No spoilers, sweetie :-) This evening's Doctor Who - The Bells of St John - revolves around mysterious WiFi signals. Alien SSIDs which, if you connect to them.... well, watch the episode to find out! In the show, they look like these: So, can we do the same thing for our home WiFi network? Yup! There are some limitations though. SSIDs can only have a maximum length of 32 byte. Those are usually interpreted as 8-bit characters, so if you're using multibyte Unicode characters, you're…
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*And a telescope.... The photo on the left is me just pointing my Galaxy Note II at the sky - the one on the right uses the same phone, but with a bit more kit... Last year, I bought myself a small telescope as a birthday present. I wanted to use it to take photos of the moon. I like the moon. The problem is that putting the phone up to the lens of the scope is really tricky to align. Which makes taking good photos really tricky. So, I picked myself up one of these. It's a Revelation…
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There's a lot of snake-oil in the technology world. From gold plated fibre optic cables to anti-radiation phone cases - there are a whole lot of people willing to exploit technical ignorance in return for money. There's also a lot of misinformation, folklore, and crazy thinking which confuses us when we try to interact with "simple" technology. For example, I was in Waterloo Tube station when I saw this That's one of the WifI boxes which power Internet access underground. I took a look…
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While visiting the USA, I came across a delightfully bizzare TV show - Doomsday Preppers. For those who don't know, this pseudo-documentary follows the lives of certain... eccentric... families who believe that the end of civilization is coming and they better get busy preparing for that eventuality. Whereas you and I might keep a bit of spare cash hidden away, along with some out-of-date cans of food, these guys go the whole hog. Vast basements packed with food, gallons of oil to run…
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I have discovered another security flaw in Samsung Android phones. It is possible to completely disable the lock screen and get access to any app - even when the phone is "securely" locked with a pattern, PIN, password, or face detection. Unlike another recently released flaw, this doesn't rely quite so heavily on ultra-precise timing. Video. Of course, if you are unable to download a screen unlocker, this security vulnerability still allows you to dial any phone number and run any app! …
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Surrey County Council have sent every household in the county a booklet explaining how our council tax is being spent. Within it is a highly political comment from Kevin Hurley, the newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner. He presents a pie chart showing how the police force spend its money. Take a look at it and ask yourself this question: what percentage is spent on "Employees". Please use this poll to record your guess - answers at the end of this blog. [polldaddy poll=6969136] …
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Way back in 2010, I got a pair of video recording sunglasses. I've been occasionally using them to "lifelog" what I'm doing. With the advent of Google's Project Glass, I thought it would be interesting to wear them to a fairly techy event - Not At SXSW London - to see what the reaction would be. Here are my findings. Caveats These are not Google Glasses. These are £15 DVR Sunglasses. They are cheap and nasty and don't look anything like the futuristic Google Glasses. They record VGA …
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It's been four years since I got a .tel domain. Way back then, I wasn't that keen on the idea - I thought the implementation was iffy and the design pretty naff. Since then, the site has got easier to use and now looks a lot better - especially on mobile. When http://edent.tel/ came up for renewal last year, I decided to add Google Analytics to it so I could see if it was useful. So, at the moment it bumbles along with 2 to 5 hits a day - more when my blog is popular. I get a couple of…
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My new commute involves a lot of driving, which means I've started listening to podcasts again. One of my favourite mobile related podcasts is The Voicemail - it's a quick half hour chat between two mobile industry experts; Stefan Constantinescu and James Whatley. Stefan has been travelling for the last few weeks, so James has been co-hosting with guests. I've never recorded a podcast before, so I badgered James for a guest slot and, last night, we recorded episode 40 of The Voicemail. If…
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A little post as an aide-mémoire. I've found a lovely set of SVG playing cards. The only problem is each image is displayed within a page. This means the relatively small cards have an enormous white margin. Within Inkscape (the vector image editor for Linux) it's possible to crop the margins by going to: File > Document Properties > Resize Page To Content > Resize page to Drawing or Selection That's a pain in the arse for adjusting 52 images. Luckily, Inkscape will take command line …
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After 10 years of sitting around dodging all forms of physical activity, I've finally unlocked an achievement in a real life sport! It will come as no surprise to those who know me that I am not a particularly sporty person. Actually, that's an understatement; I loath sport. Somehow my mind has used this psychological flaw to traduce any form of exercise. Getting sweaty is not for me. But, I'm getting older and fatter. Although I'm a vegetarian and have a fairly healthy diet, it was…
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Here's a rather nifty security flaw I discovered on Samsung's Android 4.1.2. It allows you - in limited circumstances - to run apps and dial numbers even when the device is locked. Video: This attack works against Pattern Lock, PIN, Password, and Face Unlock. There is no way to secure your phone against your home screen being accessed. Notes HOWTO Lock the device with a "secure" pattern, PIN, or password. Activate the screen. Press "Emergency Call". Press the "ICE"…
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