Hot Spot

I wandered out to register at the conference. I mutter about my air-con in the room (I call it "Old Faithful" now) but I'm darned glad that it is there, because when you leave the hotel it is like stepping inside a hair dryer. This is not a cooling breeze, it is the output from a blast furnace.

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Branded Lamp Post

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My hotel

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This probably symbolizes something

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Why we are here

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Guess what it is, and win a prize

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My universe for the next few days....

Apparently it is going to be even hotter for the rest of the week. Oh goody.

Bright and Early

Slept surprisingly well considering. I seem to have an air conditioner in the room which was designed by the same person who does jet engines. And air raid sirens. It came on by itself in the middle of the night. The first time it did this I managed the amazing feat of leaping up in the air from the bed, whilst remaining completely horizontal. Since the unit seems to start up every ten minutes or so, I'm now mostly used to it, the sound only causing mild palpitations at the moment. By the time I leave here you'll be able to drop a piano on the ground behind me and I'll hardly bat an eyelid.

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Noisy beast

The room is huuge. It is the entertainment part of a luxury suite, which means I get the sink, the fridge (bigger than the one at home and also with a distinctive sound) and the bed that pulls down from the wall.

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Rich Living

I managed to sleep in until around 5:00 am, which for a first night away is pretty good. I was lured from my bed by a rather nice sunrise.

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I bet all the sunrises are all like this here....

Later today I'm off to meet up with the rest of the team. For now, it's time for breakfast.

The Road to TechEd 2007

Author's Note:

From now on pictures are going to be presented in "SlightlyLargerVision" (tm). I've modified my Flickr plugin for Live Writer so that imported images now fill up the available screen width. Just one of the many ways I strive to make your lives better. Next I'm going to add a settings page so that you can adjust this. Not sure when, depends on how the jetlag goes.. 

Today's the day I head out to Orlando for TechEd.

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My plane (although there were others on board)

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The taxi from the airport. Note the rather worrying umbrella handle..

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Trees and planes

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The conference centre looking good

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Pretty skyline

More tomorrow

Best Cafe in the World

I've found the best cafe in the world. It is in York station and the coffee is good, but everything there is annotated in a most amusing way.

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Message coated sugars

I know that all the slogans and clever artwork were actually concocted by a bunch of soul-less advertising executives for a franchise owned by an uncaring global corporation working out of an anonynous office somewhere in Slough, but I still think they are neat.

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Indeed it is, but we got one anyway

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York station looking good.

Surviving Marking with the Gitaroo Man

I've found a way to survive marking. It goes like this.

Seems to work a treat.

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Only got to level 3 so far, but great fun

If you've got a PSP you ought to get this game. Recommended by number one son (there is no higher recommendation, believe me) it is worth getting just for the frantic Japanese music and the look of the thing. I picked it up for ten quid last weekend. You should too (except for the last weekend bit - which would require a time machine).

Collectormania Again

We were up bright and early this morning to head off to Milton Keynes for Collectormania again. Not quite so early this time, as I wasn't chasing autographs, but early-ish, and still fairly bright. We were really just going for the atmosphere, although I did manage to pick up a couple of import blu-ray disks which was nice. I also took the camera.

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This picture is crying out for a caption

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Bargain hunting Daleks

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Pick a card...

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...and a badge

Lectures, Scary Security, FPL, XNA and Sound Bites

Today has been busy. Oh yes. It started with an unexpected lecture. We are now in week 11 of the semester, with teaching supposed to have finished at the end of week 10. But the first year students wanted more, and so I went off at 9:15 to deliver. Actually, it worked quite well, in that I was able to go through the quiz that I set last week.

Then it was back to the labs to get ready for our XNA event. Andy Sithers from Microsoft had come over to formally hand over the XBOX 360s they have given us to help with our XNA teaching in the first year. We had to set them up in the lab for the pictures, and get some stuff working. Simon Dickson and Phil Cluff from our first year came in to show of what they have been doing.

Then, after a quick lunch the presentation tool place. We all contorted ourselves into the best position for the perfect shot for the papers. Danielle Cod from Radio Humberside interviewed our head of department, Andy, Simon and Phil and finally me, in search of the perfect soundbyte. You can grab the resulting two minute piece here. Much to my dismay they seem to have left Andy and Warren on the cutting room floor.....

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This picture kind of captures the event. In the back Warren Viant, our head of department, is being recorded whilst Andy Sithers ponders the code and Simon grapples with debugging and being interviewed all at the same time....

After all this we had to dash off to an event that I had pretentiously entitled our "Software Symposium". (Did you know that symposium used to mean drinking session?). Anyhoo, the event started with a double headed presentation from Robert Hogg of software developers Black Marble and Ed Gibson who is Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK. The topic was safety and computers.

I'd heard bits of it before at the Black Marble event last year, but it was obviously news to the audience, who sat silently as Robert and Ed laid it on the line about just how scary things are. I managed to be both petrified about what was going on out there and relieved that Robert and Ed are going around spreading the word and engaging budding software developers with the problems posed by the wonderful connected world we live in.

The point they made forcefully and effectively is that the big problems are not down to technology, they are down to people. If we don't keep our software up to date and we allow ourselves to be bamboozled into giving passwords to cunning callers then no amount of code is going to help.

Next, and on a somewhat lighter note, the Seedlings, our Imagine Cup winning team, gave us a presentation of their entry. The First Programming Language they are working on is aimed to engage everyone with the kind of problem solving techniques that will allow them to use a computer to best advantage, whether or not they end up writing programs.

Then after a closing address from Andy Sithers of Microsoft, about the value of competition and the usefulness to students of just plain taking part, it was time to zoom off and try to find a recorder for the radio broadcast.....

Busy day.

Gone to the beach

Most of the writing is now done. Just a few bits left to add. So we went to the seaside. I really like Hornsea. It has a faded charm that I find really attractive. Number one son and I took our cameras, and we were dead lucky because the light was lovely for photographs.

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Beach front

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Asset stripped

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Indoor amusements

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Windmills

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Hornsea Mere Tea Rooms. Fantastic.

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This pike is over 100 years old.

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I once got a hole in one here. Snag is, it was the wrong hole....

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Boats

Laura Viers Sings

Indeed she does. Very well. Number one son spotted that she was appearing in York, and so off we toddled. I took the big camera, but I might as well have not bothered. The lights were a bit low and even with the camera gain turned up to 11 it was hard to get any good photos.

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Laura in red (and that is a sock over the microphone)

She played mostly new stuff, which was alright by me. She does have an amazing voice and her band were absolutely top notch.

Respect

My father in law has style. He showed this by getting out some of his record collection:

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Ying Tong indeed

This is the sleeve from a Goons EP that he bought many moons ago. He still has the record too. Great stuff.

Then it was back onto the motorway for the journey home. On the way we passed a lorry loaded with stuff which the sign on the back referred to as "Equestrian Bedding". We think they mean straw.

Once more for the ducks

I always know exactly what to do when you have a crashing deadline looming. You go on holiday for a couple of days. So we have. We've rumbled down to Bristol to meet up with the inlaws. And, as is our wont, we've gone to look at some ducks.

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But first some nice flowers

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..swan of those days

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Slimbridge Mission Control

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If the birds learn to read we are all in trouble

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There's a kingfisher in the middle of this. Yes, really.

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Lovely plumage

Then it was back to the ranch. I did get around to writing a few pages though...

Imagine Cup UK Final

So, after getting up bright and early we headed onto the coach for the trip to Reading and our moment of truth...

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"Team Pizza" with their bag. Seems about the right size.....

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Ready for the off

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Photo Op

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The Seedlings shaping up
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Is this a secret weapon?

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Team Roundtrack

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The "Pizza Eaters" doing some product placement

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Team "404 File not Found" and their poster

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Kevin from Microsoft gets things going

It was great to see James and Tom again. They were in last year's team and I went with them to Delhi for the world final. They now work for Content Master and had been given leave to come and tell us about the experience.

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James in full flow

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Tom watching....

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..is this what Tom is thinking?

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Nibbles

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The food was good, and they just kept delivering it.

Halfway through the day the top three teams were selected to give their presentations. Sadly my team, "The Irresponsible Pizza Eaters", were not in the top three, but kudos to them for quality and commitment. You rocked.

Team "404 File not found" were selected for special commendation and "The Seedlings", another Hull team, were one of the three finalists. So, at this stage in the competition we had one commended and one in the top three. Not bad.

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The Seedlings, preparing for the off

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The pitch.

After the presentations and considerable deliberation the judges revealed the winner. None of this drum rolls and long pauses rubbish. Just a simple slide:

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Hull Wins!

The Seedlings had prevailed. Huge congratulations to James Alexander, Michelle Goddard, Matthew Steel and Matthew Steeples. And also to their mentor from Black Marble, Rob Hogg. They all get to go to Seoul later this year to take on the world.

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Flying the flag

That makes 3 out of the 5 Microsoft Imagine Cup UK Software Design Challenge competitions have been won by teams from Hull. Go us!

There are some more pictures on my Flickr site.

Game Fest

Yesterday we had our little games fest. The folks from Hull ComSoc set it up and we had XBOXes, a Wii and a PS3 all getting some hammer. Apparently, although I'm not an expert, 8 player Gears of War is a blast. And you can chop people up with chain saws as well. Of course, I'm too mature to do that kind of thing. That, and I'm pretty sure that I'd be the one in pieces on the floor. I took the camera along and grabbed some snaps.

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Everyone seems far too relaxed at the moment. Must be loading...

Portugal Pictures

I'm only in Portugal for around 16 hours. I took loads of pictures from the taxi on the way from the airport to the conference centre. The taxi driver thought I was mad at first, but after a while he was pointing things out for me. Great stuff.

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View from the Taxi

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Nice Stadium

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Love the colours

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Aqueduct

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Lisbon has a nice bridge too

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The TechDays in a break

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At the end of the bill. Or is that top billing?

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The audience. What a great bunch

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..until I told the Orange for a Head joke.....

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A great bunch of MSPs

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Some more students. That chap in the middle needs a haircut...

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Nice bridge by night