Sites recommended by Webster in The Oldie

July 2012

• Free Films
  Almost 500 films to watch for free, and legally, online – some modern, many quite elderly but lots of classics, including some silent films and documentaries. The site has other fee media, too, including Audio Books. It could be easier to search.
• British Pathe archive
  British Pathé produced their famous newsreels from 1910 to 1970, and this is a huge archive of 90,000 fascinating clips – I’ve mentioned it before but it’s better organised now and easier to search. You can look for a name, place event or similar.

June 2012

• www.whatdotheyknow.com
  Freedom of information. This website helps you send Freedom of Information requests to lots of organisations, such as Councils and Government Departments, and read the request others have submitted. It’s run by a charity, UK Citizens online Democracy
• Check my MOT
  Check your MOT. This allows you to check when your car’s next MOT is due, and also check it’s MOT history. There are also links to help you renew your driving licence if you are over 70.

May 2012

• www.eggrecipes.co.uk
  The British Egg information service – a good site for Easter. Go to the “Think outside the Box” section for some good egg recipes, but there’s a lot more good stuff. If you like eggs, that is.
• www.oldmapsonline.org
  A collection of historical maps from around the world; run by Portsmouth University it will be a central repository to a collection of maps held by institutions across the globe. It’s starting with 60,000 maps and is growing fast.

April 2012

• iseek.com
  If you want to find out some of what is stored on line about you, use iseek.com; it’s especially good at arranging what it finds into categories like people, place, organisations and more. Put your name in and you may be astonished.
• What Facebook knows about you
  Last year an Austrian law student asked Facebook to send him all the data they stored about him. It took a while and then Facebook sent him a CD with 1,222 files on it. Chilling.

March 2012

• www.hidden-heroes.net
  This site is associated with an exhibition at the Science Museum which celebrates “the genius of everyday things”. Select an object (like a clothes hanger) and you’ll see information about the inventor and more. A bit slow to load, but worth the wait.
• www.historypin.com
  This is a site for sharing local history and photos. It’s a not-for-profit company and is aiming to fill itself with memories and historic photos contributed by the users. It has great potential and I’d encourage you to look, and perhaps contribute.

February 2012

• www.klip.me
  Klip.me is run from China and is a button to add to your browser that allows you to send anything you find on a website to your Kindle to read later. It’s a bit technical to set up, but is free and works brilliantly.
• www.picnik.com
  Picnik is a well tried and stable online picture editing site; you can edit and improve your photos, or any other pictures, very easily. UPDATE: since mentioning this site, it has announced it will close in April 2012. The Curse of Webster strikes.

January 2012

• www.patient.co.uk
  A site run and owned by Doctors, and recommended to me by a Doctor I know. The aim of the website is to provide non-medical people in the UK with good quality information about health and disease.
• www.healthtalkonline.org
  This provides information on health issues, and lets you listen to over 2,000 people's experiences of over 60 conditions and illnesses. You can watch video or listen to audio clips of the interviews. Run by a Charity DIPEx.