Logitech Bluetooth Adapter

I’m finding that most of my music listening now starts with my phone. I’ve signed up for the “all you can eat” Xbox Music service and so when new albums come out I can just download them to the phone and listen to them. Very nice. Of course, I also want to play music through the Big Speakers and that is where the little black box you can see above comes in.

It provides an endpoint for anything that puts out Bluetooth audio. You pair the adapter with the thing you want to play music from and it then sends out good quality audio to go into your amplifier. I’m not sure it is totally High Fidelity, but then again as the source of the music is a compressed file I’m not sure what High Fidelity means any more. All I can say is that if sounds fine to my ears. You can get the device for around twenty five quids or so from Amazon, which to me makes it a worthwhile purchase.

Yellow Book Translations

Every now and then someone emails me and asks if it OK to translate my C# Yellow Book into their native language.

Of course it is.

I’ve added some notes about translation to the home page for my programming resources. Essentially you can translate into any language you like as long as you keep the colour of the cover yellow.

If you want to sell your translation that's fine too, but you are not allowed to charge more than the price of a translation of the novel "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen in your language.

If you do manage to get all the way to the end of the book, let me know and I’ll link through from my pages to your translation.

Exam Boards and Jet Lag

There is nothing quite like being in an exam board with jet lag. Take it from me.

Things Come Apart

If you are looking for a really nice coffee table book (Hang on, Do people buy coffee table books any more? Do people have coffee tables?)

Anyhoo. If you are looking for a great book to pass around at your next social gathering, or just own and look at from time to time, then I suggest Things Come Apart by Todd McLellan.

The book shows a collection of consumer items that have been lovingly dismantled and photographed, even down to each nut, bolt, washer and individual component. The standard of photography is amazing and it really brings home just how complex things really are these days. Well worth a look.

Heading Home

Today we had to head home, which meant experiencing “The Miracle of Flight”. For me this means spending a few hours crammed behind a bloke who insisted on reclining his seat, even though I had mentioned to him hat my legs don’t have a joint in them that would make this possible. As we got on the plane one of the more alert stewardesses made the observation that “This plane wasn’t built for someone as tall as you”. Indeed. But then complaining about the seating arrangements when you are flying back from somewhere as nice as New Orleans seems a bit churlish.

A local chap reckons that the best times to visit the city are spring and autumn, when the heat is a bit less intense. That may be true. But I’d be happy to go back there next week if I got the chance. Great place.

My First Tomato Festival

I don’t know much about tomatoes. Mostly red, different sizes, used in bolognaise and on pizza, some discussion over whether or not they are a fruit. Oh, and in New Orleans they have a festival for them. It was a bit warm, but you could always cool down with a Bloody Mary drink. We took a wander through the French Market and I took a whole bunch of photographs.

Including this one. We have to head home tomorrow, which is rather sad as I’m just about getting the hang of “The Big Easy”.

Day off in New Orleans

If you are going to have a day off, I can recommend New Orleans as a great place to do it. First we went off to Audobon Zoo, which has to be one of the best zoos I’ve ever been to. We expected to spend a few hours there, but we ended up finding a day’s worth of stuff to keep us busy. There were all the usual zoo favourites (pictures of which will filter onto the blog over time I’m sure) along with some local specialities.

There’s an alligator lurking in this picture somewhere, I suggest that until you know where, you should rule out any swimming.

In the evening we went on a riverboat cruise which was rather splendid. There is something extremely civilised about sitting drinking a cool beer while they move the scenery past you and tell you all about it. The Mississippi is a very busy river, with oil, sugar and all sorts of other things moving up and down in huge ships. 

Today we also had a rather good sunset as well.

Last Teched 2013 Show Day

This is the Windows Phone part of the exhibition, where I’ve been spending a few hours each day. The conference ends today, I’ll miss the smell of brand new carpet.

In the evening we went up to the Mercedes Benz Superdome for the TechEd 2013 attendee party. Lots of other folks went too. Fortunately this is a Very Big Place.

There was good food, good music and, most important of all, free beer.

Speechifying Applications at TechEd 2013

Did my final session for TechEd US today. Great fun and a lovely audience. You can find the demonstrations for the session here.

Windows Phone Agents Secrets at TechEd 2013

We started the day with a walk around the French Quarter, which was rather nice. Then it was time to head into TechEd and give my session on creating agents for Windows Phone. I was a bit worried, what with it being the last session on the day, but the audience was great and even seemed to like the “Everything Sound”. The slides will be on the TechEd site soon, I’ll post the link when I get it. You can find the demos from the presentation here.

Sorry about the lack of a picture of the audience, it was just too dark..

NavigationService.Navigate–Duh!

Thanks to Ginny for the photograph. And for suggesting on Twitter that I might need some new jokes.

As if.

Anyhoo, this morning found me on the Windows Phone booth extoling the virtues of Windows Phone development. I told the happy tale of my PlayMusic application (22K downloads so far), the future with VoiceMusic and the dire tale of Procrastination Challenge. The game they dare not sell.

I was showing how easy it is to make programs and how you can navigate smoothly from one Windows Phone page to another. And then I completely forgot how to do it. Wah. Fortunately, after opening an existing project I managed to find the line.

NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/GameOverPage.xaml",
                                                   UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute));

This takes you onto the GameOverPage. How one earth could I have forgotten that? Anyhoo, I finally got to the end and people were kind enough to clap, which was nice.

Thanks to a great bunch of folks who were good enough to sit and listen. Larry was kind enough to video the session. With a bit of luck nobody will ever see it.

If you want to find out the awful truth behind “Procrastination Challenge”, I’m doing some more sessions on the Windows Phone Booth later in the week. Drop by to find out when. We’re in Hall D.

Tomorrow I’m doing my first session, Secrets of using Agents on Windows Phone tomorrow afternoon at 5:00pm in Room 383, followed by a session at 6:30 on Ask the Experts.

Going to Algiers

This morning we caught the ferry to Algiers. Its just across the river and the journey takes fifteen minutes or so. The good news is that the ride is free, and Algiers is a great place to take a look at.

Some of the land is still underwater.

And some of the houses are beautiful.

Tomorrow the main conference starts. I’m looking forward to it.

Oyster Festival

I’ve never been to an oyster festival before. And I’ve never had oysters from the BBQ before. Both were great.

New Orleans Saturday Morning

My cure for jetlag is to try and get eight hours sleep each night. Snag is, that we went to bed so early that we had completed our sleepings by four thirty in the morning today. Oh well. Best plan is to get outside into the sunlight and wait for the body to catch up. So we did. Turns out that there is not much happening at seven thirty in the morning, but we did get to take some pictures.

These places were open.

Why we are here.

Heading for TechEd New Orleans

Atlanta Airport has a nice ceiling.

After the excitement of yesterday, today I had to get up bright and early, or at least early, and head off to Manchester Airport to fly to New Orleans.

Such is life. The flights were smooth, everything worked and by the end of the day we were happily ensconced in the hotel. I’m really regretting not being around for the Three Thing Game finals but it was not to be this time. Simon has done a great job of finishing off the competition and you can find out what folks thought over at Hull Comp. Sci. Blogs.

Indeed.

Three Thing Game and Summer Bash

A whole bunch of teams with their things.

We got our first ever “in week” Three Thing Game going today. We ended up with 18 teams, which was great, and included one from Boss Alien. I’m kind of in a hurry packing for my trip to New Orleans leaving tomorrow (Simon is taking over tomorrow to do the proper work) but I thought I'd post some pictures.

We had the usual routine of things, programming and Pizza. I made a pass through the lab and took a bunch of pictures. You can find them here. We also had a Summer Bash, lots of fun playing “The Resistance” and “Braggart”.

And now I’m off to bed. Which is more than the teams in the Fenner Computer Suite are doing….

C# Yellow Book in Persian

I was very excited to hear from Rasoul Mohammadi that he and his friends have been busy translating my C# Yellow Book into Persian. You can get an english copy from here:

www.csharpcourse.com

I’ll post a link to how to get the Persian version (poetry) when it becomes available. Great stuff.

Rob at TechEd 2013

I’ve finished my preparations for TechEd 2013. I’ve written the presentations, developed a bunch of new demos (including something that involve cheese and something that doesn’t) and also also created a custom Lumia 820 case using the Nokia design on Thingiverse. I’ve printed out a couple in white and they don’t look too shabby. I’ll be giving one away at each of my sessions next week. Come along and be ready to answer questions if you want to win.

If you are coming along to the conference, and want to know when all the Windows Phone sessions are (including mine) then here’s the info. See if you can spot which ones I’ll be doing:

6/3/2013 1:15PM WPH-B202 The Phone That Has Everything the Enterprise Needs: Windows Phone 8
Rob Tiffany 383

6/3/2013 3:00PM WPH-B205 Top Down Guide for Developers: Windows Phone 8
Larry Lieberman 383

6/3/2013 4:45PM WPH-B204 Radical Perspectives on Mobility Strategy
Kuleen Bharadwaj 383

4/2013 8:30AM WPH-B201The Power of Collaboration: Integrating Windows Phone with Microsoft Office 365, Exchange and SharePoint Online
Alan Meeus 383

6/4/2013 10:15AM WPH-B304 All Aboard for the Future of HTML5 Mobile and Hybrid Web Apps for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Tablets
Rob Tiffany 383

6/4/2013 1:30PM WPH-B309 The Windows Phone 8 Networking Survival Kit
Andy Wigley 383

6/4/2013 3:15PM WPH-B303 Build It Once For Both: Writing Code and Designing for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8
Matthias Shapiro 383

6/4/2013 5:00PM WPH-B302 Secrets of Using Background Agents for Windows Phone 8
Rob Miles 383

6/5/2013 8:30AM WPH-B203 Mobile Security in the Enterprise: Windows Phone 8 Answers the Call
Alan Meeus 383

6/5/2013 10:15AM WPH-B308 Using C and C++ in Your Windows Phone 8 Applications
Maarten Struys 383

6/5/2013 1:30PM WPH-B305 Developing Large-Scale Enterprise Mobile Apps for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Tablets
Rob Tiffany 383

6/5/2013 3:15PM WPH-B301Speechifying your Windows Phone 8 Applications
Rob Miles 383

6/6/2013 8:30AM WPH-B207 Manage Windows Phone Enterprise Apps
Robert Hoover 383

6/6/2013 10:15AM WPH-B306 Support Your Demanding LOB Apps With SQLite and Windows Phone 8
Andy Wigley 383

6/6/2013 1:00PM WPH-B307 Creating Windows Phone 8 Apps for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
Jeremy Thake 383

It looks to me like room 383 is basically Windows Phone Central. I’m also going to “Ask the Experts” on the Tuesday (I’ve actually got some questions) and I’ll be on the Windows Phone Booth (sounds appropriate) on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Drop by and I’ll tell you a really funny joke. Perhaps.

A Japanese Walk

Tokaido is a game where players seek rest and good experiences while travelling the “East Sea Road” in Japan. It is a nice twist on the board game format and has beautiful artwork on the cards and the board. I didn’t manage to win, but hey, it’s all about the journey, right?

Hull Waterfront

We had a sort of plan to go to the seaside today. Then we figured that lots of other folks would have that plan too. And so we went for a walk around the waterfont at Hull. We went past the deep and round the old town, had a fantastic Beef and Stilton sandwich at McCoy’s and then staggered home to play some silly Table Tennis in the garden.