WeTransfer allows you to simply transfer large files across the internet without the need for registration. Files are only available for two weeks, however the service is completely free to use and you can always upload the files again!

Mail Online remains the most visited UK newspaper website and is closing in on another traffic record – 3 million average daily browsers.

The Associated Newspapers website network registered 2,939,799 average daily users last month, up by 6.56% from October and 55.77% on the same month last year. Mail Online’s monthly browser total of 51,434,953 is a 2.76% lift on the previous month. Josh Halliday, The Guardian.

What hope is there?

You can send a cuddly toy on holiday to Paris at Furry Toys Tours. The website was inspired by the film Amélie, which saw the eponymous character persuade her father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing his garden gnome and having an air-hostess friend send pictures of it posing at landmarks all over the world.

Furry Toys Tours company founder Denis Gerber told Wired.co.uk “We don’t sell trips to furry toys, we don’t sell pictures, what we actually sell is a kind of emotion.” He suggested secretly stealing the toys from their owners and sending them to him: “The day your child or partner receives their first email containing a photo of their toy, that is the emotion we are selling. It is sweet and poetic.” Olivia Solon, Wired.

A basic trip costs €100 whilst extension tours cost €50 each – you could spend €300 just to send a stuffed toy to Paris and receive a few photos, and that excludes postage – at those prices why not take yourself and child/partner on holiday taking some photos yourself? Failing that if it’s a prank your after then surely some judicious use of some photo editing software (paint.net for instance – which is a free download) will do the job without the cost.

Now does anybody want to send their toy on tour to Gloucestershire – I’m sure we could come to an arrangement.

Hat Tip: Very Short List.

The way that the British read news online appears likely to change greatly over the coming years. As The Times and The Sunday Times prepare to charge readers for the online editions of their newspapers, the titles point to growing evidence that Britain is more willing to spend money online than almost any other nation.

It is argued that, with news sites now accounting for 3 per cent of the time that we spend online, charging for content represents a natural step for the press and publishing industry.

Nearly 16 million people in Britain visited a mainstream newspaper website in February. Figures from the market researchers UKOM/Nielsen show that a quarter of those users have already paid to access news online or would be willing to do so. A third even said that they would be willing to pay for web content that they had already paid for offline, if it was substantially better than what was on offer free. The Times.

When Murdoch starts charging I won’t be visiting anymore and the withdrawal of News International from public ABCe audits shows Murdoch believes I’ll be one of many – how long before advertisers wake up to reduced Internet traffic? This will only work if others follow suit – which at the moment looks unlikely – I suspect competitors are looking forward to an increase in traffic and advertiser revenues.

Ever wondered what a website sounds like? I guess not – despite this Codeorgan does just that – it takes the body content of any webpage and translates it into music – firstly it removes all characters not found in the music scale (A to G) and then identifies the most frequently used note to determine the scale, secondly using the total number of characters on the page determines the synthesiser to use and lastly using the ration of notes to characters determines the drum loop.

Out of range sounds like this:

Hat Tip: Very Short List.

Encarta the once ubiquitous encyclopaedia is to be discontinued

On October 31, 2009, MSN® Encarta® Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009. Encarta FAQ.

Why

Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business. Encarta FAQ.

What tosh companies speak – the way people consume information as far as online encyclopedias go is much the same as it ever was: it’s just Microsoft couldn’t compete with Wikipedia. In the current financial climate Encyclopaedia Britannica must be suffering – why pay £50 pounds for annual subscription or even £5 a month when Wikipedia’s free?

Hat Tip: Ars Technica.

Wordle’s a bit of fun, it takes test you provide be-it a webpage or a piece of text and turns it into a word-cloud which gives greater prominence the more a word is used. Here’s one of OutofRange.net.

To create your own you have to take a screen shot – as the Wordle website points out. take-a-screen.org, unsurprisingly has instructions for taking a screen shot and not just for Windows machines – the windows instructions suggest using paint, you might want to investigate paint.net, which is a brilliant piece of software that’s free to use.

Hat Tip: Next Left.

FixMyStreet is a simple website, which allows you to report problems to your council via email, by simply entering your post code, clicking the location of your problem on a small scale Ordnance Survey map of the area. Four weeks later you’ll get a reminder asking if the problem has been resolved, if not you can then email your councillors.