Website of the Month 2006

Sticking with the theme of stray cats, this month's WSOTM is a site all about that very subject.

On first glance this Website put me off a little. It uses frames, which means no bookmarks, and it has MIDI music - which I always hate! However, after turning my speakers down and looking at a few pages I have to say I was hooked.

This Website is a fascinating repository of activities by Jeri Dopp, who helps to rescue and look after stray and feral cats in and around Redwood City, USA.

It is clear to see that Jeri is passionate about her subject, and knowledgeable too. Pages cover all cat rescue subjects from how to look after newborns to de-clawing to being a responsible cat owner in the first place and I would be surprised if any cat owner could not learn something from Jeri.

The site takes a hard line on spaying/neutering, but with good reason and I can't say I disagree with anything I read on the site.

Overall, a great site, I'd thoroughly recommend a visit.

Quantum Picture produces software to analyse and recognize features in digital pictures - not the sort of thing you would expect to be reviewed in the Mews-letter, I'm sure, but they've been developing their latest software using a very interesting technique - the facial-recognition cat-flap.

Whilst still working on the technical stuff they seem to have made tremendous progress and have detailed on their web site an amazing process, by which their Flo Control cat-flap can recognise their test cat and determine if he's brought any rodents or other small creature in with him.

If it's not him or if he's brought any nasties back with him the flap remains locked, but if he's 'clean' the cat-flap automatically unlocks and he's allowed to enter.

My first impression of this site was that it was going to be far too geeky a subject for a cat-themed newsletter, as the Flo Control section is somewhat incidental to the site and not the main focus, but after a little while I realised that the site is actually very well written and absorbing on several levels - hopefully you agree.

The brilliantly eccentric subject matter certainly makes up for any geekyness, and the level of technical detail seems to strike a good balance, explaining what's going on without becoming a technical manual.

As stated above, there is more information on the site than just the Flo Control info, but the idea is so great that this site gets our vote for the Web Site of the Month

"Unique and hand painted pet portraits from photos, capturing your friend's unique personality!".

Katja Turnsek is an amazingly talented pet portrait artist, after just a few minutes of looking around this Website I'm sure you will agree.

The Website provides a great selection of example portraits in the gallery, which are all stunning, and the 'work in progress' section is very interesting.

Above all the artist seems to take special care to get the character of the pet to shine through in her portraits, taking comments about the pet from the owner into consideration and there is some good advice about how to take the best pictures for her to paint from.

The pricing section is very clear to understand, price is based on size/content and the medium you are choosing, with a very handy price calculator at the bottom to convert from Euros into any other currency very simply.

Over all one of the best websites I've been to, well designed, all the information you need to know is easily found and above all else a quality product at a reasonable price!

Bookings for Christmas are being taken until 25 th November or until she is all booked up, so get your skates on!

A very amusing website written by cats for cats, includes lots of helpful information for your cat like 'Housebreaking your human' and 'Projectile vomiting for beginners'

The website is well designed, easy to navigate through, and has lots of very funny content. The writer on this website has obviously studied his cats well.

My cats must have already read through it because they have mastered some of these strategies (unfortunately!).

Every cat I've ever had knows this one: "Here's a great game. Jump into an empty box, stick your head out and hold the pose while your owner runs around looking for a camera. As soon as she appears, finger on snap button, turn around and point your tail at the camera. You'll learn some new cuss words, guaranteed."

This issue's Web Site Of The Month is a real corker!! The Mows is a regular comic strip about the day-to-day lives of Indie, Tigey and Nonie, the fury lodgers in and around the home of artist Jay Dyke.

Made entirely using Flash (a web animation tool) these strips are not only visually stunning but are very funny too, and you really get a sense the personality of each of the cats.

All the obligatory themes are covered, such as cardboard boxes, food hustling and the mischief we all know a cat can get up to. There are many funny subtleties in the cartoons too, but I won't spoil it for you - see if you can spot some yourself.

You can also buy merchandise of The Mows, covering everything from t-shirts and caps to mugs and badges - to me this site looks like it's the beginning of something really big!

There's some other interesting sections too such as pictures of 'The Real Mows', which gives the site a bit more depth. In fact, the only criticism I have is that there is no RSS feed of the cartoons. I would definitely sign up to have the cartoons delivered to my feed reader.

Overall this site is excellent and I would encourage you to visit them now.

This month's Recommended site of the month is a Website aimed at children provided by the BBC.

It features a good interactive guide to cats that provides good information about cats breeds, history and cat behaviour, a fact sheet about how to care for your cat and a quick check list to see how well you look after your cat, all presented in a fun and easy to use way.

There are further links to similar guides for other common pets such as Dogs, Rabbits and Hamsters, so it's a good 'one-stop shop' for educating Kids on basic care for most pets.

If you want your kids to learn more about the furry kids in you house I'd thoroughly recommend they visit this Website.

This months WSOTM is the UK's national Cats Protection organisation. There are several obvious reasons why we should all support the activities of organisations like this, so I wont re-invent the wheel and tell you all that. But I will tell you some of the good reasons why you should visit their Website.

The first reason is that it's a great site. It has loads of information about the organisation's activities and also all areas of cat ownership.

They provide a service reuniting lost cats with owners (4000 per year, according to the headline), as well as the very important information about re-homing cats in their care.

WARNING: Looking at the rehoming sections or finding your local branch's website could seriously increase the number of cats in your house!! :WARNING

Every year Cats Protection host an awards ceremony for outstanding rescued cats. The categories include Ultimate Survivor and Most Incredible Story, so we're thinking of entering Bones for both of those. If you're quick you may still be able to enter your own moggy.

The site also holds a photo contest, which even if you're not going to enter it is well worth a look, there really are some great pictures of cats there.

This site has a great design, an overall nice feel to it and is really too big to adequately in depth so I suggest that rather than me writing any more about it you just go and check it out for yourself NOW

P.S. Give them some money!!!

This months WSOTM is actually a blog. (If you're not sure what a blog is check it out here at Wikipedia) I signed up to the RSS feed a couple of months ago and have not been disappointed with the quality or regularity of posts.

Every entry contains something interesting, but often is also amusing and occasionally even surprising - such as the latest post quoting a study that found pet food to be healthier for humans than KFC, Mc Donalds or Pizza Hut!

Topics over the last month to catch my attention include Can cats be vegan?, Pet food - kosher for Passover, the Dog bikini and Scuba diving dogs - but to be fair there are at least another ten that I could say were just as intriguing.

I've certainly not got bored of this feed yet and don't think I will any time soon. Although it tends to favour dogs it is about all types of pets and includes cats often enough that I think it qualifies for a review here.

Silicon Hell is a surprising mix of 'Comedy Poured Over A Bed Of Feline Madness' as they put it, something that meant nothing to me when I first read it but makes a lot of sense now.

The area dedicated to cats, known as 'The Mad Cat Corner', has some great information, some jokes, a good gallery and quite a few other things you might be interested in, and some of these options (such as the cat gallery) are available from the main menu.

My favourite bit is the Cat Humour Page, which is essentially just a list of links to funny pages, but most of the ones I click on really were quite funny.

The rest of the site features an eclectic mix of humour, shopping and other detritus so disconnected it would probably be simpler if you just go and have a look rather than me trying to explain it.

Over all, I like this site a lot. It kept me entertained for quite a while and I'm sure I will be back for more.

If you want a web page just for showing off your cat this is the place to go!

It's easy to sign up for and easy to make great web pages to show off everything that's great about your cat.

We've made some pages for our own cats so you can see the sort of things you can do, here is a link to Mitz's page: http://www.catster.com/?260112 and you can find the other cats under the heading 'Meet her Family'

It's a great looking site that's easy to use and I had lots of fun listing the individual personalities of our family! I see they have a Cat of the week & Cat of the day feature too so hoping that one of mine will make the grade.. Watch this space!

With 57,194 members in under 2 years of running I think its safe to say I'm not the only one who thinks this site is awesome!

Depending on who you ask, About.com is either one of the most useful or one of the most annoying sites on the whole of the internet.

On the one hand it's a potential goldmine of useful information on any subject you care to mention, on the other an ever-changing mass of articles, opinions and discussion, all centrally managed/controlled/edited(/censored?) by the 'About Corporation' - whoever that might be.

Which camp do I fit into? Definitely the first!

About.com is massive, and it can sometimes be hard to find the specific piece of information you're after, I'll give you that; but it's for exactly the same reason that I've literally spent hours and hours enthralled, just looking at whatever I happen across.

Talking more specifically about the Cats section (this is the Purr Mews-letter, after all), the site is absolutely packed with interesting and useful information.

They have regular sections that are updated at whatever predefined period (such as 'FAQ of the day' or 'Picture of the Week') as well as more general articles about all manner of subjects. For instance, right now there is a fascinating article about clicker training on the front page.

There is also a large selection of past articles to browse on an impressive variety of topics, from 'cats for beginners' to 'Litter Box Essentials'. Whatever your level of interest (or obsession) with your cat you can't fail to find something of interest here.

Overall this site gets 8/10, losing a couple of points simply because of how dauntingly vast it is - the cat section though? That's got to be a 10!

P.S. If anyone knows how to get products reviewed in the shopping section please drop us a line, we'd love to have them review some Purr!