On 1 April 2010, Ordnance Survey opened up a lot of it's data including a cut-down version of Code-Point - a database of UK postcodes.

Since this data is available free of charge, and has a licence aligned to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence; I decided to download the data and incorporate it into an SQL table for use on this website.

I've now completed the import of the data (1,696,088 records not including code definitions) and have created a webpage which can be used to query this information. A user can input a postcode and have all open data which I have available displayed.

Not only that, but I have also been learning about converting geographical data in to different systems. The Code-Point data provides co-ordinates in the British Coordinate System of six-figure eastings and northings. My new page converts this data into latitude/longitude, National Grid Reference, Worked All Britain (WAB) square and Maidenhead Grid Locator. By having latitude/longitude data, a Google Map can also display a marker showing where a postcode is.

Now I've got a bit of a grasp on how to convert data, I hope to extend the page to accept input of other forms of geographic data and have it convert in the same way. For now though, I'll leave it at postcode only.

There's nothing particularly unique about this. Many sites across the internet allow postcode searches and data conversion. This was essentially a two day project which I decided to do simply because it costs nothing but server space (over 150MiB), I fancied doing some coding and I find this information useful from time-to-time as part of my amateur radio hobby. If anyone else finds this information useful then that is a bonus.

Find the link in the navigation menu, above.

As soon as I posted my last message about the revamp, I decided to add a couple more features.

Firstly, I finally decided to implement an RSS feed of the blog. This is now available through the RSS icon beneath each blog entry. I'll probably develop this further so that a feed of each tag is available - effectively creating lots of mini blogs.

Secondly, I have also added a few further icons beneath each blog entry to allow bookmarking and sharing through some popular sites. I'll add to these as time goes on with other sites too.

Now I really do think that's it for now.

Today, after months of coding (on-and-off), I have launced version 8 of my website. The old site was only a little more than a year old, but I was already bored of it so a fresh new look was needed. More than that though, new features have been added, bringing it up-to-date. Here's a list of what's changed, been removed and been added:

1. No more tables. That's it - they're gone completely (at last)!
2. That means a full CSS controlled page layout.
3. The 10 latest blog entries are available in full on the front page - not just the first paragraphs of these entries
4. Javascript is used to show/hide comments and additional information within the blog page meaning it doesn't need to be reloaded when these links are clicked.
5. Nicer URLs e.g., blog URLs are now made up of their date and title rather than a reference number. However, old reference number URLs do still work.
6. Better compliance with HTML standards. Most pages will now validate as HTML 4.01 Transitional. A few old blog entries may still show small errors but all new entries should be compliant since I am not permitting HTML within entries anymore (I have a BBCode style implementation for minor formatting like this list).
7. The 'About' section is now in blog entries making the section easier to update and including it in daily backups.
8. A new section: 'Microblog' is now available, pulling data from my Identi.ca RSS feed. This could potentially also include a Twitter feed should I start using that separately from Identi.ca.
9. The way browsing is done within the Music Library has changed. Users must select the letter of the artist being looked for from a drop down list. Javascript functionality allows users to drill down through listed artists, to their albums and then tracks within that album without reloading the page. Track information is displayed in a popup window and contains more detail than before.
10. The map icons have been changed to transparent crosshair icons. Only visited locations are now on show
11. When browsing links, more information about that link can be displayed by clicking on the expand button. This may be developed further to include links to blog entries referencing that link.
12. The Contact form is available on every page. Initially hidden, it will become visible upon clicking the 'Contact' link thanks to Javascript.
13. Quick links to other websites where I have a presence are available under the 'Elsewhere On The Web' link
14. The Search function has been dramatically improved; searching more areas of the site. All results are put into a temporary database table allowing different orders (e.g., order by published date descending or result type ascending). The Music Library can also be searched by artist, album, track, tag, year or lyrics.
15. Small graphics are used to enhance the visual appearance such as the search field and button, the background of page headers, other buttons.
16. The Photography and Amateur Radio sections have been removed in preparation for them getting their own sites.

I think that's a pretty comprehensive list. I do believe it's a big step forward for my little site which has also had a small rebrand - it's called Ben Gamblin Central now, instead of Ben Gamblin Online. The idea being that all of my profiles around the internet link back here and vice-versa. Things aren't completely finished. I want to develop the Microblog section so that data is permanently saved in the database rather than just what is available on the RSS feed being shown. New sub-sites will be developed to bring back the Photography and Amateur Radio sections too.

The question now is: will I still like this version of the site in a year's time, or will I change it again?

Eagle-eyed readers may have noted about 5 categories on the right side of the home page at www.bengamblin.com over the last few weeks. These were the precursors to a new categorising system that I have setup designed.

The categorisation of all blog entries should make those older entries a lot easier to find. It will also be a lot easier to find entries that are related to others, although maybe not directly related so as to be linked within the blog itself.

I hope that over the next few days or weeks I will finish going through each entry adding a category. So far I have done all of this year's entries plus the entries for January 2004 - August 2004. Whilst doing this I have also started adding titles to the older entries that don't have them.

I have this idea in the back of my head that I could add tick boxes to the category headings so that multiple categories can be displayed together. I also want to add the categories to the blog entries themselves (both within the entry and on the main screen).

An ultimate aim would be to get RSS feeds setup for each of the categories. I've very much aware that a lot of my entries are of no interest to most people. However according to my web stats, Linux blog entries seem to be quite popular. To have an RSS feed devoted to this category would give the illusion of a blog devoted to that category, filtering out entries that are of no interest.

I've just completed, and launched, the latest revamp of my site. Since it hadn't really changed much since January 2007, I decided it was looking a bit tired and needed a spring clean.

The style retains a lot of similar features from the old one: the same green for the colour scheme, navigation bar at the top, similar options in that navigation bar, and a split page format, although it's not a 50-50 split this time.

Here's a run down of exactly what has changed:

• Pages are now in a fixed width format.
• There is a tidier navigation bar, including "Contact" which used to be in the footer.
• The page split is now 75%-25% with the larger left side used for main content, and the smaller right side used for extra information or navigation options.
• The Blog page has been dropped. The last 10 entries are visible on the home page, with page number jumpers allowing readers to browse through older entries.
• A standardised date/time format has been introduced across pages where this information is required.
• A new 'About Me' page has been added, taking this information away from the home page.
• The Music Library doesn't load a list of all songs, but presents users with an alphabetical index. This allows for quicker page loading times.
• Photo Albums have had a complete overhaul, with thumbnails running along the top of the page, with the selected image visible below preventing the need to go back and forth between thumbnails and images. Current page settings are remembered when changing thumbnails, pages or years.
• Images are now watermarked with my details.
• The map only has two types of icons - places visited, and places where photographs have been taken. The latter icon will show 3 thumbnails of the photograph tagged with those co-ordinates. Albums can be views showing all photographs tagged with those co-ordinates.
• The File Store has been renamed to File Repository. The categories (now called folders) are permanently visible on the right of this page.
• The links page no longer lists all links in one page. The user must select a category from the list of the available categories down the right side of the page. The layout of the links has changed slightly with the address now being visible
• The Contact page has been tidied up. The Captcha image is now larger and should be easier to read. Errors in submission create a nicer error page. The terms and conditions are available next to the form. These changes also apply to the Blog comments submission form.
• An improved search is always available at the top right of any page. Search will check blog entries, photographs, file repository and external links. The operators AND, OR are both available as is the use of double quotes to specify a phrase.
• Page addresses no longer use query strings and now appear much tidier (e.g. blog.php?id=123 is now /blog/123/). This should be more friendly for search engines and more secure.

There are still things that I would like to build on. Links for 'previous entry' and 'next entry' in the blog would be useful. These used to exist but didn't work for a long time so for the time being they have been removed. I also want to develop the search aspect to include the music library and the operator NOT.

In spite of those planned changes, I think that 2 months of coding has paid-off and the site is looking better for it.