Rob and the Cube

I wasn’t looking to buy a new car. I never am. Particularly after just having had the current one serviced. But they had some Cubes at the Nissan dealership and I just had to go and have a look. And I think the Cube looks great. (Although opinions differ).

Inside it is a bit like driving a conservatory and I don’t think it will win any speed races. But I really like it. My definition of great car is “A vehicle that transports a really good SatNav and sound system around, along with space for gadgets”. The Cube does all that.  And it has a rear view camera. In colour. The plan is for some trickle down action, with number one wife getting my car so every body wins.

If you are looking to by something mini-MPV’ish with a really distinctive style (the only car I’ve ever owned that I would probably be able to draw a recognisable picture of) then there are some amazing deals on the Cube at the moment.

Jenny’s Abseil

Number one daughter did her abseil today. It got put back from earlier this year. If you sponsored her, well done and thanks very much.

If you didn’t there is still time:

http://www.justgiving.com/jennifer-miles

It was 450 feet you know…

Mystery Object Answer

Now it can be told. The tool is for making holes in network cables so you can attach a Vampire tap to them. In the olden days Ethernet networks were made of a single thick piece of co-axial cable (the same stuff we use to connect TVs to aerials). This had a terminator at both ends and the way you connected a station to the network was to drill a hole in the side of the cable and push a pin into the central conductor.  These connectors got the name of “vampire taps” for obvious reasons.

Getting the hole wrong (too big or too deep) was bad, as you only had the one cable for your entire network. So we used to use a device with a drill bit which had been cut to just the right diameter and depth in the tool you see above.

This was in the “Good Old Days” of networking,  10BASE5 style (this means 10MBits/second, baseband signals and 500 metre maximum segment length).  Nowadays we are up to 100GBits/second on some networks. That is  10,000 times faster.

The tool has rattled around in my desk for a while and I probably should get rid of it.

Having said all that, it does remind me of a Veroboard track cutter. I used to have one of those too. It’s a tool which lets you make breaks in copper tracks on circuit boards by cutting through them with a drill bit. So, I reckon that Dave G is a winner here and if he wants to drop by he can have is Windows Phone lanyard.

Perfect Afternoon

The finished product

I spent the afternoon eating chocolate and drinking tea while making my own Lego private jet and watching a naff James Bond movie in HD.

Perfect.

This is what Lego thinks the pilot uses to fly the plane. Right hand down a bit I reckon.

Instant Green

If you want to know how to get “green credentials” for your organisation do what the US Government does with its forms. They have the “Printed on Recycled Paper” logo on the bottom of all their PDF documents so anyone that prints them out is automatically eco-friendly.

Back to Work

Bellevue Movie Theatre looking good

..and today I go back to work…

Back in Hull

Got back to Hull today.  Nice to find the place just as I left it. There is nothing quite like not sleeping in your own bed.

I blame the jetlag.

Clothes Shopping with Jetlag

We got back to the UK first thing this morning, had a quick nap and immediately decided to go clothes shopping. As you do.

There was actually method in this madness, in that we were in Bristol, which is home to one of the few shops that sells clothes in my size. And they have a sale just right now. So it was off to purchase a whole bunch of outfits. Took number one wife with me to stop me buying anything purple or orange.

Birthday in Seattle

Lowells sign

Got to spend my birthday in Seattle today. Thanks for all the good wishes folks. Got a new Lego watch (and my own private jet as well).

We spent some time going around the city. Of course I took some photographs..

Ended the day out eating natchos in the Imax at Bellevue, watching “Inception”. Great film.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start Studio Prep

Bob sets up the webcam while we sort out the introductions.

Today we went over to the room where we are doing our mammoth Windows Phone 7 Jump Start. It starts Tuesday morning and you can sign up here if you like. I was expecting a room with a desk and a webcam. They were there alright, in a studio with two proper cameras, a backdrop and all the trappings of a professional broadcast.

Oh gosh.

Andy settling in.

We did some dry runs where we found out a couple of things:

1. Both of us speaking at the same time– bad.
2. Neither of us speaking at all – bad.

However, I think we should be OK on the day.

Update on 2010-07-20 13:51 by Rob

If you want to take part in the fun, post to the course forum and download the materials you can go here:

http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/wp7/default.aspx

That way you can find the jokes before we say them....

Hello Seattle (again)

Nice view from the plane

The lady at US Immigration looked at the stamps in my passport and said “You come here a lot, don’t you”. I suppose I do, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anyhoo, we had a very smooth couple of flights thanks to Continental airlines (although the airline food version of a cheeseburger is something I only want to experience once in my life) and finally arrived in Bellevue in time for a walk around. During which I broke my shoes in half. Fortunately they had a huge mall just around the corner which had loads of shoe shops and so I was able to get something I’ve always wanted, a pair of Converse All Stars. Excellent.

Downtown Bellevue looking good.

Then Sharon arrived at the hotel with a Windows Phone each for Andy and me. Truly, the day could have got any perfecter.

Mostly Writing, and then a Drive

Spent today feverishly writing Windows Phone 7 content and then driving down the motorway to Bristol to hook up with number one son ready for the flight out tomorrow.

I’m taking an entourage to Seattle with me, they are going to have fun going round and seeing the sites, and I’m going to have fun teaching.

Windows Phone 7 Training Mayhem

Who? Me?

I got an email a couple of weeks ago asking if I would like to do some Windows Phone 7 training. Thinking that this might be a useful stepping stone to getting my hands on a device, and it might be fun to do I said why not? Actually, it was a bit more complicated than that

I fly out to Seattle on Saturday. I started off thinking that I would be doing this using Live Meeting in a little room in our house, it turns out that I will be using Live Meeting out of a studio in Bellevue, Washington State, USA. 

At the moment I’m working on the content. We have 12 hours to fill…

Omar Sharif Graduates from Hull

Omar Sharif came to see us today and collect an honorary degree. He gave a superb speech, explaining his friendship with Hull born actor Tom Courtenay and his ups and downs as a long standing Hull City fan.

Great guy.

Graduation Day

Did the warmup for two graduation day ceremonies today. One of them was for students from Computer Science. I took the tiny camera and it seems to have done a pretty good job in difficult circumstances. If you were there you should be able to find yourself in this picture or the other one on Flickr.

A couple of great audiences, thanks for that folks.

Flamingo Land

Just to prove we went there…

Took number one daughter to Flamingo Land today, as a birthday treat.  It is a theme park near Malton in Yorkshire and it is great. Some big scary rides and a really nice zoo. If you’ve not been it is well worth the trip. Much closer than Alton Tours and just as much fun.

Saturday Open Day

Some of the audience. There is another picture on my Flickr site.

Many thanks to everyone who came along yesterday to our open day. It was great fun and you were a lovely audience. I’m sorry I had to zoom of after my talk. I would have loved to stay around and chat, but I’ve been away for a week and I had to go home and sort a few things out. If you have any questions about the department please get in touch.

Another Year of MVP-ness

This afternoon I got an email informing me that my Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) status has been renewed for another year.

Thanks very much folks. I’m flattered that you think so much of me.

I want an iPad that runs Windows 7

I’ve been carrying my iPad around now for a while and I really like it. The screen is nice, the programs are OK and the battery life is amazing. It is in the category of one of those things that you don’t have to consciously remember to charge, you know that it will have enough left in the battery most of the time, and when it gets below 15% or so you plug it in. Great stuff.

However, it is not without its drawbacks. This morning I was putting together a report in the iPad using its Pages word processor. All I wanted to do was take text out of a couple of emails and paste them into a document. The kind of thing I can do in a couple of seconds on my desktop. On the iPad this turned out to be a lot more tricky. I could use cut and paste to move the text but I had to keep switching applications, and finger powered cut and paste is no fun.

As I was laboriously stopping one application, starting another and prodding at the document to find the right place to paste it struck me that what I really want is an iPad running Windows 7. That would allow me to have multiple applications open at the same time in windows on the screen and move things between them, just as I would on my desktop. I really hope this comes about.

Just like the original Apple Mac sold people on personal computers the iPad has sold me on pure tablets.  I just want one that is as useful as a PC now.

Iain’s Unhappy Landing

..how it should have turned out.

I found out today that Iain had a nasty accident when he was skydiving over the weekend.  His main ‘chute failed to deploy properly and he was forced to resort to his reserve. This is a bit smaller than the usual one, and resulted in a heavy landing which broke his ankle (but fortunately nothing else). He is presently stuck in  a hospital bed while being nailed back together.

I owe Iain a huge debt of gratitude. He was the one who persuaded me to do a jump some time back, thus conquering my long held fear of one piece boiler suits and being strapped to other people.  I’m still a bit nervous about jumping out of planes though.

Anyway, get well soon Iain, we miss your witty and erudite comments in the tea room (actually, we used to miss them when you were there too, but that’s another story).