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All posts by Craig Murphy
USB TV dongle – recommendation
We held our first corporate hospitality event yesterday…it was tied in with the Scotland vs Italy rugby match, but let’s not go there.
Anyway, we used a Freecom USB TV dongle, a laptop and a projector to display the rugby (England vs Ireland). There seemed to be a lot of interest in what I was using to actually receive the TV signal, so I figured it was worth making this post. An Internet connection was not required, nor was the need to be connected to a corporate network. You just need a regular laptop or PC.
This is the product in question, we paid £24.99 for it:
Subject to your region and a good signal, it’ll pick up the Digital Freeview channels, including the radio stations. It’s pretty cool in that it can project a TV picture via the laptop’s VGA port whilst leaving the laptop’s original screen free for you to use – great if you have a second monitor and just want the TV on in the background while you work.
We get some 82 channels using the out-of-the-box aerial unit – of course, your mileage may vary. Ignore the odd negative review over at Amazon, this unit works and it works well – if you live in poor signal area, you can’t expect wonders.
Technorati Tags: USB, USB TV, Freecom, dongle, rugby, corporate hospitality
Vista Blogs
Via here, I found Dave, where I found a Vista-oriented feed aggregation:
http://www.vistablogs.com UPDATE – it seems that VistaBlogs is no longer what it says it is…it’s for sale. Too bad.
Dave’s also here, here, and here.
Technorati Tags: Vista, dwc1972, blackhatspider
Edinburgh – Windows Vista Security Features for Developers – Martin Parry – 06/03/2007
Event Overview
Windows Vista provides the most secure and reliable operating system ever that will have a positive impact on developers. Come along and see how Windows CardSpace provides federated identity management. We will also show you how to build applications that take advantage of User Access Account Control and best practices for building least-privilege applications. If you are interested in developing on Windows Vista then this session is essential for you.
When
06 March 2007 18:30 – 21:20
Welcome Time: 18:00
Where
Microsoft Edinburgh
127 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 4JN
United Kingdom
Sign-up and an agenda can be found here:
https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=1032326093
There’s a similar event in Glasgow on 03 April 2007, more details can be found here.
Technorati Tags: security, Vista, Edinburgh, Martin Parry, DPE
Glasgow – Security in Windows Vista – Stephen Lamb – 03/04/2007
Event Overview
In this session, we will discuss many of the innovative design philosophies and development strategies involved in making Windows Vista the most secure Windows operating system to date. One way that this security has been achieved is through service hardening. This means that most services run with low privilege to minimize resource access. Vista introduces several user-level security features within the Windows interface as well as additional enhancements to Internet Explorer including anti-spyware and anti-phishing capabilities. The Windows Firewall has also undergone significant improvements, including enhanced UI functionality, inbound and outbound filtering, filtering by application, and full support for IPv6. We’ll also talk about some of the other security enhancements available in Windows Vista, such as BitLocker, data protection, and improved smartcard support.
When
03 April 2007 09:45 – 12:30
Welcome Time: 09:00
Where
Strathclyde University
Collins Building
22 Richmond Street Glasgow G1 1XQ
United Kingdom
Sign-up and further information can be found here:
https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032327539&Culture=en-GB
A similar event is being held in Edinburgh on the 06 March 2007 in the evening, more details here.
Technorati Tags: security, Vista, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Stephen Lamb, DPE
WordPress 2.1.1 (and 2.0.9)
Hot on the heels of 2.1 and 2.0.7, wordpress.org announces the release of 2.1.1 and 2.0.9.
Technorati Tags: WordPress, WordPress 2.1.1
BCS Edinburgh: Transportation Planning and Modelling Software – 21/02/2007
BCS Edinburgh: Transportation Planning and Modelling Software
Wednesday 21st February 2007, 6:30 pm
Speaker: Pete Sykes, SIAS Limited
Venue: The Royal Scots Club Hepburn Suite, 30 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE.
This talk is free of charge and no reservation is required. Non members are most welcome. Refreshments available from 6:10 pm.
Synopsis
Transport planning and modelling software has been undergoing a quiet revolution over the last few years. The underlying methodology has moved from the analogy of a smooth river of metal flowing down the road to simulation of individual vehicles in a road network all interacting with each other as they try to get to their destination. Micro-simulation software can now model these interactions in large areas with thousands of vehicles.
Hardware in the loop simulation can also be used to bring in the effect of Urban Traffic Control systems software.
The modeller’s goal is to build and calibrate a model of the current road network and the activity on it. Then this is used to test proposed changes such as urban traffic management schemes or the addition of new traffic through industrial or domestic developments. The model can also be used to evaluate efforts to try to extract more capacity from the road network through active management and Intelligent Transport Systems.
This talk will cover what does micro-simulation do, how does it do it, what is it used for and how do you get answers out if it.
About the Speaker
Pete Sykes was the first programmer on an early version of S-Paramics in 1986. Since then he worked on large networked virtual reality training systems and network monitoring and management before returning to SIAS in 1998 to once again take over development of S-Paramics. He is now Micro-simulation Marketing and Development Director.
Technorati Tags: BCS, BCS Edinburgh, Transportation, Planning, Modelling, Pete Sykes, S-Paramics, Micro-simulation, SIAS, urban traffic control, simulation
IE7:In my world, everything is indexed from zero…
BCS event – Vista in Aberdeen – 05/03/2007
Speaker: James O’Neill, Microsoft
BCS Aberdeen Branch Meeting, 6pm for 6.30pm RGU, St Andrews Street, Aberdeen
Free of charge, but please register in advance by email.
Further information: http://aberdeen.bcs.org/VistaMeeting.pdf
Technorati Tags: Community, Vista, James O’Neill, BCS, Aberdeen
BCS Edinburgh: Agile Washes Whiter – 28/02/2007
Agile Washes Whiter
Wednesday 28th February 2007, 6:30 pm
Speaker: Brian Swan, Exoftware
Venue: The Royal Scots Club Hepburn Suite, 30 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh
EH3 6QE
“Agile” is quickly becoming the hot buzz-phrase in many organisations but Agile is simply an umbrella term for a number of specific development methods including; eXtreme Programming (XP), SCRUM, Feature Driven Development, DSDM and Crystal. What does it mean to “Be Agile”?
This talk will compare a number of the Agile methods and identify some common strategies and pitfalls when adopting an Agile method.
Booking required – please register here: www.exoftware.com/events/47
More details: http://www.edinburgh.bcs.org/events/070228.htm
Technorati Tags: BCS, Agile, Scrum, Brian Swan, exoftware, FDD, DSDM, Crystal
[Humour] – street party in Dalgety Bay, Fife, Scotland
My mother-in-law pointed this one out to me, it appears on page 11 of in February 2007 issue of The Diary, a local publication from the Dalgety Bay and Hillend Community Council.
Apart from the glaringly obvious spelling mistake (sorry, no prize is available if you’re the first to spot it!), “absolute” instead of “absolutely” and the interesting use of capitalisation, I found this very amusing! Very very amusing! Actually, I’m surprised that the spelling mistake isn’t on this list.
It gets better. It would appear the same “advert” appears in The Dunfermline Press (print edition), which probably means somebody has actually paid to have it published! [Update: It turns out that it wasn’t an advert, but a news article written by a reporter]
Let’s give it a couple of weeks before we check the property prices in Inchview Gardens! (via here)
Technorati Tags: Dalgety Bay, Hillside, humour, Inchview, street party, Inchview Gardens, neighbours from hell, underage drinking, police intervention required, street party
NxtGenUG – Fest07 – 23/05/2007
I am pleased to see that the chaps over at the NxtGenUG are having their first developer festival.
It’s early days, but the speaker line-up promises to be super (you should expect nothing less of the chaps at NxtGenUG!) The session abstracts are taking shape too!
Here’s what the chaps have to say:
The NxtGenUG boys are pleased to announce their very first One-Day Event. We’re not calling it a conference, as we want it to be more than that! We want it to be a day to remember, and another annual highlight for the UK Developer Community.
It’s called NxtGenUG Fest 07 and the initial details are at http://www.nxtgenug.net/fest07. The event will take place at Microsoft UK Headquarters at Thames Valley Park (TVP) on Wednesday 23rd May 2007 and starts at 0900. Food will be provided and we want everybody to go home with a decent amount of quality ‘swag’.
The day has a theme: “Into the future …”. We start the day looking at current technologies such as Vista, then we move into the ‘Orcas’ time-frame, then to 12 months hence or so, probably taking a look at dynamic languages and then really moving out into ‘who knows’ with a session from Microsoft Research. There will be a keynote, with an appearance from UK DPE manager Kevin McDaniel and words from the NxtGenUG crew and finally the day will finish with a new ‘Game Show’ style session courtesy of NxtGenUG featuring an awful lot of ‘swag’!
We’re absolutely chuffed to bits to announce that the ‘headline’ speaker is top TechEd speaker Rafal Lukawiecki and we will also be joined by Daniel Moth and Mike Taulty (perhaps) of the UK DPE and also by Lorna Brown from Microsoft Research. We have one more speaker to announce too, which we hope to do next week.
At lunchtime there will be ‘Grok’ talks presented by NxtGenUG members, on a variety of subjects to be announced.
This event is FREE to all fully paid-up NxtGenUG members and a mere £54.99 for non-members until 1 March 2007, check out the URL for more details. Numbers are strictly limited (we know … everybody says that … but we really mean it this time – 230 tops!) so register early is our advice!
Technorati Tags: NxtGenUG, Fest07, UK Community, community, developer events, Rafal Lukawiecki, Lorna Brown, Daniel Moth, Mike Taulty