Can't Grok, Won't Grok

Wow, what a day! Really, really think the early wake up time and travel were worth it! This is a wrap-up of my first ever “ Open Space Coding Day ” (OSCD). WARNING: This is a long read! I wanted to get all of my experience out on to this blog for possible discussion! I have tried to separate the basics of the day to my “diary-like” narrative, but that can be a bit of a grey line. Getting Started Having proceeded to run off in an orderly fashion out of London Waterloo in the wrong direction and correcting myself, I ended up at the Conchango offices. For me, this was real nice to see what I would consider to be a “modern developers office”. Put simply, my working environment sucks, and it was nice to see others have much nicer surroundings. I only hope I can one day get myself into such an office. The Conchango team as well as the other guests were very welcoming. Once we had arrived, Alan Dean opened with a brief run down of the Open Spaces Principles/Philosophy , and we got...

I recently got a tweet from Alan Dean asking if I wanted to come along to Open Space Coding Day , I only had one answer in my mind: “hell yeah”. One of my many targets for this year is to ante up my geek game (as I put it). This has many faucets, which I hope to blog about soon, one of them being network, shut up, listen and learn . Now, I am under no illusions, I am totally ready to admit that I am not a great developer, I try hard for sure - but I know I have plenty of room for improvement. I’ve had the privilege of networking with some really smart people on services such as Twitter . Now as a student without a master , I need to make sure I expose myself to as many smart people as possible. I am now sat on the train on my way to London Waterloo. I had to get up quite early to get it, so I’m looking quite a mess :) Still, I can’t help but feel a little nervous, the guest list is containing some really smart people (that I am looking forward to meeting), but I really think...

While thinking and reflecting in my Marmite Moment , I hit on a key point in my mind. I am, and pretty much always have been a student without a master . Like most geeks, I got in to computing at a relatively young age (I think I wrote my first line on code at about age 10). I had relatives and friends that sparked my curiosity in computing, messing around with installs, playing games and then coding. Video games fascinated me, but the thing that I really loved is the concept of this machine can do anything you tell it to . This is why I got in to applications development rather than games programming (which is a completely different world – often not realised by non-programmers). I didn’t want to create realities, I wanted to solve problems. So, I was always the computer geek. I was the nerd in class, I was the nerd in the family, I was the nerd in the peer group. Hi, my name is Rob and I am a nerd. The problem (?) is that this has always seemed to be the case, I have only w...

In case you haven’t heard – Microsoft Tag has been released as a public Beta. What is Microsoft Tag? Well, in a nutshell, is basically a barcode generation application. I know what you are thinking - “Well I get barcodes on my baked beans? BORING!” but wait. What is different about Microsoft Tag is that it uses a system designed to store much larger amounts of information. This means that you can actually make the “barcode” much more useful. You can insert full URLs & create vCards . This doesn’t sound like much, but read the first again.. full URLs . Full URLs? Big Whoop, Wanna Fight About It? Easy tiger! Now think about what URLs you use every day that could become scanned while on the move and be useful.. Event listings for a gig. Timetables/schedules for trains/planes and automobiles. Contact information for people/businesses. Product offers etc. Now, apply some geek knowledge.. What else could we do? Hook in to services like Amazon 1-click ...

OK, first off, just in case my overseas friends are not aware of what Marmite is - check out this link . So, why is New Years my Marmite? Well, let's get the negative out of the way. I hate the way everyone goes mental and gets absolutely hammered to celebrate the new year, then wake up the next day complaining about how they did nothing in the last year, how it is all going to change this year, and nothing does. Rinse and repeat. You get the idea right? I see it all the time, every time. It annoys me :) But I am not just being a grouch, I genuinely wish it was different. I don't like seeing people being miserable about their lives. We all only get one (even though I am hellbent on living forever) - we should try and make it count. "Why do I love it, especially if your head is swimming with so much negativity then, nerd?" I hear you ask! I love it because it is the one time of year I really put myself through the wash. I look back over the year and see wher...