Radio Humberside Paper Review

One of the nice things about getting up early to review the newspapers for the local radio station is that you do get to see the city looking rather nice.

Saturday in York

One way to fly the flag I suppose…

We had a nice trip to York today. The place was full of folks all dressed up for the races. Fortunately I was wearing my “wherewouldyouthink” T-shirt and so I was also looking ultra-stylish. I like York, you can point your camera in pretty much any direction and get a nice photograph out of it.

Boat and bridge

Bridge Side.

XNA Materials

Before I went to give my talk yesterday we dropped in at the Microsoft offices in Schipol. Very plush.

They have these amazing lamp shades in the restaurant.

Time around the world, Microsoft style.

The presentation was great fun and the audience was lovely. I really like these trips out. Thanks to all the folks at Microsoft Netherlands for looking after me

You can find the presentation and all the XNA content that I used during the talk here.

XNA Netherlands

What a great audience looks like

Got up bright and early this morning to fly to Amsterdam and give a session on XNA. I also got to take a look around the splendid Microsoft HQ in Schipol. More pictures and the presentation slides and program content tomorrow. I’m off to bed now.

Hot Weather

My, but it was hot today. I took this picture first thing in the morning looking across the river from St. Andrew’s Quay. This is the colour that it really was, no retouching. Around 10 minutes later the mist had lifted and it looked nothing like as nice.

London Town

Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery

Went to London today. Early start on the train and then a good walk round. The rest of the family acquired some culture at Wicked while myself and number one son took in the gadgets on Tottenham Court road.

Horse guard

Kerbside political comment

Not sure where the other hand went….

Christian Aid Humber Bridge Cross

Today we walked across the Humber Bridge for money. The money wasn’t for us, it was for the Christian Aid appeal that has organised these sponsored crossings for several years. We’ve done the walk many times. The first time, with very young kids and a pushchair we managed to cross the bridge four times. Since then the weather has been nowhere near as good, but today it was bright and just a bit blustery so we managed to get over the bridge and back again.  Of course I took the big camera and the wide lens.

That windmill used to be used to grind chalk.

Obligatory tower shot.

York Pictures

Went to York today. The weather was great for photographs, although it did change very rapidly.

We parked in the engine sheds near the station. I found this wall very interesting for some reason.

Blossom near York walls

York Treasure House gardens.

Steam tubes in York Railway Museum.

More Steam, and new Heroes

 
Ada Lovelace, a woman ahead of her time, from the wonderful  http://2dgoggles.com/

If you have not yet discovered The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage then you are in for a treat. Fantastic drawing and actual historical quotes thrown together with outrageous plots to make something quite unique. Kudos to number one son for the link.

..now I really want a steam powered computer..

All My Own Work

I’ve printed out a bunch of my pictures and stuck the on the wall, in place of the TechDays logo I used last week. I must say I’m quite pleased with the results.

Hull Holy Trinity Church

“The church looks lovely inside today” said the chap watching me take photographs in Hulls’ Old Town.

I asked if it was OK to have a look around, and maybe take some photographs. “Sure” he said “You get a great view from the pulpit”

He wasn’t wrong. The font you can see at the end of the Nave weighs two tons. William Wilberforce was baptised in it. Mind you, there were some other pretty amazing views to be had as well.

..and finally, outside

If you live in Hull, and have not been around Holy Trinity then you are missing out. I got there early this morning and pretty much had the place to myself, which was wonderful for me, but rather sad really, in that more people should be seeking out “the largest parish church in England” and having a look round. Breathtaking.

TechDays 2010 Session Fun and Games

My desktop setup. A robot, a PC doing desktop sharing, another PC running a video call and a final Micro Framework device running a web server. And it all worked. Eventually.

Thanks to everyone in the audience, and Luis for setting everything up. I wasn’t in Lisbon, but thanks to cunning camera work and a nice fast network I got as close as I could. I could even see the audience on my screen (which probably freaked a few people out at the start).

We had the audience hitting web sites that caused my programs back in Hull to hit breakpoints (which must be the largest debugging session ever). And then I let the everyone out there send commands to Oscar the robot who, right on cue, tried to jump off the desk.

The audience were fantastic. As usual from Portugal. Thanks for taking the event in such good sprit folks.

To try and make everyone feel at home, and add some “TechDays 2010 Portugal” flavour I did up the office wall behind my chair…

Luis during the, slightly fraught, setup.

Some of the audience at the start of the talk.

Thanks folks. That was the best conference I’ve never been to….

I mentioned in the talk that I’m going to assemble some resources for Windows Phone and .NET Micro framework. I am, but I’ll put them up tomorrow. Off to bed now….

Fun with Visual Studio 2010 Tech Days in London

Which door would you choose?

Went down to London today to give a session as part of tech-days Visual Studio Developer Days. It was great fun, even though just about everything broke at some point during the talk. Richard from Black Marble was on before me and did a very impressive talk about the new testing features in Team Foundation Server.

Doesn’t Richard look like Bill Gates?

When my turn came my laptop had gone to sleep and forgotten to produce any video output. Then I had all kinds of finger trouble typing in programs and my microphone broke and fell off twice. But it was all good…

A blurry version of me, which is how I felt at the time…

Some of the audience, all of whom were absolutely great.

The whole thing took place in a cinema, so I had the biggest screen I’ve ever used in my life.  You can find the presentation here and the demo code here.

As part of the day I was interviewed for Underbelly, a new Microsoft website for developers. you can find my interview here. If you really want to…

Dalby Forest Friday

Final day of the holiday today. I’ve been very good, and done hardly any proper work. I’ve even done some gardening, which is most unlike me.  Today we went off to Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire. One of the best places in the universe.

One day I’d like to stay here for a while.

We especially like the Bridestone walk. These are massive rock formations along the side of the valley.

Some of the paths can be quite steep, but always look good.

Back in Hull

Travelled back to Hull today. Not by train unfortunately.

Train Trip

When on a proper train trip today. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me drive.

.. although some parts look quite hard work.

Taking the Wrong Train Home

Waiting for the Wrong Train

After the fun and games last night it was time to pack up and go home. Having successfully negotiated the tram to the station I was feeling quite happy. I know the Dutch for “Schipol Airport” (it contains the word ‘Schipol’) , and having heard the announcer use the phrase in reference to the train on the platform I was quite happy to leap aboard in the confident expectation of going there. Unfortunately I don’t know the Dutch for “does not go to”, which meant that after 45 minutes or so I had to leap out of the train and find one that did.

Thanks to a very helpful lady who not only understood panic-stricken English but also knew where the right train was I was able to change direction and get to the airport in time for the flight.  I’m taking a phrase book next time…

Now with Added Pigs

Pepsi and Galaxy. Not sure why they are named after high calorie snack fodder, but there you go.

Two new arrivals chez Miles today. We now have even more guinea pigs. I actually like having guinea pigs as pets, they are one of the few animals that I’m fairly sure I’m cleverer than.

Edward Bowden Art at Hull

People at the Open Day on Saturday probably walked right past this amazing artwork on the wall of the entrance to the Applied Science building without noticing it. It was made in 1963 by Edward Bowden, quite a famous artist. He used expoxy resin and the lid of a coffee jar to get the indentations and shapes on the wall.

Great stuff.

Mega Open Day Madness

Some of the audience. Captured with the big camera.

We had a really big Open Day today. Really big. We used the big lecture theatre and I had to do my talking bit twice. Because the Open Day was so big.

Great fun though. Two very good audiences, thanks for coming along folks and I hope you found the day worth the trip. I took the proper camera with the wide angle lens, the tripod and the remote release to guarantee the quality of the pictures. Unfortunately I then left the lens on manual focus and so most of the pictures came out a bit blurred….. Oh well, I’ll know for next time.

There was even a jazz band in Staff House. Good stuff.

Update on 2010-03-15 20:03 by Rob

It seems like at least two people who attended on Saturday have bought a copy of my book! Well done folks, let me know how you get on.