First I trawled through the documentation to find the best API methods for my needs, it turns out that this URL did what I needed:

http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/NDE2/Disco/SearchSByAByPostcode?LevelTypeId=14&Postcode={POSTCODE}

This basically asks the NeSS Data Exchange to return the details of a ward (which in Office of National Statistics language is level type ID 14) which a particular postcode is in. Helpfully, I don’t get the SNAC ID straight away (you’ll see why I need this later), so I have to get the ONS internal ID, and make another API call:

http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/NDE2/Disco/GetAreaDetail?AreaId={AREA ID}

This gives a whole bunch of extra info about the area, including the SNAC ID (which is called the ExtCode). Once I have that, I can then move across to OpenlyLocal, where I can get the councillor’s information:

http://openlylocal.com/wards/snac_id/SNAC ID.xml

Once I’ve got this info, I can then display it all, like so! Obviously if the council isn’t on OpenlyLocal, then we can’t show their details, but we can say who their council is and what ward they’re in, and then, with a bit more jiggery pokery on the OpenlyLocal side, we can direct them to their local authority’s website, like so!

Give it a try yourself, and let me know any feedback in the ol’ comments below. Obviously, this only shows your district council if you’re in a two tier council, but I’m working on getting county council info later

Oooh, it’s worth pointing out that you need a PSI click-use licence to publish the Data Exchange data on your own website, but it’s a doddle to apply for and goes live instantly!

Update: I’ve published the code on Github in case you want to see how I did it!

Adrian Short (he of Mash the State fame) recently blogged about his barcode posters site, which allows you to change RSS feeds into printable documents with QR barcodes (those thingies above) attached to each article – people with smartphones that can read barcodes (iPhone, Android etc) can then scan the code and link directly to the article. It’s almost like hyperlinks for real life.

I’ve had this idea on the back burner for a while now, but after tweeting about seeing the first new style Ratemyplace (a website I run which publishes food safety scores online) poster ‘in the wild’ – I got this reply:

This made me think – it’s a perfect fit for barcode posters – people can see the inspection certificate and scan the barcode to find more information. You can see an example of what I dun here

Now, I know what you’re thinking – ‘but generating images server side is hard! It’ll take me ages fiddling around with various libraries and I’ll be pulling my hair out with frustration!’ – Not so – Thanks to the wonderful people at Google, all you need to do to generate a barcode for a given URL is this:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=125&cht=qr&chl={url-goes-here}

You can then stick it in the src attribute of an IMG tag and display it on a page like so:

(Make sure you encode the URL of the website either on the server or using this handy online url encoder.)

Simple innit? There’s more explanation of the whys and wherefores of QR barcodes on the Barcode posters website. Now get out there and barcode!

Whilst idily surfing around Twitter using Tweetie 2 (which is awesome by the way), I thought I’d have a look at Royal Mail’s Twitter account to see if they’d had anything to say about the Ernest Marples postcode debacle.

Looking at their account, I noticed that they’d favourited a tweet, on closer inspection it appeared to be this:

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, when you favourite a tweet, you’re effectively validating the opinion of the tweeter and saying that you agree with it.

This is wholly unprofessional, and to write off the concerns of thousands of workers whose jobs are at risk by calling them ‘whiny fucks’ is at best, clumsy, and at worst, insensitive – whatever you as an organisation think about the rights and wrongs of them striking.

I’m sure this will be attributed to the actions of an over zealous intern, but it really does highlight how you should tread carefully when on Twitter, especially if you’re a publicly owned organisation such as the Royal Mail.

It’s called ‘The Hydrogen Bomb’ and (I assume) is from the early 50′s – some of the artwork is fantastic (especially the oh-so-helpful diagram telling you to sit under the stairs) and it’s a prime example of the ‘keep calm and carry on’ ethos of the post war era.

‘Cos I’m nice, I’ve scanned it and uploaded it for yis – and you can download it here.

We also came across a few tourism brochures from about the same period, which we’re hoping to get uploaded and scanned to the council site – my favourite bit is this advert, advertising the local area’s cheap and abundant supply of electricity. Ah, the good old days!

Step forward happn.in, which allows you to see trending topics based on a pre-defined list of cities. Birmingham (the UK one) has an entry, so, after finding out the system had an api. I got cracking on playing with it.

The result is Brumtrends (updated broken link, thanks to @prettysimple for pointing this out!) and it displays trending topics as a tag cloud with a lovely photo of Brum’s skyline. I knocked it up in about half an hour, so be kind!

I would like to expand on this, with maybe a widget for blogs, but, for now I’m taking a ‘wait and see’ approach. At the moment it seems to only take a few tweets for something to trend, and trends don’t seem to change too often. Hopefully this will get better though, and this will grow into a really interesting insight into what’s going on in the Birmingham digital community.

* Please note: I wrote this post on the train using the WordPress iPhone app (just to see if I could more than anything!), so apologies for any dodgy typos!

Things I am

• Local Authority Web Developer (for Lichfield District Council)
• Freelance web developer (Portfolio coming soon!)
• Drum and Bass DJ (Resident at Breakthru at the Factory Club)
• Lover of real ale, whisky and good food

Things I do

• Build websites
• Write things
• Mix other people’s records together
• Keep hens
• Have a inability to have photos taken of me without my mouth open

I’m hoping to mainly update this blog with tutorials, thoughts and ideas about web development and social media in the local authority / government area, but I’ll also be sticking mixes up that I do occasionally and blogging about other general bits and bobs as I see fit.

If you think I sound like an interesting person, then please follow me on Twitter, and, if I like the look of you, I’ll follow back! (Twitter policy coming soon folks!)

Anyways, hope you enjoy my corner of the ol’ world wide web, and I hope to be giving you lots on interesting content on a (semi) regular basis