[Please note crossposting and follow-ups - if anyone from the soc.*
group wants to there then please feel free to reset them, as I am
reading all the groups in the header, but I don't want to create a
long crossposted thread unnecessarily]

I don't normally do site announcements, but I thought this one would
be worth mentioning. There's been a lot of UK media coverage lately of
a website put up by University College London (UCL) allowing access to
the results of their research into British surname distribution and
frequency. You can see the site itself here:

http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/UCLnames/

However, the UCL site suffers from a couple of problems. Firstly, it's
often overloaded, and either slow or entirely unusable (the system
locks you out if it's too busy). And, secondly, the navigation is
Javascript based and hence the site has some major accessibility
drawbacks.

So, what I've done is create a cached and accessible version of the
data, which you can reach at:

http://names.orangehedgehog.com/

Apart from not using Javascript, the main advantage is that it's a lot
quicker than the UCL site (at least, it will be for as long as it's a
lot less popular!). It uses the underlying data from the UCL site, but
caches it so that multiple searches for the same name on my site only
generate a single request to the UCL server. The downside is that it
doesn't have all the data in it yet - a name needs to be requested
before it will be cached, and the retrieval isn't real-time - but that
will become less of a problem over time. I've seeded it with the most
common British surnames, so there is already something there to
search.

Comments, flames, quibbles, suggestions and brickbats are welcome, for
those who feel so inclined.

Mark
--
http://www.GoogleFun.info - fun and games with Google!
"Every whisper, every waking hour"

In message <oo2lt1d3es6v17uincckiq0unp6vtlqpcq@news.markshous e.net>, at
21:05:48 on Fri, 27 Jan 2006, Mark Goodge
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wibbled

<http://www.terra-fied.org.uk/hedgehog.jpg>

--
Pedt

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:38:02 +0000, Pedt put finger to keyboard and
typed:

Oops! Now fixed.

Mark
--
http://www.OrangeHedgehog.com - RSS feeds and Google Adsense tools
"I believe in the kingdom come, then all the colours will bleed
into one"

At 21:05:48 on Fri, 27 Jan 2006, Mark Goodge
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in
<oo2lt1d3es6v17uincckiq0unp6vtlqpcq@news.markshous e.net>:

I like it. Much more user-friendly than the original. I particularly
like the ability to compare the two distribution maps on the same page,
rather than flicking between them. Took me a while to hit on a surname
it knew, though - I'll need to come back next week!
--
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 12:28:53 +0000, Molly Mockford put finger to
keyboard and typed:

Actually, I've found that, so far, it can get updates a lot quicker
than I first thought. So you may find that they'e already there by
now!

Mark
--
http://www.CorporateContact.info - phone and email contacts for Amazon, eBay, etc.
"When your thoughts are too expensive to ever want to keep"

Mark Goodge wrote:

Mark, is this info:

http://orangehedgehog.com/telephone_codes/?c=UK

in the public domain? If so, where can I get my hands on the raw data?

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:19:46 +0000, Toby Inkster put finger to
keyboard and typed:

It isn't public domain, but it is publicly available and freely
redistributable provided that attribution is given. It's required by
law to be published under the regulations of the Numbering
Conventions, so that any telecoms provider (or user) can always check
who any other number belongs to. You can get the raw data directly
from Ofcom, here:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi...tered/download

The UK Phone Info website also has copies of the raw data files for
download, at:

http://www.ukphoneinfo.com/section/tci/sns.shtml

(which reminds me, it's about time I updated my database!)

Mark
--
http://www.CorporateContact.info - phone and email contacts for Amazon, eBay, etc.
"Too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean"