Control your Android phone with a PS3 controller

Now, this isn’t going to work on all phones but the Sixaxis Controller Android app allows you to replicate touch, keyboard and mouse controls on your Android phone. I used it briefly with a profile from here to control Minecraft. The profile is for the SGS3 so I need to adjust it slightly for the smaller screen of my Galaxy S 2 but it worked reasonably well.

Check if your phone is compatible by using this free compatibility checker first. You pair the controller with your phone by using your PC first to set the “master MAC address”, then hope the phone pairs. It’s not for the faint hearted but it does work.

Also keep an eye on this Reddit thread.

Deep in her Eyes

I knew this song was familiar when I first heard it. It’s the theme tune to the game Uplink which I haven’t actually played at all but I had the OST from some game bundle.

Turns out it was used in a party invite for Assembly ’94. It was a favourite of mine from back then. You can download the brilliant .s3m version here.

Anyone else have fond memories of the MOD scene? The top favourites on modarchives.org will help!

US and Canadian Area Codes

So, I needed a list of US telephone area codes for a project I’m working on but it turned out to be harder than I thought to find such a list. I did find one here but then had to create an account there to download it. Bah!

To save your fingers from extra typing I created a pastebin of the list which you can find here.

It’s interesting to note that Wikipedia has a page for each area code. I had a look at a few in my attempts to verify the list was good and 985 caught my attention:

Area code 985 is the telephone area code for southeastern Louisiana, excluding New Orleans and St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. The area code was created in 2001 when it was split off from area code 504.
Area code 985 also originally included areas southeast of New Orleans. However, after Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005, much of this area switched back to 504. These communities are now being served with dialtone from telephone switching facilities in New Orleans following near-total destruction of local switching facilities due to flooding from Katrina. Permissive use of 504 alongside 985 to reach these downriver communities began on July 29, 2007. Mandatory use of 504 to “again” reach these communities began on May 1, 2008. These communities are on both sides of the Mississippi River in “lower” Plaquemines Parish, including Pointe à la Hache on the east bank, with Port Sulphur, Buras, and Boothville on the west bank.

The list of Irish area codes is much shorter and 021, the area code for Cork shares it’s page with a number of other regions.