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

Cheap train tickets, Comedy videos and zoomy 3D photos

Something useful:
>> The Train Line Fare Finder
This new tool helps you find the cheapest long distance rail tickets for your chosen journey if you can be flexible about when to travel.

Something funny:
>> Funny Or Die
Will Ferrell's hugely successful comedy video site launches in the UK with support and exclusive clips from Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

Something whizzy:
>> Cool Iris
This is a small download which changes the way popular photo and video sites (including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Photobucket) appear on your screen. With Cool Iris installed you get a very impressive full-screen 3D view of your photos which lets you quickly zoom in from a photo mozaic to a tiny detail on any photo. It's a bit like Google Earth for your photos.

Money and Magic

>> Kublax – Keep track of all your finances in one place
A particularly timely launch for this new personal finance site. This is designed to help you keep track of all your bank, building society and credit card accounts in one place. Create a free Kublax account and enter your bank details once. The site will automatically retrieve transaction details from multiple accounts, categorise them and display them on a graph or pie-chart so you can see at a glance exactly where your money is going.

The site uses the same levels of security and encryption as online banks and will even alert you about unusual transactions which may indicate possible identity theft.  Additional features include a budget tool to help you track your spending against personal targets, plus links to deals which may save you money on the areas where your spending is currently highest.

>> Merlin’s Magic
A terrific all-animated site to tie in with the launch of BBC One’s new epic sword and sorcery series. If you have a fairly recent Windows PC and a webcam, Merlin’s Magic is a must-try and very cool feature. Download the free software and print out a copy of a ‘Merlinesque’ rune. Turn on your webcam, hold your printout up to the lens, and wait for the magic to unfold  on your computer screen.

Beijing Olympics

When I mentioned Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Monkey BBC Olympics promos a couple of weeks ago, I promised to talk in more detail about the Beijing Olympics on the web this week. However I wasn't banking on laid-up at home nursing my own (non-Olympian) ankle injury.   So here's a swift online-only round-up to make up for the absence of Website of the Week on the radio.

There's been plenty of online innovation for the Beeb with the launch of the 2008 Games. There was live streaming of the opening ceremony from the BBC homepage - a first for bbc.co.uk. Throughout the games, the BBC Olympics site will stream six different channels of live coverage to anyone watching in the UK. Other online highlights from the Beeb include an interactive map and a downloadable Desktop Monkey which promised users updates on their favourite Olympic sports and reminders of when events are starting.

The Guardian has a nice piece outlining the full extent of the Beeb's interactive coverage of the games.
The official site for the games looks lovely - truly comprehensive, with nice bonus features like My Olympic Story which has featured a different story every day for the last 100 days, each one revealing one person's unique Olympic experience.

Finally Google have launched a dedicated portal page for the games  with features including a Google Map of medals, YouTube video highlights, Google News headlines, a video tour plus 3D models of the venues and an "iGoogle gadget" that tracks medal counts to your Google homepage.

>> Olympics Official site
>> BBC Olympics
>> BBC Interactive Olympics Map
>> BBC Desktop Monkey
>> The Guardian: BBC promises 'cornucopia of content'
>> My Olympic Story
>> Google Olympics Portal

Osama Loves

>> Osama Loves This is interesting - A Dave Gorman-influenced quest from 2 London-based Muslims (in collaboration with Channel 4), to find and meet 500 people who share the same name. In the process, they hope to change many people's perception of Islam: "By meeting 500 people who share nothing but their first name, I want to show that, whatever the cultural or religious background, we all love much the same things. (Well… that’s the plan!) For the next 50 days I’ve got a perfect excuse to do what I like best: chat to strangers. The only difference is, this time they will all be called Osama!" Long-standing listeners will know that I like a pointless quest, so it's nice to see a quest/travelogue which aims to do someting a bit more positive. If you know an Osama who they haven't yet featured on the site, you can submit a photo or video to help them get closer to their target of 500 Osamas.

Cambridge Folk and online Telly

>> Cambridge Folk Festival
All roads lead to Cambridge this weekend for the biggest event in the folk music calendar. Online highlights include:
- Listen again to Radcliffe and Maconie with sessions from Seth Lakeman, Laura Marling, Devon Sproule and Tunng
- Get an exclusive free download of a Devon Sproule session track (UK only)
- Video of performances from many of the headline acts appearing at Cambridge
- Mike Harding’s podcast features a full audio preview of the festival
- Full line-up details with the chance to listen to tracks from many of artists appearing
- Photos
- Folk blog featuring posts from Mike Harding and some of the biggest names in folk.

>> Blinkx remote
This is useful. An easy-to-browse (or search)guide to all the TV shows legally available to watch online or download in the UK from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five. All this information is already available elsewhere, but now you can find it all in the same place. Simple and effective!

Monkey Olympics, Proms, Wikipedia rivals and online Pollack-esque artwork.

New this week

>> Monkey Olympics
If you saw Eastenders last night you may have spotted the first trailer for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics, featuring music and animation created by Gorillaz collaborators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Watch the full two minute animation featuring “the immortal Monkey King - as highly skilled in the art of magic as he is in speed, strength and agility” and his cohorts Sandy and Pigsy. The BBC Olympics site introduces the characters and explains how they were inspired by Journey to the West - one of the four most important works of fiction in China's history. More on the BBC Olympics site in a couple of weeks.

>> Google Knol
This is the first public version of a project described by Web User magazine as “Google's Wikipedia rival”. According to Google “A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions"

Something musical

>> Proms 2008
Just ahead of the first ever Doctor Who prom here’s a plug for the Beeb’s online coverage of the UK’s most popular and least stuffy classical music festival. This year’s super-colourful site includes a really good introduction to the history of the festival plus expanded 'Proms Plus' listings, embedded video and audio clips and a selection of wallpapers to download.

Something Arty

>> Wet Paint – Please Touch
We’ve seen a few online paint tools before, but this is the first one which hangs its virtual canvas on the side of an equally virtual building. Your invited to grab a brush, or roller from the side of the kerb in order to create your own “Can-you-tell-what-it-is-yet” style masterpiece. Uniquely there’s even a brush called the Jackson P which can be used to help create your Pollack-esque convas. When you run out of paint you can choose whether to pass it on to another online painter to complete, or whether to declare it finished and have it hung in the public gallery

Wimbledon and Glastonbury

>> BBC Sport: Tardis Tennis Game
By popular demand, here's the link for one of my favourite online games which first appeared on BBC Sport a few years before Doctor Who returned to our screens. The game aims help restore our national pride, by pitting Great Britons John Lennon, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria against one another on Centre Court! No other game combines vintage Sci-fi, the thrill of a well executed backhand volley and the great figures in British history.

>> Five Live: Wimbledon Interactive Map
Our lovely colleagues over at Five Live have put together this nifty aerial zoomable map of the whole Wimbledon compound featuring clickable icons for relevant audio and video clips.

>> Glastonbury 2008 on the BBC
Having never made the long journey to Pilton, I prefer my festivals in the comfort of Website of the Day Towers. I'm especially looking forward to footage of Crowded House on the Pyramid stage (and on Shaun Keaveny's show) tomorrow afternoon. You'll find full details of all BBC coverage on air, online and on digital TV on the always excellent BBC Glastonbury site.

Paul McCartney / Beatles / Liverpool 08

In honour of Sir Paul McCartney's imminent 66th birthday:

>> Listen again to highlights from Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Sound Gig
(audio expires 2000  on 14th June 2008)
>> Watch video of Paul McCartney interviewed by Janice Long
>> Documentary: Don’t Start Me Talking About The Beatles
>> Documentary: The Day John Met Paul
>> Magical Memory Tour (Share your Beatles memories)
>> Liverpool 2008 on the BBC

Euro 2008

>> Euro 2008 – Official site
>> BBC Sport: European Championships Video Archive
>> Five Live: Who Will You Support Interactive Map
>> The Silly Season

Neil Diamond / Doctor Who trailers

Something Musical:
>> Radio 2 Live: Neil Diamond (Exclusive video)
A big week this week for the man who will stay “Forever In Blue Jeans” – Not only has he scored his first ever #1 album in the US Billboard charts … but even bigger than that, he’s performed his exclusive gig for Radio 2. Watch a video preview now of his performance of current single Pretty Amazing Grace, Listen tomorrow from 1900, and watch video of the concert online or by pressing the red button on any BBC Digital TV channel.

Something Creative:
>> Doctor Who Trailer Maker
I rarely get on the family computer in Website of the Day Towers, now that Henry (12) spends most of his waking hours on this site! This is a simple (but fiendishly clever) video editing tool which lets you create your own customised trailers for Doctor Who by assembling short video extracts and adding green-screen effects, sound effects and background music. You can save your trailers and email them to friends. In the two weeks since the site launched, fans have created over 80 thousand original trailers.