Sunday Games

Spent some of today playing games with no computer involved at all. Great stuff. Although I managed to destroy my car just before the final corner. Oh well.

Nook Color for Android Fun

While I was in the USA I picked up a gadget. Such a surprise. I went into Barnes & Noble, a US bookshop chain, and bought a Nook Color. This kind of a colour screened answer to Amazon’s Kindle, a portable e-reader for looking at books and magazines downloaded via WiFi. It has a nice screen and I figured it would work as a portable reading device, and maybe even iPad replacement.

Unfortunately you can’t buy the Nook in the UK, and if you do bring one this side of the pond you will be unable to use it as intended because all the content is region locked and you need a US credit card to make purchases. But I didn’t want to use it as a Nook. I’d read that if you put a micro-SD card into the device and turned it on, it would automatically boot from that card, allowing the use of other operating systems. I’d also learnt that there were a number of versions of Android out there which would turn this device into quite a handy tablet. So, that was the plan.

Armed with an SD card and a USB reader I set to work. The install process is quite straightforward. If you don’t mind the performance hit of running everything from the SD card it is as simple as just plugging in the card and turning the machine on. However, I went for the option of replacing the entire Nook operating system with the Cyanogen version of Android. After a few false starts and a bit of head scratching I managed to get a stable device built on the 7.1 Release Candidate. The device works with Android Marketplace so I quickly had quite a few applications running, including a free copy of Angry Birds and even the Amazon Kindle reader, which is actually rather ironic.

The device whizzes along quite happily, the only problem I’ve found is that it chugs quite a bit when watching TV from BBC iPLayer (although lower quality versions viewed via the BBC web site look OK).  Battery life is very good and the whole thing is properly useful. I’m not completely convinced about Android itself, some of the operations are a bit fiddly and not intuitive to me, and I have a whole bunch of camera and phone functionality that is irrelevant on this device. However, I don’t regret the purchase.

If you are in the market for a well made tablet with good battery life and a nice screen, and you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, then the Nook will fit the bill nicely.  I don’t feel to bad about “de-Barnes and Nobelising” it, I reckon they probably make a bit of profit on the hardware anyway.

Back in the Rain

Flowers for sale in Pike Place Market. From slightly warmer times.

Got back today. Actually managed to sleep on the plane. When we got back the cloud reached almost all the way to the ground. By gum it was raining. Splashed home just in time for fish and chips. And sleep.

Climbing Needles

I’d convinced myself that there was no point in going to Seattle. I’ve been before, it is a half hour bus ride and I had work to do. Then I saw the weather outside, and I went anyway. Monorail – Space Needle – Pike Place Market – wonderful.

This is the tower reflected in the building nearby. Amazing stuff.

Another view from the top of the needle.

I took a bunch of pictures that will no doubt appear on these pages over the years. Then it was time to board the return bus and head back to pick up my luggage and catch the flight home. I’ve been using this rather cunning (I think) trick of getting up around 3:00 am while I’m out here to try and trick the body into not adjusting to the Seattle time zone. In a couple of days I’ll find out if it works…

It’s been a great trip. Very intense, but very rewarding. Great questions and interaction with the audience. Thanks folks.

Windows Phone Jumpstart Ends

What the Outside World™ looks like round here. Pity Borders is closing.

We did the last sessions today. Great fun. Andy did most of the morning, and I did the afternoon. Lots of great questions and congratulations to Frank Mondorf and Kelvin Challcot who won Windows Phones and Alexander Shevchenko who won the “Private Jet”.

If you are looking for the content (all the slides and the sample code that we showed off) you can find it on the BornToLearn site for the course.

There were some questions that we couldn’t answer in detail during the sessions, I’ll try to remember what they were and put up answers on this blog. One I recall was about the Windows Phone Desktop Passthrough program (WPDTPT), which you need to debug applications on the phone that use media. You can find this on your machine in the tools folder for your SDK installation. This is where they are on my machine.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.1\Tools\WPConnect

You run this in place of the Zune client if you want to debug programs that use media content on the phone. Normally such programs won’t work because the phone locks media when it is syncing to Zune. This is how you use it:

1. Plug your phone into the PC.
2. Zune software will start.
3. Stop the Zune software.
4. Open a Command Prompt
5. Navigate to the appropriate folder (paste the above path into the command prompt if you like). Make sure you use the right version (there are 64bit and 32bit versions).
6. Give the command WPConnect. This should connect to the phone and display a message indicating that the connection is active.
7. This will take the place of Zune, you should now be able to debug programs on the phone that use media.

You can run the WPConnect program by double clicking from the desktop, but that makes it harder to see whether it worked or not.

More answers as I remember the questions….

Jumpstart Day Winners

Jeff takes aim

Did the first day of Jumpstart today. We had a bunch of winners, and we need some of them to get in touch so that if they win the phone (or the “private jet”) we can send it through. Here are the names of the folks that I copied down during the session. If you are on the list and there is a * next to your name, send me a mail at iwon@robmiles.com and we’ll sort you out.

• TEESofteare*
• Alexander Sherchenko*
• Christopher Cosgrove*
• Gabriella*
• Michael Wells*
• Jaron
• Rajiv Dasari
• JenP
• Kevin Challcott
• Nico*
• Kevin Robinson*
• Milan Mihajlovic
• Margot Myller*
• Kyle Hiebert*
• Bojan Misic
• Ray Montungi
• Lindsay Lindstrom
• Mohamed Yamana
• William
• Sammy
• Jim Baines*
• Julienne Harrington

We had a great time, some wonderful interaction and super questions. More tomorrow, including the XNA stuff. You can still sign up for the next day at http://bit.ly/Mango-Jump

Jumpstart Prep Day

Frank and Jeff solving problems.

Today was the in-studio pre for the Jumpstart tomorrow. This is when we set everything up and then try to see if it all works. It is kind of important that we are comfortable here because, as Jeff says “Your guys are going to be spending around 16 hours in those chairs…”. 

Andy looking thoughtful

For tea we went to a place with a really good view, although by the time I got around to taking a picture the cloud had come in a bit.

Anyhoo, everything is pretty much good to go. We’ve even written the review questions and persuaded Stephanie to get us a private jet as the big prize. (some winners will have to make do with Windows Phones instead…)There’s still time to sign up if you head on over to Windows Phone Mango Jump Start. All fun, and all free.

Hello from Redmond

Well, here we are. Another plane trip, another hotel room, more getting up at 1:00am feeling somewhat rested and refreshed and knowing you are actually neither of those things. I’m here to do the Windows Phone Mango Jump Start, which begins on Tuesday. Andy and I will be streaming 7 hours a day of Windows Phone content, from getting started all the way to using the shiny new Mango features like Fast Application Switching. Sign up now if you like, it’s free. The timings mean that it will be streamed rather late in the day for UK viewers, so I can see it being used as the basis of a rather good drinking game. I’ll leave you to invent your own rules.

Anyhoo, I’m wandering round the hotel room with a camera, as you do, and taking happy snaps.

How many pillows does one man need? This room has a catalogue, I could actually buy this exact same set and carry them all back to Hull. But then again, not.

Not been to Redmond Town Center before (I have to spell it that way because I’m in America).

I do like a place that has a nice sky.

Aptly named place.

Fez Ultimate Kit Last Chance

Apologies to those who have got in touch about the Fez Ultimate Kit. I’ve been a bit busy with other things, but I’m going to get it sorted as soon as I’m back in Hull next week, so that we can get the order out. I’ll be in touch later this week, once I’ve finished the Jump Start….

For those who aren’t sure what I’m on about, the Fez Ultimate Kit you can see above is a .NET Micro Framework device along with a whole bunch of sensors. You can program it in C# from Visual Studio and we use it in teach for our embedded courses. I’m really excited about the Gadgeteer too, which will be along later this year and will make embedded development on small devices even easier.

We are currently sorting out a cut price deal on the kit above, which usually goes for 150 dollars. I’m going to get a bunch sent to Hull for the labs, and anyone who can get to Hull and pick one up (I can’t resend anything out I’m afraid) is welcome to piggyback on the order. There’s still time to send me an email at ultimatefun@robmiles.com and I’ll let you know just how much you could save.

Welcome to Hull

If you’ve got your results and you’re coming to Hull to study then welcome. The campus was looking lovely in the early morning sunshine so I took a few pictures on the walk to my office. There are a few more on my Flickr pages.

This is our front door. Please don’t pull on the blue rope. We are on the third floor of the Robert Blackburn building. See you an a few weeks.

When Clouds go Bad

I’ve been a fan of Dropbox and Live Mesh for a few years now. I pride myself that I can work anywhere, and if my computer breaks or I get a new one I can just attach to the shared directories out there on the network and carry on. No worries about backups or version control, just messages every now and then that files have been updated. Live Mesh is better because you get more storage. Dropbox is better because it keeps track of versions. Both seem to coexist on the same machine with no problems and life has been good. Until now. We have been keeping all our content for the Mango Jump Start (sign up – you’ll love it) up in the cloud. This has been great for collaboration and instant access to the latest versions.

But then weird things stated happening. Files would vanish and older versions reappear. Worse yet, and this happened this morning, both the Live Mesh and the Dropbox versions of some files completely disappeared. Wah. It reached the point where I had to go home, find my desktop machine, unplug it from the network, start it up, and make backup copies of the missing files before they were “synchronised” into oblivion. I’ve no idea why any of this happened or what is to blame. All I know is that, like anything else, if you rely on something to be there all the time, sometimes it won’t be. This means that the sad message is that while cloud storage is wonderful and lets you work anywhere, you can’t beat a good backup. I’m now going to copy from my synchronised folders to another place on the disk (or perhaps a different disk) every now and then. Just because nothing is perfect.

Oh, and a note to students. The line “The cloud ate my homework”, while more original than one involving a dog, will still not get you an extension.

Cowboys and Aliens

Went to see Cowboys and Aliens today. The title of the film is wrong. It should really be Cowboys vs Aliens. But that wouldn’t have sounded half as cool. The first 20 minutes of the film are pure western, with a lone gunslinger finding his way into a town out way out west and bringing trouble with him. Then things take a more other-worldly turn when the aliens turn up. I’m not giving much away when I tell you that these ones are much, much nastier than the ones in Super 8 (although they look broadly similar). The action is well done and the acting is great, particularly Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, who gets the lion’s share of the best lines.

Go see it.

Oh, and if it seems as if I like every film I see, here are a couple I think you should avoid. I’ve sat through these films on airplanes, just so you don’t have to.

The Other Guys. This is awful. I watched it all the way through waiting for something nice or amusing to happen. Nothing did. The lead characters are pretty unpleasant, the plot is done by numbers and the whole thing just reeks.

The Green Hornet. Cameron Diaz has been in some stinkers, and this is one of them. A bad reworking of an un-remarkable “super” hero. No characters you can really warm to and a plot twist that might as well have been written in the sky in large letters.

A Job With Rob

One of the great things that the university does is Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. These are set up to do two things. Get students into good jobs and spread expertise into business. We are presently setting one up and I’m one of the academics at Hull University who is involved with managing the work. It is a very interesting project in a nice part of the world (not Hull actually) with good pay. If you are a recent graduate who wants to get started in the business you could do a lot worse than apply. Even though you might end up in meetings with me….

There are lots of KTPs out there. The one I’m talking about is here. You can find lots more, including some others from the university here.

Installing the Windows Phone SDK on Alienware Laptops

I love my little Alienware MI1x notebook. It has oodles of power, a good battery life and a keyboard that lights up with different colours. That’s a keyboard that lights up with different colours, always the first thing I look for in a laptop.

Anyhoo, while putting the latest version of the Windows Phone SDK on it I hit a snag. Although it seemed to have finished, if I tried to run the emulator I got silly messages about the emulator already running. Worse still, after a reboot of the machine (always the weapon of first resort) the Windows Phone emulator came up with a “Windows Phone Emulator is doing a complete OS boot”. For ever.

Not good. A quick search of the interwebs through up various solutions, none of which worked. Until I found one that mentioned the dual graphics cards in these laptops, and the problems that they can cause. The Alienware has two graphics cards inside. A “Clark Kent” one that us used for meek and mild applications and good battery life and a “Superman” one for high performance games and stuff. For some reason (perhaps because I’d been fiddling) this had got itself set to “high performance”, and this was breaking the installation,and subsequent use, of the emulator.  If you are having problems installing the Windows Phone SDK on your laptop I’d advise you drop it into “Clark Kent” or low performance mode and see if that fixes it. Worked for me.

A Floor in the Plan

Spent some of today looking at kitchens and tiles. Great fun. No, really. Very useful to have a phone with a good camera. Whenever we saw something we wanted to remember we just took a picture. No messing around writing down names and numbers, just a quick click and there you are. These pictures are then dutifully uploaded by the phone to SkyDrive where they will probably stay for ever…

Windows Phone Breakout Game

I seem to doing PR for all the Windows Phone games written by Hull Students. I don’t have a problem with this. If you are Hull student just send me an email with the deep link to your program and I’ll give it a mention. Michael sent me an email and here is his breakout game. Looks fun. You can get a free copy here:

http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=04db085e-d301-4cb9-8f0e-92d78229766e

Win a Private Jet with Windows Phone

Last year Andy Wigley and myself had enormous fun doing some Jump Start Live training sessions. They were very intense, and horribly hard work, and we are doing the same thing all over again. Just to prove we still can.

If you want 14 hours of intense Windows Phone Mango training over 2 days, plus a whole bunch of old jokes and the chance to win your own private jet (Fact: We did give away two private jets last year) then clear your diary for the 23rd and 24th of August and sign up here. It will be fun. Trust me.

Amazing Micro Framework Offer

I was talking to Gus at GHI Electronics today about Gadgeteer (which looks totally wonderful) and he made a very interesting offer. The Gadget hardware is a little way off, and he is prepared to offer an amazing deal on the current Fez Ultimate Kit you can see above. This gives you a colour touch screen, a bunch of lights and switches, SD card storage, network connectivity and even a remote control keyfob. They are priced on the site at $150 but Gus is happy to offer a special “Robs Price” which is a lot less than this. A lot less. Snag is, I have to get a bunch of orders together so we can all benefit from this.

Actually, at $150 this would be good value, bearing in mind that you get a complete microcontroller development kit you can program in C# using Visual Studio. You can even spin up a web site on the platform if you want.

I’m looking forward to Gadgeteer, which will give us some slightly more powerful boxes, but I reckon at this price it is really hard to turn down this kit.

If you are interested in paying an amazing prize for this kit, and you will be at Hull some time in the future, send me a message at ultimatefun@robmiles.com and I’ll let you know just how much you could save. Then, when you get to Hull, we can get together and have fun making them do stuff.

Update on 2011-08-13 13:18 by Rob

Tiny clarification. The offer is for the Ultimate kit, which is not part of the Gadgeteer range. That launches later and I'll be getting some of those too.

Even More Hull Success

Marc has just written another game. If you have a Windows Phone you can download it here:

He is quite pleased with himself at the moment. Turns out that Vampire Labyrinth, the game he and his team made in the “Three Thing Game” we did earlier this year has won a bunch of Microsoft prizes, including a shiny new phone.

Gadgets at Microsoft Research

My first gadget. Zero to digital camera in around 10 minutes…

Anything with the with the word “Gadget” in the name is going to be a win with me. Especially if it also includes the .NET Micro Framework. Enter the .NET Gadgeteer. The aim of this project from Microsoft Research is to make it really easy to create embedded devices. It is based on work performed by them to make it easier to go from ideas to functioning hardware. The cunning stuff is not just in the underlying software, but also in the way that the different hardware elements can be quickly and easily connected to the central “spider” processor board, which you can see in the front of my picture. You can just about make out the switch that is used to take a picture, the LCD panel that displays the results and a camera (presently taking a picture of the desk…).

Your gadget programs are written in C# and deployed like any other .NET Micro Framework application, using Visual Studio and a usb connection to the target device. However, the Gadgeteer system makes it very easy to interact with complex devices like cameras and displays, providing a well designed object interface that sits on top. The bottom line is that if you can program with objects, you can now use their software representations of objects to create working embedded devices. Furthermore, since all the software is shared source (based on the Apache 2.0 licence model) it is possible for to make products based on this technology which you can sell or distribute how you like.

A number of hardware vendors are on board and will be producing the processor boards and the peripheral devices. The shape and form of the components has been standardised so that it is easy to make cases to hold them so creating very professional looking, but low volume, product using the new 3D printing technology is now easy. And fun.

I’m keen to be first in the queue to get some kits for teaching and playing with when the first devices hit the stores soon. If you have an idea for a thing you’d like to make, but are put off by the difficultly of plumbing the hardware together and creating a good looking finished product, you should take a look at Gadgeteer.