3D Mailbox

Most of us spend a lot of time in front of our e-mails and this application is giving us the opportunity to make them a bit more fun. A bit gimmicky but nevertheless an interesting idea.

Downloading the 3D Mailbox application at www.3dmailbox.com reveals a whole new way to look at your e-mails.

There is a free version of the software to download and once it has been setup you will find you have been transported to a virtual Miami Beach, a place where your e-mails are represented as bikini clad avatars.

When you receive an e-mail the avatars appear at the entrance to the hotel's pool. Your spam manager acts a gatekeeper, only allowing through genuine messages to lounge by the pool.

Spam is dispatched to the beach, where they are represented as overweight tourists. Hitting delete results in the spam taking a deadly swim in shark infested waters.

Meanwhile your unread e-mails perform lengths in the pool. Read e-mails tan themselves on the sun loungers.

The outbox shows your avatars enjoying a drink, and if there are any e-mails which your spam manager is unsure about you will find them skating around in the hotel's ice ring.

The developers are currently working on other locations around the world, which will be available to subscribers soon.

Essentially this app is like a real beach holiday: after a few days it can get boring soaking up the rays. This is also processor heavy software so beware if you do not have a high-end PC.

Mapping

There are lots of mapping applications on the web but www.platial.com offers something a little different. It is a social networking site where people blog about their interests and favourite places, but in this case they place it on a map.

This site bills itself as the people's atlas. You do not have to register if you want to check out other people's maps and see what they have said about a place.

There are good tips for travelling with kids or if you want to find a night club that is popular with locals rather than tourists.

However, you have to register if you would like to add your map and places of interest. Registration is quick and easy and you do not have to type out a lot of information about yourself.

To create a map, click Mapmaker, choose a location and what kind of map you are about to create and off you go.

Once you have created the tag you can add pictures from a Flickr account or directly from your PC, add links and information.

The site will tell you if somebody else also tagged the same location and if you want, you can join them

Meebo

www.meebo.com is about instant messages. With AIM, Yahoo, Googletalk and MSN, there is no doubt about it, there are too many different systems.

But visit meebo.com and you can connect to them all over the web. So you can use them all at the same time without having to download all those different applications. Putting it to the test, I must admit I felt uncomfortable giving away so many passwords and usernames all in one go.
But, having said that, this is a great way to get in touch with all of your friends through one single portal, no matter what system you use. And let us not forget, it is free and it works. There are not many things you can say that about, but here is another one

Slideshows

The trouble with digital cameras is that you end up taking hundreds and hundreds of photographs - just because you can - but what do you do with them all? Here is an idea: www.slide.com lets you create your own slide shows. You can use photos on your computer or from the net eg Friendster, MySpace, Flickr; you can get them from anywhere.

Once you have uploaded an image, you can add captions and music, and then display your photos as different styles of slideshow. There are some really silly styles to choose from, like "cube". You cannot see the pictures very easily, although increasing the overall size does help.

Once you have made a slide show, you can keep it private and save it as a screensaver for your computer or share it in a variety of ways. You could allow users to comment, or cut and paste some code that will publish it on your own blog or website, facebook page or anywhere you can think of.

Despite the name, Slide.com is not just about slide shows. You can also create a Skinflix, which sounds a bit dubious but basically means you can customise videos too. Anything on YouTube can be given the Slide.com treatment and then once again you get the code to display it on your own website or social networking site.

Expect to see a lot more pimped-up videos and slide shows right across the net from now on. Whether that is a good thing, you decide

Surname Profiler

Did you know there are more than 25,000 surnames across Britain? And www.surnameprofiler.org lets you type in a name and see where people with a certain surname live.

The website maps the distribution of surnames from the 1998 electoral register and compares it with the 1881 census so you can see how surnames have moved around the country in the last century.

Chinese Chopsticks

www.chopstix.co.uk is a great guide to the world of Chinese cooking. It looks at all things Chinese, from the ingredients you’ll need to Chinese dining etiquette. The recipes are well presented and easy to follow.

A search engine can also find Chinese recipes on the web and has over 4000 indexed.

Fountain of Knowledge

Some people just know how to do things. Others are a bit, well, useless.

www.orature.com is a site created by the former for the latter. Its about people teaching people how to do stuff. So next time you want to know anything then this is the place to go

On-line Conversion

Check out www.onlineconversion.com and let this site do the calculations for you, whether its pounds to dollars, grams to ounces, metres to feet or joules to calories you can let this site do the maths for you when it comes to conversion. It might not be the most exciting site but it sure is functional.

The Weather

So the weather hasn’t been great this summer but at least you can be prepared for the rain with this website. Check out www.weather.co.uk and you will also be informed of how local roads and motorways have been affected

Word On The Street

Keeping up with the kids when it comes to the word on the street can be harder than learning a foreign language, but if you want to appear cool and keep a grip on what the youngsters are talking about then you need to read www.urbandictionary.com . As well as being able to search the phrase database, you can look at the new words for the day and extend your urban vocabulary.

I.T. Review

If you want some unbiased advice on anything computer related then check out www.itreviews.co.uk . The subject matter ranges from general reviews to information on how to find the best PC. The site also gives advice on technical queries as well as having a games room, a place from which you can download programs.

Japanese Cuisine

Japanese Cuisine continues to be ever so cool which is why www.japanweb.co.uk is worth a look – especially if you fancy turning your hand to it yourself. The site covers the basics of Japanese cooking along with recipes and a UK restaurant guide. It also has a glossery and tips on Japanese etiquette

Childrens Legal Centre

www.childrenslegalcentre.com provides free legal advice and an information service covering all aspects of the law affecting children and young people. It can help provide advocates in disputes with the local education authority and campaigns for childrens rights in the UK and abroad. So if you’ve got chilld related problems at the moment then see if this site can help you

Insomnia Cure

So, you thought sheep were only good for putting you to leep and making wooly jumpers? Well, not anymore. Visit www.sheepgame.com and you could have endless hours of fun trying to herd cartoon sheep into a pen. Or it’ll just be a new cure for insomnia instead of the tradional method of counting them.

Phobia Fear

Think your fear of spiders is irrational? Scared of flying or being up high? Well now you can find an online encyclopedia of phobias at www.phobialist.com . From the downright bizarre such as geniophobia (the fear of chins) to the more common like Agoraphobia. Literally hundreds of phobias are listed and it seems its possible to fear almost anything.