Another Year of MVP-ness
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This afternoon I got an email informing me that my Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) status has been renewed for another year.
Thanks very much folks. I’m flattered that you think so much of me.
Two Things Every Blogger Must Read
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If you’ve ever started a blog and then wondered why nobody reads it...
(a tumble weed rolls across the back of the browser and the sound of crickets chirping is heard)
.. then you must, must, must read these two articles.
I want an iPad that runs Windows 7
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I’ve been carrying my iPad around now for a while and I really like it. The screen is nice, the programs are OK and the battery life is amazing. It is in the category of one of those things that you don’t have to consciously remember to charge, you know that it will have enough left in the battery most of the time, and when it gets below 15% or so you plug it in. Great stuff.
However, it is not without its drawbacks. This morning I was putting together a report in the iPad using its Pages word processor. All I wanted to do was take text out of a couple of emails and paste them into a document. The kind of thing I can do in a couple of seconds on my desktop. On the iPad this turned out to be a lot more tricky. I could use cut and paste to move the text but I had to keep switching applications, and finger powered cut and paste is no fun.
As I was laboriously stopping one application, starting another and prodding at the document to find the right place to paste it struck me that what I really want is an iPad running Windows 7. That would allow me to have multiple applications open at the same time in windows on the screen and move things between them, just as I would on my desktop. I really hope this comes about.
Just like the original Apple Mac sold people on personal computers the iPad has sold me on pure tablets. I just want one that is as useful as a PC now.
Iain’s Unhappy Landing
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..how it should have turned out.
I found out today that Iain had a nasty accident when he was skydiving over the weekend. His main ‘chute failed to deploy properly and he was forced to resort to his reserve. This is a bit smaller than the usual one, and resulted in a heavy landing which broke his ankle (but fortunately nothing else). He is presently stuck in a hospital bed while being nailed back together.
I owe Iain a huge debt of gratitude. He was the one who persuaded me to do a jump some time back, thus conquering my long held fear of one piece boiler suits and being strapped to other people. I’m still a bit nervous about jumping out of planes though.
Anyway, get well soon Iain, we miss your witty and erudite comments in the tea room (actually, we used to miss them when you were there too, but that’s another story).
Cheap and non-Cheerful
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What do you do when your USB hub fails? The answer would seem to be “not a lot”. It broke when I was in a hurry to get a few things done before we went out. I got very cross with Apple, Microsoft, finally, myself, when I realised that the reason that my keyboard and mouse were dead wasn’t laptop or Windows 7 failure, but actually the “bargain” USB hub that I bought a couple of years ago.
There is probably a lesson in here for me, but I’m too daft to see what it is.
Little Weighton Steam Rally
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I think this is my favourite picture of the day.
Took the camera, and a bunch of lenses, down to the Little Weighton Steam Rally today. I went last year and really enjoyed myself taking pictures. So this year I did it again. By way of an experiment I put the telephone lens on the camera just to see what difference it makes to the results you get. Great fun. I could do close ups from a great distance and get some lovely out of focus effects like the one above.
The event is on tomorrow too, so if you like the smell of hot oil, burning coal and the sound of steam, you should go along there.
Gloves
Tractors in Line
Foden.
Imagine Cup Video Marking
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Hull University Campus of an evening. Nice eh?
This time next week I’ll be on my way to Poland, and the Imagine Cup World Finals. Great stuff. By way of a taster I went through the video entries that I was judging as part of the first round of the competition. There were some excellent projects in there, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what else the the students have made. If you want to take a look at the videos yourself, you can find them on the Imagine Cup Website. http://imaginecup.com/default.aspx.
If you are thinking of taking part next year (and you really, really should be) then looking at these entries is a great way to get a feel for the the way the competition works.
Get Your Eyes Tested
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I’ve just got my new glasses for using the computer. And you know what? They are great. Text leaps from the screen, and everything is shiny sharp. Just like my old pair used to be a few years ago.
I’m really pleased I had my eyes tested and got some new glasses. Apparently my eyes haven’t changed a lot, but enough to make me need new ones to use the computer.
A piece of advice from someone who has been wearing specs since he was two. Get your eyes tested regularly, particularly if you do close up work. I left my recent test a little too long, which made for a lot more pain in computer use then I needed.
Magic Numbers
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What use is 5ebe2294ecd0e0f08eab7690d2a6ee69?
Actually, quite a lot. Particularly if you have lost the password to your website and you need a value to put in the password table. Which is what I did last week.
We tell people never to write down passwords, but that still leaves us with the problem of what the server does to remember them. The server has to “write down” the password so that it can be compared with whatever the user types in to gain access to the site.
The problem is solved using a technique called “one way” encryption. This takes whatever you give it and converts it into gibberish. It is called one way because the idea is that it is very hard to take the gibberish and work out what it originally meant. Sort of like the notes that I take during meetings, but more useful.
When someone logs in the password that they type is passed through the same encryption process and compared with the gibberish in the password file. This means that anyone stealing the password file from your server ends up with a file full of gifbberish which they can’t easily convert into the actual passwords that were entered. This is why your sysadmin can’t tell you what your password is, because they don’t have that information. They can give you a new password though, because they can take some text and run it through the encryption before storing it against your username.
So, if I am stupid enough to forget a password I’m sort of stuck. Which is where 5ebe2294ecd0e0f08eab7690d2a6ee69 comes in. The one way encryption that is used most is called MD5. If you take the word “secret” and run it through MD5 you get the block of gibberish you see above. I put that into my database in the right place and, hay presto, I was able to log in with the password “secret”.
Making Web Apps for Dining with Nerds
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Flying the flag for Engerland. I especially like the balcony the top right hand corner with the Scotland flag. I think they’ll be rooting for Slovenia tomorrow….
If you are a student with nothing better to do because you have finished your term then this is the perfect time to pick up some new skills. One such skill (posh prose don’t you think) is writing web applications. You can get a great start (including 196 pages of well worked example text about building a Nerd Diner system) here:
http://www.microsoft.com/web/jumpstart/develop.aspx
At the moment the focus is on VS 2008, but I’m sure the content will be updated in due course, and all the fundamentals are the same. In fact the microsoft.com/web stuff is very interesting, particularly if you are wanting to host things like WordPress on your Windows system.
Radio Humberside Paper Review
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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.
Red Dead Redemption
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Number one daughter texted me to ask me what kind of Father’s Day I was having. “Oh” I replied, “I just learnt to ride and shot a bunch of coyotes. Next I’m going out with the sheriff to round up a gang of rustlers. “
The family had clubbed together and got me the game “Red Dead Redemption” (or “Grand Theft Horsey” as some people call it). Fantastic. It is like being inside a western movie. The thing that impresses me most is the depth of the scenario and the attention to detail. If I was at school and preparing for a test on life in the old west then I reckon a few days of this would probably give me enough of a feel of the place and time to at least get a pass. Particularly if the exam had a section on headshots.
Perhaps people could learn Latin by playing “Grand Theft Chariot” or whatever. Then again, perhaps not. Either way it is a darned fine game that I’m looking forward to working my way through.
Apparently in the follow up game you take control of a design agency and through a mixture of cold blooded executions and nifty product placement take over the world. It is called “Red or Dead Redemption”.
Helicopter Repair Day
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I love the phrase “Big Size”.
A neat little package arrived today from Hong Kong. This contained an unbroken version of the bit of my helicopter I smashed a week or so ago. I thought it would take a minute or so to fit the replacement. Not so. We had to remove a little metal pin from a little plastic thing, and then put it back without any damage.
We got one out of two, but it the craft is now mostly mended. It doesn’t quite hang in the air like it used to, but that is because the stabiliser bar is now stiffer than it use to be and so I’ll have to loosen that bit. But it is a lot more mended than it was.
Want One – Parrot Drone
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I so, so, soooo want one of these.
New Glasses
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I got some new glasses last week. I came to the conclusion that it would be nice to be able to see things closer than two feet from me, something which my existing specs didn’t let me do very well. I’ve already been able to fix my robot dog using my new super vision skills. I was actually able to see the deposit on the battery terminals from a leaky Duracell that was stopping him (it) from powering up.
I’m now going round the house looking at things close up and marvelling at the details. The downside is that when I check the mirror I now look around 10 years older…
Things to Do
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Got back to work and the first thing I did was make a list of around 15 tasks that I need to do. I like making lists of tasks. The first thing on the list is always “make a list of tasks”. Then, when I’ve finished the list I can cross that one off….
Angel of the North
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We had our two and a half hour meeting this morning where we discussed all the marks and made sure everything lines up. Then it was onto the road for the journey back. The route my SatNav chose took me right past the Angel of the North sculpture. So I stopped to spend a couple of minutes taking pictures.
Off to Newcastle
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Headed off to Newcastle for external examiner duties today. Used the SatNav in the car and got lost as usual. I’ve done this before in this town. For some reason the arrangement off junctions and roundabouts they have render instructions like “Turn Next Right” strangely ambiguous. The good news is that I never end up lost for long, as after a hundred yards or so the system tells me to turn round and head back.
Spent the day going through exams and project work (it is actually more fun than you might expect). Then a nice meal and off to bed.
The Web will Rot Your Brain
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According to a scientific study (so it must be true) people who research by following loads of links on the interwebs and not concentrating on the job in hand don’t tend to do as well as those who focus a bit. No kidding. I’d love to do a study like this. Take something that everybody with a bit of common sense already knows and then get paid a lot of money to prove that is is true after all. I suppose there are other studies in the works involving bears in the woods and the religious affiliation of the pope.
If you follow things like LifeHacker you will know all about techniques that you can use to improve your focus, even going to extremes like turning off internet access so you can get on with something important. Worth a look.
Saturday in York
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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.
