Watch This
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Clean the Fan
Thanks to Andy for the link. And good luck in the new job sir.
Unstoppable Movie Review
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The new Windows Phone takes really good pictures. I guess it helps if you hold it straight though.
Tonight we went out to see “Unstoppable”. My first movie where the bad guy is a train. And no, “Starlight Express” does not count here. Neither does “Thomas the Tank Engine”. And anyway, Thomas was a “Really Useful Engine". But I digress.
Unstoppable is a darned good film. At the start it says “Inspired by true events”.Indeed. Although I’m sure I would have seen something in the papers if what happened in the film did actually happen.
Real life not withstanding it is very well made, well acted and looks terrific. The kind of film that you need a big screen and loud sound for. Don’t let anything stop you seeing it.
Preston Foster Rides Again
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Last night we went out and stood in the rain while they turned the Cottingham Lights on then we went for a walk and I took some photographs. I’ll have some more later when I figure out how to use the new lens properly.
Tonight we went out for a beer for the first time in ages. We have not had a meeting of the “Preston Foster Appreciation Society” (long story) for quite a while. Apparently they had heard we were coming, because the pub was shut. But that didn’t stop us. Where we live you are never more than a stone’s throw from a pub. Although the police turn up and tell you off if you start doing that. We not only managed to have a quorate meeting of the society, but Nick managed to work out which “reserve pub” we had switched to and join us as well.
Film Ideas
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I’ve been working on some film ideas:
The year is 2054. Brunettes have taken power. Anyone daring to be different is ruthlessly hunted down by the state. This is the story of a band of freedom fighters who, armed only with hair colouring and bleach, take a stand against oppression. Working title: “Illegally Blonde”
In a world where outrageous has become the normal, this film tells the story of one man’s fight for the right to be boring. Working title: “Legally Bland”.
This hard hitting documentary tells the story of the only officially licenced, Ian Fleming approved 007 impersonator. Working title: “Legally Bond”.
Bletchley Park Trip
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Emma is organising a trip to Bletchley Park next year. I’ve already signed up. If you fancy going (in spite of the early start) you can find out more here:
Super Sleuth
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Achieved one of my minor ambitions today. Got to see “The Mousetrap”. This is the longest running show in the world, and likely to stay that way looking at the size of the audience today. It is a good, honest, country house murder mystery that manages to be both completely of its time and also timeless. It is well worth seeing. And I’m not just saying that because I managed to guess “whodunnit”.
Microsoft Certified Career Conference
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Andy and I did our Windows Phone 60 Minute Rock Star show today. Andy is actually in a rock band and played a proper concert last night. I have a copy of Rock Band and like the Lego version best….
Anhoo, all went well – apart from my laptop freezing and falling off the network, forcing me to spend a nervous five minutes rebooting the thing and getting back into the Live Meeting. Fortunately this happened just at the point where Andy was showing off his Silverlight skills and I was able to drop back in on cue and show some live Cheese Lander action in XNA.
If you were along for the ride this morning, thanks for the perceptive questions at the end, I hope what we did was useful to you. I said I’d put some links in the blog and here they are:
To get started and download the development tools:
To get a copy of Cheese Lander, plus lots of other XNA examples:
Rob Miles–Tastes Like Chicken
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Thanks for that Christophe…..
More Self Promotion
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While I was in Berlin last week I recorded an interview with some Microsoft Student Partners. You can find it here:
http://www.msstudentlounge.com/tabid/60/default.aspx?id=1920
Great fun, and some very perceptive questions.
TechEd 2010 Sessions Now Available
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If you want to re-live (or even live) the magic that was my TechEd 2010 sessions in Berlin last week you can find screencasts of them here:
http://www.msteched.com/Speakers/Rob-Miles
Thanks to Jeff for sending the link.
Microsoft Certified Career Conference
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Andy Wigley and I will be giving a Live session at the Microsoft Certified Career Conference later this week. This is a rolling, 24 hour, web based conference with a whole range of sessions that aim to help you get started in the business of computing. There are sessions on workplace survival, how to build the brand that is you and technical preparations for Microsoft MCP exams.
Andy and I are on at 10:15 on Friday 19th November UK time, talking about becoming a Windows Phone Rock Star. Should be fun. And we must remind you that no guitars will be harmed in the production of this session…
Students can get a discount on the registration fee of $55. If you register you can view the presentations on your desktop and chat with speakers and other delegates. Register by going here:
Kinect will make you fit. Or kill you.
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Managed to get some “quality” time with Kinect today. If by quality you mean “playing with it while the rest of the family looks on and laughs”.
Last Friday night I had a quick go with the Dance Central game, which did a very good job of tracking my body and telling me I wasn’t dancing right. This news actually came as no surprise, but the system was able to highlight in red precisely the bits of me that were in the wrong position, which was impressive. Although at one point my whole body lit up red…..
Today we fired up Kinect Sports and had a fun with Table Tennis, Bowling and Field Sports. Table Tennis is very impressive. Not quite as good as PlayStation Move at tracking the precise angle of the bat you are holding but getting everything else right. Playing without something in your hand feels strange at first, but soon you stop thinking about it and just get on with the gameplay which works a treat. Bowling is good too although my opinion of this might be coloured by the fact that I got a strike with my first ball. Maybe this is programmed in… Anyhoo I soon settled down to business as usual, with gutter balls and impossible spares appearing with disturbing regularity.
Field Sports nearly killed me. The Long Jump was particularly scary. Fortunately we have quite high ceilings in our house, although I was also worried about the ceiling in the room below collapsing when I landed. If you are looking for a fun way to keep fit I can strongly recommend it. Especially if you have high ceilings and concrete floors.
So, Kinect works. You can’t use it sitting down, but then again volleyball sat down is never going to be quite as much fun anyway. It does what it says on the tin, in that it seems to know where you are and what you are doing. If you wave your arms your mannequin on the screen waves too. If you throw the discuss into the ground, so does the chap on the screen.
Great fun.
In Praise of Long Focus Lenses
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Went up town today. Took a long lens with me. Quite pleased I did really.
We do seem to be having some nice weather at the moment.
Definitely not delayed
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Headed back today, after a very busy week. When I checked in at the airport the girl at the desk made a few phone calls and then assured me that my flight was not going to be delayed.
I took this as a warning sign.
Turns out the flight was delayed, but fortunately for me I had such a long wait for the next one that I arrived home at the proper time. Bad weather in Holland meant that the landing at Schipol, on the only runway they were using, was a bit more interesting than usual. Suffice it to say that the pilot earned his round of applause at the end.
When I got back we had fish and chips and then shot up town to pick up a Kinect. Had a very quick play. First impressions? It works, amazingly well.
TechEd 2010 Day 4
/Once I’d finished my talk and recovered I went for a wander around the exhibition. Of course I took the camera.
This makes the labs we have back at Hull look rather puny….
They had some Kinect systems out there. Looks like fun. With a bit of luck my system should be waiting for me back in Hull.
In the evening we went out for a meal at a posh restaurant. Thanks to Amina for the invite. Great company and good food.
Whizz Bang Phone Session
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The delegates as they arrived, thanks for being another great audience.
Did my final session of TechEd 2010 today. Fun was had, and everything worked including the demos. I’m going to put Cheese Lander on the Windows Phone Marketplace at the weekend. I just hope nobody beats me to it……
As usual, you can get the code behind everything that you saw from here.
You can find the Farseer Physics engine here:
http://farseerphysics.codeplex.com/
You can get all the Windows Phone stuff here:
Windows Phone Mixer
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Free food and drink? In a brewery? Sign me up…..
After the exertions of the day we went out to the Windows Phone Miser at a really nice little brewery. The place was just nicely full with Windows Phone Developers and folks and we sat around chatting, drinking the excellent cloudy light beer and eating free food, my favourite kind.
The guys at the bar insisted I took this picture.
Then we trundled back to the hotel on all the right trains. Great fun.
TechEd 2010 Day 3
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We finally got some good weather for photographs today. Even the traffic looks good….
…as does the conference centre.
I did my session at 12:00 today, loads of people turned up. I hope you all had a good time. I pointed my camera at the audience as usual…
This is just some of he multitude. Thank you all for coming. It was fun, especially the bit were my demo failed because I had commented one of the statements out……
As I promised, you can download all the demos from here.
If you want to get started you can find links to everything, including the JumpStart videos that Andy and I did, here:
I’m on again tomorrow morning at 9:00 am, bright and early, giving Phone XNA games plenty of Whizz and Bang. Should be fun.
Tech Ed 2010 Day 2
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I wonder if they’ll let me take it home…
When is a phone not a phone? When you get it brand new on Friday and forget to enable international roaming before you go to Berlin on Sunday. Although my shiny new phone does work very well on WiFi and since just about nobody knows my new number it is not as if I’m missing out on many calls.
Anyhoo, spent another day writing today, including 25 multiple choice questions for the second year Software Development course. Such lucky students…..
I also went along for the Tech Check for my sessions tomorrow and Thursday. These are where we plug everything together and see if it works. It all did, which bodes well for the future. The girl who manages one of the rooms said that she was really excited when she found out that one of the speakers was from Hull. Which was very nice, although I did wonder out loud whether she might not think about getting out a bit more. My firsts session is tomorrow at 12:00 in Hall 7.1b, London 2. It is all about Building Windows Phone Games. Should be fun.
TechEd 2010 Day 1
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Where all the cool kids are hanging out. And me.
Number one wife asked me how I was enjoying TechEd. The truth is I love these gigs. It only takes the smell of brand new carpet tiles to get me in the mood for some conference action. Although I seem to have spent most of today in the Speakers Lounge writing stuff.
I got up bright and early and wandered to the station to catch the train from the hotel to the conference centre. The carriage was full of delegates clutching their bags and so I knew I was headed in the right direction. The conference centre is huge. It was big last year, but it seems to have grown a couple of extra wings and a whole new set of routes around. I usually manage to get where I want to go, but I’ve never gone the same way there twice. I wandered into the Speakers Lounge again and met up with a few familiar faces and then settled down to work. Towards the end of the day I headed down to the conference floor and the busiest part, which seemed to be the bit around the Windows Phone stand. HTC were also there demonstrating their extensive range of phones and they all look very nice.
I’ve been lent an HTC HD7 for the demos in my sessions and I must admit to being pretty smitten with the device. It has a huge screen and shiny buttons, plus a really stylish kick stand that lets you stand it on the desk to watch videos. Great stuff. I’ve seen pretty much all the devices on sale now and I reckon there isn’t a bad one amongst them. Just different kinds of lovely.
