Translation
Google has updated its translation tool so that it translates as you key in your text. It also does clever stuff with non-Roman alphabet languages. You can type in a word phonetically in, say, Arabic and it will give you the proper Arabic script at the same time as it translates it. Clever stuff.
Find Any Film
Here's a useful way of tracking down a film you may need to watch. The UK Film Council has launched Find Any Film, a search engine for movies that lets you discover whether the film is showing anywhere, whether it is available on DVD, or even whether it can be downloaded. I discovered, for instance, that Don't Look Now is available on DVD, that Citizen Kane is on next month in Newark on Trent, that no Truffaut films are available in any medium, and, bizarrely, that Genevieve is available to download.
Magazine launches down
A survey in America has shown that magazine launches were down 13 per cent in 2008 compared with the previous year. The survey, by Crain's New York Business report, noted that 335 new magazines were launched, but that they tended to be small niche titles. Fear of the Internet is as much to blame as the economic downturn, but there is still more advertising money in print publishing than the online variety.
News search engine
Take a look at newsflashr.
If you want to know the time…
… take a look at The World Time Engine.
Free online books
Sometimes it is useful to find online texts of books. Most of them are out of copyright works, but not all. There are lots of places to look, but Just Free Books is a search engine that lets you search some 450 relevant sites at the same time. Well worth a look.
Journa-list
I've just stumbled upon journa-list, an interesting site that is intended to help members of the public find out more about UK journalists, what they write about, and who they write for. Type in a writer's name and read off what the site can find out about them: it gives you their most recent article, previous articles, and the topics they mention most. All very ingenious. I notice it says about me that I have "fewer bylined articles than the average journalist". It's true, too, especially when the survey is based on a survey of only 15 sites. Nice name for the site, too. I wonder how they thought of it?
Watch your step
The Press Complaints Commission, which organises self-regulation of the press in the UK, has a special site for its Editors' Code Of Practice Committee, where you can find a downloadable pdf of the Editors' Codebook. This is a detailed guide to the code and how it works in practice, including lots of examples of successful and unsuccessful complaints. Interesting and useful.
Behind you!
Should you find yourself writing about the ancient British theatrical tradition, here is a useful brief guide to the history of pantomime.
UK newspaper search
A new site called chipwrapper offers a search of UK newspaper sites, as well as their RSS feeds. The sites included are The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, the Sun, the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, and the Financial Times. The results of the search do not come up in date order, however, so you have to have your wits about you to use it. For current material you need to use the RSS feeds.
