Weekends are for Video Games

Actually, they aren't. Not entirely. Apparently there are things like shopping and cleaning to be done as well. But then again, you have to do something when "Casualty" is on the telly.

And it's not watch "Casualty". So I've been playing video games.

Starting with "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" on the PS3. This seems to me as much fun as the original Tomb Raider 2 for the PS1. Not as much fun as Tomb Raider 1, which was ace, but still pretty good. The reason I'm not that keen on it is that, as with Tomb Raider 2, they've added lots of bad guys with guns to slow the action down. The exploring and jumping about is great, once you've managed to stop people shooting with you. The first part of the game was really good, just you and your chum exploring together. Then, after a great level on a submarine, a whole host of blokes with guns better than yours, and more bullets than you, show up round every corner. I'm getting good at headshots, but now they seem to be evolving the ability to survive these, which is irritating to say the least.

I've just given up playing to cool down, if I hear one more of them say "Not so tough now eh?" as idiot Drake turns to black and white and dies in slow-mo. I might chuck the whole thing out of the window. If you are better at gunplay than me you might really enjoy it. The scenery is lush and looks superb, and the whole thing has a very lavish movie feel to it.

The other game I've been playing is "Pure", on PS3 and Xbox 360. Xbox owners looking enviously at Motorstorm, as well they might, now have somewhere to go to get down and dirty on a quad bike. Pure doesn't have the range of vehicles that Motorstorm does, but it does have a huge number of customisation options for your bike. This is a bit irritating at the very start of the game, where you pretty much have to build your ride before you are allowed to go race it, but I guess it comes into its own later in the game. I optimised everything for speed and then had all the parts chromed, which worked fairly well.

Plugging round the muddy courses is great fun, and you can get extra boost by pulling amazing stunts while you and your bike are in the air after a jump. This is hilarious, as you try to work out if you have time to stand on the handlebars before the ground comes up and hits you. The game looks about the same on PS3 or Xbox, and seems to handle you and your 12 competitors on the screen with no slowdown whatsoever.

At this point I have to declare something of a vested interest. Pure was produced by Black Rock studios, a division of Disney interactive. They came to see us earlier this year, hired some of our graduates and promised to send us some freebies. And a couple of weeks back some pre-release copies of Pure turned up. And I've been playing with them. However, even though I got to play for free (we'll give away the games at the next student event we hold) I still rather like the game.

Should Have Pressed F9.....

Just found out today that my beloved Yellow Book, which is the basis of our First Year programming course, has an insane table of contents. It is not wrong, it is wildly wrong, referring to a number of pages that don't actually exist. I've really no idea how this happened, I suspect a change of printers caught Word 2007 on the hop, causing it to kick back by inventing a page 253.

This is rather annoying as we've had loads of them printed. If you have got one of the hallowed tomes, then let me know and I'll send you a PDF with the right numbers in. The only good (if somewhat inexplicable) news, is that the index seems to be correct.

Musical Question

Do trumpet playing courses have tootorials?

Have They Learnt Nothing?

Today, with the news full of stories about collapsing banks and financial meltdown, I get a letter from the bank that says they've just increased the limit on my credit card......

Postgrad Party

Another day, another party. This time it was the turn of the postgraduate students. So it was out with Rock Band and the rest, and another set of specially "Jon Purdy proof" quiz questions.

These folks came first, with a rather impressive score, in spite of the horrid questions.

One point behind came this crew.

..and we had three teams that tied for third.

Well done everyone. Great stuff. And I still managed to get away without singing. And managed two ace serves in a row at Wii Sports Tennis.

First Day of Teaching

Today was the first day of teaching and I got to kick off both of my First Year courses. I think the lectures were successful, if only in terms of managing to offend just about everyone at some point during the presentation.....

Finished Ratchet and Clank!

I don't usually get around to playing video games all the way to the end, but with Ratchet and Clank I've managed it. And not on "easy" level too. It really is a splendid game. I especially like some of the weapons which are great fun, as are the mini games. I picked up a secondhand copy for the PS3 at the knockdown price of 15 pounds, which is very good value.

Next stop, Uncharted.....

Open Day Fun and Games

What a great audience looks like...

Today was the first University Open Day of the season. Some people had journeyed from as far away as Plymouth just to see what Hull has to offer. I hope we were worth the trip.

Anyhoo, we had a really good turnout and thanks to all who came along. I mentioned some good links for those that want to get on and write some games. Take a look at:

http://creators.xna.com/ - free stuff for writing games for PC and Xbox 360

http://verysillygames.com/ - a site of mine for budding programmers and games writers

..and to find out more about our department and student life:

http://www.wherewouldyouthink.com/

Lab Time

After the fun and games, the work starts. I was in the labs for pretty much the whole day giving out memory sticks, C# books (bright yellow this year) and advice in almost equal measure. The new students are an excellent bunch. We start lectures next week and I'm quite looking forward to them.

Party Time

Today was the day we had our welcome party for the new first year students. Seemed to go OK, in spite of my quiz. I promise never, ever, to have any more "Simpsons" questions.

This team managed to win the quiz. Jon Purdy is wearing the "Departmental Happy Lights".

We had free beer and food, Rock Band, Wii Sports and Xbox 360 action. I think it is fair to say a good time was had by all.

Steve Balmer at Microsoft Student Technology Day

Steve Balmer runs Microsoft. He took over from Bill Gates earlier this year. I've seen him talk before. He's good.

Today I saw him talk again at the Microsoft Student Technology Day in London. Zoe, Sam and I caught the early train out of Hull and headed for the Royal Festival Hall in London for Student Technology Day.

The Steve Balmer session was in the middle of a whole bunch of presentations put on for students from around the country. All the sessions were excellent.

First up was Andy McLoughlin, co-founder of Huddle.net. Huddle is a rather nice looking group collaboration tool which Andy and his company have taken from an idea they had in a pub to a fully fledged, venture capital backed, commercial application in a few years. Andy talked about the 20 rules for any startup and really laid it on the line about how to succeed. Very interesting and inspiring stuff.

Next up was Jay Girotto, Principal Group Program Manager, Windows Live Search. Jay took us through the latest version of Live Search and how the chase is on to produce search engines that provide more than just a few links to things that might be useful. This led into discussions of context, artificial intelligence and systems of fearsome complexity, all with the aim of making it easier to find what you want.

Ralf Herbrich is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft's computer science lab in Cambridge and he was up next talking about Artificial Intelligence in games. Excellent stuff. The presentation took the lid off lots of clever things that they have to do to make your computer opponents more interesting, and to match up players in network games so that everyone has a good time.

And then we got to Steve B. And how. Say what you like about the bloke, but he has amazing presence. At the start of the talk he made the point that computers should make it possible to have gatherings like the one we were attending, without the need to for us all to actually travel to the same place. On that I disagree. Just watching the effect this chap was having on the students in the room, I could see that actually being in the same place as a speaker is really the best way to get a feel for their energy and where they are coming from.

The man himself

After his talk Steve answered some questions posed by delegates. And the first question he answered was from me! Who would have thought it? I'm told that all the sessions have been recorded and will be available soon. If you want to find out what I asked and what the answer was, I'll put the link up as soon as I have it.

Finally we had a session from Paolo Barone an Academic Technologist who took us for a lap around Microsoft Surface, the new platform from Microsoft. This is amazing. Multi-touch from multi users, intuitive interfaces and what looks like an easy to understand programming model. Want one. Really, really, want one.

And then it was time for the train and home.

Many thanks to Microsoft, particularly Andy Sithers and Mark Johnston, for making everything go so well. Andy did a great job as Master of Ceremonies too, although I think he should have worn a suit as well.....

A great day.

Not So Splendid Isolation

Came in to work today and none of the machines in my office had a network connection. Wah. Anyone walking past my office and glancing in through the window in the door will have seen me sitting scratching my head and looking forlorn. It looked like my little box had broken.

The little box in question provides a nicely isolated link to the campus LAN. It is how I manage to connect my varied and disparate systems to the outside world. I love the idea of a physical firewall between my stuff and everyone else's. Except when it breaks.

Essentially, the lights came on but there was nobody at home. All the network ports were lit up, but not showing any traffic. Trying to ping the device didn't work, and neither did the web configuration. So I tried to reset it. That didn't work either. Double wah.

I was all set to bin the thing, and try to get by with actual links to the real network (which scared me a bit), when it occurred to me that this was a DLink device, and therefore it had a lousy power supply. I opened my "magic cupboard of bits" and, what do you know, there was a spare 5 volt 2 amp power adapter which I'd put aside for no good reason ages ago.

And it works. And I can type this. And you can read it.  Go me.

Good Weather

I love it when we have good weather at the start of the semester.

The New Session

Today brings the start of a new Academic Year at Hull. There are of course lots of things to worry about. Sorting out all the paperwork that a new session brings, Finding all the lectures on the sprawling campus. Getting on with all the new people that are bound to be there. Keeping up with the material in the courses.  And worrying about fitting in.

But that's enough of my problems.

Welcome to all our new (and returning) students.

Abseil in London

Today was the day for number one's daughter to dangle from a rope in a good cause (actually the day was a few weeks back, but it was cancelled due to inclement weather). I was actually quite pleased when it was put off, it gave us another excuse for a trip to London.

Today the weather seemed anxious to pay us back for last time, it was the best we've had in ages. After the early morning mist the day was an absolute belter. We had a walk round Oxford Street before the off.

I liked these reflections.

Then it was time to go up to Guy's Hospital and the main event. The building looked even higher than last time we were there, but daughter gamely went off to do the deed.

Well, would you abseil down this?

This time there were no hitches, and they even had a height immune cameraman at the top to record things properly.

View from the top

If you want to sponsor number one daughter retrospectively, (and after seeing this picture you must think she has earned it) then visit here.

Last Call for Collectormaina

This might be the last hurrah for our trips to Milton Keynes. We've found out that after today the whole shebang is moving to a football stadium. We've been going for a while, and the mix of celebrities and interesting stands has held our attention up to now and  because there is also a Lego shop (and an Apple store) at the shopping centre where it is held we've seen it as worth the trip.

Anyhoo,  we got up at an early hour and set off. Number one son was meeting us there and wanted to snag one of the Serenity cast.

Morena puts pen to paper..

So, who is this cool gentleman?

..and this chap (a clue, his part is going to get a lot bigger in the future..)

Not sure if we'll do this again, but it has been fun while it lasted. I bought another watch, and then we retired to a Travelodge to watch "Strictly Come Dancing" (although I was more pre-occupied with checking the score in the Hull City match - which we won. Yay!).

London tomorrow.

Burnout Paradise Upgrade

There are not many things that improve themselves after you buy them. Spend twenty quid on the latest blockbuster book from Jordan and it is unlikely to improve in content over time. Buy a Girls Aloud CD and, although you might get to tolerate the tracks after a while, it won't suddenly sprout extra songs and arrangements.  But video games seem to be different. I've just spent a little while upgrading the copy of Burnout Paradise I bought a few months back. Now I've got proper day and night and bikes to ride. In short, a great game just got greater. The upgrade is automatic for Xbox and PS3 owners and works a treat.

A lot of video game manufacturers walk away from a game as soon as it is released. Sometimes they don't even hang around long enough to make patches to make the game playable. It is nice to see that Criterion are in it for the long haul.

skyfire Windows Mobile Browser

If you have a Windows Mobile device you might want to take a look at skyfire. It seems to be a really fast mobile browser option and at the moment it is free.

Update on 2008-09-25 08:28 by Rob

Unfortunately at the moment it only seems to be available in the 'states. But it does look good.

Loud Music as a Cold Cure

I've got a cold. A rotten one. I'm surrounded by used tissues and I'm hoping I've got enough clean ones to last the day. I've fallen back on the usual treatment. Loud Music.

One the way to work I had Beautiful Garbage on pretty much full blast all the way. Great stuff, although some of the cyclists did look a bit surprised as a somewhat distorted rock band seemed to be sat next to them at the traffic lights...

And the best bit? The track ended just as I pulled up in the parking space. I love it when that happens.

Doors and User Interfaces

As part of the refit of our department we have got all new doors. These are rather swish, and the ones to our offices have windows in them, to let light into the corridor and give everyone a view of what we are doing. I'm going to stick a picture of someone working on the inside of my door window.

Anyhoo, the main doors have been replaced too. And they've solved a problem that has bugged me for literally years. They only have handles on one side.

Version 1.0 of the doors in our building had handles on both sides. This lead to significant levels of confusion and wrenched shoulders, as people like me grabbed a handle and heaved manfully to find that the door doesn't open that way. I got quite good at looking for door hinges, and even invented a rhyme to help me remember what to do: "If hinges you see, then you should pull me". Unfortunately not everyone did this, and so version 2.0 of the doors added little labels with explicit "Pull" or "Push" instructions.

Version 3.0 of the doors, where we are now, have the innovation that if you are supposed to push the door there is no handle to pull. This is a great idea, in that if you can't do something there should not be a way of trying to do it.

From a user interface point of view there is a school of thought that says if you can't do something, the option to do it should not be present. This means that unusable program functions should be either grayed out or missing. This lines up nicely with doors version 3.0.

I used to think that this was always a good idea, as it means that users don't get frustrated when they try to do something and the system tells them they can't do it. However, it can lead to even more frustration, where the option or command is tantalisingly visible but can't be used, or worse yet, other people claim that they have the command and you don't. In the case of doors it is easy to see what to do from the start, you either pull or push, but with software things are always more complicated.

In my programs I now tend to enable all the features and then have a helpful message that appears and tells the user what they need to do to make it work. Rather than saying "Not Allowed" the message would be "You must log in to perform this command" and give a link to the appropriate help.