Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

I'm working on building a Google Maps mashup application for a magazine article, and hit a brick wall. The Google Maps API doesn't geocode UK post codes, thanks to the restrictive costs and licensing conditions on the data.

Geocoding is the process of converting location data (say an address or postcode) into mapping data, often latitude or longitude, though it can be an Ordinance Survey grid reference or any other coordinate system. Consumer geocoding should be as easy as Flickr's approach, where you just drag your pictures onto a map. But writing the code to do it, well, that's a different story!

Luckily there's more than one way around the problem, and you can geocode postcodes for free (in one case using more than one Google API). Just look at the list of approaches and tutorials on Google's own resource page for external geocoding tools. I rather like this method, as it's relatively simple to code up...

Finally I'll point folks at the Free Our Data campaign. Postcode and mapping data is data we've paid for through our taxes, yet the government sees fit to restrict access to it, making information that should be free for UK citizens a profit centre.

The first of the promised Vista casual games have started to appear, and are ports of XBox Live Arcade games, including the excellent Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

All good fun, and rather addictive. I think I need to get myself one of the new Windows XBox 360 controllers...

One of the reasons I haven't been writing here much over the last few days is that I managed to get a large splinter under my right thumb nail. Once it was removed, I found that any pressure on the thumb was extremely painful. That wasn't pleasant at all, but it's finally starting to heal.

However, the trackball on the Pearl is rather dependent on thumb operation, especially when working one handed. I found that it was very difficult for me to transfer right-handed reflexes to my left - which at one point led me to deleting mail off the Pearl that I'd rather have left on the device... I suspect that the same would have been true for anyone going from left to right as well, but it's an user interface quirk that I hadn't expected.

In other news I'm slowly beginning to pick up on the keypad shortcuts for navigation, only to come a cropper when an application doesn't support them. Newsgator's pocket RSS reader is an excellent application (which keeps in sync with my desktop reader), but you need to use the trackball to scroll through pages rather than using the familiar "3" and "9" page up/page down short cuts. Instead the keys move you between articles. Inconsistent use of system short cuts is not a good idea.

I've also been able to turn some of these thoughts into a magazine column, so that's an unexpected usage!