RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #50
31st March 2024
It is amazing to reach weekly update number fifty and this week started with a fun post on X, formerly known as Twitter,
where I saw the following post:
It showed a video of them showing the PhotoShop file that had been used for the cover of Halo 3 and it was great to see this image broken down like that,
so realised I had the PhotoShop file for the cover of the original Halo Combat Evolved I decided to share a similar video in the following post:
That post ended up being the most engaged post I've ever done there with 450 likes, 68 reposts, 124 bookmarks and over 27,000 views!
It was great to be able to show this image off to the community just like Surasia_
did and great to share something else that the community hadn't seen before and now have that Halo 3 image in my collection too!
I couldn't believe the reaction that post have and may never see that again but is closest to going viral I've ever been but was
great to share in that moment with the Xbox, Halo, and Microsoft community!
This week I also attended the first anniversary celebration of Silicon Mingle here in the North East at the Town Wall in
Newcastle upon Tyne on Thursday, it was amazing meeting new faces and catching up with familiar ones. I've really enjoyed going along to
the event and help celebrate with some cake and even a party hat! Silicon Mingle attracts a wide range of people at various stages of their
business from planning, just starting out, growing and even those who have exited and working on the next big thing for them. Silicon Mingle
has been an amazing event to learn what others are doing in the North East tech scene and really pleased to play my small part in that space
and always look forward to going along and hope to see many more years of this amazing event to come! It is also great to hear that it has
expanded to Manchester, where I attended an event last year and was amazed at the change and progress that had happened in the decade since
I had last been there and hope that Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and other places in the North East are well on their way to becoming like
that with new developments happening all the time it does feel like we're on that path and events like Silicon Mingle will help make that happen!
Next week will be the fifteenth episode of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast about .NET MAUI, something I used
for my recent talk, Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8, for the first time when putting together the demo for it, it is interesting using it after
having some experience using Xamarin a few years ago but there was many features and functionality missing that I'm pleased to say are now
in the platform. I'm looking forward to using .NET MAUI for more things in the future and helps continue my series of Episodes about
XAML which will conclude with an episode on Uno Platform in May!
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #49
24th March 2024
This week I was at the Qudos .NET Meetup in Newcastle upon Tyne where I would be listening to the talks rather than delivering one myself, the event was held at the
new Bank House on the 12th Floor hosted by BJSS. There were talks by Dan Oliver on AI in the Modern Enterprise along with Azure IoT with DotnetNano by Peter Shaw and
I wrote about both of them in an Article for the Qudos .NET Meetup Newcastle - March 2024
Both talks were really interesting and informative and was really well attended with plenty of pizza to go around!
This week I took some time off for my birthday for the start of the week and at the end of the week for a brand new event PLATFORM organised by Paul Lancaster which was a
really amazing event with lots of interesting stories about starting and growing a business and all the sessions including Insights Briefing, Show and Tell along with a
Conversation With talk were fantastic, I also wrote an Article about PLATFORM - March 2024 covering the event. It was a
great chance to attend a day-time event and was well worth attending with many new people to speak to I'd not see otherwise and learn more about things that are going on
in the North East too in the startup and scaleup scene.
Next week it will be another Silicon Mingle which will be celebrating a year of these amazing events, I've only been going for the past few months but have found them fantastic
and has been a great way of meeting new people and honing my networking skills with highlights including finding out there were many Windows Phone developers. back in the day
here in the North East I didn't even know about. I've also met people that am sure will work with at some point in the future for various projects so has been a really good
event to go along to and am looking forward to attending this one.
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #48
17th March 2024
This week saw the last four Tutorials on Windows App SDK for now on tutorialr.com but looking forward
to working on more to complete the set of one hundred later in the year. This week I have been posting on LinkedIn each weekday
from talking about the .NET MAUI Community Toolkit to helping celebrate one year of the Silicon Mingle which I'll be attending again later this
month. I also posted about what others had been talking about from dealing with potential issues with presentations, Microsoft MVPs who were at the MVP Summit in Seattle and
speakers who wanted to talk in more places. Thanks to those posts got a few tips and will hopefully improve my own talks as well as perform them in more places, that's an aim
of mine for this year!
This week I've also written, recorded and edited the latest episode of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast which is about .NET MAUI as a
follow-up to my episode about XAML which will be released on 1st April, no fool! .NET MAUI was something I started using when putting together my talk,
Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8, but I had used Xamarin a few years ago, it has been good to see how far .NET MAUI has come and look
forward to doing more things with it in the future and glad had a chance to try it out again and see what I can do with it myself again!
Next week I'll be at a couple of events the first will be the Qudos .NET Meetup in
Newcastle about Azure Open AI & Copilot along with Azure IoT using Dotnet Nano Framework and the other will be
PLATFORM which is a start-up event that I've not been to before so
looking forward to that! The most important event this week will be my 44th birthday on Monday, it's hard to believe that I'm that old as don't feel it and know I've still
got a lot to do in the future, but know I've done a lot already but feels like I'm just getting started with many of the things that I'm doing, which feels pretty good and
already know that 2024 is going to be a packed year full of new and different things to do and I thought that last year was quite busy!
tutorialr.com Tutorial Tuesday - Windows App SDK - Set Eighteen
12th March 2024
It is the last Tutorial Tuesday for now and tutorialr.com has been updated
with four new Tutorials for Windows App SDK that you can follow to create some custom looking controls.
Customised Controls include Custom RadioButton which applied a custom look to a RadioButton, Custom RatingControl which customises the look of a RatingControl,
Custom TextBox which changes the appearance of a TextBox and Custom ComboBox for a custom looking ComboBox.
There will be more Tutorials for Windows App SDK coming later this year, which will include mini-apps to create your own small applications along with more complex examples
to help understand and implement a variety of functionality in Windows App SDK which will eventually complete the set of one-hundred Tutorials!
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #47
10th March 2024
This week was an interesting one as went along to Tech on the Tyne to see Paul Cheetham talk about Using emotional data to make optimal decisions
which I also wrote an Article about. Emotional intelligence wasn't something I consciously thought about but have been doing so ever since the talk,
even referencing it a couple of times since, so suspect that talk will have a long-term impact on how I think about how I feel about things and how
I relate to how others feel about something, you never know what you may learn by going along to an event and am pleased I went along to learn about
something different that I can apply from now on.
This week I've also started writing the next Episode of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast about .NET MAUI which I covered in my recent talk,
Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8, continuing the theme started in this month's Episode about XAML where I covered current
uses of XAML with Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows App SDK along with legacy platforms that used XAML too.
.NET MAUI is something I only started to use when putting together the demo, however, Xamarin which .NET MAUI
is based on is something I used a few years ago and am pleased the progress it has made and something I'll make use of in the future!
Next week will see the final four Tutorials for Windows App SDK being published for now on tutorialr.com, originally this was to allow for the
InkCanvas control to be added in the next version of Windows App SDK due out in six months, however that may be delayed to the next version of
Windows App SDK. I'll still be publishing more Tutorials at the end of the year and use an alternative solution until that feature is added.
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #46
3rd March 2024
This week was packed full of events starting with North East Dev Community which was held at Durham University at their Department of
Computer Science and Department of Mathematical Sciences, it was a fantastic venue! The event started with Andrew Buckingham talking
about Collections, Classes and Clocks,
which was then followed by my own talk, Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8, which I really enjoyed delivering and was the first time I
had my own clicker for the slides which came in handy. I also wrote an Article about the
North East Dev Community - February 2024 event which covered both talks!
This week also saw yet another Silicon Mingle, it was amazing to go along to the Town Wall pub for this great networking event which
had a few familiar faces from recent events I'd only met there along with some new faces plus those I'd met at previous events! It was fantastic to
catch up with those I'd met before and met new people there, it is a fantastic event to see what people are doing and how they can and do help each
other, there's no feeling of competition here in the North East just a feeling of collaboration and is great to be part of that culture!
Yesterday saw DDD North held at the University of Hull, and I travelled down on the Friday
to Hull from Gateshead via Newcastle and Leeds and stayed just across the road from the venue so would not have far to go in the morning! It was great
to see a few familiar faces there too and meet up with more people, the first session was Introduction to StereoKit Mixed Reality Development by
Lee Englestone followed by Supercharge your data with Azure AI Search and Open AI by Pete Gallagher then onto
May the Forms Be with You: A New Hope with Blazor Hybrid on WinForms by Don Wibier before breaking for Lunch. The first session after lunch was my own,
an extended version of Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8, and it went well and had great questions and interest in the talk which was fantastic!
The day ended with Extending Copilot with Copilot Studio by Dylan Hayes who announced he had just been recently made a Microsoft MVP, which was great!
The day ended with a prize draw and although didn't win anything it was great to see those who did including one who won a Concorde Lego set that I
had my eye on complementing me on my talk which was great and congratulated them on winning the set. The only downside of the day was missing talks
that coincided with ones I had been to and hope to catch those in some form in the future! Overall DDD North was a great community event to be part
of that I always look forward to attending or speaking at and wrote an Article covering the sessions I attended, including my own on DDD North 2024.
RoguePlanetoid Podcast - Episode Fourteen - XAML
1st March 2024
Today sees the release of Episode Fourteen of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast
about XAML, XAML or eXtensible Application Markup Language allows developers
to build applications that separate a rich user interface from the implementation including events, business objects and other code.
You will find the Podcast where you listen to your podcasts such as Spotify,
Amazon Music, RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Pandora
Google Podcasts along with YouTube where you can catch up with previous episodes
and Subscribe or Follow so you don't miss any future Episodes.
