Mike Dent’s ‘ickle Home (thing)…

Great news. Today the uber-cool social networking site Brightkite added the ‘via android’ marking to photos which have been sent from the Android Brightkite application.

iPhone & recently Blackberry users already had this cool marking at the bottom right of all photos they uploaded from their mobile apps, now the Android crowd can join them.

Thanks Brightkite

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It was Sunday 28th June 2009 at about 11:22 am when the phone rang. I answered it and was greeted by a loud male voice asking me if I WOULD PARTICIPATE IN SOME MARKET RESEARCH. I said:-

“No I am not interested” to which he replied,
“Wait Sir, I’m not trying to sell you anything”, again I said,
“I am still not interested”,  then he said,
“Well is there anybody else in the household who I could speak to?”  That’s the bit which really got my back up, I said
“No, goodbye” . and I hung up the phone.

Nothing too unusual about that I guess, except that I’ve not had one of these calls on a Sunday morning for as long as I can remember and secondly our number is registered with the Telephone Preference Scheme. So this got me thinking

I rang 1471 and expected it to be a withheld number but no, the number claimed to have come from 02084 336081. I called it back and got a recorded message which said I had received a call from Kantar Operations, a bonafide marketing company and this was not a sales call and that if I wanted to check I could call the “Market Research Society” on 0500396999.

So, guess what, I called them back. I was sure nobody would be there on a Sunday at almost mid-day but sure enough, they answered in 2 rings. I explained I’d had a call from

“Kant….” I was interrupted…
“Oh they are absolutely fine Sir, no problem with them”
“But how did they get my number?” I asked
“They just random dial Sir.” Hmmmm I thought…
“Well they should not have called our number as it is registered with the TPS?”
“Ahh but the TPS does not cover marketing calls Sir” (not sure about that I thought)
“Well, I will be looking in to this, thanks goodbye”

So, there seems to be at least two things wrong here:-

Random number dialing, also called random digit dialing, is probably an illegal practice if before dialing they do not check the number against the TPS lists and secondly, the TPS does cover sales and marketing calls, it says:-

Anyway I will now go and fill out a complaints issue against Kantar on the TPS website.

Just got back from an outing with our youngest, Cameron.  I took him to a local arts/cinema venue in Lancaster called The Dukes.
He attended a short stop-motion & animation workshop which was put on by a guy called Bary Skillin who runs a company called Animation Nation.
Basically the kids get to make some figures or whatever they want from Plasticine material and then they can move to an animation table where an Apple Macbook and video camera is setup. From here they can use the iStopmotion software to create a short animated movie. 

These movies are then uploade to Youtube for the kids, their friends and family to see. You can see some of the animations here.

Great value and goof fun for £4.50!

A typical mini-roundabout

Mini roundabouts are just like large standard roundabouts only on a smaller scale. As far as I know the rules for using these tiny roundabouts are pretty much the same as you would use for their bigger brothers.

The main objective is to approach the roundabout, generally slowing down as you come up to it and then carefully look to your right side to see if any cars are coming on to the roundabout or already progressing round it.

If either of these are true, then the recommended action is to slow down and stop, thus you are giving way to traffic coming from your right. Not exactly rocket science I am sure you will agree.

Now there lies the problem, many people treat them as just some kind of bump in the road, some think perhaps you should slow down a little for this bump and perhaps drive round it slightly, others will just keep going at their normal speed and drive over the top of the roundabout, perhaps seeing if they can get a little thrill as their car quickly rises up as they traverse the bump.

Often they will not even glance to their right to see if you are coming on to the roundabout, no they will just keep looking ahead, perhaps they will have a mobile phone pressed to their ear, or are attempting to light a cigarette which understandably may be distracting them a little.

Anyway the whole point of this blog post is to make you aware that mini-roundabouts are just like big ones and should be treated with the same respect.

The photo above is courtesy of a great min-roundabout resource which I encourage you to visit, http://www.mini-roundabout.com/

Firstly, thanks for visiting this page and taking the time to read this. 
Secondly, part of me is telling myself I should not be doing this, it might wreak  of desperation but another part tells me I should and if I don’t I will be cutting my nose to spite my face!

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and here I am! I’ve ran my own business for the past 4 years or so and things have been fine. However just recently, maybe the past month or two, work has taken a nose dive and I’m getting less and less work. 

As a result I am looking for some part time work, which I can fit in around my normal work which in essence is fixing computers and other related technical stuff.

So a job of a technical nature would be good but I am fairly flexible. As long as it is not sending out spam emails or breaking captcha’s all day and is legal I don’t mind.

Preferably something I can do from my office at home in Lancaster would be nice too.
I have computers and Internet access as you would expect.

If you have something in mind please use the contact form by following the link above and get in touch!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

Perhaps an iPhone to a Palm Pre or an Android- HTC Dream, HTC Magic to a  Symbian phone like the Nokia N95, N96, N97 or maybe a Treo to a Windows Mobile device?

Well I have created a forum which might hopefully help you.

Each time I changed smartphones, most recently from  a Blackberry to an Android G1, I would visit some forums for the phone I was switching to, and ask questions about it and hopefully get answers to how it differs to the phone I presently have.

Now there likes the problem! You see if you visit an Android forum, a Blackberry forum etc you will find it is very biased towards that particular platform. So when you start asking questions like:

“How does the calendar layout on the iPhone differ to the layout on the Blackberry I have now?”

You might get a few sensible answers but you will likely also attract some of the forum trolls and end up in a small flame war of your own. This has happened to me on several occasions. 

So the idea behind my forum is you can hopefully get impartial advice from people who have already made the particular ‘phoneswitch’ you are considering, or who are also considering switching and may be able to help with your questions.

I’ll also be hanging out there and will help wherever I can!

The forum is called “Phone Switchers” and can be found here, http://forum.phoneswitchers.com, please give it a try.

You might have stumbled on this post following one of my posts to twitter or brightkite. It’s simple really, we are going to London soon for a short break; myself, my better half and our two boys aged 9 and 13 – I’m looking for sensible suggestions of things to do.

Hopefully things that won’t cost a fortune! I’ve got a few ideas myself which I am posting below, most of these came from watching a program with Griff Rhys Jones about London.

Some of these I have no idea if it’s possible to do at all, please tell me.

If you can think of anything, please add it in the comments, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!!

Some ideas :-

• Old London Stone – Canon St. The Roman centre of London (other centre is horse statue near trafalgar sq)
• Any secret tunnel trips or visit the old telephone exchange underground? 
• 10:26am every day Houses of Parliament staff do a traditional walk? 
• Old Doctor Butlers Head pub, 1662. (Ale Conner’s test any new beers?) 
• Burlington arcade in Bond St area is worlds first shopping mall?
•  St Pauls Cathederal maybe. 
• At 10pm a toilet comes up from underground outside Palace Theatre, right side as looking at front entrance.
•  Tower 42 is tallest building? doubt we can go up this.

And ideas from visitors, thanks! (updated as I get them):-

• The London Dungeons are good for adults and kids alike. http://www.thedungeons.com/en/london-dungeon/index.html
• The Science Museum has a good set of “hands on” exhibits for kids.
• The Cartoon Museum (which costs to get into) is also good if you’re interested in popular art.
• The Lyceum Tavern on the Strand is good for interesting beers. Also try de Hems in Soho for Dutch beers.
• China Town is very interesting to walk around – as are poking in to the shops & restaurants there.
• Go to the official Half Price Ticket Booth (TKTS) in Liecieiseir Square – turn up early to get the best seats.
• There’s an excellent calendar of events athttp://www.ianvisits.co.uk/calendar/events/

As I’ve recently moved my customer database to SugarCRM I thought it would be great if I could integrate it with my Asterisk PBX.
The idea is when a customer calls in, I automatically see their details pulled up on the SugarCRM web page on my computer. This allows me to be ‘ready’ to speak to them and have all their details to hand.

After posting on twitter that I was looking at ways to do this, I received a reply from @wichardnoppert, Wichard Noppert, pointing me to a plugin for SugarCRM called ‘notein’. Thanks Wichard!

A quick search lead me to the authors website . It’s not a plugin which you are able to install via the normal SugarCRM method through the web interface, you must download the tar file and extract it in your sugar root directory. Basically it places a single php file in your sugar root and creates a directory called pp_contact with the main files in.

All you need to do then is edit your manager.conf file for asterisk and make sure it allows connections from your PC that you will want the Sugar web page to appear on.

Next you will need to download the Asterisk Desktop Manager, ADM. You can get this from the authors site here http://adm.hamnett.org/ . Install this on the PC which is next to your phone. When a call comes in, and the number is in your SugarCRM database it will open up a browser window with the details of the person/customer calling and a section on the left side of the browser ready for you to add a note to the customer record. Neat!

Apart from configuring ADM with the IP of your Asterisk box and the password which you set in /etc/asterisk/manager.conf, you must configure it to open a browser when a call comes in.  There is a box which you need the following entering in:-

http://<ip or hostname of your sugarcrm>/sugar/pp_index.php?number=%number%

This seems to work well with one annoying exception. If the number coming in is not in your sugarcrm database the web page will still appear but an error will be displayed. I’ve not managed to fix this as yet, it’s rather annoying so if you get it going and have any ideas about it please let me know.

Below you will find my beginners guide to getting started with Brightkite. I’m putting it together to help people make more of this great location based social networking ’site’ – http://www.brightkite.com.

Once you have created an account, the first thing to do is set your email address in:-

Account Settings -> Profile

Whilst there fill in some of the other details and choose a nice avatar/picture too!
The email address here is used to send you notifications when people send you comments etc. If you are in the US you can get these notifications by SMS if you prefer but at present if your outside the US you need to use email. It’s best to use the email address associated with your mobile or smartphone if you have one. Brightkite works best if you check these emails frequently or better still have them ‘pushed’ to your mobile device, or use SMS.

Next, if you are a Twitter user you will want to go to:-

Account Settings -> Sharing

Here you can set the options to have your Brightkite posts sent straight to your Twitter account.  You might want to leave the box un-ticked ‘post to Twitter – when I check in at a place’ for now, this might annoy your Twitter friends whilst you experiment with checking in at places.
Also you can set up Facebook and Flickr sharing here too, both great features of Brightkite! I have mine set so any photos I post from my smartphone go through to Flickr too.

If you are in the US head to:-

Account Settings -> Mobile

and enter your mobile number here. You will receive a confirmation SMS which asks you to go to the Brightkite website and type in a number which is sent to you and from then on you should start receiving text messages when people comment or message you from Brightkite.

Whilst in Account Settings take a look at Privacy and read about the different modes.

Checking In is the location-aware aspect of Brightkite that makes it so different to Twitter. When you move from place to place, Brightkite allows you to ‘check in’ at these places, from then on any posts you make will be tagged with your current location. It also allows you to see who has been to these locations before you!

So now it’s time for your first ‘Check In’! Right at the top of the Brightkite web page you will see a search box, by default this allows you to search for a place or location. Go ahead and try searching for your address, road or something nearby. Usually it works best if you specify the country too. These searches are passed through to google maps for checking, so if it can be found as a verified location in google maps, then Brightkite should find it too.

Once you have hit the search button you will either see a list of possible matches, if that’s the case choose your nearest location and hit the ‘Check In’ button, or you will see what Brightkite thinks is your exact location, if its correct hit the ‘Check In Here’  button at the top right or lastly your location will not be found, in this case be less specific or check your spellings!

So you have now made your first check in to Brighkite! If you are in a busy area with other Brightkite users you might soon be receiving SMS or emails notifying you of other users ‘checking in’ and making posts.

Time to make your first post now. Near the top of the page you should see two buttons, ‘Post a note’ and ‘Post a photo’. For now just click the post a note button. A windows opens which allows you to type in a 140 character note. This can be anything you wish, if your from Twitter land you will know all about this, otherwise just post a short sentence saying that you are ‘testing Brightkite!’ or whatever takes your fancy.

This note is then posted on Brightkite and also passed through to Twitter , if you set the sharing up. The post on Twitter will also have a short link attached to it which allows people in Twitter land to click on the link and be sent to your Brightkite post too. This note is also saved for others to see at the location you are currently checked-in at. This feature is really useful for posting short reviews or messages about a bar, pub or restaurant.

So that’s the basics covered, checking in and posting a note. Now the next step is to go and find yourself some friends on Brightkite. Thankfully you have a great tool at your finger tips to start you off. On the left menu box there is a link to ‘friends’ click this and you will be taken to your friends page,  this is where you can view your list of friends, or if you look to the top right of that page you will see a box ‘Discover and invite friends’.

Clicking this opens up the page below. Here you can search for friends that might already be using Brightkite. Or you can use the email tab and send out direct emails inviting them to join.

I’m going to leave the specifics at this stage. I would suggest that you now explore the features of Brightkite:-

• use the search box at the top to search for topics you are interested in
• use the ‘people near me feature’ to search for people
• use the ‘universe’ stream to see whats happening in other locations
• begin using Brightkite as your twitter client
• when you find a post that interests you start commenting on it!

To comment on a post you find which interests you, use the small speech bubble at the bottom right corner of the post, click it and enter your comment.
Maybe ask a question about the post too, this will help to start an exchange, very soon you will find yourself hooked on Brightkite!

Brightkite works great when you are out and about too, in fact with the photo posting feature and location tagging and awareness this really brings Brightkite in to a league of it’s own.

There is a great iPhone application available on the app store and an Android and Blackberry client under development. There is also a mobile web interface to Brightkite at http://m.brightkite.com.

You can also interact with Brightkite using SMS. If you are still stuck head over to the Help section at http://brightkite.com/help or why not post a note on Brightkite!

Most of all, have fun!

Every geek likes his java and I’m no exception. Over the weekend I purchased this single cup, capsule coffee ‘machine’ . Its made by Krups and is called the Dolce Gusto one cup.
Its very quick and easy to use, requires little cleaning or maintenance and best of all produces great coffee!
It comes in black, white and red. 

Below is a quick video I recorded on my G1 Android phone of the quick process of brewing!
I’d already warmed some milk for about 20 seconds in the glass in case you are wondering.

I recently purchased a Creative Vado HD camcorder from Amazon. It has 8gb of inbuilt memory and will record HD quality for 2 hours.  It has a removable battery and comes with a rubber slip on skin type case.
First impressions are very good. It’s super easy to use and has a HDMI output (comes with cable) and you can view your results on your HD TV in minutes.
It has a pull out USB connector on the base which allows you to plug it in to your computer to download, edit and upload your clips. There is some software pre-loaded on the Vado HD which allows you to do basic editing and uploading to YouTube etc.

Good points:-

• 8gb storage, enough for 2 hours HD recording. 
• Easy to use, sometimes too easy see below!
• Removable battery.
• Good quality recordings.

Bad Points:-

• It has crashed, completely locked up on me twice within 1 hour of recording.
• The pull out USB plug is on the base and stops you standing the camera up on the base.
• Too easy to delete clips. Menu is easily accessed by mis-pressing buttons.

On the whole its a great piece of kit for quick, high quality recordings of video. Looks like the software on it needs some work, a litle rough around the edges and crashes requiring a battery removal.

I’m in the process of building up posts on my new forum. It’s designed to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for those of you who are thinking of changing smartphones from one operating system to another.

The forum is at http://forum.phoneswitchers.com/ , please pay a visit and leave any thoughts you have if you have changed phones recently.

Warning the procedure below will remove your bookmarks.

For the past few days I’ve been puzzled why the Google Gears application that used to work on my G1 phone just stopped working? The social networking site Brightkite makes use of some Gears code on its mobile web page at http://i.brightkite.com/ to allow your device to report back your location to the Brightkite website and automatically ‘check you in’ at that location.

This seemed to work fine for about the first two days with my new G1 phone. However it seemed to stop working about the time I accepted the software upgrade to Android Rc9. After this time it just sat at the screen trying to determine my location.

If I went in to the browser settings on the G1 I noticed that the ‘Gears’ settings/menu did nothing when pressed, it just ignored your press.

I tried resetting the browser to defaults but this also seemed to just do nothing, it did not even get rid of the bookmarks that I had set, as you would expect.

So I decided to go to the phone Settings and did the following:-

Applications -> Manage Applications -> Browser -> Clear Data

What do you know? It worked! It also removed the couple of bookmarks I had set, the Gears menu worked and best of all the Brightkite mobile web page was able to guess my location once again!