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Programming, gadgets and life as a lecturer in a UK university.

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September 2005 - Posts

Software Engineering with blue chalk
Friday, September 30, 2005 11:10 PM

Had some fun in the Software Engineering tutorials today. I quite enjoyed the tutorials (not sure about the students). We were doing Use Cases, which are one of the ways you make sure that what you do is what the customer wants. Very important, a

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posted by RobMiles with

Read this book
Thursday, September 29, 2005 10:52 PM

While I was in the USA I managed to get hold of a copy of one of the best books ever written. Very pleased to read it again after 30 years or so. If you have not read Childhoods End by Arthur C Clarke then read it as soon as possible. There seems to

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posted by RobMiles with

Pride and Prejudice : Chins and Hairstyles
Wednesday, September 28, 2005 11:07 PM

Went to see the latest movie of the Jane Austen book tonight. I quite enjoyed it. I got fixated early with the impression that Keira Knightley seemed to have a very large chin. In fact, from where I was sitting just about everyone in the film seemed to

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posted by RobMiles with

Lunchtime Pics
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 3:42 PM

I took some pictures this lunchtime. I thought you might like them. Just a few flowers I've no idea what these are. But the colours are nice. These are orchids. And this is what it was doing when I got back to the car park...

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posted by RobMiles with

I Hate My Voice
Monday, September 26, 2005 11:06 PM

Been recording my voice today. And worse still, listening to it. I hate that. When I speak I think that I have these deep, resonant tones. But when I hear it the sound is all wrong. It is much more high pitched and irritating. I wonder if there are

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posted by RobMiles with

Mad Memory Prices
Sunday, September 25, 2005 10:05 PM

I can't believe the price of memory at the moment. On ebay you can pick up 1GB memory cards for less than thirty quid. That is stupidly cheap. We will soon all be able to carry a number of feature films and a whole bunch of music on our mobile devices.

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posted by RobMiles with

Open Day Fun
Saturday, September 24, 2005 7:36 PM

We had an open day today at the university. I had the pleasure of talking to a bunch of people who had come for a look round. I hope that they took some pleasure in hearing me talk. It never ceases to surprise me the distance that people will travel

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posted by RobMiles with

What is right?
Friday, September 23, 2005 9:36 PM

I've been in the lab for chunks of today, seeing how the first years are getting to grips with C#. The answer would seem to be pretty well. Most people had got chunks of the labs running and were making good progress. I always like seeing how a bunch

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posted by RobMiles with

Welcome Back
Thursday, September 22, 2005 7:17 PM

I reallly like this time of year. I'm not that keen on hot summers, and by September the evenings are getting cool enough for a good night's sleep. I've been trying to put my finger on what else about this time of year is good. This year I've figured

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posted by RobMiles with

Poke your Camera at the window...
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:39 PM

On the way back from the PDC I poked my camera at the plane window and took this. No effort involved on my part, but I'm quite proud of it.

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posted by RobMiles with

Coming soon to your ears....
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 8:27 PM

My good friend Rory (I think I can call him that now since I've been reading his blog, like forever, I've met him twice and we've exchanged a bunch of emails) has asked me to contribute to a new podcast thingy which he is setting up. He wants me

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posted by RobMiles with

Back to the right place?
Monday, September 19, 2005 8:53 AM

Woke up this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast. My newspaper has changed size. The Guardian is now littler. A bit harder to hide behind, but OK apart from that. And in colour all the way through. Then I get in the car to drive to work and

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posted by RobMiles with

Plumbing with Jetlag
Sunday, September 18, 2005 8:26 PM

Got home from the PDC last night after a 20 hour journey from the states. As I had the ten minute shower I'd promised myself for the previous 10 hours I noticed that the shower unit would not turn off properly. It seems that the tap has worn out. This

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posted by RobMiles with

Put it in the language
Sunday, September 18, 2005 11:12 AM

One thing I forgot to mention is that I went to a spendid session (perhaps the best session in the conference) about Future Directions in Language Innovation from Anders Hejlsberg (he is one of them men who brought you C#). When I was watching the database

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posted by RobMiles with

Security is all at the PDC
Saturday, September 17, 2005 10:15 PM

Went to a very good presentation on security matters on the last day of the PDC. Basically, security matters. Bigtime. They took the approach that security is fundamental to the entire business of writing code. When you get data from anywhere you must

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posted by RobMiles with

Preseton Foster Lives!
Friday, September 16, 2005 4:51 PM

When I came to the PDC in 2003 I noticed a star on the Hollywood Boulevard for a certain Preston Foster. I had no idea who he was and so I mentioned this in my blog. A (perhaps the) kind reader told me that he was an actgor in the 40's and 50's and also

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posted by RobMiles with

PDC : Get your hands on the hands on - and good food
Friday, September 16, 2005 4:24 PM

A PDC hint. If you are still here (or if you go to PDC or TechEd in the future) go and do some hands on labs. they are a really good way to learn, and you meet the most interesting people. I was doing the handwriting lab for Tablet PC and I mentioned

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posted by RobMiles with

..and there's more
Thursday, September 15, 2005 8:27 PM

I came to this PDC (Professional Developers Conference) having had the experience of the previous one (which I was lucky enough to get to attend). I wasn't sure that this one was going to be as good. After all, last time we had Windows Longhorn,

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posted by RobMiles with

Universal Fun
Thursday, September 15, 2005 8:20 PM

Went out last night to Universal Studios. It was the PDC05 party and we had the place to ourselves (although there were quite a few of ourselves there). We went on a number of rides. The Terminator one was even better than I remembered, I reckon that

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posted by RobMiles with

Work that Flow
Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:36 PM

Workflow. I reckon the best kind of workflow is when it flows away from me. Oh yes. But it is actually a very important lump of business, if not the lump. Micrsoft has done some good things making working with workflow easier. Managing the transtition

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posted by RobMiles with

Living with Guilt and an Imate
Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:14 PM

I've been playing more with my Imate Jasjar device. It really is nice. I've also been feeling rather guilty. All around me there are folks muttering that I'm lucky to have one and there are more deserving people etc etc. I'm trying not to

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posted by RobMiles with

The Best Gadget Yet?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 6:51 PM

My chum from Microsoft, Andy, has just pulled off what I thought was impossible and found a way to get me one of the Imate devices. What a dude! The device itself is lovely to behold. I've been too busy doing things like going to sessions and writing

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posted by RobMiles with

Burgers for Tea
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 10:03 PM

Went to an authentic burger joint for tea. You'll probably guess the name from the below.. They even had the jukebox things on each table I had a plain (!) burger. This was around two inches thick and packed with beef and lots of other stuff, a large

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posted by RobMiles with

Speed Up Your Code
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 5:59 PM

Went to a session about speeding up code in mobile devices. Kind of interesting, but a lot of what was covered seemed like just common sense to me. The thing that did come home to me was that if you pay attention to a few simple issues (don't

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posted by RobMiles with

New After All
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:09 AM

I came to this PDC thinking that I'd seen most of the stuff that was being presented. I've played with Vista, written code with Visual Studio 2005 and so I thought there would be few surprises. Ha. Wrong. First big surprise was Bill Gates in a Napoleon

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posted by RobMiles with

Beach Trip
Monday, September 12, 2005 6:02 PM

Another day out today. (I'm feeling a bit guilty about this, but the conference, and thus the work, start tomorrow - and we have been talking about Slide 6 and a number of other work related things, honest. Anyhoo, we thought we would go and dip our toes

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posted by RobMiles with

Hollywood Bowling
Sunday, September 11, 2005 11:45 PM

Just next to the hotel is an underground bowling alley. We were invited there tonight. Free beer and food. Count me in. Now, I'm no great bowler (perhaps I shouldn't do it left handed). John, who heads up the Visual Studio team at Microsoft, is though.

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posted by RobMiles with

The Odd Tour
Sunday, September 11, 2005 8:29 PM

We went on the "Odd Tour" of LA today. This eschewed the touristy places for something a lot more interesting. First stop was the Bradbury Building. This was built on a "money no object" basis for a rich bloke around the end of the 1800s. It is famous

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posted by RobMiles with

Ariving in LA
Saturday, September 10, 2005 6:41 PM

Because of time zone fun and games today is going to be very long. We gained 8 hours when we did our journey, so after 20 hours of travel we have arrived at our destination in mid afternoon. Because it is LA the weather is lovely, and so we went out to

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posted by RobMiles with

On The Flight
Saturday, September 10, 2005 6:21 PM

Because I am tall the very nice people in charge of the flight let me in to the front where the bigger seats are. This is the view from my bigger seat. Bonus points for telling me what the film is.. On the way we flew over Greenland. Those little

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posted by RobMiles with

On My Travels
Friday, September 09, 2005 6:19 PM

They've let me out again. After a week of holidays I've headed out to Los Angeles for the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. We arrived here last night after a 20 hour journey and at the moment I'm feeling surprisingly fresh. I'll post photos

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posted by RobMiles with

Worcester Source
Monday, September 05, 2005 7:12 PM

The morning was a bit misty, but there was promise of good things to come. Misty Morning Then we went off down to Worcester to do some exploring. We went to the Commandery, a very significant place if you are into the Civil War (this sounds like

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posted by RobMiles with

Daring Deeds and Cloudbursts
Sunday, September 04, 2005 7:02 PM

Number one daughter did her brave thing today. She has been gathering sponsors for her abseil from the Humber Bridge and today she had to actually do the deed. I think the worst bit is probably just as you go over the edge, but she managed it and Dove

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posted by RobMiles with

But what is it for?
Sunday, September 04, 2005 4:18 PM

I've been tidying my room up (first time in a while). I found a piece of paper with "Pin number: 1234" (number changed to protect something or other) written on it. I thought that I should probably keep this number as it looks important. Trouble is, I've

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posted by RobMiles with

Close, but no cigar
Sunday, September 04, 2005 2:21 AM

Number one son has just upgraded his PC. New motherboard, processor and graphics card. But original RAM. This seemed like a happy ending until the machine started crashing for no reason. Before we went shopping today we fired off a RAM test. Which failed

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posted by RobMiles with

Birthday with Added Dogs
Saturday, September 03, 2005 9:53 PM

Number one wife and I are having a few days away from home. Before that we have number one's birthday to deal with. Having a son who is not only old enough to answer back but starting to become right more often than not is rather disconcerting. I've started

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posted by RobMiles with

Project Presentations and a good sunset
Friday, September 02, 2005 11:40 PM

Had a bunch of project presentations today. I love these. The students have to explain what they have done. These were from our .NET course and they were all belters (which is a good thing). I love hearing people talk enthusiastically about what they

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posted by RobMiles with

Down in Hazard County
Thursday, September 01, 2005 11:51 PM

Went to see Dukes (or perhaps Doooks) of Hazard last night, (seem to be watching a lot of movies at the moment - which is nice). On the way to the cinema nature treated us to a very impressive special effects show of thunder, lightning and torrential

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posted by RobMiles with

A Pocket Full of PSP
Thursday, September 01, 2005 10:38 PM

OK. I admit it. I was outside a Game store at midnight last night in Hull queuing for a PSP. The chap in front of me was trading in his XBOX, and a crystal one at that. Everyone in the queue was looking at him and saying to themselves "Why oh why oh why?".

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posted by RobMiles with

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