Andy chats about the latest technology and interesting websites each week with Nerissa Pace on the "Talking back the night" radio show, heard across Australia.

 
Top 3 Websites

http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/body_battery
The body battery calculator takes into account your weight, height and age to work out exactly how much electrical current your body generates.

http://blutube.policeone.com/
If you like reality shows like COPS then you'll enjoy this website....
as the name suggests it's like the youtube video sharing website, but every video on this site features a police shootout or car chase.

www.comparrison.com.au
Did you know that Plasma TVs can consume up to twice the amount of electricity of a similar size LCD TV....and on this site you can compare TV features...including energy consumption of the latest TVs.

Feature Chat - Some family friendly video games

Coming up to Christmas we're going to start seeing plenty of new video games hitting store shelves...and while there's a rating system to help you choose an appropriate title, here are a few new titles that are family friendly...that is, anyone can play!

First up, in stores this week on the playstation 2 is Buzz: the Hollywood quiz! This is a trivia game that uses special controllers that look like hand held a handheld version of buzzers from the show temptation.
If you are a movie buff or like Hollywood celeb gossip then you'll enjoy this game...and these are other buzz games in the series to enjoy on sports, music and general trivia.

On the Xbox360, a game that i've just picked up is a theme park simulator called "Thrillville: off the rails". In this game you get to create and run your own theme park...but unlike similar games, the rides you create in this game push the limits of physics...launching passengers into the air on rides you'll never see in the real world!
Definitely a game for all ages...especially if you love a good rollercoaster.

Speaking of theme parks...a new release on the Ninteno Wii system is "Carnival Games" ...this is a collection of those games of skill and chance found in side show alleys around the world ...games that have been around forever, but you always come back to have your money taken!
All up you'll find 25 classic games, including test your strength, ring toss, balloon darts, dunk tank and shooting gallery. The best thing about carnival games is that they all require you to get physically involved using the Wii remote...which is motion sensitive...so it's just like being there...without losing 3 dollars every time you play!

Finally in handheld games...the game "Drawn to life" rates a mention. This has just been released for the Nintendo DS games system (the one with two screens) and the amazing thing about this game is that you use the touch screen to draw your own character in the game...who turns out to be a super hero and saves the world...in fact you get to draw vehicles and weapons too...so it's like creating your own video game!

More next week thanks to AVG anti-virus and Internet Security. AVG is tough on threats, easy on users. Buy your two year license today at avg.com.au from just $63.95.























And on 15 November, the family-friendly Xbox 360 Arcade bundle hits shelves, featuring the Xbox 360 Arcade console, a 256MB memory card and five fun Arcade games including “Pac-Man Championship Edition” and “UNO”. At just $399 RPP, the Xbox 360 Arcade is perfect for those who want to start gaming straight away.

 
Top 3 websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misleading_food_names
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia where anyone can contribute information has a great list of inappropriate and mis-leading food names.

http://www.isitchristmas.com/
While there's not much to this website, I think it's amusing around this time of year when many stores are already selling Christmas to have a website that reminded you that it's not Christmas yet.I

http://icanhascheezburger.com/
There's nothing better than photos of cute animals with funny captions...and this website is king of that genre as far as I’m concerned!

Feature Chat - Video Recorders of today.

When you know you're going to miss a show on TV do you tape it? Most people probably still pop a tape in the VCR that they've had for years but I've gotta say that technology has come a long way in this area.

I'm talking about DVD or Hard Drive based digital video recorders...also known as PVRs (personal video recorders) and I think that if you're looking at updating your TV (or maybe you just have) this is an area worth looking at.

Over in the U.S, when it comes to recording free to air TV, it seems that TIVO is the number one brand and you hear about it on TV and even in Hollywood movies....and while Australia will get a TIVO next year, there are plenty of options for recording TV this high-tech way right now.

Now when I say 'high-tech' I don't mean that you need a degree in computing to operate the latest video recorders on the market...it may be a simple as purchasing a DVD recorder that also has a VHS tape player built in...this will let you record directly to DVD and even convert your old VHS tapes to DVD so they will last longer.
If you just want to record a TV show, watch it, and then forget about it, I'd suggest getting a Hard Drive based video recorder.

If you can afford to pay between 500 and 1000 dollars, you can get something that is capable of recording shows on two different channels at the same time ...in high definition....and forget about tapes...you can store 25 hours or more on the hard drive.

Now I actually went shopping for such a device the other day...call it an early xmas pressie...and originally I was looking a Topfield Brand recorder which I've reviewed and know to be very good...but the sales guy in the store pointed me towards a brand I'd never heard of called "Beyonwiz"...and I took his word for it and bought one! - www.beyonwiz.com.au

I must say that I’m personally very happy with this device...it has a 200 gigabyte hard drive, twin high definition tuners, HDMI interface for newer TVs and you can hook it up to the internet and subscribe to the ICE TV electronic program guide which makes taping TV shows easy as you just select them from a calendar of events.

Yes, it's a significant purchase, but so much less hassle for me than the old VHS tapes and we're talking about very high quality recordings too!

Happy gadget shopping...More next week thanks to AVG anti-virus and Internet Security. AVG is tough on threats, easy on users. Buy your two year license today at avg.com.au for just $63.95.

 

Top 3 Websites
http://www.million-bush.com/
I guess there's must be a lot of people out there who simple don't like George Bush...in fact this website is hoping to find a million of them!

http://www.futureme.org/
I remember in school we had to write a letter to ourselves...it was then filed away for 12 months and then given back to us to read.
The 21st Centure gives us the Future Me website where you can write a letter to your future self to recieve anytime between now and the year 2037.
I hope this website stays operational for that long.

http://impact.myspace.com/
Myspace seems to be the space for politicians to hang out leading up to the november 24 election...and the impace myspace site can link you up with all the MP pages, complete with video, blogs and policies of course.

Feature chat - Using Web Mail

Email is undoubtedly the those useful Internet tool for anyone who owns a computer...it has revolutionalised the way we communicate, and no doubt saved a few postage stamps over the years.
If you think email is just email and it can't be improved on...you're wrong. The way we use email is still shifting, mainly thanks to online email servies, better known as Webmail.
As the name suggests, Webmail is a method of accessing your email, not from a program located on your computer, but via a web interface...which means that you can access it from any computer, anywhere in the world, as long as it's connected to the Internet.

Ok, so webmail has been around a long time, but the last few years has seen some great improvements and plenty of competition!

Here are some of the latest offerings in webmail.

http://Yahoo7.com.au/mail
Yahoo7 is the first to offer unlimited email storage...free. This means never having to delete another email...and you can easily search through your old messages.

Instant chat is now available through the mail interface so you can talk like with friends in your yahoo messenger list.

Weather forcast - you can have your local weather built into your email inbox
Spamguard and Anti-Virus filtering - to keep the just and nasties out.

http://live.hotmail.com/
Microsoft's Hotmail service was the first widely used webmail launched in july 1996...back then it wasn't actually owned by Microsoft.

The latest version of Hotmail is called Windows Live Hotmail and it incluces 5 gigabytes of storage (plenty of space for the average user), an integrated audio player, and an interface much like the Outlook email program you might be familiar with.

http://www.gmail.com/
Gmail is google's webmail offering and although it has been operating since 2004, it has only been truely available to all for around 12 months...still the service has over 50 million users.

In terms of storage space, Gmail offers over 3 gigabytes of free space which is funded by non-intrusive advertising, much like what you see when you do a web search using Google.

Gmail also has live chat built in so you can speak like with other gmail users and has a conversation view format - which is great if you've had a lot of emails going back and forth on a single topic and you want to quickly click through them.

It doesn't nearly offer the same bells and whistles as the Yahoo7 or Hotmail services, but like the Google search engine, the simple interface appeals to many users.

More next week!!! Tthanks to AVG anti-virus and Internet Security. AVG is tough on threats, easy on users. Buy your two year license today at http://www.avg.com.au/ for just $63.95.

 

Kym, Andy and Nelly at the Commercial Radio Awards over the weekend.

 

 
Top 3 Websites
www.snapfish.com.au
This is a HP's photo printing website who have recently introduced a photo book printing feature that lets you design your own hardcover all paperback cover book using your own photos, and best of all these books can be made from just $20.00.

www.yahoo7.com.au/pulse
This is yahoo's new pop culture website that offers an insight into what Australians are curious about. This is done by providing a snapshot of their interests through yahoo seven searches, video streams and general web surfing behaviour.

www.listverse.com
Let's face it everybody loves a good list, and on this website you'll find plenty of them.
From the top 10 food related movies to the 15 greatest albums of the eighties, the top 10 most impressive athletics world records and any number top five tips for surviving a bear encounter, there's a list for just about every occasion and taste.

Feature chat - using your PC without a keyboard or mouse

Now I should say that this topic is quite close to home, as this week I had hand surgery, which left me with limited use of my right hand.

Lucky for me, Windows Vista has it built in speech to text function which is very easily set up to replace as much keyboard and mouse use as you like with spoken commands.

You can find the speech to text feature in the windows control panel, and after connecting a microphone into your computer, it's simply a matter of making your way through a short tutorial which will help the computer understand your voice and teach you how to navigate windows using voice commands.

This tutorial phase should only take around 20 minutes and should not be skipped as it is important to setting up the speech to text properly.
Now you're basically ready to start controlling your computer and dictating documents using a microphone instead of the keyboard.

Naturally a higher quality microphone will keep you better results so perhaps that's one piece of hardware that you shouldn't try and save a few dollars on.
I must admit that it does take some time to get used to knowing what commands to give the computer, but like anything practice makes perfect.

Using the speech to text function lets you do more than just dictating documents, you can also open and close other applications on your computer, and control them in the same way as if you use the keyboard or mouse.

Again I should say that some practice is needed to get the feature working smoothly, however I was quite surprised with how well the worked even after an hour of usage.

So if you'd like to give speech to text to a go then you'll need a PC running Windows Vista with a microphone plugged into it, and I would recommend you try using a headset style microphone.

More technology for you next week thanks to AVG anti-virus and Internet Security. AVG is tough on threats, easy on users. Buy your two year license today at AVG.com.au for just $63.95.