Category Archives: Commuting

Free C# 3.0 Training

I am pleased to announce that InnerWorkings, one of the sponsors for DDD6 last November are keeping their free training offer open for a little longer! Huge thanks to InnerWorkings for their generosity!

InnerWorkings has teamed up with DDD 6 to offer you 1 hour of completely FREE training on Visual Studio 2008. So if you want to know more about the important new features in C# 3.0, check out the following hands-on learning material:

Anonymous types and Object and Collection initializers (30 minutes)
Basic LINQ queries (30 minutes)

To claim your free training, please visit this page:
http://www.innerworkings.com/promotions/120/ddd-offer

InnerWorkings also offer trials of their other training:

Object Oriented Programming with Visual C# 2005
Object Oriented Programming with Visual Basic 2005
ASP.NET Web Development with Visual C# 2005
ASP.NET Web Development with Visual Basic 2005
Programming with Visual C# 2003
Programming with Visual Basic 2003
Using ASP.NET AJAX Extensions with Visual C# 2005
Using ASP.NET AJAX Extensions with Visual Basic 2005

Catch up with the InnerWorkings blogs over here.

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TechEd 2007 – Sharp Dressed Men

The NxtGenUG chaps have been practicing their Spanish, learning how to dress in a manner that makes them more attractive to the opposite sex and have been making a nuisance of themselves whilst grabbing podcasts with some pretty top-notch guys! You have to listen to these podcasts – Dave, Rich and John catch up with some technically fantastic and witty podcast victims! All the usual excellent content – nice work guys!

Congrats to Dave on being voted 6th best speaker…out of 300! Huge success there, Dave – well done!


[photo courtesy of Barry Dorrans]

Whilst the NxtGenUG chaps were in Barcelona, I was over in Las Vegas – expect to see podcasts including Mark Miller (of CodeRush and Refactor fame), Dr. Neil Roodyn (extreme software guru), Oliver Sturm (of DevExpress fame) and a “mix” of sound bytes from folks at the Developer Express TechSummit 2007. I’ve also got some cool video footage of Kent Alstad and me wondering around the DevConnections exhibition area.

You’ll find David Platt in this series of podcasts – this is the David Platt that I mention over here – the one with the book signing!

The One With The Baby…
They’re leaving on a jet plane, hopefully they’ll not be back again! The boyz are off to Barcelona, and in between check-ins, in flight meals, landings and registration, they find time for a quick podcast. Richard Evans, the TechEd Ticket Competition Winner joins them and they chat with chief “TechEd Organiser Man” Neil Palmer from Fitch Live, the company behind TechEd. We also have the first swag review and John expands his vocabulary beyond “All Wright”…

The One With The Arriba!…
Day 2 and the boyz are getting into the swing of things, learning Spanish too … John gives us his best Arriba after telling us about the house wreck of a media centre session, Rich talks about the Keynote, and Dave’s been talking F# in a fishbowl. Don’t miss a great interview with Michael Foord on IronPython, it’s a cracker …

The One With Dave’s Phone…
Day 3, Dave breaks into an interview with Andy Wigley and Peter Foot to try to get his phone upgraded, but there’s no hope! We catch up with some more Speaker Idol contestants and Dave meets up with Sondre Bjellas, Regional Director from Norway. Richard Evans gives us a review of his day, thankfully, John’s still at a party so no more “Arribas”!

The One With The Sewage…
Dave and Rich head back to the hotel after a hard day at TechEd. What’s that smell? Controversy reigns over speaker idol after Michael Howard marks the Australian guys down for being Australian. Dave speaks to Bart De Smert, last years speaker idol winner, who now works for Microsoft. Rich interviews Shanku Niyogi, Product Unit Manager at Microsoft, and ticket winner Richard Evans on his daily report. Recorded in Pong-o-Vision.

The One With The Pack Of ******s!
Day 4 and TechEd Developers 2007 is reaching a crescendo. The session ratings are on the up, the country parties are done, its Speaker Idol final day! In a gargantuan contest between 4 superb presenters, there can be only one winner. The Boyz speak to the winner of Speaker Idol and the ‘missing’ judge, whilst Dave gets a 15 minute whirlwind from David Platt and realises his year’s ambition: a cracking interview with Ted Pattison, trainer, author and speaker extraordinaire!

The One With The Pistachio Nuts…
Day 5, and as TechEd draws to a close, we find the Boyz celebrating a brilliant week of sessions, Speaker Idol, networking and Pistachio Nuts. We catch a fantastic interview with Rafal Lukawiecki after his Top Voted Session on Data Mining, and also with Mario Sprutzerfrom Austria the Tools and Languages Track Owner at TechEd 2007. Dave is in shock with his session ratings, and is getting ready to get lathered at the Speaker Dinner, and we finally find out what Mick Lohan from GAMTUG has to say …

Barry’s photos are over here.

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Cyclists in the UK – above the law?

As a car driver, I find myself waiting at traffic lights quite frequently.

Today, I was at the head (front) of the queue, patiently waiting for them to turn from red to green. There were two lanes of traffic, I was in the outside lane (2) – it was a pedestrian cross too. Whilst waiting, I was dumbfounded to see, in my offside wing mirror, a cyclist approaching at speed, straddling the centre line between us and on-coming traffic. The lights were still red. The cyclist, a he, proceeded to weave through two pedestrians using the crossing. He then returned to the inside lane (1) and continued his journey.

I see this a lot. I know that as a car driver, I am obliged to stop at red lights. Do cyclists have some sort of exemption that allows them to go through red lights? Surely not? [of course, this is a rhetoric question]

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Forth Road Bridge – Podcast #2

My return trip north over the Forth Road Bridge, for Monday.

FRB Podcast #2 [2MB] – the one with the 4×4 driver. Monday 11/12/2006, Edinburgh to Fife, depart 1735, arrive 1826.

This one runs a little fast, you can hear the clicks between edit points. I edited a lot of content out, this one is just 10 minutes long.

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Forth Road Bridge – Podcast #1

I don’t know what compelled me to do this, but after The Scotman’s campaign for a second crossing (be it a bridge, a tunnel or something else) over the River Forth Firth Of Forth [thanks Colin!], I’ve decided to record my experiences crossing the Forth Road Bridge.

I’ve chosen to podcast my entire journey, edited down such that the 75 minute drive is a 30 minute podcast. I’ll cover the route south, i.e. from Fife over to Edinburgh and back again.

Over the course of a week, you’ll hear a lot of my views and opinions on what’s wrong with the commute over to Edinburgh. Editing the podcasts takes about an hour, so please be patient, I will get them all uploaded as soon as possible. Also, the sound quality isn’t production quality, but it’s clear enough to get the point across.

I’ve got a lot that I want to say about this journey, I’ll try and put together a blog post “real soon now”.

FRB Podcast #1 [6MB], Monday 11/12/2006, Fife to Edinburgh, depart 0745, arrive 0900. Notice the slight frustration build up towards the end of the podcast!

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