Teaching Teenagers to Program

October 31, 2010 | Comment


Had an interesting week teaching a couple of teenagers to program. In fact it wasn’t a week but only four days in which to impart some knowledge and get them to complete a small project so that they felt they had achieved something. For this I decided that they should create a form and then save the details entered on the form to a database. This meant teaching some HTML, SQL and PHP – in four days to two youngsters that had no prior experience of coding.

So the programme went something like this:

Day One: What is the internet … Read the rest

Small Scale Outsourcing

October 23, 2010 | 1 comment


Outsourcing is big business. I should know as I have been using it for over 10 years now to get access to some highly skilled and cost effective development and testing resources. But what happens if you don’t need a resource for a long term project or just want to get access to a skill that you don’t have in-house?

For example the business I work for often needs access to designers to do small scale work for our website. We can’t afford to retain the services of someone locally as we simply don’t have enough business to put their … Read the rest

2LS Expansion

September 20, 2010 | Comment

2LS Recruitment Software Specialists LogoIt is not often that I write about my work but occasionally something happens that I think is worth blogging about and this is one of those occasions.

The company that I work for, 2LS, are providers of recruitment software and, as I am sure you can imagine, this last year has been particularly tough for that sector as new jobs have been few and far between and recruitment agencies have been tightening their belts. Despite this challenging background 2LS has bucked the trend and grown over the last year. In fact we have tripled the number of customers … Read the rest

Orientation lock becomes mute button on iPad iOS 4.2

September 19, 2010 | Comment

There are lots of posts on the net right now about the first beta of Apples iOS 4.2 and you can read a Top 10 new features here.

One of the changes is to turn the orientation lock button on the iPad to be a mute button. Well hold on a minute who checked with me that was something I wanted? Where’s the friendly but terse email from Steve Jobs checking that was going to work for me? I use that button A LOT and if I need to mute I press the volume down for a second and guess … Read the rest

The Ultimate iPad Travel Kit

September 11, 2010 | Comment

I have found my ultimate iPad travel kit that consists of:

– An Apple wireless keyboard
– 3 mifi
– Portable, adjustable, folding stand from eBay

It’s like having a Macbook that you can break down into its constituent parts. I just sling them into my case and off I go. I am finding that I am using my laptop less and less and now never use my desktop at home. Who said the iPad was just a big iPhone?

 

… Read the rest

Why do eBooks cost so much?

August 31, 2010 | Comment

Interesting article in this months Wired magazine entitled “why do ebooks cost so much”? It’s a really good question and one I have asked previously. However, it seems that “the physical aspects of book production can account for as little as 15 percent of the cost of the title.”

Take a look and see what you think.… Read the rest

Blogpress perfection

August 27, 2010 | Comment

Yesterday saw an update to the iPhone and iPad blogging platform Blogpress that makes it leagues ahead of the competition.

In a recent review of blogging on the go I identified the ability to easily add links as key – and now you can. Not only that you can also do things like insert bold text and change the font properties, such as the colour. ll this makes Blogpress so much more usable as typing the HTML by hand was torturous at best.

 


I was already finding that I was doing most of my blogging from Blogpress and less … Read the rest

Geeks in Cardiff

August 22, 2010 | Comment

This site mainly concentrates on technology but the site title does indicate a certain geek type interest in other areas too.

On my sister blog, the word according to Neil Thompson, I have documented a recent trip to the Torchwood and Dr Who hot spots in Cardiff which you can read here. It’s a geeks paradise!

 

… Read the rest

3 mifi with OLED screen

August 21, 2010 | Comment

Received my new 3 mifi dongle yesterday. This one is basically the same as the previous module with a few important differences:

1. It has an OLED screen giving much more information than before, including the amount of data this session.

2. It now has a web interface that allows you to both configure and monitor the device. This save you having to flash the device yourself with the worry that you will brick it.

3. There is now only a single button. You switch it on. It connects. You’re good to go. Much better

4. It’s now a trendy … Read the rest