Fight for the Right to Purchase

/
Been trying to buy come computer hardware today. Only started trying at the end of last month. I'm buying from a company who you might have heard of, who probably have offices near a place called Dingley. I normally recommend this company to friends you want to buy computers because I like a quiet life. The stuff is well designed, well documented and well supported. And if you buy over the internet for your own use the service is swift and efficient. But if you try to buy as an institution, say as a university, things don't go quite so smoothly.

The first contact told me that the order we faxed over a fortnight ago would not work because they don't accept faxed orders. The second contact put me on to the third contact. The third contact told me to fax the order in and then assured me that the order had been processed and would be delivered next week. Then he went on holiday. The fourth contact told me that the order could not be found, but I should ring the next day when it would appear. The fifth contact told me that the order was not on the system because the order number could not be read. This contact then undertook to let me know when the order had been added to the system. And there the matter rests. Since I originally created the order all the prices have changed and so I'll probably have to go into battle to sort that out too.

And all I want is a couple of handhelds and a server. Ho hum.

Two Tyres and a Windscreen Wiper Blade

/
Took the car for its MOT (Ministry Of Transport) test today. This is the time of year when the government tells me if my car is safe to drive for the next year. Turns out that it is, with a couple of new tyres and a windscreen wiper blade.

I've been doing some sums and it turns out that I've had this car for a sixth of my life. Longer than I've had any car before. I can't work out if this is becuase I'm poor or boring. Or perhaps I've just found a vehicle that suits me. Anyhoo, this time next year I'm pretty sure I'll be taking the same car along....

Quick on the Draw

/
My latest MSDN Smartphone articles are now out:

Pocket Jack: Writing a Card-Playing Application
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/pocketjack.asp?frame=true

Focus Point: An Image Scaling Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/focuspoint.asp?frame=true

Pocket Bots: Writing a Battle Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/pocketbots.asp?frame=true

StarLight: Writing a Space-Shooter Game for Smartphones
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/starlight.asp?frame=true

Feel free to have a read and steal the code from them. I'm particularly proud of StarLight, which has a neat scripting language for the game objects. This lets you create really nasty aliens.

I've been thinking about moving into 3D games for a while, so today myself and number one son spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to recreate Faceball 2000, one of the best ever games for the Gameboy. By the end of the day we had a program which would draw two triangles on the Smartphone screen. Go us.

Fantastic Fantastic Four

/
Went to see the "Fantastic Four" film tonight. One fantastic film. The fashion these days is for super heroes to be full of angst and grief for some reason or other. So it was good to see a superhero film where the people concerned actually seemed quite pleased to be able to vanish, fly, lift heavy things, squeeze under doors etc etc. Also good to see a film where those involved had the self confidence work on the basis that this good feeling and comic possibilities in the situations would be enough to carry the film, which they were.

If you are being a bit picky you could say that the final confrontation is a bit of an anti-climax and the surname of "Von Doom" is probably a bit of a giveaway for a baddy. But apart from that I'd reccommend it strongly.

The Dean and Edna

/
Met Derek (aka the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology) up town today. Last week, on the way to the Scarborough Degree ceremony, I suggested that he buy an "Edna". Number one daughter had got one a couple of days before and they are very good. An Edna is an interactive doll tied to The Incredibles film. Very funny. One of the first toys that actually listens to what you say and replies sensibly. You ask "How do I look?" and she will respond with "Sensational dahling", or something else....

Well, Derek bought an Edna (very good price at the Disney store in Hull). Apparently it has been driving everyone up the wall in the Faculty Office ever since.

Doncaster Doings, and Skin Those Teeth

/
Went off to Doncaster College today to do external examining type stuff to their course. They have a lovely Business Computing Degree (if such a thing can be said to be lovely). We validate it and look at the projects and exam papers. They have some very nice scenario based assessment which is really great stuff. Found out that some of the staff there actually won the lottery! Nothing at the "Retire and buy an island" level, but enough to put a big smile on anybody's face. So now I know a lottery winner or two. Just don't give up the day job yet folks.

Then home to finish off my backup recovery. By some file diddling and renaming we finally brought everything back from the grave and all is well.

I wonder where the expression "Skin of your teeth" comes from?

Skinny Teeth

/
What do you say to someone who has lost all their files because the server has crashed?

"Good thing you've got a backup"

Then run like the wind.....

My Class Server and Where Would You Think Host went "toes up" last week. I wasn't that worried, because I'd taken a backup of the assessments and the databases around the end of the term. It also needs to be rehosted onto my "Shiny New Hardware" (tm) so I was just going to rebuild the system and restore the old files onto it.

Then I remembered that I had enticed the boss to have a go with Class Server and he had created some work on the system after the backup.

Darn.

So today I got busy with Virtual PC, a few database files, the SQL Enterprise Manager and the Registry Editor. At the moment I can see the files but not touch them. I think I'm going to get those files by the skin of my teeth.....

Van Lag with Dynamite

/
Got "van lag" today. Didn't think that all that driving would affect me much, but today I'm pretty tired. Of course I still managed to achieve superhuman type things at work today (thank heavens I only use my powers for good) but I felt rather tired as a result of all the effort.

Number on daughter forced me to watch "Napoleon Dynamite" tonight. I'm glad she did. It is an American college flick about the agonies of being young, fit and having a whole life's worth of potential mostly in front of you. The characters are distant and disconnected in that special way that only teenagers are and I suppose that you could say nothing much happens throughout the film. But the locations and events are quite engrossing and it even manages to shoehorn in a surreal happy ending as well. If you want car chases, alien invasions and extravegant set pieces, then don't watch this film. But if you enjoyed "Ghost World", "Gregory's Girl" and "Clueless" then you could do much worse than take a look.

Driving in Slow Motion

/
Drove "the great white whale" back from Reading today. Against the wind and uphill all the way. I thought that the phrase "up north" just referred to our position on the map, but after the trip I'm pretty sure that it actually means that you do have to climb continuously to get here.

Performance was not the van's forte. The man who delivered it said things like "..and they'll do 90 miles per hour too...." when talking about the aforementioned mobile shed. I think it would only achive this if you pushed it off a particularly high cliff, I was fighting to get above 70 for most of the trip. At least this meant that I was street legal all the way home.

Overtaking was the most interesting part. I'd draw up behind somethng, check the mirror, signal, pull out, hit a teeny tiny hill and then find that I was just about going backwards in the fast lane. With a queue of shiny Mercs and other posh cars fuming behind me. Actually, I quite liked that bit.

Conference Capers

/
Slide 5 student developer conference today. Been moving at speed for just about the entire day. I was trying to make sure that everything happened when it should, as well as giving three of the talks. Somewhat scary. But what a happy time. Everyone was all smiles. Think I may have pushed my luck a little by telling the "Orange for a head" joke while we waited for the judges to come back with the result of the student competition. They came in just as I was delivering the punch line (I use this term loosely) and looked very confused.

However, most folks said they would come to another one (after all, having heard my worst joke they have much less to fear second time around). You can find out more about the whole shebang, and even get hold of some pictures, by visiting www.slide5.com

Driving the Great White Whale

/
Captain Ahab used to go on about the Mythical Great White Whale. Huge, untameable and out there. Today I've been driving it. I ordered a 12 seater minibus to transport myself and a few select chums down to Reading to take part in a conference. I was a bit worried about such a large vehicle, but figured I'd be ok. Today they delivered unto me a 17 seater. Very big and very white. And very shiny, just 250 miles on the clock and still with that "new van" smell.

Took it round the block to see what happens and all the controls did what I expected, except for the accelerator, which seemed to increase the noise made by the engine but had little effect on actual speed. Anyhoo, gathered up the passengers, who just about had a seat each (in the end I only had 8 people wanting lifts 'cos Iain is taking a bunch down tomorrow). Then we roared off into the sunshine. Van's don't have air conditioning, but they do have windows. Very hot. The van had a fan, but it was more about making noise than doing much useful (bit like the engine in this respect) so we opened the windows and thereby slowed the mobile greenhouse down even more.

The good news is that we got where we were going in the end, and by the finish I was getting quite adept at spinning the van round and fitting it into parking spaces. But I've not tried any handbrake turns yet.

Late Cool Shades

/
Got my new shades today. Only ordered them a month ago. Went into ASDA, picked the pair that I wanted, did the deal and nothing happened. No phone calls, nothing. Rang them up last week and it turns out they'd got the wrong Mr. Miles. They had been ringing someone else up to tell him that the glasses he hadn't ordered were now ready. And getting no response.

When I rang up and asked them where mine were they figured out what had transpired and ordered mine on ultra high priority. And today they came in. Quite cool. And darker.

Living in FAST Times

/
Did the Faculty of Science and Technology (FAST) degree day today. Went very well, but boy was it hot. I love doing this degree day because lots of the students are ones that I actually might have taught once upon a time.

I tried to take some fancy pictures with my fancy camera. They didn't quite come off, but you can pull down what did happen from my Flikr pages. Just follow the link to my Flickr pages on the right.

Old Poetry

/
I really must lose things more often. You find the most interesting stuff when you go looking. Today I found the text of a lecture I gave way back in 1996 to the Business Archives Council Conference. It was based on one of my famous lectures in rhyme. I thought I'd share a bit of it with you. So here, complete with footnoes, is the introduction in all its glory.

Remember this was written a long time ago....

What is the Internet?

It began with the people at DARPA
Who liked to ring doorbells and scarper[1] ,
And worry �bout things,
A Nuclear War brings,
Like if all the �phones would work after...

So they gathered a bunch of young hippies,
The folks who made UNIX so trippy,
And asked for a net,
Which would not get upset,
When the heat made the wires go all drippy.

The network they built up was smashing,
High performance and not prone to crashing,
And quite soon they found,
Lots of traffic around,
On it more and more data went flashing.

So the net was then split into two,
To manage the data going through,
MILNET for the forces,
Their network resources,
And the Internet for me and you.

The name of the game�s co-operation,
With the folks on the next network station,
When data comes in,
You pass it on with a grin,
And no thought of remuneration.

And soon people they started to see,
You could move about data for free,
Just get on to the wire,
And datagrams fire,
Save enough paper to make a tree

It became a hit with academics
They could publish their great big polemics,
And if pigeon post fails,
They could just send emails,
About �Elementary Callisthenics�

Another use that they could choose,
Was to plug themselves into the news,
Not the stuff in the paper,
But a different caper,
With much more individual views.

World Wide Web is the latest new trick,
Sounds and pictures and screens oh so slick.
It�s so easy to put on,
Just press on the button,
Even if you are thick as a brick[2]

So now using networks is hip,
And cool folks all like data to ship,
They go out on dates,
To compare their baud rates,
And the size of their latest equip - ment.

But I don't think that it�s very funny,
That the suits who�ve got all the money,
Look at the net in surprise,
Dollar signs in their eyes,
And make profit predictions all sunny..

And everyone's starting to ponder,
�bout the spell we are presently under,
Will the net just keep growing,
More and more data flowing,
Or is this just a marketing wonder?

[1] If there are any people from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency reading these notes I aplogise for this slur but the rhyme was too good to miss!
[2] ....or even an artist!

Treading the Boards

/
Back in front of a live audience today. The audience in question were there for their degrees at City Hall. Yes, I'm back in charge of the ceremonies again and the mercury is climbing towards 30 degrees....

The good news is that there are now two of us doing the job. James took his first ceremony today and did a sterling job. "That's good." I remarked as we strolled back to the car. "Now I can step under a bus without worrying about who's going to look after the degrees". I said this whilst walking out in front of an ambulance which could I suppose have been very painful - in a rather convenient kind of way.......

Real World Madness

/
The "Crazy World of Rob Miles" is intended as a little, inconsequential, backwater of the internet where I can put stuff that I enjoy writing. It is not supposed to keep track of the outside world particularly. But, having forced myself to read the paper today, I feel that I really ought to mention the events of last week. I feel a great sadness and sorrow for those that have suffered as a result of what happened last Thursday morning. I personally intend to travel to London the first chance I get to ride around on the tube and the buses as much as possible.