RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #37
27th October 2023
Last week saw the release of S6E04 - From Silverlight to Windows App SDK: Unleashing the Power of Windows Development with Peter Bull
of the The Modern .NET Show where I spoke about Windows App SDK with Jamie Taylor.
I had been looking forward to the release of that and it came at the perfect time as WinUI 3 was finally open sourced which has resulted in helping other platforms
such as Uno Platform and even WPF gain more functionality thanks to that! Also, it seems the next version 1.5 of the Windows App SDK
may finally add the InkCanvas control which I mentioned in the episode so am looking forward to that being added! The most amazing outcome from being on the show has been an unprecedented increase
in downloads for the RoguePlanetoid Podcast, where I have doubled the downloads of many Episodes! I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to listen,
I may have expected to odd extra download but nothing like that, many thanks to you all for the support!
This week I was at The Big North East Tech Social which combined Ignite and Silicon Mingle, it was amazing to see so many different parts of the North East tech community come together!
It was also a great chance to meet up again with many I'd seen at the last Silicon Mingle, some other familiar faces and even people I'd not seen for years! I'm so pleased to see how vibrant the community is again and may
be the best it has ever been since another event ended many years ago! Talking of that event last week I went along to the reunion dinner for SuperMondays and was great to see people there I still knew from then and others
I'd not seen since it ended, that event was my first ever event of any kind and without that I would not be where I am today! There will be an upcoming event
The Super Mondays Reunion 2023 where many people there including myself will say what they've done since the
SuperMondays ended, so am really looking forward to that!
This week I was at a brand new event Haystack Live with talks from James Sherwood-Jones, Andrew Waters
and Dylan McKee. It was a really great event and really well attended, some had been at The Big North East Tech Social but also many more I was able to catch up
with or meet for the first time, the event was very well organised and there was plenty of free merch on offer! It is great to have seen so many new events start this year in the North East of England,
when down in London I mentioned that more events should come up here and see what is going on, there's probably never been a better time to be in the region as a business or as an event,
and it is great to see that increase more and more just throughout this year alone!
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #36
20th October 2023
This week I was down in London for Microsoft Build AI Day and another one I found out about a few
days before which was Microsoft Envision - The Tour London and can read Articles
about them both. I managed to catch the last session of the day for Microsoft Envision - The Tour London and it was fantastic to see Satya Nadella who
I'd not seen speak in person since I first saw him on stage during Microsoft Build 2012 when I thought he'd be in for a chance at being the new CEO when
Steve Ballmer stepped down and turned out to be correct! It was amazing to hear how even as a chief executive of a company that AI was making his job easier,
and freeing him up to do more things, and how it will impact each and every person the planet. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every
organisation on the planet to achieve more and AI looks like the best and fastest way to achieve that goal. Steven Bartlett followed who is well known for
being one the Dragons on Dragon's Den along with many other things including his popular podcast "Diary of a CEO", it was amazing to hear him speak,
one of the best speakers I've ever heard from and was so informative, inspiring, and interesting to listen to and plenty of useful insights made me pleased
I was able to make that last session!
This week was dominated by my visit to Microsoft Build AI Day, and from the very start where I was lucky enough to get to the front row and watch
Scott Hanselman's opening keynote which was fantastic and is such an amazing speaker and was great to be able to learn so much about speaking along
with developing with AI from his session. It was also great to see Amy and Joylynn join Scott on stage which added even more detail to the talk,
it was amazing to watch and a great way to kick off the event! There were sessions from Henk Boelman about getting started with generative AI using
the Azure Open AI service, getting the most out of GitHub Copilot by Chris Reddington and a really informative talk from Seth Juarez who made it
really easy to understand what generative AI really is, which was great and wasn't too overwhelming! There was also a workshop on using GitHub Copilot
which means I now have a two-week trial to try it out more so will do that! It was also great to speak to those there including on the stands and with
fellow attendees all of whom I hope to catch up with again in the future, it was amazing to come down from Gateshead to London and learn more about
developing with AI and bring that back home!
This week also saw the release of S6E04 - From Silverlight to Windows App SDK: Unleashing the Power of Windows Development with Peter Bull
of the The Modern .NET Show where I spoke about Windows App SDK along with the various technologies I've used
to develop with on Windows! It was amazing to be on the show and record with Jamie Taylor, he was really helpful in sharing advice and improvements for the RoguePlanetoid Podcast
which I really appreciated and made a big difference - it sounds much better now! I really enjoyed talking about my experiences as a developer and have been looking forward to the episode
coming out for a while but it was great to see the episode finally released! I'm looking forward to being on more podcasts in the future, so if you want to have a chat with me then let me know,
also if you want to be on mine then you can also do the same! You can find me on LinkedIn and message me there!
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #35
13th October 2023
This week I did my talk Blazor a trail with .NET 8 at DevHub North where
I joined Gary Brown from AND Digital talking about Agile IT Architecture Design: Building Efficient and
Effective Systems for AWS and Beyond. It was an amazing experience, I had put together great slides along with an interesting and fun demo
but doing the talk itself was the best part! I think it was the best talk I'd ever done and seemed many of those there also really enjoyed the talk,
also the other talk was really interesting and informative so was pleased to see another great talk along with everyone else! If you missed out, or
want to read about them then you can with my Article about DevHub North - October 2023!
This week also saw some big Microsoft news of Activision Blizzard King joins Xbox!
That completes the $69 billon dollar merger, the largest ever done by Microsoft but also ensures than many titles not on Xbox will remain on those platforms,
but also means a strong portfolio of current and potential games coming to Xbox! I enjoy playing games myself sometimes, such as the recently released Starfield,
so it will be interesting to see what this deal means for gamers in the long term, but for now it is great to see this deal close! It is especially great to see this as the last hurdle was overcoming
my own country's Competition and Markets Authority, but was pleased that they finally gave the go ahead which allowed the deal to be completed!
Next week I'll be at Microsoft Build: AI Day in London, speakers include Scott Hanselman, Amy Boyd, Anthony Shaw,
Burke Holland, Chris Reddington, Henk Boelman, Joylynn Kirui, Liam Hampton, Paul Yu,
Steven Murawski, Seth Juarez and Dona Sarkar. It will be amazing to see the speakers there as many of them I've only seen on live streams,
so it will be great to see them in person, and hopefully say hello if they're not too busy! Also it will be great to see and meet any fellow attendees and learn about using AI as a developer,
something I'm keen to learn more about! You can still register for Microsoft Build: AI Day along with finding out
more about the day, and for anyone there then feel free to say hello, will be great to see you! I'll be travelling down to London the day before so if you're there too am happy to
meet up and talk about AI together!
RoguePlanetoid Weekly Update #34
6th October 2023
This week it was great to be able to write, record and edit the Episode about .NET 8 for the RoguePlanetoid Podcast!
.NET 8 will be the latest version of .NET with enhanced app building experience with easy container creation, cross-platform versatility, improved Linux support, and secure supply chain capabilities.
You can get the release candidate of .NET 8 from dot.net/next or wait for it to be released during
.NET Conf 2023 between the 14th and 16th of November.
Next week I'll be doing my talk Blazor a trail with .NET 8 at DevHub North which will be joining another talk
Agile IT Architecture Design: Building Efficient and Effective Systems for AWS and Beyond by Gary Brown from AND Digital.
If you want to come along then the event will be at TusPark in Newcastle upon Tyne on the 10th of October from 5:30pm and can sign up via
DevHub North - October Meetup. I'll be showing off new features of .NET 8,
C# 12 and Blazor plus a demo app that I've put together especially for the talk!
Next week I'll be finishing off the other talk I had been putting together about Zune and Windows Phone and hopefully be able to do that in the near future,
it has been really fun to put that together and am not only hoping to do the talk without reading too much from speaker notes but I'll also have something things to show off related to the talk.
That talk is going to be a real challenge for me, but my aim is to improve my skills as a speaker so I can do even more events in the future and hopefully represent developers from and living in the
North East of England at talks around the country and maybe even further afield in the future!
RoguePlanetoid Podcast - Episode Nine - .NET 8
1st October 2023
Today sees the release of Episode Nine of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast
about .NET 8, .NET 8 will be Microsoft's latest version of their .NET
open-source cross-platform framework for modern apps and services.
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.
