Updated 10-Aug-2000
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Column for 10-Aug-2000Get ready for the Olympics! Find where to go on the Net for the latest information about the competitors and athletes. Visit the sites where you can set up your own Internet radio station and there are this week's goodies. webDotWiz Online now has a special Olympics page that reviews all the sites of the sporting federations accredited by the I.O.C., from archery to weightlifting. For other sports, including archery, basketball, hockey and volleyball, visit the webDotWiz Olympics page to link to Australian sporting sites for latest news, team profiles and any upcoming events that individuals or teams are competing in to make final preparations for Sydney. The new Messenger expands on its chat feature by allowing voice conversations from PC to PC or PC to phone (calls are free when made from your PC but only possible in the U.S. and Canada at the moment). As well, messages can be left for pagers and mobiles. But perhaps what you'll find most useful is being able to share files with your family and friends while you're chatting online. Looking for a template to save you time so you can get that report written by tomorrow? Office 97 and 2000 users now have an online resource of a wide range of free templates for download from the Office Update site. They're all categorised, designed by professionals and more are being added. If you're an Office 2000 user who's moving around using other people's computers but want to be able to use your own Office settings and preferences, there's a "save my settings wizard" available for free download from the Office update site in the Office e-services section. For live broadcasts, a good place to learn the necessary steps is the "How to Broadcast" tutoral at Live365.com under the "Broadcast" menu item. You've probably already got the Winamp player for your MP3s and this is the software you use for playing music on your station. With a microphone connected, you can do voiceovers, even host talkshows. If you decide to use Live365's radio servers, you'll need to sign up (it's free) and by return email you'll get an IP address and port number. You enter this information into Winamp, as described in the tutorial. Another free tool you might want to look at is PCDJ Broadcaster. You can download it (2.6Mb) from PCDJ.com. Have a look at the quick start guide and you'll see it's similar to using Winamp at Live365. One of PCDJ's features is that it has two players so you can mix tracks and use waiting lists to fade in each track. The only drawback with PCDJ is that it needs a fairly powerful processor whereas those of us with older machines can configure Winamp to be able to listen to our golden oldies. Looking for some free classical music MP3s? Try the Classical MP3 Shop at www.eclassical.com. Look under the site's "Today's Free Works" for free offerings. When webDotWiz visited, Bach's Mass in B-minor was available for download. To register at the site, you only need an email address; sign up for a free webDotWiz mail address to receive their free newsletter. Keeping with the music theme, a visit to the Experience Music Project is worthwhile. This is the online version of the project's interactive music museum which recently opened in Seattle. The site has three broad areas: explore, create and visit. You can explore the artifact showcase or learn about the artist of the week. If you're feeling creative, try the guitar lick of the day. Unfortunately, to experience the full impact of the site, a fast connection is required but there's still enought to fulfil any visitor's curiousity. |
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