|
BOOT CAMP 116, 23/03/00
THE BIG NUMBER
With less than a month to go, are you ready for The Big
Number? In case you haven’t heard the UK telecommunications regulator OFTEL has
decided that due to unexpected demand we will run out of telephone numbers in
the next few years – now where have you heard that before? Anyway, the point is
that from the 22nd of April the area codes for London and four other cities (Cardiff,
Coventry, Portsmouth and Southampton) are changing, so too are area codes for Northern
Ireland, many mobile phone and pager users will get new codes and there are alterations
to special rate and premium rate numbers as well. In all there are over 160
code changes and there’s little doubt it’s going to lead to all sorts of fun
and games in the weeks and months to come.
There’s no escape, even if you don’t live in London the
chances are a fair few numbers in your address book will have London codes. Sadly
Boot Camp can’t make The Big Number go away but if you use a PC or organiser based
address book or database we can show you a few ways to make the changeover less
painful and it will be useful practice when – as sure as eggs are eggs – in a
few years time the powers that be announce the need for another number shuffle.
Rather than wade through all of the code changes in detail –
there will be plenty of bumph in the press and coming through your letter box
over the next few weeks -- we’ll just look at how to update the London numbers
in your computer’s address book, database or spreadsheet. These are likely to
be the most numerous and since there are so many different programs and
platforms in use we’ll have to confine ourselves to general principles.
The change in London applies to all numbers starting with
0171 and 0181, these will be replaced with a three-digit area code for the whole
of London (020) and a 7 or 8 – depending whether it was an 0171 or 0181 number
-- is added to the front of the old local number. So, a number that was 0181-XXX
XXXX becomes (020) 8XXX XXXX after April 22nd. The other area code changes are
broadly similar in structure with a four or five digit area code changing to a
three digit code, and one or two digits added to the front of the previous local
number, making them up to 11 numbers in a 3:4:4 digit grouping.
Before you carry out any sort of change to your address
book, always make a backup! I cannot stress how important that is. Sod’s law
clearly states that if something can go wrong it will, and you are just asking for
trouble making alterations to your one and only copy of an address book file
that probably took months, if not years to compile.
Don’t make work for yourself. If your database is relatively
small – less than 100 entries, say, with only a handful of London numbers -- it’s
usually easier and quicker to make the changes manually. Certainly there are
ways to automate the process, and we’ll come to those in a moment, but by the
time you’ve downloaded or installed a program and set it all up, you could have
keyed in the changes.
For larger databases, where it would be impractical to do
the job by hand, there are three alternatives. Option one, export the address
book and use a word processor’s Find and Replace facility (or the address book’s
own Find and Replace, if it has one) to make the changes. Option two, use a separate
program or utility to do the job, and option three pay someone else to do the
job for you, in which case you had better get your skates on…
The Export option in most address book programs is usually on
the File menu, it’s important to specify that the exported file is a ‘comma
separated values’ or CSV format text file with the extension *.csv. Give the exported
file a name and choose a location. Launch your word processor and open the
newly created csv text file; it should appear as a simple list with names
addresses and phone numbers clearly identifiable.
Click on Find and Replace (usually on the Edit menu); in the
Find field enter the first area code, i.e. 0181 and in the Replace field enter (020)
8. Make one or two changes to make sure it’s working properly and when you’re
satisfied click ‘Yes to all’ or whatever command makes the change in the whole
document. You will probably end up with a space between the leading 8 in the
local number and the last 7 digits, if so use Find and replace to tidy it up by
entering 8 with a space after it into the Find field, and 8, without a space in
the Replace field. Be warned that this will also zap the spaces after the digit
8 in any other phone numbers and addresses but you can sort that out later. It’s
not a bad idea to save the modified .csv file with a new name and use Import on
your address book program to see if the changes have worked. If it looks okay re-export
the file and work your way through the other area codes.
If that sounds like a chore then there are a number of commercial
programs that makes changes to exported *.csv files, or even work within the
address book’s own file system. Have a look at PhoneFind at: http://www.astuk.com/telephone.html
There are also shareware programs to download from the
Internet. Big Number Little Helper from Palace Computer Services (http://www.palacecs.demon.co.uk) is
simple to use and worth a try and there’s a handy little area code calculator,
called Big Number Lookup from: http://freespace.virgin.net/darren.hicks/phoneday.html
For more detailed information on The Big Number and foreign
language support the National Code & Number Change Programme website,
representing all of the UK’s phone companies is worth a visit at http://www.numberchange.org/ and BT’s
website address is: http://www.numberchange.bt.com/.
Next week – laptops and mobile phones
TOP TIP
Did you know that in Outlook Express 5 you can attach a sound
file to an email, that will play automatically as soon as it is opened on the
recipient’s computer? You can specify how many times it’s played, or even make
it play continuously, if you really want to annoy someone, the possibilities --
for good and mischief -- are endless…
First record your sound as a *.wav file using Windows Sound
Recorder (Start > Programs> Accessories > Entertainment), most PCs
these days have a microphone input. Create your message as usual in the New
Message window, on the Format menu make sure Rich Text (HTML) is checked, click
anywhere in the message window and go to Background on the Format menu, select Sound
and use the Browse button to locate your sound file, set the number of plays,
click OK and send your message.
|