Coffee Machine Guru

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Coffee Machine.PNG

For the most part our coffee machine works really well. But it does have a foible which is that every now and then when you hit the power button it refuses to light up, and we have to turn it on and off at the mains. Then it wakes up fine. I'm wondering if it is something marginal to do with one of the internal sensors, or whatnot. To be honest I've no idea what the problem is and, since it has been doing it for ages with no observable ill effects I'm OK with this. Also, I'm mainly a tea drinker.

But such is human nature that I'm now using whether the coffee machine starts first time as a harbinger of doom or non-doom. If it lights up first time the day feels somehow lighter, as if things are going to go well. If it doesn't I seem to regard this as the first of a succession of things that are bound to go wrong over the day.

I've not really managed to determine if it really can see into the future. The truth is, I've usually completely forgotten about it by the time I leave the house in the morning. But I am wondering if I should start keeping score.... 

CPC Good Service

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Rather a big box for just 10 3.5mm jack plugs, but it did arrive the next day....

Rather a big box for just 10 3.5mm jack plugs, but it did arrive the next day....

I think you find out most about a company when they are operating in "failure mode". CPC just did this, and they passed with flying colours. I'd ordered some bits and bobs for the wedding lights (where I've been spending most of my time recently - big reveal to come later - at a wedding) and I'd ordered a pack of 10 plugs. However, just 1 turned up in a bag all on its own.

I rang up CPC and told them how lonely the plug was, and how it was missing its 9 friends who somehow seemed to have got left behind. They promised to sort it out and the following day a box with the missing plugs in it turned up. Of course I'd have been slightly more impressed if it had all arrived at the same time, but I'm very pleased to see that when things don't go right they own the problem and then fix it. 

If you are buying any bits and bobs they are a great place to take a look. Their service is good (see above) and their prices are pretty reasonable too. 

Windows Phone 8.1 Cortana will change your life

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So I'm driving into work this morning and as I'm sitting at the traffic lights I remember that I need to buy some cables when I get to work. So press the "Phone" button on the steering wheel and say "Remind me to buy cables when I get to work". Cortana confirms the command and then when I get to my office the phone beeps and I see this on the screen. 

This is something that will change my life. The way that it works is just transparent to me. I have to be a bit careful of phrasing, but I now have a phone that is properly useful in this context. I

If you've got a Windows 8.0 phone you are in for a treat when 8.1 comes out. I reckon it is worth registering as a Windows Phone developer just so that you can download the developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 and start using this technology early. My next step is to investigate how I can integrate my applications into Cortana.  

Shortlisted Rob

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A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be shortlisted in the Hull University Union Student-led Teaching Awards. I was in the "Most Inspiring Teaching" category and I actually won, which was wonderful. 

Well, I'm shortlisted again this year in a different category and and next week I get to go to posh dinner and find out if I've been fortunate enough to have won again. Which is very, very nice. You can find out more about the other shortlisted folks here.  

Banjo Madness

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I'm getting a lot of questions about banjos from students at the moment. This is because we are in the final stretch of the assessed coursework for our programming module which involves either creating a management system for a "Banjos for Hire" shop, or creating a game where you have to use your accordion to fight of hordes of invading interstellar banjos by shooting killer notes at them.

Today I got to see some work in progress from some of the students. I saw a Windows Phone game that was pretty much ready to go to market (just needs some sound and it should go straight in the store) and a close to complete WPF implementation of the store. Great stuff. 

Publish and be Great

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Most developers have them. Things that they have made, probably pretty much finished, but then other stuff came up and they never got around to shipping them.  And all it would take is a bit of effort just to get the thing out of the door and into the store. 

Publish is for these projects.  It's a worldwide event for Windows Store developers to get together and head for the finish line. It runs over the 16-17th of May and I'm nipping over to the event in Manchester to join fellow MVPs and developers in getting stuff finished. 

From my experience with Three Thing Game, Global GameJam and Hacked I know that it is amazing just how much you can get done in a short time if you just focus on a single task. Of course it also helps if you are surrounded by folks all doing the same thing, and that you get pizza and fizzy drinks (the fuel of champion developers the world over).

If you want to join us in Manchester you can sign up here. There are events planned all over the world, you can find a local event and take part here. You can even set up your own local event if you want, or just take part from the comfort and security of your own desk. 

I'm really looking forward to it. Perhaps that Windows 8 version of Cheese Lander might actually see the light of day.........

Amazing Headphones

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..and the red version are a perfect colour match to my Lovely Lumia 1520

..and the red version are a perfect colour match to my Lovely Lumia 1520

There are actually not a lot of good things that come out of having your suitcase stolen when you travel. The only really good thing that came out of the whole episode was that I had to replace the headphones that were the sole "gadgety" thing that got taken. I'd heard very good things about the SoundMagic E10 phones and so I thought I'd get a pair.

 

They. Are. Amazing. Way better than the much more expensive ones that they replace. The bass is very solid, the high frequencies are smooth and the midrange is nice and clear. And you get seven different sizes of rubber earpiece, so there is a very good chance that you can get a good fit.

The only thing I don't like is the cable, which is attractive and sturdy looking but also transfers vibrations into your ears so that if you brush the wire against anything when you are wearing the phones you will hear quite loud crackling and rumbling sounds. But apart from that, they really are magic. 

Tricopter Nerves

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Number one son was around over Easter and spent quite a chunk of time building a tri-copter. This is like a quad copter, but operating in reduced circumstances as far as rotor count is concerned. However, in some ways it is more interesting to fly, because the third rotor is pivoted so that you can use it to vector the thrust in a way that quad copters can't. 

Anyhoo, he started with just three bits of wood and a bag of motors and controllers and stuff, and I printed some parts to help hold it all together. By this evening he was ready to take it out into the field and see what happens. 

The answer, on this occasion, is not much unfortunately. Although the good news is that everything is plumbed together fine and it all worked as expected, the bad news is that a different kind of propeller will be required. I'm a bit sad that I won't be able to see the maiden flight of the device (it goes back down south tomorrow), but I think there is a good chance that it will come back to Hull in one piece at some point in the future. And I'm seriously tempted to have a go at building one myself. 

Windows Phone and Trams

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Windows Phone and trams go together very well. Last week, whilst on unfamiliar territory in the Netherlands, I needed to find the way to Escher museum. Windows Phone gave me all the details very quickly and I can even pin my route to the Start menu so that it is easy to refer to. Very useful.  

And of course with the map already downloaded before we set off, I was able to navigate quite happily in spite of having no network connection for the phone. 

Windows Phone 8.1 Cortana Marketplace Tip

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If you have upgraded your Windows Phone to version 8.1 (and you should if you are a Windows Phone developer) then you will have found out about Cortana. She is the Windows Phone equivalent of Siri, with one or two significant improvements on the genre. Snag is, she is only available to Windows Phone users in the USA at the moment.

The good news is that you can get Cortana goodness on your phone from anywhere in the world, just by setting your region and language to USA. The bad news is that this stops you from being able to buy things from the Windows Phone Marketplace (although you can still get updates to installed programs).

However, there is a workaround for this if you happen to have a second Windows Phone. Leave that in your home region and then use it for all your purchases and you will then be able to "re-install" them on your Cortana enabled, USA region, device. 

Update: Actually I think it might be even easier than this. Remember that you can buy applications and games for your phone via the Windows Phone website.

Home via Escher

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They serve the best breakfasts in the world in these parts. Amazingly good. With freshly squeezed orange juice and everything. And after we had enjoyed the meal we headed off to the Escher museum in the middle of The Hague. 

Escher pictures are amazing. I first came across his work in the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which is one of the best books ever written. Ever. Read it. Now.

It was nice to see his original work and find out a bit more about the chap behind the pictures. The exhibition itself is in the rather sumptuous surroundings of a palace. And on the top floor they have some rather neat interactive artworks too. A great way to spend our last morning before we caught a train and plane and headed home. 

Monogame at TechDays

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This is the audience getting ready for the presentation. 

This is the audience getting ready for the presentation. 

Sage advice

Sage advice

I did my final presentation of TechDays this afternoon. I love working in the Netherlands. Yesterday I celebrated my arrival on stage by kicking one of the lamps and breaking the bulb, in the process fusing all the lights. This made for a rather fraught five minutes for the tech guys, who had to find and replace the fault part. Then, during both of the presentations yesterday I was continually tripping over the lights and moaning about them. (Moaning is one of the things I do best. Today I arrived to do my presentation to find this thoughtful warning on the lamp in question. And the thing is, it worked. I didn't touch the lamp once. The audience was, as usual, great. I reckon that Dutch audiences are around the best in the world (and I've seen a few). They are up for anything, and are very happy to be in on whatever joke is going around.

I was talking about MonoGame on Windows 8.1 Phone and PC. Some of the demos were a bit reluctant to work, mainly because I'm presently running two development environments (VS 2012 and VS 2013 RC2) on my trusty Surface Pro 2. These kept grabbing the wrong files and then discovering that they didn't work. But in the end everything came right. You can find the slides and all the demos here. 

This is a really nice part of the world. Amsterdam is great, but I reckon The Hague beats it in terms of pace of things (a bit less frantic) and a lot fewer tourists (or at least that is how it seemed to me. They even have trams that go on the grass. 

(Note that this is not a cunning drugs reference.)

Early Birds at TechDays 2014

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Some of the early birds who caught my first session

Some of the early birds who caught my first session

I must admit I wasn't convinced about the plan to start the TechDays sessions at 7:45 in the morning. Particularly as to my UK body clock this meant 6:45... I wondered to myself if anyone would actually turn up. But they did. I had a very good turnout and the session turned out very well. Thanks to being such a fantastic, and wide awake, audience folks. The subject of the talk was Windows Phone 8 Bluetooth and Near Field Communications (NFC). I've put the slide deck and the sample code here. There are demos, sample code and all kinds of stuff. And around 110 slides....

In the afternoon I did my second session of the day. This was the fun hardware one. This had all kinds of scary demos, which ended up working which was nice. I had my Windows Phone devices all talking to Arduino controlled lights and stuff. You can find all the slides and demos here. 

At the end of the session I took a picture of the audience. Thanks for coming folks.