Here are Rob's Blog entries for March 2005.
Blog entries for other months can be found in the main blog index.
The good news is that the new series of Doctor Who has been recommissioned by the BBC after just one episode!
The bad news is that Christopher Eccleston has quit his role of the Doctor already because he fears being typecast.
Actor David Tennant is the current favourite to play the 10th Doctor.
I was lucky enough to receive a promotional copy of The Levellers new single, Make U Happy, through the post today.
The picture on the case was based on a mobile phone screen, and not one of Jeremy's art works as before.
The song is fairly chart friendly, but the production reminded me more of The Corrs than of classic Levellers tracks. However, it's enjoyable and good to see the Levs releasing mainstream material again.
I'm going to the album preview gig tomorrow so i'll be able to write a bit more about the style and quality of their new material then.
We went for a walk along the top of the cliffs to Beachy Head today.
This is the view looking from Cow Gap towards Eastbourne.
Hello Dudley!
The local cat poses for a quick photo.
One thing that caught my interest today was how to convert a colour image into grayscale.
It turns out the basic algorithm is very simple. Basically it's just...
grey = 0.15 * red + 0.55 * green + 0.30 * blue;
This can be turned into a Perl subroutine using the following code.
sub grayscale {
my ($r, $g, $b) = @_;
my $s = 0.15 * $r + 0.55 * $g + 0.30 * $b;
return int($s);
}
Here we pass in the RGB values of the colour we want to turn into gray. We apply the algorithm and return the integer value of gray.
The value we get for gray is used to replace each of the values for red, green and blue.
We can test this subroutine out with the help of the Perl GD module (available for free on CPAN).
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use GD;
## grayscale subroutine
sub grayscale {
my ($r, $g,$b) = @_;
my $s = 0.15 * $r + 0.55 * $g + 0.30 * $b;
return int($s);
}
## create a new GD object with the data passed via STDIN
my $image = new GD::Image(\*STDIN);
## iterate over the number of colours in the colour table
for (my $i = 0; $i < $image->colorsTotal(); $i++) {
## get the RGB values for the colour at index $i
my ($r, $g, $b) = $image->rgb($i);
## convert the RGB to grayscale
my $gray = grayscale($r,$g,$b);
## remove the original colour from the colour table
$image->colorDeallocate($i);
## add in the new gray
$image->colorAllocate($gray,$gray,$gray);
}
## make sure we output binary
binmode STDOUT;
## pass the image as a raw GIF to STDOUT
print $image->gif;
This code takes an image piped in from STDIN and outputs a grayscale GIF version of the image to STDOUT.
If the code was called convert.pl it would be called as ./convert.pl <test.gif >>test_result.gif.
Here's a conversion I did earlier of a GIF image of Kitt, Bev and Justin at the Emap Performance Awards 2004 using the above Perl code.
Would someone please remind the editors of Metro to add real headlines to the stories printed in todays paper.
heady heyady head heasdy
is a great default header, but doesn't really have much to do with the IRA or abandoned babies.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about free New Order ringtones being offered via bluetooth.
The HMV shop on Oxford Street currently has the promotion running in it's left hand window, so I tried it out.
I turned on Bluetooth on my Nokia 6630 phone as I stood near the poster. It took about 15 seconds, but I received a message from the poster asking if I accepted an incoming bluetooth connection. I did, and received the midi ringtone, 2 Krafty.mid.
This seems like a really good use of technology. The poster could be a bit more exciting and eye catching as it looks like a ad from Orange.
The poster also accepts connections via IR if your phone doesn't have bluetooth.
I went to the Revolution Awards 2005 last night.
Unfortunately we didn't win anything this year.
The Mobile Data Association has reported that WAP (I hate that term, why not just call it Mobile Internet?) page impressions were up 18% on last year, with 1,420,000,000 viewed in the UK.
The MDA had originally predicted 15,000,000,000 page impressions for the whole of 2005, though I would expect they would want to revise that estimate now.
They also predict that 75% of handsets in the UK will have GPRS, and 5 million handsets will have 3G. That means getting mobile internet pages shouldn't be that much of a problem, though (and I know I always go on about this) data costs are still far to high in the UK. The operators really need to consider cutting the costs and letting increase usage recoup the fall in their profit margins.
I've been looking at CellTrack program for series 60 phones recently.
This is a native series 60 Symbian application that can record details of the current mobile phone cell your phone is using. It also lets you annotate each cell if you want.
Celltrack is something I downloaded for my Nokia 7610 a while ago, and have just installed on the Nokia 6630.
On Monday, while the train was running slow, I had it running and started to annotate stations so I could tell where I was in the evening when it's dark outside. CellTrack has a feature that allows you to log used cells to a flat tab seperated file. In my case, as I have the software installed on the 6630's MMC card, the file can be found in the directory E:\Nokia\Others\CellTrack and copied off using the Nokia PC Suite.
Here's the journey I took on Tuesday morning by train. I turned on CellTrack at Marks Tey station and had it running to just before the train pulled into Stratford station in East London.
So what do some of the columns mean? Well Cell ID is the ID taken from the actual cell. LAC means the location area code of the cell. I'm not sure what Cell Name actually is, the CellTrack site says it comes from the cell broadcast as I have a service number set. The description is the text I entered to give a rough location to the cell.
As I said before, the log file has the data in tab seperated format. The data is recorded in the following order...
This makes it very easy for us to write a data extractor using Perl. Here's the code I used to generate the table above.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
## Perl script to parse the CellTrack trace.log file, and split selected
## contents into an HTML table.
## Robert Price - rob@robertprice.co.uk - March 2005
## start the table, and print out a table header.
print "<table>\n";
print " <tr><th>Time</th><th>Cell ID</th><th>LAC</th><th>Cell Name</th><th>Description</th></tr>\n";
## iterate over each line, placing the contents in $line.
while (my $line = <>) {
## clean up the data a bit.
chomp($line); # loose trailing linefeeds.
$line =~ s/\r//g; # loose any rogue carriage returns.
$line =~ s/\t */\t/g; # remove preceeding spaces from data.
## split the data in $line into variables.
my ($date,$time,$cellid,$lac,$country,$net,$strength,$dBm,$cellname,$description) = split(/\t/,$line);
## create a copy of $time, and format it so it has colons between hours and minutes.
my $nicetime = $time;
$nicetime =~ s/(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})/$1:$2:$3/g;
## print out the data we're interested in.
print " <tr><td><a link=\"$time\" />$nicetime</td><td>$cellid</td><td>$lac</td><td>$cellname</td><td>$description</td></tr>\n";
}
## close the table.
print "</table>\n";
You may have noticed I didn't bother to print the country or network used. Well that's because it's always the same for me. The country is 234 (UK) and the network is 33 (Orange). This may be more interesting when travelling abroad and using roaming.
It's mad, but tickets for the V Festival in Chelmsford have sold out in less than a day.
We called to confirm this, and it's true. Aloud, See, Ticketmaster and the official V Festival site have all sold out.
Last year the V Festival took months to sell out. I shudder to think what the demand for Glastonbury tickets will be like when they go on sale on April 3rd.
New Media Age have a front page leader on the European Commission's decision to allow e-money.
This means that the UK Financial Services Authority will be able reverse it's current policy of not allowing mobile phone payments for physical goods and other digital content. At present prepaid airtime is viewed as e-money for anything not delivered and consumed on a phone.
The FSA is currently consulting the industry on what position is should take, but everyone seems in favour of using the phone bill for payments. The phone networks would have to be on-board should the FSA approve the change and most seem to be making very positive noises about it.
So what does this mean practically? Well it opens up m-commerce for a start. Take a gig ticketing site like Aloud.com, it could potentially offer users the ability to pay for their tickets on their phone bill. Empire could offer cinema tickets, Q could offer CDs and National Rail could offer train tickets. There is a lot of scope, and we're bound to see a whole host of very exciting new mobile services launching soon in the UK.
There are times when I wonder how some NHS managers actually earn their substantial salaries.
For example, my mum was discharged from Eastbourne DGH on Monday because of a lack of beds.
On Sunday night, she was moved from Seaford ward to the private wing to free her bed up for a new patient. They tried to discharge her that day, but she wasn't well enough. The ward staff apologised but said they were under pressure from the bed manager to try to find patients who were fit enough to leave.
Without going into too much detail, the operation she had involved major surgery, meaning she'll be off work for several months, can't bend down and can't pick anything up. In this condition she's been discharged to look after herself at home. My dad isn't around all the time to help as he has to go to work.
The problem seems to stem from a large number of elderly people blocking beds as they should be moved to nursing or residential homes. The trust probably has itself to blame as it closed down All Saints Hospital that used to take a lot of these people in while long term care was found for them.
I see in the news today that money has now been found to ease the overcrowding (currently at 97% occupancy) after the trust blackmailed the county council by threatening to close the Accident & Emergency department and cancel operations.
I must stress that the medical staff at the hospital were really good, and were having to work under a lot of pressure because of the current situation.
The Daily Mirror has a double page spread on the leaked episode of the new Doctor Who.
It's tempting to read and maybe download it, but i'm going to resist. It's less than a month until the first episode.
Mobile Tech has a piece on a new symbian virus that can spread over MMS.
As usual, the virus runs on Series 60 Symbian phones, tries to spread itself over Bluetooth, but the new twist is that it also uses MMS to send itself to numbers in the victim's address book.
Though rare, it does have the scare factor in that you can potentially run up massive bills without realising. Orange in the UK charge up to 50pence a message so an infection could become very expensive, very quickly.
Our house now has the "For Sale" sign outside, and it's official we want to move.
There's nothing wrong with the house, in fact it's lovely, it's just that we need somewhere bigger now we have a baby due.
Now for the quick sales plug...
It has a living room, fitted kitchen, bathroom, 2 bedrooms, small garden, allocated parking and gas central heating. It's located on Harwich Road in Colchester, so it's quite central and has excellent bus links.
If you're interested contact our estate agents, Jonathon Bysh, or me for more details.
Net Imperative has a story up on it's website, New Order promos album with free ringtones.
This is going to work by offering the tones via InfraRed or Bluetooth from advertising material supplied by a company called Hypertag. I've mentioned Hypertag a few times before, especially relating to an interactive ad I saw at Moorgate station.
The New Order ads will be at HMV in Manchester, and London's Oxford Street. As I work practically next door to an HMV on Oxford Street, I'll be able to test out how it works exactly. The ads are due to go up a week before the new album is launched on the 28th March.
Stephen Morris from New Order said, "The convergence of music and mobile is a hugely important development in the way that people consume music; being the first band to hand out free music clips direct to mobile means we are in the vanguard of this industry shift."
I'm not sure if they are the first band to do this, but they are certainly one of the most well known. He is certainly right about the mobile music convergence though. The phone manufacturers must be looking at Apple's iPod sales enviously and realising that the basic functionality is already available in their devices. They just need to get the user experience right.
2005 will be the year of mobile and music!
This is the first test post from my new Nokia 6630.
It's just a picture of an advert for Q magazine we have in the office.
We've just been given a new Nokia 6630 to trial Lifeblog with at work.
Details and test postings to follow soon!
This giant plug and socket are on the side of a building near Carnaby Street.
Here's a quick snap of St. John's Gate close to Farringdon Tube station in London.
It's part of a complex that used to belong to the Order Of Saint John, now better known as St. John's Ambulance.
