January 2012
26 posts
End of a tough month!
This month has had it’s downs and ups, well mostly just downs but done some great things like go on the Photowalks which I’ve really enjoyed and met a few new people and also gone out a few times, but it has also been the end of a few things for me and hitting my lowest point at the start of the month wasn’t a good way to start a new year, although my confidence is at an all time...
Happy Days!
If only - but I’m feeling better and haven’t “jumped the shark” - this will probably the last negative post I write, feel things are back on track, nothing has changed just realise I need to enjoy things a lot more and feel better about myself and not take things to seriously and have a little fun once in a while, it’s not enough to just go out - how often that might...
Left out in the cold?
I posted something on Facebook about me feeling left out, which isn’t entirely true, just feel that way from time-to-time and not sure why that is the case. I’ve always been an outsider in any situation but once I get speaking to people or whatever I feel involved and don’t feel that way. I’ve always been that way I think and it really wasn’t an issue until now, as...
Events I go to and ones I should go to
Being a rather often event attendee it’s probably a good idea to keep a track of the ones I’ve attended or attend on a regular basis. The last Monday of the month is SuperMondays which covers topics from Databases, to Open Source to Design, Freelancing or featured pitches from companies and startups like the company I work for now. NEBytes which is the second Wednesday of the month (or...
Wedding Tales
Not the excellent website http://weddingtales.co.uk/ where you can share and collate photos of your wedding (which is a great idea by the way), but the topic in general, a lot of people I know are either married, getting married, engaged or in a long term relationship or somewhere inbetween - and that’s great! I think people might be suprised to hear that I don’t mind hearing about...
Lots of work to do!
Got a lot of work to do, which means time for other things is diminished, would like to work on my Windows Phone website however this will have to wait for a couple of weeks, the benefit is I’ll be able to launch with more content when it does - which is good as well as spend more time on getting the design quite right, so will be worth the extra time spent.
I’m finding I’m...
Finding the right balance
As I’m I near the month where are the start I hit my lowest point I think ever, I’m more positive and find I’m still wanting to do something more but not over do things, for example this week I haven’t gone out really at all, except to NEBytes on Wednesday but went home straight afterwards so a kind-of back to normal week for me, but still miss the chance to go out at least...
Doing something or going to something new?
I’ve been trying to find new things to go to, some I’ve enjoyed doing recently including the Newcastle Photowalk and just getting out at the weekend (sometimes) however I’m really interested to see if there is anything else I could be doing, I’ve asked for suggestions before but I haven’t really asked explicitly for a while so this is me doing so.
Are there events in...
What am I up to?
Well there’s a few things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time so I joined the Newcastle Photo Walk this week and really enjoyed it, I’ve also been writing articles for my blog and will be for work too which is great, but there’s other things to do also, I’m still attending all the regular events I go to but more social events would be nice.
I’d signed up...
I am doing enough?
I’d like to think I’ve changed a lot recently - I’m more willing to try new things, a bit more outgoing, confident and have a sense of humour that I’m more willing to let out to people I don’t know that well and finding it better the gauge the tone that a situation requires - but is this enough?
I’m surrounded by a lot of people my age or younger who seem to...
Photowalk
On Saturday I particpated in my first Photowalk in Newcastle with the Newcastle Photowalk Group - and I really enjoyed it, some of started by meeting up in the Settle Down Cafe and then made our way towards the Quayside, but stopped of at a few places including St Nicholas’ Catherdral and the Black Gate to take some photos there, but walking along the quayside produced the best pictures I...
DataRama 16
DataRama returned for 2012, the open platform to show projects and work with some great innovations in interactive art and design being discussed and demonstrated with some talks from some artists and also where anyone attending can show anything they think might be interesting to those in attendance.
Lalya Gaye was first to speak about their interest in technology, what you can do with it – they...
Design Interest
A new year and a new Design Interest group meet up featuring local designers, photographers, comic enthusiasts and others to share their passion and interest in design.
Celebrating Children’s Creativity by Rose Mockford from MyDesignMade.com
Rose Mockford presented about their business MyDesignMade.com which produces items featuring artwork from children submitted by their parents. They are an...
2011 in Review
I’ve done something like this here before, but a more compact version is probably needed - inspired by James Rutherfords year in review a little, I thought I’d do the same and summarise everything up to the start of this year in one post, and keep it short!
Work
2011 marked a change for me in work as for the past few years I’d been working part-time for GreenMetropolis and was...
Moving on
I’ve been able to put all the things that have happened behind me and have learned a valuable lesson which is I can’t let things escalate and try to deal with things on my own all the time - sometimes it helps to chat with someone or get out and have a clear head about things. I had some great advice from various people in the past few weeks and finally reached the stage where I think...
We can rebuild him - we have the technology
With all that’s gone on recently it’s a time to take stock on what has happened and realise I had let things get too bad before getting help, and not realising that help was available until it was too late. I’m feeling a lot more balanced and positive, more so than before - I don’t think I’m quite the same as I was a few months ago, which isn’t a bad thing,...
Getting to know people a little better
In this new year I’ll be working full time at my new job at ScreenReach - I’ve mentioned this before so there’s the other side of this which getting to know the new people I work with - I’ve been a bit distracted recently and realise I’ve reglected to get to know people better than I do, which I find I’m quite interested in what other people are doing and...
Things to do, people to see
The past couple of years I’d started to go out more and went to SuperMondays at first - just one event a month, then when NEBytes started I went to that too, it was only two years ago I went to my first paid conference which was DIBI and really enjoyed it which I attended the following year and will attend this year.
I’d also in the past few months gone to more events such as...
Getting out more and being realistic
As a more general part of improving myself this year I’ve realised I’ve not been getting out much - which is probably why I’ve had such a hard time of late, and not been dealing with things the right way. I’ve always been a bit of a loner, not really talking to people - this has improved a little in the past couple of years due to the number of events I attend but in the...
Phodows.com
Well this is the official announcement of a new project coming from me a brand new website dedicated to Windows Phone - including new and updated tutorials, features and articles about the platform, as well as information and features on apps, games and development of the platform.
Look out for this website coming soon later this year - also as as part of the launch will be doing exclusive...
GameCardr, ZuneCardr, CESPage.com and more
Well with 2012 upon us I’ve been neglecting my applications on Windows Phone - but not to worry this will change this year, I’ve already started on updating GameCardr and will be working on ZuneCardr - I don’t have as much free time as I used to so don’t expect these to be available for a little while yet, however good news is they will get done.
Also there are some other...
Getting back on track
With all the things that’s happened I realised I need people to confide in, it was good to catch up with some old friends, I don’t tend to have any these days - don’t know why, there’s people I know from the events I go to and do enjoy speaking to people there, and it gets me out which was the main reason for going to them in the first place.
For the longest time I never...
New Year, New Job (sort of)
This year will mark a big change, I’ll be working full time at ScreenReach - looking forward to joining the team there full time, have had my eye on the company for a while since the SuperMonday event a couple of years ago when the Difference Engine teams pitched their ideas of which this was one of them, however in the months since the company has grown and in May of 2011 I started working...
Feeling more positive
In the past few months and weeks I’ve been at my lowest for a long time and thanks to a lot of help and messages from people I know - I think I’ll be ok, not had too many problems but seem to have had them all at once, and was a little overwhelming.
All the support I’ve had wasn’t expected but was given and made a huge difference even just being out and meeting new people...
New Years Resolution
Today being the second day of the new year, it is a good time to make sure my resolution is kept - don’t normally do that, but this year has to be different, if I’ve learned anything in the past few weeks it is that I need to be more honest and open about myself and be more outgoing - I’ve probably done all of these two much or too little in the past few weeks but will hope to...
2011
With 2012 now upon us it’s time to review the previous year I think - well normally that wouldn’t be necessary - but this year I really messed things up.
2011 started like the previous years had - with me not going out much, a couple of events a year with the odd extra one like DIBI to go to also, but had done the same the previous two years, so no change there.
However in the latter...
2012
It’s the start of a New Year and is time to dust off the blog, well 2011 was like the past decade, until October when I somehow managed to mess everything up!
What happened, well not to go into detail I made a mistake, but didn’t realise this at the time. However it wasn’t all bad, I started writing articles for NewMediaNow which gave me the chance to do something new and also...
November 2010
1 post
Windows Phone 7 Available to all soon!
Better late than never for this post! I got my Windows Phone 7 device on launch day on the 21st of October from O2 - the HTC HD7 and overall I’m impressed and from then until now I’ve only missed Copy and Paste not being there once, plus as mentioned at launch event it is coming early next year - where I also hope API for Compass is coming too!
Soon in the United States Windows...
October 2010
3 posts
Windows Phone 7 Launch announcement
Windows Phone 7 was officially announced this week on Monday - although I was not at any of the events as they were press only I did watch the live webcast and was impressed by the quality of the devices - would have liked to see more of the apps, however this was shown at the London event, which was not broadcast live including the IMDB and Tesco apps.
Most opinions of the event seemed to be...
Developer, Developer, Developer! Manchester...
This Thursday I attended the Windows Phone 7 DDD Event in Manchester at the Printworks Odeon Cinema, and it was well worth the trip! First sessions by Andy Wigley, Andrej Radinger and Maarten Struys were an overview of the Windows Phone 7 platform for those not famliar with it, and then a session about the developer tools and how to use blend to create the animations - something I’d...
Seems I might have triggered quite the debate...
I attended the TechDays London event yesterday, about the Cloud covering Windows Phone 7, Windows Azure, IE9 and Windows 7. This event kicked off with a Keynote speech by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, I’ve always wanted to see Steve Ballmer Keynote in person, and this was my chance, plus the sessions were relevent to me and I was able to attend so booked my tickets and travelled the 3+ hours...
September 2010
8 posts
Zune going International
This week featured the announcement that Zune will be expanding it’s services beyond the United States, detailed in this press release released a couple of days ago are the details. For the UK this mean Zune Music on PC, Phone (Windows Phone 7) and the Xbox 360 with Zune Pass at £8.99 per month and Music and Video purchasing available. This is great news for the UK, but no unexpected as...
GameCardr and ZuneCardr for Windows Phone 7
GameCardr and ZuneCardr are my two main launch apps for Windows Phone 7 - both will be made available for free from the Windows Phone Marketplace (acceptance permitting). GameCardr reads the public Xbox LIVE Gamer Card information - this is the same as the Gamer Card you might embed in a blog - there is a more extensive private API but I don’t have access to that. It allows people to add any...
Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools
Today marks the release of the final version of the Windows Phone 7 developer tools ready for launch, possibly as soon as next month here in the UK! You can download the tools via developer.windowsphone.com! These tools are free and include Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone and/or the Windows Phone 7 Tools for Visual Studio 2010, also there is Expression Blend for Windows Phone, plus...
Windows Phone 7 Manchester Event
Developer, Developer, Developer! Next month on Thursday 7th October will be a special Windows Phone 7 One Day event, details here. I’ll be attending as I’m trying to get to as many Windows Phone 7 related events as I can, and this is the same week as the London Cloud Development event, so should be interesting. I’ll hopefully have a completed version of GameCardr and ZuneCardr...
Windows Phone 7 announcement October 11th?
Seems like the rumours of a Windows Phone 7 event next month are getting more specific with a date of October 11th which is a week before I thought, and hopefully the event the previous week I’m attending will give more clues to any launch happening then! The launch event seems to be happening in New York and may be streamed worldwide much like the original Mobile World Congress initial...
twitter
I’ve been on twitter for a while and soon I’ll hit 1,000 tweets, there are many more people with more tweets than me, one statistic I’m a bit proud of is almost all of my tweets have been exactly 140 characters, which in the twitter world is called a “twoosh”. I always wonder if there is a record for these, but I’m not sure. Even when I live tweet an event such...
UK TechDays Special: The Future of Cloud...
I’ll be attending the UK TechDays Special: The Future of Cloud Development in London (invite code 6D4723) on October 5th. I’m hoping this event will be useful as cloud development is a major new area and look forward to seeing how this will unite Desktop, Web and Windows Phone 7 and learn more about cloud computing.
This is also an opportunity to see Steve Ballmer deliver a keynote...
cespage.com phone
This month was the soft-launch of cespage.com phone on September 1st. There will be a lot more content there in the coming weeks as the launch of Windows Phone 7 is only a matter of weeks away, will be adding information about devices and applications when available, also if you have an application or game on marketplace then maybe it will be featured just message @rogueplanetoid on Twitter,...
August 2010
4 posts
WatchWindows Phone 7 Presentation
Windows Phone 7 Presentation
Yesterday I did a short 15 minute presentation on Windows Phone 7 at NEBytes as part of their August It’s Over to You portion of the event. You can view the presentation right here hosted by SlideShare, or download it from the NEBytes Event page.
Next month’s event will feature a Windows Phone 7 presentation too, but I’m not giving that one, so looking forward to seeing it and...
Windows Phone 7
Next Wednesday I’ll be at NEBytes at Newcastle University talking about Windows Phone 7, looking forward to sharing what I know as well as answering some questions about the platform.
I’ve got two Windows Phone 7 applications in development so far see these YouTube videos for GameCardr or visit GameCardr.com and ZuneCardr or visit ZuneCardr.com/Phone
I’ll be adding some new...
Hello World...again
Hopefully this will be the start of a Brand new Blog for me and me actually blogging at all! I’m not sure what I’ll post here but updates on Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and more!
Check back soon!