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Christmas How-To videos on VideoJug

>> Christmas How-To videos on VideoJug
We’ve featured VideoJug before on the show: It’s a YouTube style site specialising in handy short films teaching you how to do the stuff they didn’t teach you at school (get a perfect wet shave, tie a bow tie, carve a roast dinner etc)
They’ve created an excellent section of short films to help you cope with any aspect of the festive season – From dancing at office parties to removing mulled wine stains, curing indigestion, or wrapping unusually shaped presents. Indispensible!

BBC iPlayer adds 'Click To Play' feature

>> BBC iPlayer
>> BBC Press Office Guide to iPlayer
When I was little I used to anxiously await the arrival of the Christmas double issue of Radio Times so I could meticulously plan my festive viewing. In spite of this, I usually found that by the start of the Spring term, I’d missed most of the programmes which everyone was talking about in the playground.
Which brings me to the BBC iPlayer, which launched quietly in the summer as a trial service offering UK licence fee payers free Windows downloads of BBC TV shows. Just in time for Christmas, the service is expanding to include ‘Click To Play’ programmes as well as downloads.
Now you can watch immediately online on any Windows, Mac or Linux computer. Basically as long as you are in the UK, if your computer can play YouTube videos, it should also be able to play any iPlayer Click To Play videos with no additional software.
Around 250 shows from all BBC TV channels are made available each week, and you have 7 days after the original broadcast to watch each show. Which means that even if you forget to set the video for Doctor Who, Catherine Tate or Strictly Come Dancing this Christmas, you can still catch up with all these shows online, making Spring term telly playground blues a thing of the past.

Last Posting Dates

>> Last Posting Dates One of the most useful sites you'll find as you try to finish your Christmas shopping online: Last Posting Dates not only tells you the Post Office's dealine to get your cards and presents in the post, but also pulls together information from many of the biggest and most popular online shops about when you need to place your order in order to ensure that it reaches you in time for Christmas Eve.

Music Club Live / Festive greetings

>> Radio 2 Music Club Live
Earlier this month Radio 2 hosted a concert featuring six acts we have supported from the beginning of their careers. Go online now to see photos, hear live tracks and watch backstage video of james Blunt, KT Tunstall, The Hoosiers, Tom Baxter and more. Then tomorrow from 2200 you can listen again to the whole gig and watch 30 minutes of highlights online or on digital TV (via the red button service)

Also mentioned today:
>> Elf Yourself
>> Everyclick presents Santa Swing

Christmas reading ideas

Here are a few booky sites to help you choose books to give as Christmas presents (or ask for from friends or family)

>> Love Reading
Try-before-you-buy by downloading sample chapters. Plus reviews and ‘like for like’ recommendations

>> Meet The Author
A kind of literary YouTube – Authors have a minute or so to talk up their oeuvre on camera. Plus on the marketplace, unpublished authors can pitch their book ideas and receive ratings and comments from the Meet The Author community.

>> LibraryThing
Social networking for book-lovers: Create an online catalogue of all the books in your collection, rate or review each book, and get book recommendations from other readers with similar literary tastes.

>> What Should I Read Next
Get reading recommendations based on collective taste, as determined by which titles have appeared on other site user’s favourites list.

Friday quick links

>> Doctor Who Advent Calendar
Highlights so far include:

• Merry Christmas from David and Kylie video
• Christmas short story - The Frozen
• Companions Quiz
• Printable Christmas Cards
• Unreleased Murray Gold Track - The Old Rugged Cross

with lots more to come before the 2007 Christmas epsiode

>> About My Place
Zoomy-inny maps go 3D! Just like Google Earth, but you don’t have to download it first, this lets you choose from an overhead view of your house, or satellite views from North, South, East or West

>> Video clip of the week – Dance Moves: An Emergency Guide For Men


Rules:

• Accept that you can’t dance
• Vow that never again will you perform a pelvic thrust
• No singing, mauling, or woop-wooping
• Keep things VERY simple

>> Game of the week: Hair Style
Wholly in Japanese, so this animated hair-styling game is slightly baffling, but cute and compelling in equal measure!