A Life in Computers

A Life in Computers

March 11, 2014 | 1 comment

A trip to The National Museum of Computing at the weekend was a real trip down memory lane for me. You can read about our visit to Bletchley Park at a later date but I wanted to highlight some of the more significant computers that have featured in my life that were on show there. The dates are pretty loose as my memory is not what it once was!

Teletype (c. 1976)

I have written previously about how I encountered my first “computer” at secondary school. In fact this wasn’t a computer at all but basically a printer with a … Read the rest

What we did Before StackOverflow

February 18, 2014 | Comment

So StackOverflow the question and answer site for programmers went down yesterday and if what you read is to be believed all coding stopped. Of course that wasn’t the case but it did make me stop and think about what it was like before the internet.

As I have stated before I have been coding a very long time. Professionally since 1988 but I have been programming in one form or another since I was 11, i.e. long before either StackOverflow or the Internet was around. Just how did we cope back then?

While they aren’t too popular now, for … Read the rest

Hat tip to Kernighan & Ritchie

Hat tip to Kernighan & Ritchie

January 15, 2014 | Comment

IMG_7937My last post was all about what has changed in the world of databases since I graduated. This post is all about what hasn’t.

I graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 1988 and during my course we learn’t a number of programming languages including C. Then THE bible on the subject was by Kernighan & Ritche.

My younger son has just started his second year Computer Science degree and this year they too are learning C. When he told me this I mentioned the book and wondered if they would still use it. Yesterday was his first lecture … Read the rest

The Evolution of Databases

The Evolution of Databases

January 10, 2014 | 1 comment

iStock_000016066249XLargeOne of the beauties of a long career is that you get to see how things in your sector evolve over time. Being in IT is no different other than the phenomenal rate of change.

Nowhere is this more evident than in databases. When I started out in the late eighties I was a COBOL programmer working on hierarchical databases and specifically IDMSX on ICL’s VME platform. These databases worked on the basis of linked lists and you had to “walk” through a whole chain in order to get to the record you wanted.

Hierarchical databases were straightforward to learn … Read the rest

A great way to recognise and reward employees in a small business

A great way to recognise and reward employees in a small business

January 8, 2014 | Comment

This post could either be considered as being slightly late or very early but I thought that it was such a positive and interesting story that it was worth telling now.

A friend of mine who runs a small local business of about ten staff was telling me about their Christmas party. As they are mostly home workers and geographically spread they met in London for a meal. Before they sat down for the meal each was presented with two envelopes one containing £20 and the name of another employee and the other £100. The former was for secret Santa … Read the rest

Microsoft Accelerator – Demo Day

Microsoft Accelerator – Demo Day

December 14, 2013 | Comment

IMG_7765So the big day finally arrived and it was back once again to Canary Wharf for the Microsoft Accelerator Demo Day.

Even though the event didn’t kick off until mid-afternoon we were there early in order to go through the pitches once again with all the teams going through their pitches twice. This was not without its glitches as demos didn’t work as expected and words were stumbled over.

Early afternoon, before the guests arrived, boxes of branded cup cakes were delivered which was a neat touch and great to see our logo baked! Tim and I put a couple … Read the rest

Anatomy of of popular tweet

Anatomy of of popular tweet

December 12, 2013 | Comment

I have been tweeting for a number of years now and still have a relatively low number of followers (you are following me right?). Last night my iPhone started to go mad with notifications from the Twitter app of favourites and retweets coming through at a steady pace, normally I’m lucky to get one a week. On closer inspection I found that the notifications were all for a single tweet sent about a month ago – the one that you can see shown here.

… Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Twelve

Microsoft Accelerator – Week Twelve

December 1, 2013 | Comment

IMG_7689So this is the last (proper) week of the accelerator and we have had to move out of our temporary home in Central Working, Shoreditch.

I have mixed feelings about going because on the one hand I have enjoyed being up in London and around others for a change, rather than the solitude of home working. However, on the other hand I won’t miss the early starts and getting to the station only to find that my train has been delayed.

The big thing this week was getting to practice the pitch at the venue we will be at for … Read the rest