Get your apps out there….

I had one of those happy/sad moments today. Someone showed me a stunning little game they’d written for Windows Phone. Snappy graphics and fun to play. “Is it in the Marketplace?” I asked. “No” was the reply.

Some people hold back until their game is “finished”. This is a bad idea. There is no such thing as finished as far as a developer is concerned. You can always add bits, make it better, tidy up the class design, make all the curly brackets line up. But if you keep on like that you never get anything out there. I’m not saying that you should push out broken programs, I’m saying that things like on-line high score tables, multi-player, extra levels, a level editor etc can always be added later.

The faster you can get something out there the faster you can start getting feedback and recognition. So go for it.

TV Gone Backwards

I’m always impressed by how clever modern things are. But I’m also perplexed how some people take all this cleverness and make things that aren’t very useful. Take my telly. I’ve got a Sony PS3 plugged into a Sony amplifier which is connected to a Sony TV. When I try to watch a Bu-ray disk on the PS3 it takes ages to connect to the TV and I sometimes get a bright green (or purple – it varies) screen. And often the PS3 has forgotten all about any previous audio settings that I’ve laboriously made so that I have to go and do them all again. And when I watch the Blu-Ray (also from Sony Columbia Studios) it shows me a warning that because the disc contains “Advanced Interactive Content” (which I have no interest in) it might take several minutes to get started. And then when it has loaded the disk it insists on showing me lots of trailers and other stuff about how much Blu-Ray is better than DVDs before I get to the main feature that I have paid money to see. Say what you like about my old record player, but I could guarantee that within 10 seconds of arriving home with a new album  I could be listening to it.

Wah. Did nobody at Sony actually try to use this stuff? Apple are rumoured to be moving into TV soon. I bet their system won’t have 30 second pauses while nothing useful happens. Here’s hoping that their presence will force manufacturers to get their act together.

Expensive Tools

Bought four of these today. Very expensive, but they did each come with a free chair.

Lumia 800 Going Red

Got a spiffy red case for my Lumia 800 today. I like the way that it really looks part of the phone, even to the way that the buttons show through holds in the case itself. I’ve got a blue one on order so that I can change the colour to reflect my mood. As long as I only have three moods – black, red and blue.

A Slice of History

I was up in the loft again today and I happened across something of great historical interest. I found a Computer Science Departmental Prospectus from 1978, the year that I graduated. I’d kept it because, ahem, I’m in it.

This is the cover. Any idea which language this is?

..and this is the money shot. I think I’ve probably still got those shoes somewhere. And that hairstyle….

The computer in the corner (yes, that is a computer) was a Prime machine and myself and the other chap (another prize for naming him) were allowed special access to it for our Final Year Projects. We then went onto create an unbeatable version of the “Fox and Hounds” board game that was so good that nobody wanted to play it.

Good times.

New Years Hornsea

For some reason we always try to go and see the sea early in the New Year. This usually means a trip to Hornsea. Today the weather and the tide were very kind to us, and so we had a little walk down the beach and I took some snaps.

The weather was nice, but very chilly in the wind. We sought refuge in an amusement arcade.

They have these “Penny Falls” machines where you try and push pennies off the a ramp. This looks like it is good to drop, but I reckon those coins are super glued into position…

Lego Camper Van Christmas Fun

This

plus this

equals this

Yay!

Best Christmas Present Ever?

This is what Charlotte gave her dad for Christmas. Great stuff.

Christmas Question

Is it called Boxing Day because you end up with lots of empty boxes?

Happy Christmas Everyone

Christmas would not be Christmas without some Lego Starwars action

Free Xbox 360 with Nokia Lumia 800

I didn’t realise it at the time, but getting a new Windows Phone has other benefits as well. In the form of a free Xbox 360 with every brand new Nokia Lumia 800. I think the offer has expired now though. I’d have got the phone anyway, free console or not, but it is rather nice.

I’ve had an Xbox 360 since day of release. I have fond memories of around 30 of us sitting in the dark playing Condemned when I took my shiny new console in having picked it up on the very first day. I have less fond memories of the “Red Ring of Death” and sending the whole thing back for repair fairly shortly after that of course….

Anyhoo; today the postman brought me a brand new Xbox 360. It is the new design one and almost shiny. It doesn’t have a hard disk, but it works a treat using an internal 4G of memory and is much, much quieter than my previous machine. Number one sun put in a copy of Skyrim and fired it up. Very, very good. I find it hard to believe that this is now a “mature” console.

The new machine works so well that it has now taken over from my original device. If anyone out there wants a “one careful owner” console, give me a yell.

Me, I’m off to buy a hard disk to plug into it.

Fifty Years of Private Eye

Last week we went up to London for a day trip. One thing we wanted to do was take a look at the “Private Eye: The First Fifty Years” exhibition in the Victoria and Albert museum. Private Eye is a satirical magazine which must be finding life quite interesting in a world which seems to have moved beyond satire in the last few years.

Free to visit and some very funny cartoons. Worth a trip, but you’ll have to hurry as it closes early next year.

Start the week with a sunrise

If you are going to have to get up on a Monday morning it might as well be to a sunrise like this.

Driving Home and Hanging Blinds

Nothing like driving 225 miles and then hanging some vertical blinds when you arrive home.

Christmas Bash 2011

We had our Christmas Bash today. A bit near the end of the semester so it was a fairly select gathering, but fun none the less.  We did the usual Team Fortress 2 and Pizza

After 3 hours of solid effort Simon found all of the 78 words in the “Three Thing Game” Christmas Wordsearch. We had to give him a prize, but only after we’d checked the age rating of it.

Double barrelled cracker action. I think the blur adds atmosphere….

There are some more pictures on Flickr.You can find them here.

Christmas Shopping on Oxford Street

We took a day trip to London today. Great fun. We were even brave enough to go down Oxford Street. To say it was busy would be a bit of an understatement. But it was nice.

Political Note: I don’t usually comment on politics on this blog. My opinion is that no matter how you vote The Government always seems to get in. But I feel I must apologise to the rest of the world about the behaviour of our Prime Minister with respect to the European Talks last week. When a previous Prime Minister was negotiating very important treaty stuff he hid a diplomat under the table who passed him notes with sensible things to say written on them. Apparently our Mr Cameron did the same, only he took Jeremy Clarkson.

Christmas Bash 2011

If you want to know where all the cool people are (and me) next Thursday, we'll be at the departmental Christmas Bash with games, a monster word search, pizza and all kinds of fun. If you are a student in the department you can come too. Tickets go on sale in the departmental office from 2:00 pm Monday 12th of December.

B Grade Radio

so - what is it?

Bought a “B Grade” radio today. Turned out that the ‘B’ stood for “Broken” in this case. Fortunately they had another one in stock to swap it with, for which the B seems to stand for “basically the same thing but a lot cheaper”.

The Lego Advent Calendar

I’m now a Lego VIP. Perhaps the oldest one that they have. I’ve got a plastic card with a picture of a little Lego man on it and they send me frequent emails about bargain deals in plastic bricks.

Anyhoo, these are the first two day’s worth from the Lego Advent Calendar. Hope there is a Lego Death Star behind the door for the 24th….

VideoBash on December 12th

Christophe dropped into my first year lecture today to promote the upcoming Videobash at the university. It’s a co-production between ComSoc and the university film society. Movies, video games, fancy dress. Looks like fun. I think they still have some tickets left. You can buy them next week on the 7th, 8th and 9th in the union.

On a related note, you can get the Final Fantasy movie – The Spirits Within on Blu-ray for 6.49 on Amazon, which has got to be a bargain.