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Your Free Internet Newsletter
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Issue 76 Jun 1st 2007
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CHANGE HERE
Your
Zen Monthly subscription address can be seen at the foot of this
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remove your current address from our mail-out list.
http://www.zen.co.uk/newsletterTIME CAPSULE
A
"21st century Domesday Book" - a snapshot of the United Kingdom seen
through e-mails - is being compiled by the British Library, with help
from Microsoft. The library is asking everyone in the UK to compose a
message for posterity, or to forward an interesting e-mail from their
inbox or sent mail box. Originally scheduled to run for one month,
until May 31st, the open invitation is likely to be extended if the
target of a million-plus messages is not reached by the planned closing
date. John Tuck, British collections head at the library, said: "E-mail
Britain will allow us to archive a vast snapshot of our present-day
e-mail communications and will be of great value for future
researchers. Digital archiving of e-mail has never been attempted
before on this scale and we're very excited to be capturing such a rich
slice of contemporary life". The e-mail address for those who wish to
take part is
email@emailbritain.co.uk.
http://www.newhotmail.co.uk/emailbritain/VOTE NOW
On
the seventh of next month, which is 7/7/07, a ceremony in Lisbon will
unveil "the new seven wonders of the world", as voted for by the
population of the world - or at least the 40 to 50 million of the
planet's citizens who noticed that a referendum was running. The
original list of 'must see' landmarks is over 2,000 years old and
includes the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes and the
Great Pyramid of Giza - the only one of the ancient seven still
standing. Candidates for the new list include the Acropolis, the Statue
of Liberty, Sydney Opera House and Stonehenge. Online, phone and SMS
voting ends at midnight GMT on July 6th.
http://www.new7wonders.com/index.phpEOL
The
world's scientists plan to compile everything recorded about the
Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open
to everyone. The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will include
species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by
amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers.
The project will take about 10 years to complete. "It's an interactive
zoo", said James Edwards, who will be the encyclopedia's executive
director. The new encyclopedia should fill about 300 million pages.
Funding of $12.5 million to cover the first 2-3 years of work is
already in place.
http://www.eol.org/demonstration.htmlLISTEN HERE
This
issue of Zen Monthly - number 76 - is available as a potential podcast.
Compiled by Cambridgeshire Web solutions company Silicon Bay, who
regularly record newsletters, custom audio tours and business
presentations for Web downloads and podcasts, our news items this month
have been transmogrified into MP3 format for your listening pleasure.
http://www.sibay.co.uk/services/zen.aspPLANT A POD
Podcasts are increasingly being used as business promotion tools. Resources like
Odeo.com
provide fertile free space to plant your pods where they might grow
some traffic. The site has "3,332,668 MP3s from all over the Web" and
lets visitors "download or play them straight from here - or put them
on your Web site".
http://www.odeo.comMP3 TO PODCAST
The
difference between an MP3 file and a podcast is similar to that between
a newspaper on the shelf in the newsagent and the one that comes
through your letterbox in the morning. One you have to go and get, the
other is delivered to you. A normal MP3 file can sit on a Web page,
waiting for an audience. A podcast is the same MP3 file - but with
added code that allows the likes of iTunes and iPodder to 'catch' it
online. It means that listeners who discover your audio output once can
receive new releases automatically later, without having to go back to
your site. There's an explanation of the MP3 to podcast code in
Wikipedia - and you can get more information at Feedburner, which is a
free Web service that fires your MP3 to iTunes, creating a podcast.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=77fhttp://short.zen.co.uk/?id=780http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=781http://podcast.digivault.co.ukSOUND AND VISION
The
BBC was the first British broadcaster to try its hand at podcasting.
Beginning last year with 'In Our Time', the corporation now offers
dozens of podcast downloads from eighteen radio channels and twenty TV
programmes that include The Apprentice, Blue Peter, Louise Theroux and
Question Time.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=782http://www.bbc.co.uk/videopodcasts/WAXING DIGITAL
Vinyl
records - old-style "LPs" - are still popular, but they can be such
impractical things. Even if you have the equipment to rip them to
digital formats at high-quality, you're left with a recording of a
recording that was mastered specifically for vinyl. In response to
demand from collectors with iPods or digital DJ rigs and for high
fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and
other digital music players, Yorkshire based First Word Records are
issuing "digiwax" vinyl records, which include a code that allows
purchasers to download 320kbit MP3s of albums, free of digital rights
management (DRM) restrictions.
http://www.firstwordrecords.comJOT THIS DOWN
Jott,
of Seattle, allows you to call a number, record a message, and then
have the message translated into text and e-mailed to you or one of
your contacts. People are using Jott to manage sports team members,
communicate with their families, and to send themselves notes and ideas
they’ve schemed up on the run and don’t want to forget, says Founder
John Pollard. The service is free, and doesn’t plan to be otherwise for
some time, which gives it more immediate appeal than its competitors,
SimulScribe and Spinvox. Jott is a US service, but Spinvox is based in
the UK.
http://www.jott.comhttp://www.simulscribe.comhttp://www.spinvox.comLISTED LISTENING
Talk
is cheap and the Web has ears: coComment.com is a free service that
lets users track their own commentary around the Web or keep up with
postings by their contacts and favourite contributors. The new service
follows conversations across 150,000 Web sites, which you can track
from a single location. If anyone responds to something you have
posted, you can be alerted and see what they have said. The service is
anonymised - people don't have to give their real name and ID -
although to track a specific individual you do have to know what they
are calling themselves.
http://www.cocomment.comSPEED LIMIT
UK
consumers are no longer prepared to put up with poorly performing or
badly maintained Web sites, according to new research. 80 per cent of
users surveyed declared slow Web site loading a major irritation, 71
per cent objected to sites that required specific software to run, and
60 per cent were annoyed when images failed to load. The research also
suggested that consumers are becoming more aware of the reasons behind
poorly performing sites. Some 69 per cent of those surveyed blamed poor
hosting as the cause, rather than their Internet connection.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=783UK FIRST
A
recent survey found that British Internet users are six times more
likely to select a .uk rather than .com address when choosing between
Web sites listed in search engine results. 72 per cent of respondents
said they would visit a .uk Web address above any other, and only 5 per
cent said they would try the .com option first.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=784FORMS OF ADDRESS
If your Web site can be found via different versions of the same address - like
http://www.yoursite.co.uk and
http://yoursite.co.uk
- it's possible that search engines will see it as two sites and divide
your popularity ranking between them, pushing your pages further down
the search results than they deserve to be. If the "www" version of
your site has 100 inbound links and the "non-www" version has 100
inbound links, for example, each version is credited with only 100
links, rather than the full total of 200 that lead to your site. It
helps if you are consistent about the address version you use in
promotions and on the site itself (it's best to stick with
http://www.yoursite.co.uk),
but you can fix most potential problems automatically by having your
server "tell" the search engines that the non-www URL is permanently
redirected to the www-version. Implementing this "server-side 301
redirect" will require the aid of a technical person comfortable with
making such alterations, or some explanation for the company hosting
your Web site. If necessary, you can refer them to an online tutorial:
"How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs".
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=785WHOLESALE SAVINGS
Zen
Internet has launched Wholesale Voice, a service for companies using an
IP PBX that will allow them to use existing hardware to drive down
telephone costs. "Zen Wholesale Voice is the first of our Voice
offerings, and we believe that many customers who have their own
existing infrastructure will be able to save money by using the
service", explained Ian Gisbourne, the company’s VoIP Product Manager.
"We recognise that many customers are looking to take advantage of the
cost benefits that come with moving away from the traditional ways of
routing calls, and by introducing this product we are allowing them to
do that with the minimum amount of outlay and fuss". Customers will
require a Leased Line with Zen or a presence in Telecity Manchester in
order to use the service. They will also need to be able to configure
and manage their own PBX.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=786GOOGLE IN PERSON
May
1st was "Google Personalization Day", when the search engine's
personalised Home Page service was officially renamed iGoogle. The
facility, which lets users turn the Google interface into a customised
portal based on multiple preferences and a store of personal
information, broke down a few days later, leaving some people unable to
access their data for a week. As the complaints mounted, a barely
literate response from the Googleplex sought to reassure users that all
was well. "To everyone on this thread. It will be fix, your data will
be recovered. If there is one thing Google can do what is hard for the
day to day user, it is redundancy. The outage is annoying, and being
able to back up data would be handy, but the bits aren't gone, they are
in several places".
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=787FOOTBALL FINAL
The
English Premier League headed a list of plaintiffs filing suit against
Google's YouTube for copyright infringement early last month. In a New
York court, the League and music publisher Bourne Co. jointly sued the
online video provider, charging YouTube with deliberately making money
from its copyrights by encouraging massive infringement on its Web site
to generate traffic. The Premier League's lawyers said Google's
approach of 'if you can find it, we might remove it' and the procedures
offered for removing copyrighted materials simply weren't good enough
for a company with the wealth of technological resources that it has
available.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=788DIGG THIS
On
the Web, the majority rules. Or so it is on Digg, the community
news-sharing site, which relented following a huge user backlash after
banning a programmer who posted code showing tech-savvy Diggers how to
illegally copy high-definition DVDs.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=789PRESSING BUSINESS
Apple
is enjoying unprecedented mainstream popularity these days - except
when it comes to large corporate customers and most business users
outside the advertising, design and publishing industries. Will Leopard
be the operating system that changes all that?
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=78aCASH FOR CONCEPTS
Canadian
Web site IdeaConnection is offering pennies for your thoughts. The new
"Innovation Exchange' is marketing itself as a trading ground for ideas
and problem solving, allowing users to post queries and ideas and
choose a team of thinkers to work on the resolution. Potential problem
solvers can register for a place in the site's directory, allowing
future posters to call on them for assistance. Although the project's
primary goal is "collaboration and getting great products and services
to market", with a price tag of at least £500 per query resolved,
volunteers with valuable expertise could be making serious money if the
project gains the kind of reputation that its founders hope for.
http://www.ideaconnection.comSEEQPOD
The
MP3 consumer's latest inquisitive helper is Seeqpod, a quirky new
search engine covering the entire Internet, rather than specialist
sites only, that lets you search for songs online and add them to a
playlist.
http://www.seeqpod.comSEARCH ENGINE OF THE MONTH
Based
in Australia, new search engine Everything-About-Tourism.com,
originally limited to travel industry users, claims to be a one-stop
traveller's guide for everything you need to know when planning your
next overseas carbon footprint excursion. Included in the
multiple-dropdown, by-country interface are search options covering
travel agents, airlines, tour operators, accommodation, tourism
offices, bus companies, hire cars, activity holidays, national parks,
farm stays and special offers.
http://www.everything-about-tourism.com¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Zen Internet
Moss Bridge Road
Rochdale
OL16 5EA
http://www.zen.co.ukt: 0845 058 9000
f: 0845 058 9005
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Rod Fielding
Editor
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David NelsonTeam Leader
Business Support Unit
Zen Internet