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

Encyclopedia Britanica / Simpsons Catapault Game

New this week:
>> Revamped Google Video Search
>> Live Chat on Facebook
>> Encyclopedia Britanica Webshare

And a splendid Friday game:
>> Simpsons Ride: Catapult to Krustyland

Boat Race, British Summertime and Free Online Photo Editing

Something Sporty:
>> The Boat Race
All tributaries lead to the Thames this weekend for the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race. The event’s official site is a good ‘un with plenty of video and photos, tips on the best vantage points for spectators and links to reviews of all the pubs along the route.

Something Topical:
>> World Time Engine
Avert post clock-change transatlantic-call catastrophe with this definitive guide to what time it is in any city (or even village) worldwide. Just type in a location to find out whether their clocks have changed yet, or use the meeting planner to work out the best time to make that call.

Something Useful:
>> Photoshop Express
For over a decade Photoshop has been the tool of choice for professional photographers and designers for editing and enhancing digital photos. But at around £600 it’s not a realistic option for cash-strapped amateur photographers. This week Photoshop have launched a completely free online service which provides beginner-friendly online photo editing along with 2Gb of online photo storage for each user.

Yahoo Finds 2007

>> Yahoo Finds 2007
Search engine Yahoo's selection of the most innovative and interesting sites of 2007 includes several past Website of the Day selections:
>> Move Me
>> Doggy Snaps (and Catster)
>> Do The Green Thing

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!

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.

Friday Quick Links

>> World Car Free Day
>> Walkit.com
Tomorrow is World Car Free Day – so a good time to remind people about this excellent walking route planner. It currently covers London, Birmingham and Edinburgh with the rest of the UK to follow by late 2008.
>> Read Miles’ original review

>> Rugby World Cup on Five Live
>> Five Live: Drop Kick Rugby Trivia Game
Choose which country you compete as to determine the difficulty of the questions you encounter in Five Live’s new animated rugby trivia game.

>> How to activate the secret Flight Simulator feature in Google Earth
>> Marco’s Blog: Google Earth Flight Simulator >> Download Google Earth
>> Read Miles’ original Google Earth Review

Video Clip of the week: Virtuoso Scratching Demonstration

Win while you search

>> Wabbadabba: How it works
>> Sign up to search and win
This is nice. Wabbadabba is a new search engine powered by Yahoo! (so your search results here are exactly the same as if you search directly through Yahoo!). But by searching via Wabbadabba, all users are eligible for to receive a prize ranging from Amazon vouchers to TVs. Up to 15 prizes are awarded every day (at random time intervals) and you can recommend the site to friends and receive the same prizes as they win.

How to protect your privacy on Facebook

I haven't talked about Facebook that much on air, but I can't remember when I last found a site quite so addictive! Usually most of my peers have got better things to do with their time than mess around on the web, but Facebook seems to be the site which has changed all that, persuading loads of 40-somethings (as well as teens and twenty-somethings) that the web can as entertaining as it is useful.
But many Facebook memebers dont realise that their profile pages may be visible even to complete strangers, exposing them to the risk of identity theft.
There's a really useful piece in today's Telegraph which explains how to protect your privacy on Facebook - It's well worth a read:

>> Telegraph.co.uk: How to prevent online exposure

Homework tips on video

>> BBC Back Page: Homework tips on video – By parents, for parents
There’s some degree of new-school anxiety at Website of the Day towers as Henry started at his new secondary school this week, which requires an epic commute (as well as a fetching royal blue blazer).
So I was hunting down back-to-school links and unearthed this nifty new experimental service from the Beeb.
Backpage has been created as a kind-of mini YouTube aimed specifically at parents of primary school kids as a place to find and share video tips to help their children with Maths and English homework.
There already seems to be a good sense of community on the site, with lots of parents rating existing video clips and leaving encouraging comments. You can search tips by subject, school age-group, or user rating.

(NB The About The Project page points out that this is a prototype site and that the video tips may not be accessible at all times)

Greener Offers

>> Greener Offers
We’ve talked about charity shopping portals before on the programme, but Greener Offers is one of a new breed of shopping sites which lets you offset your carbon emissions while you’re doing your online shopping.
Think of a shopping portal as an online equivalent to Bluewater or an Arndale Centre. You find a large range of familiar retailers under one virtual roof, and if you’re not sure which site to visit to buy a particular item, you can shop by category.
If you already shop online from sites like Amazon, Toys R Us, Next, Wickes, Dixons, Expedia or Eurostar, you can still make your purchase from your chosen site (and at no extra cost to you). But if you access that site by following a link from Greener Offers, you’ll ensure that your chosen retailer pays a commission which gets passed on to an organisation called Climate Care to spend on CO2 reduction.
On average, every £75 you spend offsets 1 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.