- State of Software Design in NSW HSC
- It is not the Apple Tablet, it is the Store
- Facial Update
- Why the Quietness?
- What does Transparency mean to me?
- The long search for the perfect WPF Twitter Client. Over.
- #auteched week begin
- Twenty Years Ago Today
- Where is Nick?
- Sanity Prevails
- 28 Weeks. 18 Weeks Down
- New Windows Home Server
- Japan Photo
- Microsoft and Web 2.0 Stuff
- Bing Box on your Website or Blog
- New.CloudApp();
- Fifth Barcamp Sydney, Saturday June 27th
- 2765 Words
- Working for the Underdog
- The Group Twitter Account Conundrum
State of Software Design in NSW HSC
By Nick Hodge | January 31, 2010
Liam successfully completed his HSC in 2009, with one of his subjects being Software Design
Looking over his results certificate, it seems that 1726 students sat the HSC Exam from 1759 enrolments. In other words, 2.5% of the NSW HSC population took this course.
The curriculum for this subject area is reported to be weak.
Maybe it is time for Higher Education, Industry and the Board of Studies to strengthen the content of this course. For the future of Australia in the digital world.
It is not the Apple Tablet, it is the Store
By Nick Hodge | January 11, 2010
The recent escalation of rumours surrounding the so-called Apple Tablet / Slate / Big iPhone / xxx (where xxx is a super cool Apple-ish name) seem to focus on the hardware. The gadgetry. The hardware specs.
I am a little over gadgetry. Every week there is a new phone, device or somesuch that junks the old technology. Surely this is neither ethical nor sustainable?
But that is not where the innovation, nor the future lies for Apple. Recent Apple acquisitions, investments and successes leads me to conclude that Apple and Google are about to square off. Not in search. Search is rather boring and a commodity.
In the forthcoming weeks, ignore the hardware. Hardware is dime-a-dozen, and many vendors are going to release slate like gadgetry in a similar form factor. Rather, watch what Apple does with their iTunes / App store. Presently this system provides music, tv, movies and with the advent of the iPhone – Apps.
The next department for the store are newspapers, magazines and books. Either sold as subscription, or with embedded advertising. Just wait.
The revenue model will appeal to the traditional mainstream media - so expect a continuing avalanche of obsequious and self-serving coverage. Not of the store - but rather the hardware. Embedded within these stories will be the expectation of a holy grail. The holy grail of the future of print media, without paper.
Somehow, I doubt it.
Topics: apple, future | 4 Comments »
Facial Update
By Nick Hodge | December 16, 2009
It has been a long 3-4 weeks.
From Doctor's visits and other experts, this is most likely merely a viral infection in the facial nerves. You can only take anti-virals within the first 36-72 hours – a time long, long ago. So its has been “just live with it”. Research has shown me that re-occurance of the opposing side is possible. However, it is quite disconcerting thinking that your face is going to 'flutter' or 'twinge' with nervous abandon.
Today was a major breakthrough. Presenting Windows 7 and Office 2010 to IT Teachers at Western Sydney TAFE. 3 hours of non-stop talking, and only a couple of facial contortions. As long as I don't smile, eat or look up - all is well. Things are on the improve.
Totally buggered, however. Stuffed. Whilst I once presented for 8 hours, at least twice, when on a trip to India in 2001 - and been at countless tradeshows of 14+ hours of standing around and spruiking - 3 hours is still a long time to be "on"
So its onwards. Good to have a normal face back.
Topics: bellspalsy | 1 Comment »
Why the Quietness?
By Nick Hodge | December 9, 2009
It is rather strange for me to be quiet. Especially online and on this blog specifically.
Twitter is partly to blame: it is where my creative mind finds an outlet.
Another is a little more sinister. And I use the word sinister also meaning left-hand-side
In April 2007 I talked on my experience of Bell’s Palsy.
Over the last month, the left-hand side of my face didn’t go numb nor fall, but there has been an intense ache.
Now the right hand side of my face is showing some weirdness. A nervous twitching when I yawn, eat, talk, look up or smile. This twitching lasts for 1-2 seconds and is noticeable, and changes my speech pattern. It is quite disconcerting giving presentations and having your face go crazy. I am quite self-conscious about the visual effect.
From reports from other Bell’s sufferers, this is a potential issue. Doctors report that this is a function of the muscles and nerves of the face rebalancing the weakness on one side.
So, its working online and from home with a few outward bound events.
And rest.
So, if you don’t see my “in the flesh” or being prolific online. There is my reason.
Topics: bellspalsy | 5 Comments »
What does Transparency mean to me?
By Nick Hodge | September 7, 2009
I mulled long and hard over the content of this post over on techedbackstage.net. A discussion with a few people, and reading to through with Jorke cleared my mind a little.
Should I reveal we had a medium size hiccup in the first day of netbook handout at TechEd? C'mon, corporations don't make errors. Well, they sorta do - but never admit it. Problems are couched in corporate speak. All is well. Look over here.
My personal concept of transparency and honesty is telling it like it is. Whilst I don't state the actual number of machines needing re-imaging: we have yet to get more data tomorrow to be more factual: telling the story as it is, warts and all, is critical. It's closer to home here as I am responsible for the Netbooks. In retrospect, I feel I should have thought of the human factors when in production-line mode. Also, increasing the Q&A rate considering the tightness of the handout: I should have thought of that, too.
I'd like to put a big thanks out to Jorke who implemented techedbackstage.net. We really hope that you guys in IT get something out of this transparency.
Sometimes it's painful to admit your mistakes and say sorry. Thankfully, I work in an organisation that respects the need for this level of honesty. And a great team of people who are pulling to make it right for customers.
Topics: auteched | 3 Comments »
The long search for the perfect WPF Twitter Client. Over.
By Nick Hodge | September 6, 2009
Twitter; Facebook and friends is the place where I spend most of my day. For work and play.
Separating work and play is difficult in single-column twitter clients. Enter mutliple columns, filtering as base requirements for my perfect twitter client.
Stuck in closed-source TweetDeck; or moving through a myriad of AIR based applications. Subjecting myself to unknown security issues, slow performance – and no ability to contribute – has frustrated me no end.
Then @aeoth create MahTweets. It’s MS-PL. It’s extensible (via MEF). It has IronRuby for scriptable extensibility.
It is awesome.
Use it. Contribute. Let’s make the world’s best WPF Twitter Client.
Topics: opensource, twitter | No Comments »
#auteched week begin
By Nick Hodge | September 5, 2009
After 6 months of planning, lost sleep, deep thinking - TechEd with the Windows 7 / Netbooks coming to fruitition.
In a week's time, it will all be over. I really wonder what next weekend will look like.
In the meantime, this is the view from my hotel room:
Topics: auteched | No Comments »
Twenty Years Ago Today
By Nick Hodge | September 2, 2009
Twenty years ago today, Avril and I were married. And we still are happily married. BTW: didn’t Avril look totally beautiful here?
Topics: family | 7 Comments »
Where is Nick?
By Nick Hodge | August 12, 2009
As TechEd 2009 approaches, you will see me blogging over on TechEd Backstage
Topics: auteched | No Comments »
Sanity Prevails
By Nick Hodge | July 7, 2009
The FOSS community has been concerned about the difficulties, pros and cons of including Mono-built applications as a part of standard Linux builds. Both Pro and Con.
Most recently, the Ubuntu Technical Board posted to their Ubuntu Developer Announce mailing list their extermely pragmatic position on Mono applications.
Today Microsoft extended the Community Promise to the two underlying ECMA (and subsequent ISO) standards that cover the CLI and C#. These promises had already covered other EMCA standards such as OpenXML, so it was quite logical that the CLI and C# would follow. Well, in a sane universe anyway.
As the Mono project (and Moonlight) are based on these standards, the Community Promise would logically extend to these environments.
Hopefully now we can all just build cool software, not argue about licenses, patents and other distractions. Now let's fix Outlook's HTML rendering!. 
(Thanks to John BouAntoun for the original link, Peter Galli for the original blog post, and Microsoft for doing the right thing.)
Topics: microsoft, opensource | 5 Comments »
Topics: technology | 1 Comment »