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Showing posts from June, 2011

Software Development with Chrome and Chromebooks

I friend pointed me towards this blog entry about coding on Chromium? http://blog.chromium.org/2011/06/cloud-coding-and-beyond-web-development.html Made for an interesting read. It still wouldn't do the trick for my ASP.NET development but certainly is a step in the right direction. It also pointed me towards Mockingbird ?which is a similar mockup product to Balsamiq. It looks fairly cool and seems to be free (I have only had an initial look at work so will find out more later this evening), I have noticed it doesn't have mocking bits for handhelds. It's certainly worth a look if you are a keen wire framer / mock lord.

Axis Centre Open Evening, Weds 6th July, 4-6pm

I received the following message from the Axis Centre in Beeston, Nottingham. They offer a wide variety of technical and e-marketing training courses. I have done a Microsoft training course, an E-marketing and content writing course and a XHTML and CSS course with them over the years and can definitely vouch for their quality. Worth a look for sure although they lost quite a lot of government funding which made the courses prohibitively expensive for someone like me who didn't have a company to sponsor me.  Take a look! GO DO IT. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Middle Street Business Centre will be open on Weds 6th July, 4-6pm, for tours, demonstrations, advice and information.  Why not come along to talk to us, pick up some information, watch a demonstration?  Or simply sample the buffet, have a nose around the facilities and pick up a few leaflets! We are pleased to feature: Jonny Green - demonstrating e

The Google+ project: Real life sharing, rethought for the web.

via plus.google.com Not sure if this looks interesting or not. Seems to be complete blue sky rubbish... Although if it makes looking after my Facebook friends easier that would be a bonus. I assume it hooks into Facebook...

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 launching in the UK on ?August 4th? with Android 3.1

via eurodroid.com Coming soon! But with Ice Cream Sandwich just round the corner....

Satsuma definition

I am making a health research questionnaire at work and am just going through spell checking all the work. I copied Satsuma into Google as Word is arguing that it is spelt incorrectly and noticed this definition on wikipedia... Satsuma -> ?citrus?mutant?of Japanese origin introduced to?the West Most amusing. Reminds me of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.?

BBC News - York council builds fence through goalposts

via bbc.co.uk Amusing bugger up.

Virtual On Joystick

AH!!!!! Wish I wasn't skint. I desperately need this Virtual On dual joystick.? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Virtual-On-Twin-Stick-Sega-Saturn-NEW-SEALED-RARE-/150609251800?pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item231102cdd8#ht_5770wt_1938

FABRE/deMARIEN architectes: house 69

via designboom.com Interesting idea. I wonder if in 20 years a design like this will become a 60s Flatesque eye sore?

Star Trek Displays Come to Harvard - Core77

via core77.com This makes for a fairly cool display. I would kill for my kitchen to have displays like this in the cupboard door panels.

Tritton AX Pro Dolby Digital Precision Gaming Headset - Headsets Xbox 360 at Play.com (UK)

via play.com I need these headphones. Damn my poor self.

Online JSON Viewer

via jsonviewer.stack.hu Json viewer. My colleague Trull pointed me towards this website for formatting Json. Quite handy for me as we store our data as Json in SQL Sever and I keep hainvg to copy and paste into notepad++ and doing find and replaces. Worth a look. Trulls site is http://blog.muonlab.com/ in case you are interested.   UPDATE.  I found a shortcut in Notepad++ to do this automatically which is much better. The plugin JSMin for Notepad++ has a format as Javascript command Ctrl-Alt-M which is great. 

ASP.NET MVC Article

This article on the pitfalls of ASP.NET MVC ?by? Rob Ashton ? and also mitigating them makes for a very good read. Whilst we have more or less tore ASP.NET MVC apart and only used parts of it the ideas are still the same. I feel suitably chastised already for bloating controllers! Maybe time for a little?refactoring!

Balsamiq Mockups | Balsamiq

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70hfU7_95Gw&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0] via balsamiq.com I'm just doing a mock up of a new questionnaire builder screen and refreshingly the tool I seem to notice that is used here is Balsamiq. I really am keen on this tool. It keeps the mockups nice and low fidelity which is important to stop crazy people forcing the actual mock up through as the final design on projects. Anyway for anyone who hasn't tried it, you can use it for free on the website and save you work out as an xml file for later reuse.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard - Xperia PLAY trailer

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdY-Lb2t7p8?hd=1] via youtube.com Rainbox 6 for the Xperia Play. Nice idea but something about it really reminds me of my old Nokia NGage (which I did actually like). As for the mulitplayer, what do you think the chances are of actually knowing another person with the Play? Probably the same as knowing someone else with the Atari Lynx in 1989...

Kinect for Windows SDK Download - Microsoft Research

via research.microsoft.com Kinect SDK Beta is now available for download! Let the joys begin!

The Art of Computer Programming | Interviews | Opinion, News, Analysis | BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT

June 2011 Whilst he was over in the UK for a book tour, and to give a succession of lectures around the country, BCS Editor, Justin Richards, caught up with Professor Donald Knuth. Donald is author of the hugely respected The Art of Computer Programming book series and dozens of highly regarded academic papers on computer science, to talk to him about his life and works. You?re probably best known for your book series The Art of Computer Programming . In 1999, these books were named among the best twelve physical-science monographs of the century by American Scientist . How did these books originally come about and how do you feel about the American Scientist distinction? The books came about because in the 60s, when I began, everyone was starting to rediscover things because there was no one good source of what was known and I had enjoyed writing all the time. I was involved in newspapers at school and magazines and thought of myself as a writer and I realised there was a need

Back to Karate

Now all the wedding fun is out of the way, I'm looking forward to getting back into Karate again. We are going to move in with my Dad again for a couple of months whilst we are saving for a mortgage deposit as well which is is closer to the class so that should make it easier to get there after work. Doppel win!

T-series T1600 Product Photo

via toshiba-europe.com Nice to see Toshiba still keeps references on it's own website right back to this old beauty.

Getting back on track with Android development.

via dotnetslackers.com Having a peek at this article reminded me that I really need to find some time to get back into doing some Android development. The Java is not what put me off, I am really not particularly keen on the xml interfaces used (similar to silverlights really I suppose). I really need to bite the bullet and get on with it though. My front end skills really are getting pretty pathetic now.

Toshiba T1600 Vintage 1988 laptop - 286 with 20Mb HDD | eBay UK

via cgi.ebay.co.uk I wish I didn't already own two of these laptops so I could buy it again. It's one of my absolute faves.

Laws of phyics

Can not be changed according to a Scottish newspaper.

How to keep your software awesome

via jemery.com A friend of mine sent over this great article on avoiding ending up with a bollocks code base. Obviously it's not always easy to see the trend towards this or influence it if yours is, but it's worth trying to keep this in mind!

The big choice

By the gods themselves. It's time for the big choice again. My phone can be upgraded tomorrow.? I currently have 3 choices in the pipeline.? Motorola Atrix Samsung SII Apple White iPhone and iPad combi It's a hard choice. My reasoning behind the selections are...? The Motorola Atrix is a nice enough phone, very sturdy and has a nice screen to look at. I have had some time using it and one of my worries is that the batt life seems a little short (I have heard this of the SII as well though). I like that the deal comes with the work and play kit although I wish it came with that Laptop attachment instead as I don't really need a computer on my television downstairs, that's what my 50 computers knocking around the house can already do and I like to watch tele whilst surfing. It's dual core, high res and is currently out now so is an easy choice. I could also get the cost of my contract reduced most likely as well... The Samsung SII... Lord of the Android horde. It

Pastures new

View as I walk into work at North 51

Wedding cakes

Courtesy of my mum! www.exclusiveweddingdesign.co.uk

Post wedding coffees

Attaching Visual Studio debugger to a process.

I knew you could do this but I very seldom have had use for it. However in my new job I have found a new need to attached the debugger to IIS to debug a website. The shortcut command for this is.... alt,d,p [enter], w [enter] (for me anyway). The first enter being the Attach to Process window, the w brings the list of process down to w (the first w in mine is w3wp.exe which is what I am after). The final enter is confirming the attach.? Very handy and the keyboard shortcut is a nice bonus. Hoorah.?

Stop VS going into Assemblys

This has been annoying me both on my new install at home and at my new work. For some reason I have decided to put up with it until now. If you don't have the source code for something the debugger wants to dive into (could be for any reason, the core of the code we are working on at the moment is got from an Open Wrap package), Visual Studio can make an attempt to jump into the assembly instead.? It's an easy fix to stop this annoying behaviour anyway.? Tools->Options->Debugging->Enable address-level debugging->Show disassembly if source not available