1. Apply for ECS membership
2. Submit conference abstract
3. Register for the conference
Colophon
From 1987 until 1993, the European Cetacean Society had a working group, chaired by Jan Willem Broekema, on computer-related issues associated with the exchange of strandings and sightings data. This Computer Working Group may seem superfluous today but it wasn't at the time. The ECS was introduced to internet by the European Union in the pre-web days of 1992, shortly before the web (HTML) concept and the browser (Mosaic) were invented in 1993. At the time the European Cetacean Society was a Special Interest Group (SIG) within a major EUreka project, introducing international scholars to internet usage. Our ECS mailing lists have existed ever since those days.
The working group was dissolved and the role of web editor was introduced in 1993, when the first ECS pages were set up. The original site was designed to be very fast and light and available to any browser anywhere, and easy to maintain. Frames were introduced in 2003 and a major overhaul created a new set of mailing lists, of which ECS-Talk is the most prominent. In 2003 Jan Willem shortened the site's address to www.broekemaweb.nl/ecs and in 2006 introduced the domain name www.EuropeanCetaceanSociety.EU. Archived copies of the old website are accessible from Jan Willem's web page (www.broekemaweb.nl/ecs).
In 2008 Simon Berrow was elected web-editor and therefore now runs the ECS web page and mailing lists. In 2008 the whole website was redesigned by Luke Verburgt from South Africa.
The site aims at providing information about the society itself and not about the animals.
Internet browser
Firefox - The most user-friendly
browser. Replaces Internet Explorer. Hundred of plug-ins for all kinds
of additional services.
Internet email
Thunderbird - Without a doubt the
best and safe replacement for Outlook (Express). Excellent learning
anti-spam engine, better virus protection. However, no agenda functions.
Instant Messenger Miranda or Pidgin - Replaces MSN (Messenger) and at the same time also ICQ, Yahoo, Jabr, IRC,
AOL AIM.
Word processing and all other 'office' OpenOffice.org - replaces Microsoft Office Professional and supports all Microsoft proprietary formats (documents from Word,
Powerpoint,
Excel, Access). Creates powerful PDF files and Flash from presentations. Supports many other formats including the new open ISO
standard Open Document Format.
Photo and painting manipulation GIMP - replaces Photoshop
or PaintShopPro. You'll need to get used to the user-interface. But
very powerful, support an incredible number of file formats.
Line drawing Inkscape - to build vector-graphics and
3D.
Music and sound manipulation Audacity
- supports MP3, WAV, OGG &c. Not Microsoft WMA due to patents. Cut,
paste, speed, hiss reduction, convert, invert, sample, sound effects,
mirror, filter, pitch,
MP3 player Foobar - replaces MediaPlayer, plays MP3, WAV, OGG and Microsoft WMA, audio-CD, play lists, and other formats
Movie and DVD player
VLC player - replaces MediaPlayer and supports almost any format without plug-in or downloadable. Also supports streaming from your server TO internet.
Desk top publishing (DTP) Scribus
- for real mark-up above the simple WYSIWYG from Word and Powerpoint.
For professional lay-outs of brochures, posters and so on.
Web page mark-up (HTML) NVU - replaces FrontPage and DreamWeaver and creates much cleaner (smaller and faster) HTML code that supports all kind of browsres.
A whole office suite on one USB flash stick plus the rest including your files? Seeing is believing. Replaces your laptop PC.
Includes everything you need to work anywhere, including ALL of the
above software. More can be included (or excluded if you need extra
space) and runs on any Windows PC without installing anything. Runs
from any device (USB stick, iPod, PDA, CD, ...). There are localised
versions available, such as the Dutch language version OSS Portable Office.
