Helicopter
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This is the one helicopter I’ve not broken yet. I daren’t fly it any more…
DDD in Manchester Finalised
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This is not Manchester
The final schedule for the Developer, Developer, Developer event in Manchester next Thursday has now been set:
08:30 - 09:00 Registration, coffee
09:00 - 09:10 Welcome
Andy Wigley, Andrej Radinger
09:10 - 09:30 Windows Phone 7: A new kind of phone
Andrej Radinger
09:30 - 10:30 Understanding the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools
Maarten Struys
10:30 - 11:15 Silverlight App Development on Windows Phone 7
Andy Wigley
11:15 - 11:30 Coffee
11:30 - 12:15 Integrating with the device capabilities
Andy Wigley
12:15 - 13:00 Raising the dead: Apps that survive Tombstoning
Andy Wigley
13:00 - 13:30 Lunch (Not provided)
13:30 - 14:30 Games Programming on Windows Phone 7
Rob Miles
14:30 - 15:15 How to sell Apps through Marketplace
Rob Miles
15:15 - 15:30 Coffee
15:30 - 15:50 Cutting-edge WP7 apps: Cortexica’s visual search API
Richard Bassett
15:50 - 16:35 Creating Silverlight Apps that work Offline
Andrej Radinger
16:35 - 17:00 Wrap-up and the BIG PHONE GIVEAWAY
If you want to register, go here.
Working in the Lab
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Spent most of today in the lab with the new first year students. Great bunch. In the very first lab session we bombard them with a maths diagnostic, a whole bunch of tasks, some questionnaires and last, but not least, they write and run a C# program. They took it all in good heart and it was great getting to know them. Lectures start on Monday. Looking forward to it.
Undergraduate Party
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The panorama didn’t turn out too bad. Apologies if your face got mangled.
Thanks to everyone who came along to the Undergraduate Welcome Party today. Great fun. In spite of the quiz…. I’ll put some of the other pictures up on Flickr later. And we will sort out some Playstation Move sessions in the open area later in the semester.
University Life
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Last year I did a blog post about getting set for university life. I thought I’d bring it up to date. This is a tad late (term has started here) but there might be some stuff folks find useful:
- Make sure that you have all your updates installed on your system. It doesn’t matter whether it is a Windows PC, a Mac or a Linux netbook. Find out how to check for updates and get everything up to date. At some point you will want to connect your machine up to a campus network of some kind, and if you don’t have all the latest security patches you may be vulnerable to infection.
- Do something about viruses. At the very least make sure that your Windows PC has Windows Defender installed and running, and that the databases are up to date. If you want to install an anti-virus program don’t feel obliged to spend a lot of money, the AVG free anti-virus program is good and will cost you nothing. Get it from http://free.avg.com/. Please don’t spend huge amounts on some of the more expensive ones. The benefits are dubious and they also have annual renewal charges too.
- Take a backup of your machine and leave it somewhere safe (perhaps even at home). Find out how to use the backup software on your machine and take a copy of everything. Use one of these cheap external hard disks that you can pick up for around 35 pounds or so from places like http://www.ebuyer.com/ or Staples, or even Tesco. That way if it all goes horribly wrong when you get to university you can recover your precious music, videos and other stuff. Once you have the backup habit, take one every month or so.
- Don’t spend huge amounts on other software just yet. Most universities (including ours at Hull) have deals that get you some programs that you need cheaply. The same goes for books. In the computing field they are rather expensive, and you don’t want to pay a lot for a book and then find out that it is only used for a small part of the course. You can check the books out in the library, and you might also find that there is a second hand book sale on your campus where you can pick up the required volumes from other students quite quickly. You might also want to form a little cartel with fellow students to share books between each other and spread the expense (this is also neat because it can also give you a ready made study group).
- Get a usb memory stick . Keep backups of all your work on it. You can also use it to take files into the university to work on. You will get some filespace on the university network, but it will not be an enormous amount, and having your files always with you is useful. Put a file on the drive with your contact details (just your name and phone number) so that if you lose the drive people can find out who to return it to.
- Get some free on line storage. I like Windows Live Skydrive: http://skydrive.live.com/. This gives you 25 GBytes of space which you can access from anywhere on the web via a browser. The major limitation is that files can’t be more than 50M in size, but this is a perfect place to lob all those important essays and program source files. You’ll need a Windows Live account to use this and the uploading and downloading of files is all via browser which is a bit of a pain but there is a tool called Gladinet: http://www.gladinet.com/ that is supposed make this storage available to your applications although I’ve not used it. You can also use Skydrive to make your files available to other people. The access is controlled via their Windows Live Accounts and you can just email them a link to the download location or folder you want them to have access too. If you have more than one computer and you want to make sure that files are up to date on all of them you can use Windows Live Mesh for that: http://www.mesh.com/. Mesh gives you another 5G of free online storage and you can even synchronise files to Windows Mobile devices. Anyone who just stores their important files on their laptop hard disk is an idiot. These services are free and mean that you can get at your files from anywhere, and you will not lose them. If you want even more online space take a look at DropBox at http://www.getdropbox.com/.
- Make sure you have insurance for all your nice toys before you set off to university. Don’t plan to sort it out when you arrive. It would be terrible if they got stolen or damaged before they were insured. Take a look at cover from student specialists like Endsleigh: http://www.endsleigh.co.uk/student-possessions.html (if anyone knows any cheaper deals feel free to let me know and I’ll update this post)
- Don’t worry. Really. You’ll be fine.
Free Windows Phone Developer Event Next Week
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Coming to a cinema near you. Probably.
Hot on the heels of the Windows Phone 7 Live training that we did last week in Bellevue, Andy and myself will be presenting at a Developer, Developer Developer (DDD) event in Manchester next week on Thursday 7th October (seems appropriate).
If you want to find out how to get started with Windows Phone then come along to the free day’s worth of training. I’ll be doing two sessions on XNA for Windows Phone. I’ll also be telling the jokes that I wasn’t able to use in the Live Broadcasts…. Should be fun.
You can sign up here.
Home at Last
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I think I’d rather like to live near here though.
Made it home this lunchtime. Luggage got here in time for tea (not that we wanted to eat it).
The journey nearly managed a final twist though. On the way down to land the pilot said, in a rather whimsically Dutch way, “The cloud ceiling is only around 100 meters above the ground, so we might have problems seeing the runway. Anyhoo, we are going to have a go and see how we get on…”.
The alternative to landing at Hull was not actually piling into landscape at speed but an all expenses paid trip to Doncaster airport. I’ve used this line before – nice enough place but no great desire to go there just right now. Fortunately the ground came up to hit is in just the right way.
It wasn’t a fun trip, but it was considerably funner (if that is a word) thanks to the folks that I met up with along the way. With my terrible memory for names I’ve forgotten what you are all called, but I do remember that you were great company at a time when a few laughs was probably the best we could hope for. Hope you all got to your destinations OK. And your luggage too.
Breakfast of Heroes
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At least the breakfast at the Renton Clarion is colourful….
Flight into Danger (well, almost)
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Not a bad place, just not where I want to be.
In a perfect world I’d be posting this from home, not the Renton Clarion Hotel “Conveniently situated just minutes from Seattle Sea-Tac airport”. But there you are, and here I am.
Twenty minutes into our flight out we had a “passenger incident” which resulted in us returning to Seattle and the plane filling with burly men wearing Tasers and striking action poses. Most exiting. Less exciting was the “slow reveal” of the fact that we would not be flying out on Saturday, but on Sunday. I feel very sorry for the staff on the plane and those at the airport who had to deal with a nasty logistical problem not of their making. I feel even more sorry for anyone who fell asleep just after takeoff and then woke up fifteen minutes later thinking they’d just had the shortest and smoothest transatlantic flight ever.
Still, the system worked and I’m sitting here with my “Delta Airlines Meal Voucher” and wondering what kind of breakfast blowout you can get for six bucks.
We are taking off again at noon today. Then I get to enjoy a seven hour stopover in Schipol airport before catching my flight to Humberside a day late. Good oh.
A Walk Round Bellevue
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Balloons in the park.
It was a beautiful day today. Flight didn’t leave until late afternoon, so I had time for a wander around and breakfast in Bellevue old town. Anything in the US can be called old if it was built before 1975 apparently. But it did look nice.
On the way back to the hotel.
Last day in the studio
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They have this interesting, illuminated wall thing in the Microsoft reception area.
Today was the last day of recording. We got everything sorted out by lunch time and I caught a bus up to Seattle and did a bit of sight seeing. I really love this city, particularly Pike Place Market and the amazing Science Fiction store down there. And the coffee. And the views. And the people. And I’m flying back tomorrow. Wah.
No matter, went for one last meal out before packing.
This picture is for you, Jeff.
Telescoping Spoon
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We spent the day today recording video material for the updated Windows Phone courses. Then we went out for a wander just before tea and happened upon a very posh camping store. This had everything you might want for the wilderness, and then some. Including a telescopic spoon.
Now, those of you who know me well have often heard me saying that the one thing I need to make my life complete is a telescoping spoon. I have this fear of someone looking me in the eye and saying “We’d like to take your spoon Rob, but there’s no way it will fit. If only it was telescopic.”
So, I bought one, and it works too. It goes from quite small to fairly small in one simple, sliding movement. And I can use it to stir my cocoa at night. Wonderful.
Slide Writing
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We spent today updating the slide decks of our Windows 7 content in readiness for a couple of days of recording. The plan is to have all the Jump Start material bang up to date and compatible with the final release of the phone SDK last week. The videos will be available soon.
When we had knocked things into shape we wandered down to Bellevue Mall and tea. I took my camera.
I could photograph this building all day.
Bellevue Nails
Jump Start Advanced Phone Training
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Windows Phone SMEs (Subject Matter Experts). I wish I could put names to the faces, but if you are a Windows Phone developer you will have read material from at least one of these folks and used software they have written.
Today Andy and I did another day of Windows Live training. Hundreds of viewers on the other end of the line waiting to find out more about developing for the platform. And it was great fun. Andy covered the new Silverlight controls, Bing maps and performance. I did some XNA stuff and we had a couple of Expression Blend experts along to add even more value.
Then at the end we had the best bit (at least for me). A whole bunch of Windows Phone developers turned up to answer questions live for the last hour. Great questions, great answers and a good time afterwards, when the free beer turned up. Afterwards we went in search of a Best Buy store, and gadgets. On the way we passed a Nissan dealer….
A Mighty Cube
Didn’t actually buy anything, which is a first for me I think. Then we wandered back to the hotel.
All the material from yesterday was recorded, and will serve as a nice continuation of the existing content. Andy and I will be spending the rest of the week here in Bellevue re-recording the existing stuff and bringing it up to date.
Working in Hotel Rooms
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One of the pictures on the wall seems almost appropriate.
They say that when J.K. Rowling wanted to get some writing done she would check into a hotel and work there, free from distraction. Apparently as a result of this the final Harry Potter book was nearly called “Harry Potter and the Room Service of Doom”. But I digress.
I’ve spent quite a while in my hotel room working over the last day or so. Usually at three in the morning. I’ve found that I can plug the hotel room TV into my laptop, leading to the rather impressive dual monitor setup you can see above. And I have got quite a lot done. At the moment we are putting the starting touches to the sessions we are doing tomorrow, at the Windows Phone Jump Start. I’m also digging out some of my favourite jokes. Should be fun. You can sign up here.
Scary music from beyond the grave
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Just writing some stuff about Windows Phone development and what happens when an application is removed from memory. Then my music player (on random play) came up with Track 11 of Nine Objects of Desire by Suzanne Vega. Now, that’s what I call scary.
Jump Start to Bellevue
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My first meal in America. Of course.
Jumped (well, walked actually) onto a plane today to head off to Seattle for the next set of Jump Start sessions. Andy and I will be doing some more live magic next week on Tuesday, when we are going to present a bunch of advanced Windows Phone topics. I’m doing a session on more advanced XNA, including how to make your games “Marketplace Ready”. You can sign up here. As soon as I arrived I shot off to the mall to take a look round and on the way back I got well and truly drenched by some traditional Seattle rain. It is nice to be here again.
Playstation Move Fun and Games
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Of course I got a Playstation Move. I shot up down on the way back from work and had a quick play with the system before packing for Seattle tomorrow.(It is very annoying to be going away just as I get a new toy. I’ve just found out that the Xbox Kinect is released when I’m away in Berlin at TechEd 2010 too. Oh well.)
The controllers themselves are very well made, and feel great in the hand. They use internal rechargeable batteries and you need to have a bunch of mini-usb cables to charge them all up. The ball on the end which lights up is all squidgy, which doesn’t affect the gameplay much, but does make it less painful if you happen to hit anyone with that bit. Each controller is supplied with a sturdy looking wrist strap which you are strongly advised to use.
I happened to already have a Playstation Eye webcam which I plugged in and then spent a while getting lined up correctly. First thing I noticed was that you need quite a big room to play this properly. They say you should stand around 8 feet from the screen, which might be a problem in some bedrooms.
Then I had a go at the table tennis game, which I regard as the benchmark application for this kind of technology. Having lined up camera I got started. It really is impressive. The bat on the screen matched exactly how I was holding the controller. I could twist my wrist and move forward and back and the bat followed me exactly. Better yet, the things I did when hitting the ball (applying top spin and back spin etc) translated exactly onto what happens in the game. I was actually able to leverage my existing table tennis skills and use them to beat one of the computer opponents. I can see myself spending a lot of time with this game. Given the amount of jumping about that I ended up doing it might even be good for me.
Finally there was just time to have a quick go with the party game. This is a bunch of deeply silly mini-games which are quite engaging for a single player and would probably be a riot for a bunch of people. Again, the on screen rendition of whatever I was holding (my favourite was the mole whacking mallet) was exactly fitted into the picture of my hand on the screen.
Final impressions, very good. It has the controller abilities of the Wii hooked up to the greater rendering power of a PS3. It is a bit expensive though, to get a webcam, two controllers and a couple of games you are nudging up to the price of a complete Wii system. The games that are presently available are OK, but a bit slight. It will be really interesting when some of the more hard core games get the Playstation Move makeover.
Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Released
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(the Windows Phone user is the one in the speedboat)
The final version of the Windows Phone developer tools have now been released. These are the ones that you can use to create applications for the Windows Phone Marketplace. They are also of interest to XNA developers because this SDK is also the one used to create XNA 4.0 games for Xbox and Windows PC. They are a free download from here. If you want an ISO image to use for an offline install of the SDK you can find that here.
Oh, and if you want to find out more you really should sign up for our advanced sessions on Windows Phone Development. Andy and I will be reprising our double act (and giving away another private jet) on Tuesday next week. You can sign up here.
Geek Power
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I was in the Union Shop today and noticed that they were selling a Top Trumps style game called “Geek Power”. Fortunately the card at the top of the deck looks nothing like me. Nothing at all.
