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

Online breath testing, Dawin online, Google Earth for charities and new features

Something Worthy
>> Google Earth Outreach
This new initiative aims to give charities and non-profit organisations the tools to showcase their fundraising activities to a mass audience via Google Maps and Google Earth.

Something New
>> The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online
Until now Darwin's original handwritten manuscripts were only available to scholars at Cambruidge University - Now his work has been put online from Voyage of the Beagle to the Theory of Evolution. Choose to view the scanned manuscripts or put the mp3 versions on your iPod!

>> Google Earth Updated
“New! in Google Earth 4.3

• Photo-realistic buildings from cities around the world
• Dawn to dusk views with the Sunlight feature
• Swoop navigation from outer space to street-level"

Something funny
>> Test Your Breath
Laugh-out-loud funny: Breath into your computer's microphone (or type in details of your last meal) to get an assessment of how fresh (or otherwise)your breath is.

The Girl’s Guide To Travel

>> Wanderlust: The Girl’s Guide To Travel
>> Vote for your greatest woman traveller
These new features from independent travel magazine Wanderlust have launched to coincide with International Womens Day tomorrow. Find out why Camomile teabags and bicarbonate of soda should be in every woman traveller’s backpack in their downloadable guide. Then cast your vote for the Greatest Globe Trotting Girls of all time.

Virtual tourism / escapism

On a damp and dismal British Friday, thoughts inevitably turn to beaches and other exotic destinations:

>> Fabsearch
This new travel site trawls glossy magazines like Vogue, Tatler, and Vanity Fair for their best travel tips and features and archives them online by source and location. Site visitors can peruse the features for free and "clip" interesting sections in a "my clippings" file.

>> AfterSunrise
This a great escapist stressbuster – Watch videos of the sunrise on Miami Beach. Each short clip features beautiful beach views, soothing sounds and feelgood quotes from Miami’s early risers talking about what they’re looking forward to doing on the day of that sunrise.

>> Friday Game: Mynci Beach Volleyball
Where turquoise cartoon animals take on brown cartoon animals in a battle for oceanside volleyball supremacy .

World In One City

>> World in One City
Londoners Alex Horne and Owen Powell are approaching the end of their one year quest to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. To do this they aim to meet and chat to a citizen from every country in the world who currently lives and works in London. With 7 days remaining, they have 12 countries left to find. Read about their adventures and see if you can help them find their last 12 international ex-pats.

Also mentioned today:
>> The Cliché Rotation Project
A site which aims to replace all overtired clichés with fresher equivalents of similar meaning. Thus 'Born with a silver spoon in his mouth' is replaced by 'Born with a venture capitalist in the family' and so on.

Friday Quick Links

>> DIY Fix-it
Extensive illustrated guides to loads of different DIY projects. For those intimidated by technical terms like wallpaper or plumbing, the beginner’s approach allows you to select which part of the house you want to do something to, and get a list of projects that you could do in that room.

>> Barbecue Bible
Recipes, "BBQ History" and the BBQ 10 Commandments (“Know when to baste, guage yor fuel, keep it lubricated and never desert your post”!)

>> Newsbreaker
This variation on the classic arcade game Breakout rewards you for clearing lines of bricks by linking you to headlines for breaking news stories

>> YouTube clip of the week: Newbreaker Game
At the premiere of Spiderman 3 in LA, the cinema audience took part in a demo of a big-screen version of the afore-mentioned Newsbreaker game. The gameplay here was controlled by a motion sensor tracking the movements of the entire audience

>> BBC Music: Reading & Leeds Weekender
The Beeb’s summer music festival coverage concludes with extensive video highlights (both online and on the digital TV red button service) from the main stages at Reading and Leeds. Headliners include Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Kings Of Leon, Arcade Fire and Bloc Party

Also mentioned: Travel links for Notting Hill Carnival:
>> Transport for London Journey Planner
>> BBC London Travel News

Keep Moving

>> Keep Moving
Excellent though Radio 2’s travel news is, sometimes you just can’t wait half an hour until the next update. In which case Keep Moving could be just the thing. There’s a mobile service which is fine if you’re happy to pay 60p a minute for your call, but for me it’s the free online service which does the job.
Pick any A road or motorway to get a junction-by-juntcion list of any hold-ups, accidents or roadworks, often accompanied by audioclips with more information. And if you have a daily commute by road, you can sign up for free text and email alerts which will turn up before you leave the house or office, with details of any delays on your usual route.

Tourist Information Maps

>> Tourist Information Maps
You may recall a longstanding Website of the Day favourite called OnOneMap which uses Google Maps’ popular zoomy-inny technology to display all the houses for sale in a particular area on a handy interactive map. This site does much the same thing for UK tourist attractions, hotels and cottages. Effectively it’s a tourism search engine, with the results appearing on a easy-to-use map rather than just in a text-based list. You can click on the map to search by area, or look for specific types of attraction. For hotels you can even search by date in order to find hotels in a particular area who have availability for the date you want

En Vacances!

Website of the Day has gone to France and taken Miles with it. Normal service is due to be resumed on Tuesday August 13th, but in the meantime, why not explore some of the links showcased elsewhere on this site.

Every site featured on the programme over the last couple of years appears on this site and there are plenty of additional links to sites we haven't had a chance to showcase  on-air. You can browse the archives by date or by category, search the site and post comments on any of the links you find here.

Shameless plug coming up: You may also want to read about and/or order Website of the Day: The Book, - A perfect gift for the web enthusiast in your life!

>> About This Site
>> Miles' favourite French links
>> Website of the Day on Radio 2

The Travel Money Maximiser

>> Money Saving Expert: Travel Money Maximiser
This phenomenally useful tool is designed to simplify currency exchange rates and commission charges so you can always get the most foreign currency for your sterling. Choose the amount of currency you want and the site will searches all the online bureaux to find the cheapest deal (even allowing for commission and delivery charges).

Weatherbonk (Google Weather Maps, plus webcams and meteorological route planning)

>> WeatherBonk
Weather Bonk is a so-called mash-up – that’s a site which pulls together features from several different sites so that you can access useful services on one site without having to go elsewhere.
In this case, the one site combines weather forecasts with Google’s trusty zoomable maps, plus webcam views of locations currently shown on each map, and (best-of-all) a meteorological route-planning service, so you can find out when weather conditions will be most suitable for a particular planned road journey.