This section is for links to other family news and items that don't fit into any of the main categories.

The wonderful world of Google Earth

For those of you with broadband and a passing interest in maps and geography, we can highly recommend Google Earth, available as a free download from the Google web site. It's a map of the world which you can scroll around and zoom in on, and it uses aerial and satellite pictures (where available) to show remarkable amounts of detail not found in conventional maps. In some cases you can even see what car's parked outside your house! One of the clever things about it is that it only downloads the images as you view that location, so it doesn't take up much disk space on your computer and automatically makes use of better image data as it becomes available.

Additionally, you can view 3D terrain and optional overlays of all sorts of information including place names, roads, buildings and anything of interest submitted by people who use the software. You can also add your own private data, and set up "virtual tours", where the viewer will "fly" around a series of marked locations. We've set up a "Kathie & Martin's Family tour of Manchester" which takes you around some of the locations in Manchester that have been significant in our families' lives, with a little description about each one. To view it, first download/install Google Earth, then download our tour and double click it to run it, or use the File>Open menus command to load it from within Google Earth. It will then appear in the list of Places where you should select it and press the VCR-style Play button to run it. You can pause the tour at any time, particularly if you find that it's moving you on to the next location too quickly before the picture detail has finished downloading for the current one. Watch the "Streaming" indicator under the view, and if it's not at 100% that means that there's more picture detail still to come.

If you enjoy our tour you may like to add a marker or two to where you live, work or play and then send them for us to have a look at. To add your own markers, zoom in on the place in question, select Add Placemark from the menu, edit the name/description and drag it to the exact position if required. Then Right-Click on it and select "email" and send it to kathie@f2s.com. We look forward to seeing some of your places!

ADSL Broadband Service Providers

We've had broadband (ADSL) internet access at the office since 2001, and in 2003 year decided to subscribe to a service for home use. At work we originally used BT Openworld, mainly because there wasn't so much choice back then, but now there is. We chose Freedom to Surf (www.f2s.com) on the basis of cost and user reports. There's a useful site called www.adslguide.org which lists and rates all the current service providers, from which f2s came out pretty well. The current cost is £14.99 per month, inc VAT, and the service has been comparable to BT, which is not too surprising given that most ISPs are reselling BT's wholesale service. Anyway, it gets our thumbs up, as does the Etec ADSL Modem/Router/Hub which we bought separately to connect our various home PCs.

If you decide to subscribe to F2S, please mention our username "kathie" during the sign-up if you would like us to get the nominal "referral fee".

Since getting broadband at home we've moved to a new office which is in another telephone exchange area, necessitating new phone numbers and re-subscribing to a new broadband service. We took this as an opportunity to ditch BT, who although dropping their price once in the two years, were still about £10/month more expensive than some of their rivals (selling more or less the same service). After more research on www.adslguide.org we chose Eclipse (www.eclipse.net.uk) not because we're unhappy with F2S, but because they seemed just as good and we wanted the "insurance" of having access through one company should there be a major problem with the other. No complaints so far.

If you need any help or equipment to set up a home broadband connection, wired or wireless, send us an email.

Windows Wallpaper Right Click here and select "Save Target As" to download a 1024x768 copy of the Manchester skyline picture taken from outside our office at Sandpiper Quay in January 2003. Save in your Windows folder to make it available as a background wallpaper. To change the background image, go to the Background tab of the Display Properties (in the Windows Control Panel, or by Right-Clicking on the desktop and selecting Properties).

New for 2006 is a revised picture, taken from more or less the same spot during the summer (so rather hazy and not such a dramatic sky), showing some of the new building work which has taken place in the city centre in the last few years, and particularly the Beetham Tower which now dominates the landscape. Right Click here to download it, as above.