Miles Mendoza's Website of the Day ... and more!

Norad Tracks Santa 2005

>> Norad Tracks Santa 2005
Completely redesigned for 2005 - If you only visit one site this Christmas Eve, make it this one. The NORAD Santa Tracker uses satellite technology to track the infrared signature of Rudolph’s red nose and follow Father Christmas’ progress around the globe. You’ll be able to see video of the sleigh above Sydney Opera House, the Pyramids and (if you stay up really late) Big Ben.
There aren’t many websites which I’d describe as magical, but there’s nothing quite like showing this to excited children before they go to bed on Christmas Eve.
After today Website of the Day is breaking up for Christmas. I’ll be back on air with Richard Allinson (sitting in for Steve) on January 3rd 2006.

Very Happy Christmas from Website of the Day – Hope your stocking is bulging with festive delights!

Mine’s a mulled wine….

Miles

Surviving Christmas

>> Surviving Christmas
Whether you’re already full of Christmas spirit, or you’re in a rabbit-in-headlights panic about the impending break, you should find something here to help your Christmas run smoothly. There’s plenty of content designed to take some of the stress out of both the build–up to Christmas Day and the whole bank holiday period itself.
Even if you have no need for the Stress and Family Relations section you may find some handy tips on timing your Christmas Dinner in Get Organised. There’s a good section festive games (from The Forbidden Dice of Mystery to Sprout or Sweet) plus sections on budgeting and making your Christmas as green as possible.

Email Santa

Website of the Day: Tuesday 20th December

>> Email Santa
If you're worried that the portly whiskered fellow in the Red suit may not get your festive wish-list in time, you can Email Father Christmas right now with details of what you'd like in your stocking. You'll get an immediate reply on your screen and you don’t even need to enter you email address. There's also an opportunity for your pets to email Rudolph and The Incredible Elf-o-matic Naughty or Nice Determinator which helps you find out where you rank on the nice-ometer and allows you to print out an official certificate, proving your niceness over the last year

Planzo - Online calendars

>> Planzo
If you’re a committed user of paper diaries, this may not win you over, but Planzo has a lot to offer anybody who ever uses a computer to keep track of appointments, social engagements and birthdays or anniversaries. At its simplest (and Planzo is certainly reassuringly simple to set up and use) it’s an online diary, to-do list and note pad. You can choose whether to keep your diary private, share it with colleagues, or even publish it for all to see on your website or blog. A range of enhanced features include email or SMS reminders of appointments or anniversaries.

All back to normal

You may have noticed that this site has been a bit out of date over the last few days ... The site is powered by a blogging service called Typepad, whose system failed in the middle of last week. As a result I was unable to update the site on Thursday and Friday, and a couple of posts from earlier in the week were temporarily lost, while Typepad had to revert to a backup version of this site.

By the time you read this, Typepad have restored the site to its former (ahem) glory - but apologies if you had trouble finding a particular link at the end of last week.

Love Reading 4 Kids

>> Love Reading 4 Kids
This year's most useful new book site is Love Reading - which specialises in offering free downloads of the first chapters of all their featured books across a load of genres. Just in time for Christmas, the main Love Reading site is joined by Love Reading 4 Kids offering the same "try before you buy" service for parents and anyone else looking for a guidance on good books for children.

Download Dickens for free (as read by Geoffrey Palmer)

>> A Christmas Carol: Download the podcast
Penguin Books are offering a nice festive freebie via their Penguin Podcast site. Between now and the New Year an unabridged audio-book version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is available to download. The reading (by Geoffrey Palmer) has been split into 5 instalments, and if you subscribe to the podcast, each instalment will automatically download to your computer as soon as it is made available. See also:
>>What is a podcast

King Kong

>> King Kong: Official film site
>> Kong is King (fan site)
A better-than-most official site for this year's big winter blockbuster film release, with the usual biogs, character profiles, downloads and trailers, plus a good special features section. Highlights include an interactive bestiary and a timeline of mythical and historical lost cities from Babylon and Atlantis through to King Kong's Skull island. Kong Is King is the definitive fan site with a history of the Kong franchise from the original book onwards plus a load of video features charting the production of Peter Jackson's film.

Poetry Archive

>> Poetry Archive
This fantastic new resource is the brainchild of current poet laureate Andrew Motion. The site celebrates the fact that poetry is as much an oral tradition as a textual one, by streaming free recordings of leading poets reading their own work. In addition to contemporary poets like Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, Simon Armitage, and Roger McGough there are a growing number of historical recordings, which already include readings from Kipling, Ginsberg, Betjeman and Browning. You can click Lucky Dip to hear a random poem from the collection, or browse the archive by poet name, title, theme or poetic form.

Play the Big Quiz on the move

>> Play the Big Quiz on the move
Here’s an exciting new addition to Radio 2’s WAP site - Now listeners with WAP-enabled mobile phones (in practice that’s most new handsets sold over the last couple of years) can play the Big Quiz on the move. Each Tuesday we’ll publish a new set of 10 questions (compiled by the elite trivia SWAT team who put together the questions for the Big Quiz on air). Text the word 'MOBILE' to 88291 and we'll send you a direct link to launch Radio 2 on your WAP-enabled mobile.
Also on the Radio 2 WAP site you’ll find
• Full Radio 2 schedule details
• Forthcoming on air highlights
• Webcam pictures of the new Radio 2 studios
• Competitions for tickets to Radio 2 events,
• latest pictures of guests, presenters, and live events (all saveable as mobile wallpaper)