A rare political view

This will be one of my few politically oriented statements that I ever make.

Not the news (Archive)

Funny the things you find on your google drive, when you are mindlessly sat at you computer on a (legitimate) sick day...

Infographic bug-bears

I'm quite a fan of using graphics to convey meaning; it's why I prefer to draw logic flow diagrams instead of writing walls of text to describe software functionality.  Inforgraphics, therefore, should be something that appeal to me... but they don't.
While flicking around my various email accounts, I found an email from the IT Job Board with their new infographic about wearable tech.
This is my reaction to it.

The Cloud: A Follow-up Posting on Where We Are

In 2011, I wrote this article regarding my interpretation on where "Cloud" fits in, with regards to both software development and at the consumer level.
3 years on, I wonder if any of it still holds water; if it does then surely there is a problem?

Of the Longevity of Mobile Apps

This is on open response to the article "Why no one uses your mobile app any more?" by Hunter Walk, an "in"-fluencer on linkedin.com.

Progress Report #2

This post is slightly later than anticipated - for those of you who are interested, my cross-platform Java project that started at the beginning of February went very well.

Progress Report #1

From the 3rd Feruary 2014, I became  a free-lance software developer, by means of redundancy (you can read more about that here).  I set myself a task and since then have been nose to the grind-stone towards it's completion.
So I'm a week and a half in.. what have I achieved so far?

A New Chapter

By the time this post bounces it's merry way into the lives of the bots that regularly ping this blog (that try to entice me away to sites-a-foreign to purchase anything from Viagra to Ugg boots from a guy named Vlad), I will have become (officially) a Free Agent in the world or professional software development.  This was not of my choosing; 4 years on one project taking it from conceptualisation to full-blown application suite, with all the pain in between, means I am sad to part company with what I can only refer to as "my" product.
Still with the warm memories of working with possibly the best Dev Team I have had the fortune to Lead and be a part of, I now need to look forward as our paths diverge; I hope to work with you again some day, should the stars align in our favour.

Until then, while I search for something new I have set my self a challenge; a pet project if you will, to supersede any others I may have mentioned before now (not that I actually managed to start them)...

64-bit Installer Issues

Recently, I encountered a problem where my 64-bit Windows Service installers were failing to correctly install (failing to install at all, to be fair..).  After a little digging around I found a post that detailed that, despite correct configuration Visual Studio builds the MSI incorrectly, causing execution to fail.

Email from "Barclays" Bank

I feel so much safer...

In recent years the situation out of control because of fraud on the Internet however we take care that every time our system to be improved on base.  I added extreme safety measures, so all our users are asked not to ignore this message, will help protect your information and also risk fraudulent chances are low. Please give us a few minutes of your time for better security. <removed link> Executive Director, Barclays Bank Plc.

Custom Shelves Pt2 - The Build

In part 1, I wrote of my plan to build a bespoke shelf unit to fit a specific space in my house, from sustainable material.  The whole design and source process spanned about 3 months (mostly due to lack of spare time after work) but on the 16th of December the wood arrived at my door and the project was ready to proceed.

This post also is a first - finally I manage to write a "promised" follow-up!

Custom Shelves Pt1

I pretty much live at my desk, both at work and when at home.  When I'm not working at home, I'm probably playing games, faffing with personal software development, personal development, catching up with friends / family or just plain surfing around on the web achieving nothing.  I also have lots of "junk".  It's not junk, of course, it just has specific place and purpose; "place" being mostly piled on my limited shelf space.
Limited space no more.  Move over <insert preferred contemporary furniture outlet here>, Paul is going designing!

Security and the Corporate ID card

Feeling wordy this morning, though it probably won't last!  Whether cyber security is starting to burrow into my subconcious or it's just that I watch so much Burn Notice, but it amazes me how many people wander around with thier company ID passes in high visibility places on thier person, for the journey to work. 

You can generally get name, position and company name from a casual glance or two.  If I ran a company that employed ID requirements, or even worked for a company that did such, I would put forword a scheme.

On website or similar branding:
"Average Joe Public is invited to email us if you see our employees out and about.  Tell us their name, and where you saw / met them and we'll give you a £5 <insert current socially favorable voucher vendor here> voucher."

The £5 would of course be subsidised in its entirety from fining the said employee (after validation of course) for being stupid / negligent...
Thier ways would soon change.

The Future of User Input (aka Gesture Is Dead)

I travel a lot for my job. Occasionally I find myself travelling with Sayyed Shah; friend, fellow developer and long time co-worker since day 1 at Neutrino, in his kindness as he gives me a lift most of the way home.
On one such journey, our conversation drifted to that of User Input and as such serves as catalyst for this post, Sayyed deserving as much credit for eliciting the thoughts from my head for this article as me.

1-BK Presents: Chilli-butter Smoked Salmon with Beans & Carrots

Part of the 1-bowl kitchen project.

So having finally found that my phone is not thoroughly stuffed (just the current SD-card) I can now take pictures again with my phone.  Lucky for me as it means I only needed to spen £20 instead of £400 on a new "not-iPhone".
Unlucky for all of you, as I now have the means to start my 1-bowl kitchen log...

Laxxors 1-bowl Kitchen

I do a lot of hotel living as part of my job.

"Ooh" says the populous, "that's fancy, lucky you."

"Err..no" says I, "really it's not.".

Alright, so maybe the first month or so was OK.. and occasionally switching hotels if there is no room gives different scenery and a change in menu but past that you quickly tire of the same food, week in week out and you end up leading quite a solitary life-style.  Couple that with the fact that we all know that not all food is cooked equal, sometimes it is an effort just to ensure you eat in a day.

Time to correct this.  Time to shift from the unhealthy pub food I've been eating and make an effort to cook something better.

Introducing, "Laxxors 1-Bowl Kitchen".

Though of course, there are clauses...

User Physics and the Quest for Perfect Software

This post was inspired by the words of Bob Schukai (Twitter @iammobilebob) when I attended the AppsWorld event in Earls Court, 2012 and he spoke of measuring your Users actions to determine the hot and cold spots of your software (among other things - I had hoped to share in greater detail my thoughts on his session but alas the audio recordings never seemed to materialise from the event organizers).
It's been a little while since then (though it may be longer still before I publish this.. who knows how long it will take to write) but I still keep finding myself considering what was said both when using and writing software.

Charity, but not before profit.

Adverts are starting to get to me recently.
Some because of their blatant assumption that the viewing public are mostly made up of morons, others because they don't make sence or that they were obviously devised by the same group that did "that other advert".  But this post relates to "charity packs".

Personal Mini-Appocalypse

Today, one of the worst things that can happen to me as a "photographer" (I use this distinction over Photographer as I accept I'm no pro) happened.  I created a simple volume in Windows and several partitions on the same disk, including all my (60GB) photographs going back to 2005 simply disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Pet Project

Last year I bought a Blue-ray player.  While I've not had the capacity to use it half as much as I would like, I have found a few bug-bears with some of the Viera apps.