Manchester Skyline

The venue on Monday had a lovely view of the Manchester skyline in the evening. It really was a great location.

Trombone Champ is Awesome

Thanks go to Derek for pointing me at this. It actually had me crying with laughter. I was watching one of the videos in this review of the game. I’m definitely going to get a copy. And probably make a trombone controller for it too. You can find the game here.

Fun at Dot Net North

Just the setup for your average talk….

Well, that was fun. Dot Net North invited me to do a session for them. First “in-person” talk for ages. No pressure then…

I got a bunch of kit together and headed over to Manchester. I gave the talk at the Auto Trader offices. Wonderful place. Got a great audience and I really enjoyed myself. Thanks so much to Claire for making us all welcome. The food was lovely and the room we had was great. Thanks to Pete for inviting me. You can find the slides and sample code here.

Me in action. Photo Credit: Pete Vickers MVP, International Man of Mystery and Corns Cut While You Wait

I’ve really missed doing live presentations. Yesterday reminded me of how much fun they can be. Especially if we end them by raffling some socks.

Road Warrior

It’s a while since I’ve done anything like this. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the Arndale Centre in Manchester updating the blog while on the road. I’m in Manchester for a Dot Net North talk I’m giving.

I’ve just thought. It would be awesome if the post in the laptop screen was this post. Oh well. Maybe on the next trip.

Windows 11 video output is magic

I’m getting ready for a talk I’m giving tomorrow. In person. Rather exciting. I’m using my super cheap Windows 11 laptop. Just to see if I can. Today I was checking out the video output. I plugged the laptop into my screen and looked for the setting that would enable output. Then I glanced at the external monitor. It was already mirroring the laptop screen. Exactly what I wanted as default behaviour.

I guess there are settings for having multiple screens and whatnot, but I love the way that it did exactly what I wanted without me having to do anything. This is how things should be.

Dolls House

I never thought I’d one day spend a happy half hour helping someone play with a doll’s house. But there you go.

Kitsy Bitsy's Noisy Neighbours

This is a great kid’s book. Lots of detail. Neat rhymes and a cake recipe at the end.

Plus, it contains this picture. Which I’m thinking of having made into a poster (not really, but it is tempting).

Castle Howard Trip

Took a day off writing to go and look at old buildings. No prizes for guessing where this is (particularly in mind of the post title…..)

Writing and will power

Spent today writing pages and not buying cameras. Go me.

Mine Finder is now Cheese Finder

One of the example applications for the book is a game I invented that I had called “Mine Finder”. I’ve just decided that this a silly name. Mines aren’t the kind of thing you really want to find. So, it is now called “Cheese Finder”. Much nicer. And it has multiple cheeses too…

Mostly writing

Chapter 5 of the new book is coming along swimmingly. It’s great when you start to work out what it is that you are trying to write.

Fun with SoundTrackers

Spent a tiny bit of time today playing with soundtrackers. Great fun and bringing back all kinds of memories.

Deluge OLED Upgrade

My Deluge is one of my favourite musical instruments. The only thing wrong with it is the display, It’s hard to navigate the huge range of features using just a four digit display.

But that is about to change. They’ve just announced a new version of the device with an OLED display. You might think I’m unhappy about that, what with me having the old version and all. But the amazing news is that they are also offering the OLED upgrade for existing devices too, at a not extortionate price.

This is totally atypical behaviour for people who make devices like this. An upgrade to the product usually results in a need to buy a new one. Kudos to Synthstrom for doing this.

There is going to be a lot of interest in this, I’m looking forward to getting mine done.

Begin to Code Cloud Chapter 4 now available

I’ve just finished writing Chapter 4 of Begin to code: Building apps and games in the cloud. You can find the new chapter, along with all the example programs including your very own web server, here.

Dog and Duck

There’s a pub in Beverley called the “Dog and Duck”. When I first heard the name I built up this nice little narrative about a dog and a duck who go around having adventures and maybe even solving mysteries. I’ve just taken a proper look at the pub sign.

Oh well.

Ha. Turns out that Dog and Duck is already a thing.

Sad news

Sad to hear the news of the queen passing away today. A good, sensible person with a sense of humour doing an impossible job for a very long time. Well done your majesty. You will be missed.

Puncture and Meetup

I think I’ve found the problem…

I was all set for the Connected Humber Meetup this evening. However, as I was headed down the road I got a warning about low pressure in one of the tyres. It wasn’t hard to see why. Fortunately, I was very close to Endyke Tyres so I popped in to be told that it was time for a new tyre. The good news is that they can get one in tomorrow. So I put some more air in the tyre, drove home very carefully, swapped cars and managed to make it to the Meetup just about on time.

The meetup was excellent. I showed off my oven and bits and bogs. Brian had brought along a really pretty display, powered by a really beefy power supply. He also had his PICO audio device playing Gerry Rafferty.

Ion had brought along a very accurate sine waves for amplifier testing. Ben turned up and finally got his lights with names in. John came along and we talked about bits and bobs. My laptop decided to update everything during a demonstration audio which didn’t go too well but there was lots of other good discussion too.

Great fun. The next meetup is on the 5th of October. If the parts arrive from China I want to do some live surface mount soldering.

John Miles memories

When I was younger one of my favourite musicians was John Miles. I bought quite a few of his records. I was just getting one of them out of its sleeve (Zaragon - not his best) when this ticket fell out. I must have tucked it away many years ago. Who knew you could get a live band (and support) for the sum of 1.75? In Hull.

Amazing times.

Back to vinyl

Got my dusty old record deck down from the loft. Along with a bunch of dusty old records. One of the few nice things about being old is that when stuff comes around again you can just go and get your originals.

I’ve got around four other decks up there. I suppose all the rubber parts have failed - I had to get a new belt for this deck - but I’m tempted to get them down and just see if they still work.

When VHS comes back, I’m ready for that too.

3D printing lots of colours

Following my success making a version of the MIDI CheeseBox on a surface mount PCB I now have to make a case with coloured buttons. I’m going to need red, blue, green and yellow. Some of which I don’t have. The good news is that there are folks who will sell you a pack of short lengths (10 metres) of a range of colours at a reasonable price. I think these are intended for use in 3D printing pens, but they should work OK in Edna the Ender 3.