I’m now officially fit enough to mend things. Today it was the turn of the doorbell. I did ask someone to come round and fix it but that didn’t end well. Apparently they turned up earlier this week but didn’t think there was anyone home (Old Joke Alert).
I’ve replaced the batteries in both ends and now it seems to work. Of course what I really want is one of the new fancy doorbells that plays MP3 files when someone presses the button. I could have some real fun with that….
I swore I wasn’t going to get a Wii U. Of course not. Silly idea. Another console under the telly. Why would I want to do that?
Indeed.
But it is very nice. A lot nicer than I expected. And even better after the enormous update that it insisted on performing just after I’d plugged it in. Actually the thing that got me excited in the first place was the potential for media management that the device brings. The large controller with a screen is a great way to browse for and view media, and you can also use it to turn your telly on and off. If Nintendo play their cards right (historical fun fact – they used to sell playing cards before they sold video games) they could make this into a proper media hub with the benefits of dual screen that the controller brings. Microsoft have “Smart Glass” which is a big step in the same direction, but Nintendo sell you a complete solution all in one, rather than relying on you bringing a Smartphone to the party. If it all comes together, say in three or four enormous updates, I can see folks in the family really appreciating the ability to find and play media on Netflix, Love Film and the various iPlayeresque services.
The hardware is impressive. The remote screen is very good and there is no noticeable lag between it and the main screen. The fact that it is a resistive touch screen doesn’t cause problems, and even makes it easier to use a stylus where required. The worst thing about the shiny black devices is that they really do attract fingerprints and dust. However, we finally have a Nintendo device with proper video output. The HDMI plug just goes straight in and produces nice looking video and surround sound.
The games are great too. If you get a Wii U you must get NintendoLand. No ifs, no buts. You’ll also need to dig out 4 Wii controllers too (preferably with Motion Plus) to get the full five player action, but it is worth it. The “asymmetric” games are great. My favourite is the one based around Luigi’s Mansion where you have a ghost (who uses the big controller see where everyone is) sneaking up on players who have only got there torches to see what’s around them. I don’t think NIntendoLand will have the same long term appeal as Wii Sports did, but it will really make all your Christmas parties go with a swing.
We also had a go at Zombie U, which is quite frankly terrifying, Super Mario which brings Mario into high definition and adds some very interesting variations with players able to use the controller to change platform the environment and finally Tekken, which is, well, Tekken.
One surprising thing about the Wii U is the number of launch games available. The actual arrival of the console has been fairly low key in my opinion, perhaps because they haven’t made a huge number, but the range of games available is very impressive. Some of them (step forward EA with FIFA 13) are just Nintendoised versions of their offerings on other platforms (and in the case of FIFA it’s FIFA 12 too) but some look very interesting.
If you want a glimpse into an interesting video game future then the Wii U is well worth a look.
You’d think that a solid state disk would be more reliable than one which contains tiny moving parts that whizz around in close proximity to each other, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And with solid state disks you don’t get any warning.
With hard disks I’m quite good at detecting when something is amiss. Files that take a long time to arrive, clicking noises from the box, all give warning of bad stuff to come. But with an SSD they can just fail. And not just one track or sector, but the whole thing at once. At least my SSD went a bit wobbly before it finally expired. It worked fine when cold, and failed when it had warmed up. The good news is that ebuyer sent me direct replacement of the broken disk. The bad news is that the replacement is way too identical to the original. It doesn’t work either. And the ebuyer system seems to come unstuck if you try to return a return.
Ho hum.
I’m definitely getting better. It’s rather strange. I’m perfectly happy to dash around the place, running errands and fetching things, but I have real problems sitting down and doing stuff, especially at a computer. I mentioned that I didn’t feel “normal” last week to the doctor, and he made the perfectly reasonable response “Just what is normal anyway?”. Fair point.
Anyhoo, at the moment I’m just pottering around the house doing bits and bobs and taking every excuse to go out for a walk.
I took this picture with the Lumia 920 yesterday. With results like these I don’t think I have to carry my camera around everywhere now. But the mysterious thing about this picture is the way that the flags are blowing in completely different directions.
Strange eh?
We played another complicated game today. Great fun, although at one point my brain did begin to run out of my ears.
Anyone of you clever folks out there able to tell me what the game is?
Number one daughter is very keen on cooking, and some of this is rubbing off on me. This afternoon we made a cake (see above). I’m not saying I did all the making, but I did melt the chocolate and help with the stirring. Great fun, and turned out rather well if I do say so myself.
As you can see, I’m now eating a much healthier diet…
I’m definitely on the mend. I’ve been out for drinkies (that was not my drink above – promise), and even managed to make my first lump of bread.
And yes, that is cheese on top…..
And I would like to say thanks to all those who have wished me well. Means a lot.
Now, this one impressed me lots. What you can see above is a picture of a rocket that I printed using “glow in the dark” fibre from Faberdashery. I took the picture using my Lumia 920 in pretty much pitch darkness. You can just see the edge of another, non-luminous, rocket on the left of the glowing one.
The picture was taken hand held and I’ve done nothing more to it than a slight crop. Amazing.
Two for one on Advent calendars. Which would you choose?
Went to the doctor this morning. Everything seems to be coming along fine, which is nice. Thought I’d double up and go for an eye test in the afternoon. Didn’t get the chance to use my optician gags:
Optician: “Tell me, have your eyes ever been checked?”
Me: “No, they’ve always been blue.”
or
Optician: “Can you see the eye chart on the wall over there?”
Me: “What wall?”
Anyhoo, my eyes seem to be around the same as they were last time, which means I am quite a bit up on the day, what with not having to buy any new glasses.
This is not good news. I fired up my computer (not to do any work, honest) and I saw this screen, among lots of other depressing ones. I think that my super fast SSD has broken itself. The good news is that this provided a reason for another brisk walk (I’m very good at brisk walks at the moment) up to the Post Office to send the thing back to Expanys. The better news, I suppose, is that I can’t do anything much with my computer at the moment.
The Christmas lights are going up in Cottingham at the moment. They are being switched on tomorrow. If you get the chance, you should take a walk through the village after dark. I’ll try to take some pictures later.
[Note: These posts are being made retrospectively. At the time I didn’t really feel like writing much, but I really want to get this stuff down just so I can remember it later.]
We went out today for a walk. Apparently walking is good for me. And cheese probably isn’t. Such is life. We went over to Manna in Cottingham, who do a really impressive hot chocolate, among other things.
Well, that was fun. What I’ve had is referred to as an “elective percutaneous coronary intervention” The doctors used lots of these medical terms as they were working on me. I asked about this and they told me not to worry about what they were saying.
Unless one of them said “Oh shit”.
Anyhoo, it looks like it was a “find the problem”, “fix the problem” kind of procedure. One of the arteries in my heart was pretty much blocked apparently and the piece of stainless steel chicken wire that they inserted (actually a 2.75x32 Promus Element Plus drug eluting stent) seems to be working. I’ve now got a “non-tight feeling” in my chest which is actually rather strange. I’m back home now with a list of things that might go wrong in the 7 days and stuff not to do.
I’m going to be off work for a week or two, but hopefully when I get back I won’t be using the lift as much.
This man speaks the truth. Most of the time. I think.
We had our latest Rather Useful Seminar today. Simon told us all about Unity, a game creation framework which you can drive using C#. The great thing about Unity is that it lets you target a variety of platforms and it is cheap to get started. The seminar was great, I’ll put the slides up later.
I first saw a Livescribe pen last week. It looked very interesting, and so on Saturday I invested in one. (note that I never buy gadgets, I invest in them.) This time though I think I have invested in something really useful. If any part of your life involves taking notes (like for example as a student) then you should take a look at this device.
The hardware is fairly plain on the outside. A shiny black pen with a little OLED display, a single button and sockets for usb and headphones/microphone. You can write on any paper of course, but if you write on the specially printed blank pages that you can buy from Livescribe the pen will remember what you wrote. You can then upload your scrawlings onto a computer. So far, so conventional. But you can buy the paper in the form of bound books. Each of these is uniquely identified so that when you upload the pages they are already automatically filed by page number and volume. The pen tracks which book is which, so you can chop and change and it all just works. If you fill a book and buy a replacement with the same number you can archive that volume on your computer and start afresh.
So, at the moment we’ve got a device that will store and index stuff that you write. For me that is very useful. I like to write things in meetings, but I end up just losing those notes afterwards. With Livescribe I can keep track of what I’ve written and go back to it much later on my computer. The pen knows the date and time, so I can go back to notes I took at particular points in time. But then we turn on the microphone in the pen and things get really interesting. Now I can record audio of a meeting and synchronise it with my notes. Tap a sentence in my notes and I instantly hear what was being said when I wrote that. Flip the process around and I can record interactive presentations. Livescribe will even host these for me for free (up to 500M of content).You can even plug in stereo headphones with built in microphones to record what is happening in binaural stereo.
I’m impressed with the device and its potential. It is not that expensive to get on board. The fact that you need special paper is a bit irritating, but if you have a colour laser printer you can print your own blank paper and the books and notepads are not that expensive and well made. You can even get post-it notes that you can bring to life with audio extras. It also works with Evernote, which is something I’ve yet to explore. You can also load applications onto the pen, use it to make a piece of paper into a piano and buy a program that will convert your handwriting into text. You can find out more at Livescribe. Worth a look.
One of the Second Year courses that I help deliver is our Software Development module. As part of that we put our students into teams and get them to write some software for a picky customer. They have to deal with dodgy legacy software and the fun and games that is associated with working as part of a team.
One of the rules that we have is that everyone in a team should write some code. Not all of it, but some of it. One of our worries is that in a team of 6 people we might get a couple of folks who will say “We’re the best programmers here, we should write all the code” and then go ahead and try to do just that. This is bad in many, many ways.
For a start, they might not be the best programmers there, just the ones with the biggest egos/mouths. For another thing, they might not be able to do all the work with just two people. But most importantly, if they are the best programmers around, and they could write all the code they should still not try to do it. Because from a learning outcome point of view they are missing out on a huge opportunity.
If the “great programmers” just churn out the code all they’ve done is reinforce their high opinion of themselves. But if instead they decided to piece out the work sensibly and then spend some of their time mentoring those who are less confident coders so that everyone gets better at development, then they are picking up an incredibly valuable skill. The ability to teach people stuff is really useful, even if you have no intention of going into teaching. When you try to explain something to another person you have to try to put yourself in their position and then find a context which they understand, into which you can put the information you are delivering.
The skill of being able to explain something to another person is very valuable, and it is just the kind of thing that employers are looking for. It also makes you more confident in interview situations, just because you are better at talking to people.
So, don’t think that offering to write all the code is “taking one for the team”. It is more like “taking one from the team”.
This is how it looks now, not too shabby eh?
I spent a chunk of today finishing off my Raspberry Pi powered tabletop game machine. Because I swapped monitors I had to rework the monitor support but fortunately the size and shape of the hole in the surface was the same.
I did have all kinds of plans to rework the joysticks, but I’ve changed my mind (mainly because I’m lazy) and so I’ll keep it like this for a while.
This is the work in progress. I covered the wooden parts with foam plastic to make a better support. I’ve found that my favourite fool suppliers (www.toolstation.com) also sell 0.5M HDMI cables which made it much easier to fit the monitor. You can just see the Raspberry Pi on the top right hand side, the USB hub and the joystick interface are under the front panel. Since I took this picture I dismantled a pair of USB powered speakers and put the drive units and amplifier under the screen as well. Here is a parts list of sorts:
The only thing left to buy now is the glass which I’ll have to get cut to cover the monitor. I also need to tidy up the wiring. One of the nice things about this design is that all the voltages actually in the table are low ones. These are the things that I’ve learned from the exercise:
I’ve made a little video that shows how Voice Music works on Windows Phone 8. It stars my Yellow Lumia 920 and my left index finger. You can find Voice Music here. It’s free for Windows Phone 8 users and it works a treat over Bluetooth.
The Windows Phone Jumpstart sessions are something of an institution. Myself and Andy Wigley did the first couple and they were great fun. The dates for the next sequence have just been released and you can register here.
Unfortunately, due to reasons completely beyond my control I can’t be there to present this time, although I have helped out with some of the content (A clue: look for the bits with cheese in). However, we do have a stable Rob count, in that Rob Tiffany will be taking my place. Rob knows a whole shed load about Windows Phone, although I doubt he actually keeps his knowledge in a shed. He is also an accomplished author and even writes stories about submarines. (true fun fact). Andy is still playing in a band, I think, unless they’ve taken his guitar away from him. Between them you can expect plenty of detailed and engaging content.
If you have any interest in learning about Windows Phone development you should take part. It’s free and fun. The decks, demos and presentations will be available later, but there’s nothing like seeing it live.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
