CILIP | Internet Q&A: Phil Bradley

Q I need to take a lot of stuff off an old machine and transfer it to a new one. The machine doesn’t have a CD writer, just a floppy disk drive, and some files are too big to fit on a floppy. Any ideas?

A Well, if you can afford it, you could always buy some cabling, hook the two machines together and copy data across that way. Fine if you have a bit of a technical mind but, if you don’t, you could always try a memory stick – prices have fallen hugely recently. Just plug it into a USB port, the machine will recognise it as another drive and you can copy files, unplug, plug into the other machine and on you go. On the other hand, if you don’t have a technical mind and you don’t have any money, try Dropload (www.dropload.com/). Simply send the file(s) to Dropload, and you can then pick them up from another machine.

Q A number of my colleagues and I need to work on the same document. However, some of us work from home, without access to our network, or are travelling a lot. Are there any internet resources that you could suggest we try?

A There’s something called ‘Writely’ (www.writely.com/) which allows you to put a document on to the web, specify who can access it, allow them to edit it, undo edits if you don’t like them and so on. Not only is it useful for editing, they also suggest using it for sign-up sheets, meetings notes, calendars and so on. I’ve not tried it myself, but it does seem to be the kind of thing you need.

Q I noticed in your weblog that you referred to Flickr. Do you know of any other photograph-sharing sites?

A Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/philbradley/) (the link goes directly to my photographs, so edit as appropriate) is probably the best-known site for sharing photographs, putting them into sets, tagging them, adding them to other pools and so on, but it’s not the only one. There are literally hundreds of resources like this, and a few that I’ve tried and think are OK are Fotopic (www.fotopic.net/), PBase (www.pbase.com/), Photosite(www.photosite.com/), Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/) and photoSIG (www.photosig.com). All these are free to use, though if you give them money you get enhanced resources.

Site of the month
I decided on a fun site this month. If you’ve ever wanted to create a strip cartoon, but feel you don’t have the ability, try the StripGenerator (www.thirdframestudios.com/adgame/stripgen/). It provides you with drag and drop characters, speech bubbles, etc and is very easy to use. (Please note that while it is safe for work, some of the cartoons that you can click on to view may not be.) My sad effort is at: www.thirdframestudios.com/adgame/stripgen/viewEng.php?id=25555 Why not have a go yourself? If you do a library-related one, let me know and if I’m not deluged in them I’ll mention the funniest ones in my weblog.

Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. New: 3rd edn of The Advanced Internet Searcher’s Handbook is now available! If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header ‘column query’.

Updated: 06 October 2005