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Programming, gadgets and life as a lecturer in a UK university.
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August 2004 - Posts
Marking Fools
Tuesday, August 31, 2004 8:57 PM
Thankfully it doesn't happen very often. But every now and again I get a really annoying exam paper to mark. I open the script and there is a lot written for the answer and all looks OK. But when I read the text I find that what has been provided is a
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A Slice of History
Tuesday, August 31, 2004 8:19 AM
In the process of cleaning out my dad's loft we came accross the Sinclair QL I lent him many years ago. The QL was a revolutionary home computer with a 16 bit processor, 128K of RAM and a high resolution display. It used dinky little memory devices called
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The Sacrifices I Make
Saturday, August 28, 2004 9:15 PM
I had to buy a new Smartphone today. Of course, I didn't want to, but I made the sacrifice in the cause of making sure that all my Cheese Programming articles will work on the latest technology. I saw the thing in the Orange shop (I'd just popped in there
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All in the family
Friday, August 27, 2004 6:58 PM
Spent the day helping my father pack ready for a house move. Found some very old pictures of me which were of course very embarrasing (but even more so for number one son - who now looks just like them). Apparently you should aim to get your mothers looks
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Magic 8 Ball
Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:56 PM
My dad went to Florida recently. He was there when the hurricane hit. Apparently it was very scary, but they were all OK. As a souvenir he brought me back an authentic "Magic 8 Ball". You ask it a question, turn it over and the "answer" appears in a blue
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In the zone
Monday, August 23, 2004 7:54 PM
Now, here's a thing I've noticed of late. When I'm programming I sometimes get to a point I refer to as "living there". This is when all the bits and pieces which make up the program are sitting in my head, and I can think about the various components
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Light Switch Puzzle
Thursday, August 19, 2004 7:06 PM
Back to the Thursday puzzles I think. After all, it is Thursday. Apologies if you've seen this one before. But I quite like it.
Three switches labelled off and on. Three light bulbs, one wired to each switch. But in the room next door. You can set the
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Error Bank
Thursday, August 19, 2004 7:00 PM
David put me on to a very useful resource yesterday. Later on in the day I was directed to the same place by Googling an error message. It is error bank. Essentially it is a compendium of errors in .NET. What they are and how to work round them. It is
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Spiderman 2 Rocks
Thursday, August 19, 2004 6:55 PM
Went to see Spiderman 2 yesterday. Only just got around to it. I was expecting an angst fest, but what I got was way better. The thing that most impressed me was the quality of the humour. The set pieces were great and the happy ending was just icing
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Pictures of London
Wednesday, August 18, 2004 10:19 AM
What kind of a fool takes pictures on their holiday and the posts them in their blog? This kind of fool. You can find them all on my other (spare?) blog starting here.Sorry about the narrative running backwards. This is a problem when you write blogs
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Lifetime Guarantee
Tuesday, August 17, 2004 7:41 PM
I like buying things off the internet. The easy way in which you bash in a few numbers, click on the button and get the acknowledgement email always goes really smoothly. Of course, buying things is one thing. Actually getting them OK is however, something
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Wonderful OneNote
Monday, August 16, 2004 6:41 PM
If you want to find out where tablet PCs are going, you should be getting your hands on OneNote. I've used the first release for a little while and it is very good, even though it feels a bit like a Version 0 product. That looks set to change
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Playing Doom 3
Saturday, August 14, 2004 8:15 PM
I've given in and upgraded my machine slightly (new graphics card) so that I can sample the delights of Doom 3. It is a genuinely scary experience. The real time lighting is very effective (although even with my new graphics card I'm probably still not
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Doomed
Friday, August 13, 2004 6:49 PM
Back from hols today. Hence the title of the entry. Also, number one son has bought Doom 3, the latest reason to upgrade your graphics card. He informs me that it gives around 20 hours of play. So it is probably better value than a movie. Although
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Footling Around
Wednesday, August 04, 2004 8:38 PM
Spent a day footling around, from the verb to "footle". The oh sound is as in roots. In this context it means pottering around not doing that much but enjoying yourself. And if you don't know what pottering means this could take a while to explain...We
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German Reviews
Wednesday, August 04, 2004 7:44 PM
The internet is a strange place. Once you put something "out there" it can get picked up any time by anyone. I've just got an email telling me about a mention of my original "Smartphone and Cheese" article here. It is in German, which I can't speak. I
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Hitting the Big Time
Monday, August 02, 2004 6:37 PM
Wahay! I'm on MSDN! Some time back I wrote a bunch of articles about programming games on the Smartphone. On a whim I sent them over to MSDN to see if they'd like them. And they've just put them out:
Games Programming with Cheese: Part One
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsmtphn2k3/html/gamesprogwithcheese.asp?frame=true
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Read This Book
Sunday, August 01, 2004 6:51 PM
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night" by Mark Haddon. Buy it. Read it. Now.It is, quite simply, amazing. I don't know how the writer managed to get where he did, or quite how he manages to convey the subject so well. I'm not going to tell
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