COMPUTER CHINCHAT

Do you remember that excellent Web App I featured a while ago called Napster? Well they now have a competitor who'll be giving them a real run for their money. They are called Scour and their web site is available at: http://www.scour.com
Scour have taken Napster's lead and developed a product to do a similar task, but for multiple file formats. For instance, if you wanted to find Madonna's latest record on the Net, using Napster, you'd type in the search criteria of 'Madonna' and hit the search button. Napster would return a list of all MP3 audio files where the word Madonna occurred in the author or title fields, whereas Scour would return a list of any file type with Madonna in the Author or title field - including video, audio or images. Impressed? I certainly was!
Scour is available as a free 1.41Mb Beta download from http://www.scour.com. Download the beta, install it and the Net's the limit!

And Another Fighting Game, But...
I get sent lots of URLs by friends telling me to visit a web site or to evaluate software from the web, sometimes it's good, mostly it's not. However, one that I found quite amusing is called BattleMail Kung-Fu. It's free and is available at http://www.battlemail.com.
BattleMail Kung-fu, as the name implies, is a Kung Fu fighting game driven by email. You download the application from their site, install the software, enter your email address and away you go. Through the application you select your fighter, then select your own six-move attacking fight sequence. Then you pick your six-move defending fight sequence, which is then sent to your friend challenging them to a Kung-Fu fight. On receipt of the email, the friend would have to download the software, install it and set-up their own six-stage

attack/defend fight sequence to counteract yours. Once this is done, they will see the fight. It is basically a guessing game trying to determine what your opponent's sequence will be, but it's quite funny. You don't have to be online as the game runs off-line. The objective of the game is to reach Black belt and have your score on their web site. Give it a try and let me know it you get listed.

New Taxi Discussion List
Back to the taxi trade. Currently there are two discussion lists on the taxicab web site, discuss@taxicab.co.uk for any discussions relating to the UK trade or theknowledge@taxicab.co.uk for any knowledge students. Now there is to be a third: taxicab@taxicab.co.uk. This new list, like the other two, will be a closed list - i.e. members will have to introduce themselves and all emails sent are private.
   Why am I mentioning this in my article you ask? Because this list will consist of genuine people in the trade who want to propel our drivers and our trade forward in these turbulent times. It won't be for general taxi chat; it will be focused on resolving issues in our trade that aren't being addressed now. It will consist of members throughout the UK all uniting together combining their experiences to produce real world solutions.
   If you're interested please contact me chinvb@taxicab.co.uk with the compulsory introduction and let's go forward together..
   On the subject of emails, I know some of you have emailed me recently and I've searched my emails trying to find them because I know I put them somewhere! If you have emailed me recently and I didn't reply, please accept my apologies, as I've been absolutely overwhelmed.

C Ya next month... Vince Chin

Dial-a-Cab Football

The End of a Successful Season
We didn't quite make it! In our first full season (we took over from another team last season), we just failed to take the Five-a-Side Lunchtime League Championship finishing second, just three points - or one win - behind the eventual winners CWB to whom we offer our congratulations.
   Amazingly, we completed the season losing just one match, but CWB went one better by remaining undefeated and just suffering two drawn matches - one of which was against DaC.
   While we were badly hit by injuries at a crucial time during which we gained a defeat and a draw, we are making no excuses because a good team has taken the title.
   I'm proud of my players because to win 31 matches out of 34 with two others drawn is a tremendous achievement. If we can keep this team and possibly add a few good players, we must have

a good chance of honours next season.
Can I also say what an honour it was for two of our five regulars - myself and David Adelman to play for the Cab Trade XI against a good quality ex-Tottenham Hotspur team in aid of the Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers forthcoming trip for chronically sick children to Disneyland Paris. We all hope that the trip is a huge success.

Lee Morland
Team Captain

Lunchtime Corporate League: Final positions:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
CWB	34	32	2	0	259	60	98
Dial-aCab	34	31	2	1	212	79	95