OVER 2 YOU 176 (13/04/04)

ANNOYING PHONES

Is there any device that will block the use of irritating mobile phones by loud and selfish users in public places?

Hendrik Woolf

Devices that will knock out mobile phones within a twenty-metre radius do exist, however, the supply or use of these products is illegal in the UK, under the Wireless and Telegraphy Act 1949 Section 13 (Deliberate Interference). There have already been prosecutions for the supply of such devices.Were it possible to obtain such a device, and were one to activate it in one's jacket pocket on a crowded train say, it would be extremely difficult to prove it was you. Another point to consider is that anyone within range of the device with a genuine need to contact the emergency services, would be unable to do so.
John Stephenson, via email

You’ll find one at http://www.globalgadgetuk.com/Personal.htm but it is largely academic as the disclaimer at the end of the page says they cannot be sold to anyone living in the UK. As a matter of interest they are used by the military, police and security services etc, when they want to ‘shut down’ mobile phone activity in a particular area. This strategy was brought to light recently by the recent tragic bombings in Madrid, which were triggered by mobile phones.

D. Gilbert, via email

Jamming devices imported from the Far East and have been reportedly used by unscrupulous hoteliers in Scotland to force people to use the hotel phone network. The full story can be found at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/

2003/08/28/cellphone_jamming_scam_exposed/

Phil Cooling, via email

Unfortunately devices like ‘Mobile Blocker’ (www.mobileblocker.com) do not discriminate between loud and selfish users and the rest of us!  This was originally designed for the King of Jordan who did not want prayer times disrupted with ringing mobile phones, and the intended use is for confined areas to enforce legal mobile phone bans rather than just to take out on the
street. There are two versions of this device, the standard one for $850, which stops mobiles within a 30m radius and the high power version, which stops mobiles for up to 4km

Chris Stokes, via email

Information about mobile phone blockers can be found at: www.cguard.com. This is an Israeli company that specializes in all types of jammers for small and large areas. By the way, they are not cheap and don’t forget your own mobile phone will be blocked.

Allan Hambidge, via email

These devices are generally illegal and they indiscriminately disrupt mobile phones used by considerate and thoughtful users in public places. I suggest earplugs as the best solution.
Ashley Black, Reading

ACCESS ANGST

I am creating a list of 'subjects' in a column in Microsoft Access and find that it easy enough to sort the subjects alphabetically, but some of the items also contain numbers - i.e. FPO 99.

I cannot work out how to get the numbers in order as well as the alphabetical subjects - can anyone help?

Alan Crozier, via email

Your correspondent is right in saying that problems occur when sorting a string comprising a mixture of characters and numbers in Access; but it occurs in most other packages too. The strings ABC1, ABC2, ABC100 would sort as ABC1, ABC100, ABC2 because 1 precedes 2 when working from left to right. The trick is to fill out the numerical part with leading zeroes e.g., ABC001, ABC002, ABC100 such that the number of digits is the same in each string.
Dave Emley, Keele University, Staffordshire

Alan Crozier needs to make sure that all his numbers are of the same length or Access will read them as text strings. If he simply types in items labelled FPO 67, FPO 23, FPO 450 and FPO 1126, Access will sort them (in ascending order) as FPO 1126, FPO 23, FPO 450 and FPO 67 - obviously useless! The answer is to "pad" the shorter numbers with leading zeros so that every number is the same length as the longest number. Thus, his entries should be: FPO 0067, FPO 0023, FPO 0450 and FPO 1126. They should then sort perfectly satisfactorily.

Gösta Luthman, via email

You need to make the number format consistent by prefixing with zeros - creating a calculated field to do the same thing. Alternatively split the data into 2 columns with the "FP" entries in one text column and store the numbers in another numeric column then create a query thus:

SELECT *

From <table>

ORDER BY <FP_Column>, <Number_Column>

Chris Newey, via email

The simplest solution is to ensure that the numeric part of the always has the same length for all data entered and precede the integer by zeros for shorter values. As an example, if the numeric values could have up to 4 figures, say 9999, then for values with 1 digit, precede the value by 3 zeros, say 0007, 2 zeros for values between 10 and 99, 0077, and 1 zero for values between 100 and 999, 0777. Another way of achieving the required result is to separate the alphabetical and numerical values into two fields, one for text and the second for numerical values.  The latter are then entered without the preceding zeros, sort first by the alphabetical value and secondly by the numerical value, then concatenate the two fields in either a query or a report to display the correctly sorted, complete alphanumeric value. The same results can also be achieved through a fairly simple Visual Basic procedure, which I also use when appropriate.

Dennis J White, via email

CAN YOU HELP?

I would like to try my hand at 3D photography. I know there used to be 3D film cameras but does anyone know if this is possible with digital cameras, or is there a way of creating 3D images using just software?

Clive Dyer, via email

I’ve seen wind-up torches and radios and even a wind-up mobile phone but has anyone come across a small wind-up laptop or pocket organiser? This would be very useful later this year as I’m planning a backpacking trip to the Himalayas, where mains sockets are likely to be few and far between.

Carl Philips, via email