentioned Web sites. It has been updated
recently enough that the "Search Deja" link takes the user to the new
Google site, boding well for the book's future utility.
Overall, this is a very useful resource, but it has to be used
carefully. If you know what you're looking for, you should be able to
find it easily, but if you don't, it may take a while to get your
bearings.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Caryn Wesner-Early is a librarian, contracted to the US Patent and
Trademark Office Scientific and Technical Information Center. Her
interests include reading and cats, and she maintains a list of
wedding-related mysteries at
<http://www.321website.com/members/home/data/caryn/wedmys.htm>.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Related Free Pint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/poorcom.htm>
* Read about other Internet strategy books on the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
* Details: ISBN 0966103297 published by Top Floor Publishing
and written by Margaret Levine Young and John Levine
* Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
To propose an information-related book for review, send details
to <bookshelf@freepint.com>.
> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>> ARE YOU STUDYING FOR AN INFORMATION-RELATED DEGREE? <<<
If you're a student, or work with students, then you'll know how
difficult it is to get impartial help and advice from outside your
university. The Free Pint Student Bar is one place where you can ask
for help with funding, projects and dissertations, or meet your
peers around the world. Why not post a message today?
<http://www.freepint.com/student/>
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/120401.htm#feature>
"Streaming Media and Broadband Sites"
By Duncan Parry
It's 6pm. I've finished work for the day and there's nothing on the
TV, as usual. I've got a computer in front of me, Internet access via
ADSL and a few hours to kill. So what can I watch online?
Some Jargon
-----------
Before I highlight some of the more useful sites for streaming media,
it seems prudent to define (in my own words - these aren't exact) the
relevant terminology.
Streaming Media
Video or audio that is broadcast ('streamed') to your computer via the
Internet while you watch/listen - e.g. Internet radio stations.
Broadband
A type of Internet connection that offers a higher capacity than
standard telephone lines. This makes viewing video and listening to
audio files over the Internet quicker - and higher quality broadcasts
can be sent to your computer. Examples of broadband are ADSL, DSL
and Cable.
Video / Audio Clips
Sites that refer to 'clips' may mean streaming media you watch online
- or they may mean a copy of a file you download and can watch
anytime. I use it to mean short streaming media items, not downloads.
'On Demand'
These aren't live broadcasts, but only played back when you request
them by clicking on a link. Most streaming media falls into this
category.
It's worth noting at this point that different sites require different
programs to play streaming media - I've put links for these at the
bottom of the article. Generally, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player
are sufficient.
If you are behind a company firewall, check with your computer staff
before trying to use these programs - many firewalls block these
programs from connecting to the Internet.
General Streaming Media Guides
------------------------------
There are quite a few guides to streaming media sites and a growing
number that focus on broadcasts that are only suitable for broadband
connections.
MSN Windows Media Guide
<http://windowsmedia.com/>
MSN's Windows Media Guide offers a mixture of on-site content and a
directory of links, with descriptions, ranging across news, business,
entertainment and Internet radio. Many of the items offer several
connection speeds to choose from depending on your connection speed -
for example a Pearl Jam interview on the site offers 28k and 100k
versions. There's a good range of items here, not just from the US.
Usefully, you can search for an artist (e.g. The Beatles) and you'll
find a brief biography and discography, as well as related videos and
music. Unsurprisingly, Windows Media Player is the required player.
Yack
<http://yack.co.uk/>
Yack describes itself as an 'Internet Program Guide.' One of the
useful features of the site is the 'View Events in Progress' option
which details online broadcasts due for that day - with times in GMT.
What's available on this page varies and can often be US focused -
when I last visited the site there was a piece on Amtrak and 3Com's
financial results.
The rest of the site offers a good amount of UK content - coverage of
Sri Lanka v England cricket, for example. The homepage offers the
categories you would expect - Music, News, Money, Technology etc.,
each with sub-categories divided up into five areas : 'live',
'scheduled', 'audio', 'video' and 'chat rooms', which makes it easy to
find the type of content you are after. The chat rooms section is
useful for finding a room about a particular subject. Clicking on an
event displays the duration, start time, admission details (i.e. free
or subscription) and the software required.
At the top of the Yack homepage there's also a 'Broadband' option
which opens a new browser window. This offers a different site design
and the same categories as the remainder of the site. Sadly, this
seems to be a mirror of a US site - the times are in EST and the tax
guide, for example, is based on the US system. Hopefully a UK
broadband site will be developed in future.
Broadcast.com / Yahoo
<http://www.broadcast.com/>
Yahoo's broadcast guide offers the familiar Yahoo feel with categories
including Business, Computers, Learning and News. Each section offers
details of when items are broadcast (EST) and indicates if
registration is required. You can add reminders for events to your
'Yahoo' calendar if you have a Yahoo account. Simple to use, the
Yahoo guide is restricted by its US focus - but it does present
content from a wide range of sources
Broadband Guides
----------------
Broadband Television
<http://broadband-television.com/>
Aimed at users with a broadband connection, this site offers Streaming
TV broadcasts, CD quality music and multilingual TV. The TV
broadcasts are divided into European, Asian, American and
Multilingual, via links at the top of the screen. The languages
covered so far are English, French, German and Russian.
Each section of the guide lists available broadcasts, links and
different broadcast speeds. It also tells you what formats are
available - useful if your company firewall only allows broadcasts in
one format. The range of links isn't massive - but some of the online
versions of well know stations can be found here.
If you are using a slower dial up connection and normal telephone
line, try <http://broadcast-live.com/> instead.
On Broadband
<http://www.onbroadband.com/>
Usefully, this site warns you, before entering, which plug-ins you'll
need and that it is intended for high bandwidth connections. It opens
in a second window, with a menu along the top of the page - the
content option (a TV) provides the broadband guide.
The navigation is slightly confusing and at first the number of links
seems small - until you click the 'All Links' text that appears below
the heading of each section. Each of the links has a good description
below it, including details of any plug-ins required. Areas covered
are Movies, Music, News, Sports, TV, Health and Webcasts. There is a
useful Tools section of the site which details some tools available to
provide streaming media from your site.
These are just some of the guides available - others include Real
Guide US <http://realguide.real.com/> and Europe
<http://europe.real.com/guide/> which has good content with some
Broadband versions, and Apple's QuickTime guide
<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/>.
What to Watch?
--------------
So I've looked at some of the guides available and decided I want to
watch the news first. What's available?
BBC News and Current Affairs
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/>
The BBC's Online News site offers audio and video streaming media
alongside written reports. As well as these, the programmes section
details audio and video streaming media available of popular
broadcasts. These include BBC News 24's TV bulletin (updated hourly),
Radio 4's 'Today' programme, the World News summary from World Service
Radio, BBC Parliament (Westminster and the Scottish Assembly), and
BBC2's 'Newsnight' - amongst others.
Most of these are in RealPlayer format, suitable for all connections.
A news ticker of headlines and relevant streaming media is also
available.
ITN News On Demand
<http://www.itn.co.uk/news/ondemand/ondemand.shtml>
ITN's site offers 'World News' which is aimed at the US, and the ITN
News Channel, a 24 hour news broadcast available online or on digital
TV in the UK, as well as short video items accompanying individual
news stories.
Bloomberg TV
<http://www.bloomberg.com/products/live_btv.html>
Respected business news source Bloomberg offers 24 hour business news
with a selection of channels covering the US, Asia-Pacific, France,
Germany, Spain and the UK. Available broadcast speeds differ, and so
far only the US station offers a broadcast streamed to take advantage
of broadband connections.
CBS Market Watch TV and Radio
<http://cbs.marketwatch.com/tvradio/default.asp?siteid=mktw>
Offers video and radio clips of interviews with executives from big
name companies, US market rounds ups and commentary on the markets,
mainly in the US. Offers different broadcast speeds.
WebFN
<http://www.webfn.com/>
Offers 24 hour broadcasts of US and global market and business news,
as well as on-demand round up videos of top news stories and
interviews. The global markets area lists the movements on the
international markets, including the FTSE - which fell dramatically as
I watched.
MSDN .NET Show
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/>
This isn't a true news site - but worthy of note given Microsoft's
recent announcements about its new .NET services. The focus of the
show is Microsoft's new online .NET services, and recent episodes have
discussed exactly what these services will offer, including interviews
with their creators. Two different speed connections or a download
are available.
Going to the Movies
-------------------
Need to forget those stock markets blues yet? Go to the movies!
Movie Flix
<http://www.movieflix.com/>
The blurb of this site is that you can watch movies for free. The
term 'movies' is freely interpreted here - for example 'movies' in the
WWII section includes videos of propaganda films and documentaries.
Some of the videos are over an hour long; before each video there are
details of length and a summary. The quality of the WWII footage I
watched was impressive - and there were options to watch via a normal
or a broadband connection.
Other sections of the site include Classic TV, Documentaries and
Literature. Content listings can be sorted several ways, and stretch
back to the 1950s. You won't find up to date footage here - but there
was a good selection in the sections I looked at.
Filmspeed
<http://www.filmspeed.com/downloads/>
Filmspeed offer services to distribute streaming media content - and
their site includes a small range of full movies including 'To Kill a
Mocking Bird' (Gregory Peck), 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Night of the
Living Dead' amongst others. These require a broadband connection.
Film.com - Previews
<http://www.film.com/reviews/rev_coming/previews.jhtml>
Dedicated to Hollywood films, this site holds interviews, news,
reviews and previews - if you are looking for the trailer of a new
Hollywood film, this is a good place to start. Uses RealPlayer.
'Internet TV' Sites
-------------------
Had enough of the movies? The quality of broadcasts from Internet TV
sites varies; certainly free services aren't offering many well known
programmes, but some of the documentaries are good and
entertainment-focused broadcasts are common.
<http://www.netbroadcaster.com/>
Net Broadcaster
Offers on-demand videos including News, Music, US Sport and
Celebrities. The site is focused primarily on the world of
entertainment in the US - but the news section does offer an
international round up. All the videos are available for different
speeds and there are also links to some US TV sites that offer
streaming media, arranged into sub-categories.
Space TV
<http://www.space.com/spacetv/>
Space TV is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to proving content related to
space exploration and space science. You can watch videos of recent
launches, news and documentaries. The site is quite in-depth - there
were 18 pages of video clips in one section, with several on each
one. Different connection speeds are available, as is support for
RealPlayer, QuickTime and Media Player.
NOW - Network of the World
<http://www.now.com/>
This well presented site offers content in Sport, the Arts, Games,
Space, MP3 TV, Technology and Multimedia. Overall there's a more
international feel to the site; for example Test Match cricket results
were recently featured on the homepage - not what you would expect if
the site was US focused. The site's media launcher opens in a
separate side window and provides a list of programmes - handy if you
want to jump to one of these.
That's all Folks!
-----------------
This isn't meant to be an exhaustive guide to what's out there - more
a casual amble around a few URLs. More sites are enabling broadband
broadcasts all the time, and there's potential for non US sites to
compete in this area with the US. Particularly interesting will be to
see what organisations like the BBC do with their large back
catalogues of materials, which they could put online. Hopefully new
broadcasters will emerge to challenge some of the giants of TV - some
technology sites already offer their own shows, for example. Maybe
we'll even see Free Pint TV one day!
Find more Internet Broadcast sites here on Lycos UK -
<http://www.lycos.co.uk/dir/Telecommunications_and_Internet/Internet_Broadcasts/>
Player Downloads :
Windows Media Player
<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/default.asp>
RealPlayer
<http://www.real.com/international/>
QuickTime
<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Duncan Parry is a category editor for the directory of Lycos UK
<http://www.lycos.co.uk/> and is also developing a new site, RailFind
<http://www.railfind.co.uk/> which is of UK railway websites.
He also undertakes web site design work
<http://www.digitalstrike.co.uk/>.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Related Free Pint links:
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<http://www.freepint.com/portal/industry/industry.php3?category_id=15>
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
<http://www.freepint.com/events>
There are lots of events State-side this month, with Internet
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Closer to home there is Webcom in London and the European
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FREE PINT GOLD
This time last year there was a popular article on wedding sources on
the Web. The feature was on Knowledge Management, which has
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over 70 replies at <http://www.freepint.com/bar/read.php?i=5016>.
* Free Pint No.60, 13th April 2000 "Wedding Sources on the Web" and
"Knowledge Management". <http://www.freepint.com/issues/130400.htm>
Two years ago we ran an article on what has become a very hot topic -
the Dublin Core - but the term "XML" wasn't mentioned once. We also
looked at chemistry resources.
* Free Pint No.36, 15th April 1999. "Cataloging the Internet: The
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Three years ago there was an introduction to modems, followed by a
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* Free Pint No.12, 16th April 1998 "The Duffers Guide to 56K Modems"
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William Hann, Managing Editor <william@freepint.com>
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FREE PINT FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
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GOODBYE
Well, that's it for today folks. I hope you've found lots of new
sites. Why not print out the newsletter and pass it around the office?
See you in two weeks!
William Hann, Founder and Managing Editor
<william@freepint.com>
(c) Free Pint Limited 1997-2000
<http://www.freepint.com/>
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Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free newsletter written by information
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- Publication Date: 11th April 2001
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