Upstaged by a dog...

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Did the final Ace lecture today. Another splendid bunch of students and a good time had by all.

01danni
Danni warms up the audience...

02digby
Digby the digital dog drives them wild.

I don't know. You spend forty minutes showing off amazing technology, telling wonderfull jokes and so on. Then Digby comes on and kicks a ball and the crowd goes wild!

Anyway, it was great fun. I've put a little page together for those of you what want to have a go at the programming side of things. You can get the program I was writing from here. And you can find out about starting to program here.

As I was saying....

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Did my first Webcast tonight.  Never done one before. You feel a bit stupid sitting in a room talking down a phone to a whole bunch of people you can't see, but you get used to it after a while. It is a bit scary though. There is a technique for dealing with presentations where you imagine the audience naked. In this case, they might actually have been - a horrible thought.

I'd very carefully scripted everything so that I knew just what to do and when to do it. So off I went.  Just about everything worked, although I did have to speed up a bit at the end to get to the finish without missing anything.  And I did tell my favourite joke as well, just as I promised. But of course I couldn't hear anybody laugh (so no change there). If you want to watch too, take a look here.

Bye Bye Orange

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I'm in the process of saying goodbye to an old friend. I've had a mobile phone with Orange since a long time ago, when black and white screens were cool. But now I'm leaving them and shacking up with T-Mobile. I gave Orange a chance, I spoke to their "Customer Retention" team (which sounds really scary) but at the end of the day they can't offer me what I want.

What I want is unlimited use of the internet on my mobile phone for 7.50 a month. I want to be able to use my mobile to browse the internet, check my email and download the odd file without worrying about the cost (which up until now has been horrendous). T-Mobile will let me do this. Orange won't. The nearest I can get with Orange (and this is a tip folks) is that if I use a Pay As You Go connection I can pay a pound for as much internet as I want for a single day. This is great for trips away and the odd demonstration. But I want the mobile internet as part of my life. So it is goodbye to Orange for a while.

I'm pretty sure that eventually Orange will have to come up with something similar, but I don't particularly want to wait. I've got a taste for mobile email and that means using the internet  a lot.  And I want it  now. So it is goodbye to my Orange contract and hello for a year with T-Mobile.

Non-sensible Sunday

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01StormTrooper
I've hidden a stormtrooper in this picture somewhere. Can you use your powers of observation to find him?

On Sunday sensible people stay in bed for a while, potter about, read the paper and generally relax in preparation for the coming week. They do not spend the day rising at 4:30 am, driving 220 miles to London, walking round a film and comic conference and then driving back again. Horay for sensible people. Meant the place was not so busy, and we got a chance to look around. And see a talk from two of the stars of Serenity, a good film that you really should have seen by now. I've put a whole bunch of pictures up on Flickr.

Insight Insight

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Did a talk at an Insight event today. I was telling all about mobile development to a bunch of academics. Great bunch of folks who seemed to enjoy the talk. I never got around to telling the orange for a head joke, but you can Google it if you like.  If you were at the talk, I promised a bunch of links and downloads. You can find them in the presentations part of the site here.  I got to stay in a proper english hotel room for a change.

01makeTea

 

For your information, hotel owners of the world, this is what we english expect to see in our rooms when we arrive. Not a minibar loaded with expensive items or a coffee filter thing which only makes one cup of luke warm drink. This is how you do it.  And don't forget the biscuits.

Saabarama

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Drove down to Kidderminster today in a rented car. I like rented cars. They are always shiny and new and somebody else's problem if they go wrong. Today's car was a shiny Saab. It had loads of buttons, including one labeled ESP which I never dared press. It had separate air conditioning settings for the driver and passenger sides . Number one sun set his to minimum and I maxed mine out in an attempt to create a weather front down the middle of the car as we drove in to work.  It also had a feature which reminded me of one of my favourite jokes.

Driver : "I pressed this button and the car instantly drove straight into the sea!"
Mechanic : "That was the cruise control sir".

Anhyoo. Nice car.

Jokewatching

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I think I'm turming into the comedy equivalent of those birdwatching people who spend all day in a field with a pair of binoculors looking for the great crested whatnot. These folks think nothing of spending a whole day standing in the rain wating to get a glimpse of some rare species or other. They must leave home each day with hope burning in their heart that they will actually catch sight of their goal.

This is now the way that I watch comedy programmes. Last night I sat through a whole episode of "My Family". It must have been in the hope that at some point something funny was going to happen. Of course, it didn't. The audience seemed to think that it was hilarious. The same "joke" was repeated numerous times and they laughed obediently each time. I'm not sure how the BBC management do this:

Scene : TV Studio before recording an episode

Stage hand One :  "We've recording a comedy show next"
Stage hand Two: "OK, I'll get a fresh cannister of laughing gas and plug it into the air conditioning"
Stage hand One: "Wait, it's 'My Family', better make that two cannisters"

I can imagine the audience on the way home, having hysterics at their bus tickets and the markings on the road.

Mobile Developer Webcasts From Rob

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In a week or so I'm giving my first ever webcast. It is a kind of "remote presentation" where I run through some slides and demonstrate some programming. The audience can chip in and ask questions, and the whole thing is also recorded for posterity so that you can refer to it later. You can connect to it from anywhere in the world and take part via the internet.

This will be number one of a series of 4, all about mobile game development.  If you have ever had an urge to develop a game (on mobile or otherwise) then you might find it interesting.  I'm also going to tell my favourite joke in all the world exactly 23 minutes into the talk, so it is worth tuning in just for that.....

I'm setting up a resource centre on these hallowed pages to underpin the webcasts . I'll be adding stuff as soon as I've finished each talk. Find out more here.

The End of the World?

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I keep seeing adverts for things which contain "good bacteria". Which is apparently better for you than "bad bacteria".  How did we get to this?

Meeting at Bacteria HQ:

Bacteria King : "We're in trouble. They keep inventing new ways to kill us. That new Domestos could be the end. Any ideas?"
Bacteria Scientist : "But sire, I have a plan"
Bacteria King : "Do tell.."
Bacteria Scientist : "We train up some of our strongest strains for a top secret operation. We teach them the arts of subterfuge, send them undercover and get them to convince the human scum that they are friendly. Once they are safely established in their yoghurts and health drinks..."
Bacteria King : "..we strike them down. "
(all join in evil laughter)

Remember, you read it here first.