Matthew Knott

I've been working on version 2 of the iPhone version of my blog. I love writing webapps for a device like the iPhone because your code is so much more direct and streamlined with out all that cross browser malarkey.

I've used the sliding tab interface that I've described in a previous post. It's a bit shaker but I'm going to work on optimizing it somewhat. Also, search, comments, categories, tags and progressive article loading have yet to be implemented.

On a side note I was really happy to have found the blog of Sacha Chua, an IBM web 2.0 specialist and evangelist. I love reading her posts, they're always engaging and insightful, and I'm supprised she hasn't featured on "a list apart yet.

Tags: Blog iPhone Sacha Chua

Well, it's 2 A.M. and I can't seem to shut my brain off as usual. I started thinking about how cool single sign-on is. As with all things that make your life easier, you sometimes miss the blindingly obvious pitfall associated with a signle sign on.

That being if your password is compromised then you expose yourself to identity theft on a grand scale. Systems such as Microsofts passport or Open ID make signing in to different websites easy, but even easier for criminals and general evil do-ers to take advantage of you putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Not only are you susceptible to attacks on sites you use, but also those you don't and you may never be any the wiser.

Do yourself a favour and remember, single sign-on belongs behind a firewall, and has no place in this crazy hi-tech world of identity theft and chicken rape.

My wife really wanted a Wii Fit, but we don't have a Wii, so last night I went out and picked one up (She already had the Wii fit), and this is how a night of fun and exercise began.

I wanted a Wii when they first came out, pre-ordered well in advance, and was disapointed like so many others when there was no stock to fulfil pre-orders. Ever since then I've shunned the console in favour of a more graphically satisfying experience with my Xbox 360.

Anyway, since my 360 melted I've had a gaming hole that I couldn't fill, so when Lisa suggested getting a Wii with Wii Fit, I was all for it.

After setting it up and having a quick go through the array of Wii sports, I was feeling the much discussed arm ache, and thought, like many over weight idiots do, that this could get me fitter. I'm sure it does help, you're more animated than you are with an Xbox (Unless I'm doing a tricky overtake in Forza 2 and need to lean into it).

Anyway, after playing Wii play for a bit, I moved onto Wii Fit, and I think it was at that point I realised that Wii play is to Wii Fit, what canabis is to heroin, It gets you started and you think your in control and before you know it you're in your underwear dripping in sweat and gyratng your hips. That pants clad, sweaty man was me at 7pm last night, struggling to get one over on my wife in hoola-hooping.

I've always been pessimistic about the fitness benefits of the Wii, but the Wii Fit really is good, to be aching all over the next day is a sure sign that something is happening.

I think many people will misconceive the benefits from the Wii Fit as a suitable offset to their diet of Kebabs and Beer, and it is, in the parrallel universe of perfection, but as with all forms of exercise, diet is critical. Go to Weight Watchers, register and start getting healthier.

Tags: Wii Fit Diet Health Exercise Fitness

It's been hard to find time to get much done this week outside of work, what with rugby and spending time with Michael and Lisa, but the ideas and output are still trickling through.

Digita Solutions

Every time I look at the v3 design for Digita Solutions, I come up against the same brick wall, what do we want to offer. I keep bouncing off the web design question, do we? don't we?

It's very frustrating not having the confidence in yourself to commit to an area of the business, my initial fears were over making it pay, but I think if the quality is there then you make it pay through competitive charging for the product, but not selling yourself short.

I really do believe that once we've finished the products we have in development then we'll have the capital to start looking at different services like web design.

This site

I'm planning something revolving around a photo gallery Silverlight application, and also setting this blog software up to post to multiple blogs simultaneously. With dual posting I can post items of consequence to other sites I maintain such as the digita solutions site. Would be great to do it form a single admin suite.

Life

After I was deeply disappointed with the shortages of Wii's when they first came out, a few years on we've finally bought one. Lisa want's a Wii fit, which frustratingly are in as short supply as the Wii's were. Very frustrating that Nintendo seem to want to create demand for the product even greater by not supplying in sufficient quantities, and then we end up with a situation like this, where hoarders buy up a large volume of the item and sell for £120 plus on eBay. Rediculous profiteering.

I've got dentist Friday, argh, no fillings please.

Work

It's been a slow week, but looks like things will really pick up tomorrow, may be a late night on the cards, I stayed on a little tonight, but the flexi will be useful for a long lunch in town next week I'm sure.

Tags: Rugby Work Blog Site Digita Solutions Lisa Webparts Wii Nintendo Business Plans Dentist Slow Moodle

Not really down with the blogging "scene" as it were, I thought it would be interesting to sign up to technorati.

For anyone interested here is my Technorati Profile.

Peace

I'm not really used to having bank holidays off. I've always taken them as days in lieu, after all it usually rains anyway. Working for the local authority now, however, means I no longer have the luxury of a quiet day in work and an extra days holiday.

As bank holiday weather goes, today was pretty attrocious. It was blowing a gale when I went shopping with Michael. The struggle I had to get him into a trolley in the middle of a hurricane only bolstered my respect for single parents (Men and Women alike).

The shopping complete I pretty much had an open day. We took it easy, I cooked food and did some cleaning, nothing special, apart from spending some really nice time with Michael and Lisa.

Work-wise, I managed to amalgamate a couple of tutorials into a multi-language asp.net application. This is good because it sets the stage for the VLE I'm writing (or will be once I work out how to install SQL server on vista!).

From brain surgery to killing someone with your little finger, it's possible to teach yourself anything if you approach it in a structured manner.

My personal experience comes from what I've done in IT and how I've taught myself to do numerous things from 3D Design to PHP Programming. There is a definite and easy structure to follow.

When to teach yourself

Learning technical subjects in an educational institution occurs as part of a curriculum, nothing more, so the skills you are taught, and hopefully taught well, will no doubt be severely depleted when you actually come to use them. The best time to learn any IT skill is when you need it.

The best learning is born out of necessity, it ensures you're 100% focused on what you're about to learn, and will remember it better because you're putting it straight into practice. 

The right resources

When it's time for you to learn something, and you're going to teach yourself, you need to do some initial homework on the subject. The internet is a great resource for training, but it can be difficult to find consistent material. Personally, I love lynda.com, their training is top notch and the basics are free, which is what you're concerned with at the outset.

Alternatively, find a book that gives a beginners approach to your particular subject. You'll need to ensure you have the fundamentals nailed, this usually only takes a few hours to get through though.

Start learning, make it easy

Once you have a foundational understanding of the subject, you need to define what it is you’re trying to do. Once you know what the task is, you need to break it down into real world actions. For illustrative purposes, let’s imagine we’re creating a web application. Firstly, break the project into its high level sections, which may be:

• User Interface
• Admin Interface

 

Now pick the area you want to focus on first and break that up into its major parts, lets choose administration:

• Add User
• Edit User
• Remove User

Again, pick a section and drill down on it, let’s take the add user path. Because this section has tangible flow, with actions and results, we will look at the actions that occur in the flow:

1. User fills out form
2. Submission goes to the database
3. Confirmation page displayed

 

Doing this is half the battle because now you’re in a situation to start programming. For our example, Page 1 requires the creation of a html form. Page 2 requires a database connection, and Page 3 a simple HTML written confirmation of the action.

Because of our analysis, we now have some research to do, how to insert data into the database from a submitted form using x language, how to redirect to another page once that is done.

Most people start their search for answers at Google. Search for what you need rather than how you think it would be written, so if you need to insert into an sql database using asp, search for “Insert into an sql database using asp”. This will yield the results you need. Failing that you could try either Yahoo! or Google answers, although, if you don’t mind paying a small premium, Experts Exchange is always my destination of choice for fast, accurate responses.

Once you’ve complete one task, move through the entire project in this way and take it one step at a time. The old adage of breaking your problems into smaller pieces to make them easier to manage is applicable to most things in life and is just as relevant to programming.

Tags: Tutorial Learn Teach Programming IT Computing

I recently faced a conundrum after upgrading the memory on my old iMac G5.

After the upgrade, I was greeted by silence. A quick check in Leopards preferences indicated that there was no audio hardware present, a check in Apple System Profiler confirmed the same.

My first thought was that I'd knocked a card or cable while inserting the DIMM. A search online indicated that this was a real posibility. I was dreading pulling the plastic monster apart.

Before breaking out the toolkit, I thought I'd take a chance on an old friend, Apple + Alt + P + R.

I'd dabbled with macs on / off for the last 10 years or so, and you pick up a few trick, resetting the pram and the vram, rebuilding the desktop etc. Since my g3 iBook I can't recall ever using those tricks.

With nothing to lose I booted up holding down those four keys and on the second boot, chimes! I was a bit surprised it worked, and puzzled as to why it worked but I'm glad it did.

Tags: Apple Mac No Sound Upgrade Memory Failure Silent Macintosh OSX Leopard

I've had two experiences of fantastic customer service in the last week. A rarity in this day and age, especially with my direct experience working with providers of customer service.

Firstly, we've bought various things for the baby, and there are numerous brands to choose from, but a lot of the practical items we've purchased are from the Tommy Tippee range.

This week, a breast pump we had bought twisted and bubbled in the steraliser. We rang the customer service number and they had a replacement out to us the next day free of charge! We only paid £10 for the pump so it was impressive to see this level of service.

Secondly, the Wednesday after Michael was born, our tumble dryer broke down, which was lucky because when I cracked it open to see what was at fault, it was a total fire hazard. I went straight over to tesco and picked up a new Whirlpool Dryer. It's great, huge capacity, efficient, and slightly smaller than the old one so it fits better behind the door. The only downside I've found with the machine is that I'm constantly cutting myself on the ridge around the door.

I dropped whirlpool an email after a particularly bad cut. I thought no more of it, but 20 minutes later I had a phone call from the local service branch wanting to send someone out to look at the dryer. They're coming out Tuesday so not sure what they'll do, maybe a free upgrade, but probably just file down the plastic slightly.

Tags: Whirlpool Tumble Dryer Machine Service Customer Excellent Breast_Pump Tommy_Tippee Tommy Tippee

I've added a comments system so feel free to add your 2 cents.

I plan on integrating it a bit better with the site over the coming weeks.

Tags: Blog Comments

Today in work I spent some time with one of the guys from our office, a knowledge manager, who wants to upskill and become a developer.

We program our web based apps in ASP, but he has very little experience programming, really only a little html knowledge, but he is a very intelligent person. A few month ago he mentioned to me that he wanted to upskill, and wanted guidance on a learning path.

Learning Path

This is actually very difficult to guide on because if you want to start developing while learning, as he does, then you need elements from 4 key families:

 

• HTML
• JavaScript
• CSS
• VBScript / ASP

 

The order I recommended he focus on these items was HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP. The reasoning being is that once you can design the end product, then you can start to substitute static elements for dynamic elements.

Today, he had a task he wanted to complete, add a "Rate this article" feature to an existing application, and wanted me to help him though it. 

As I thought about how I was going to teach him how to program this feature, which combined all four programming areas, I came to the conclusion that for a first lesson, trying to teach syntax for four different languages was a pointless exercise for the time we had (about half a day), so I decided that I would focus on what I consider the hardest thing to master as a developer, non-linear thinking.

Non-linear Thinking

One of the comments I had during our lesson was that it was quite hard for him to wrap his head around developing in a non-linear fashion. Indeed, you call functions from separate documents, use sub routines, pull data from databases, it's a lot to think about.

As an asp developer, developing a standard asp data-driven solution, if I really think about it, there are probably no more that 10 / 15 different vbscript functions and objects or operators that are actually used. Consequentially vbscript becomes one of the simplest components of the education package, but if you cannot wrap your head around how you're going to achieve your programming objective, then the task becomes huge.

The way we approached the project was not on a computer, but in a meeting room, with a pen and paper. our approach was as follows:

 

1. Define what we want to achieve
   
2. Sketch how we want it to look
3. Define the process the user will go through.
4. Work out how to achieve these steps programatically.

 

For step three, we decided that the user would firstly see greyed out stars, would click the star rating they want to give the article (1-6) which highlights the rating with gold stars. Finally the user would click submit to save the rating, without reloading the page.

For step four we looked at what we'd just detailed in terms of user interaction, and I helped him detail how we would achieve each item. 

Firstly, I drew the containers for each of the 6 stars, and then outlined the syntax that would create that:

<a href="javascript:void(0);" onClick="ratingFunction('1')">

<img src.......>

</a>

Then I explained the need for a javascript function to accept and set the rating, one to submit the form, and a variable to set to show that the rating had been set (Not essential but makes it easier to understand what is happening).

I implemented an AJAX call for him to send the rating to an asp page that inserted into the DB, and we created the table in sql. 

Summary

From a programming perspective, we agreed that this was a fairly ambitious task for the timeframe, and whilst he picked up bits and pieces, the important thing is he started to learn how to think as a developer, and that sometimes, finding the correct syntax is a lot easier if you clearly understand what you are trying to achieve.

 

Tags: Javascript css Plan HTML Demetrie Developer Training Learning ASP VBScript Education Thinking

Well, it was a great day Saturday at the Millennium Stadium, as the Ospreys triumphed over the Saracens, 30 - 3.

The encounter in the EDF Semi finals is the first of two meetings between the two teams. The next being the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup next month on the 6th April. I'll be at home watching it, it's too close to Michael being born to risk going away.

 

 

I'm not worried though. There's a lot of support going up, and they should be in fine form, hopefully recording another good victory.

As a consequence of the victory over Saracens, and Leicester's victory over Wasps, We're set for another EDF Final against the Tigers at Twickenham. This year I'm more confident that we'll win, especially as a repeat of last years first half is nearly inconceivable.

Here's to the boys and hoping that we can add some serious silverware to the trophy cabinet at long last.

 

Tags: Rugby Ospreys Twickenham Leicester Tigers Wasps Heineken Cup EDF Millennium_Stadium

Just watched the apple keynote on the new iPhone sdk. I was very impressed by the apparent ease of use of the Api's and the comprehensive yet straight forward development tools and environments.

It gave me some great ideas for projects anyway!

I'm glad that apple were sensible with the pricing structure. Free meaning free in every respect. This allays some fears I had of spending a fortune on apps for my ipod touch. phew.

 

Tags: iPhone iPod iPod_Touch SDK Apple Projects

1st March in Wales is Saint Davids day. Lets all celebrate!

 

Tags: Saint David Gwyl Dewi Sant March

The first two rounds are over and we've seen even more of the teams in this years six nations, and to be honest, none of the sides have impressed me greatly.

Wales started well beating England, and this weekend beat Scotland 30-15. A lot of the mistakes of the previous game were gone and Wales were entirely dominant, and should've scored another 14 or more points. I can't help but feel a better side would've punished our defense more.

The next game is against Italy, who did well against Ireland, but watching them against England, had no running game, a poor set piece and beyond kicking their penalties, did little to convince me they would be anything other than a blue stepping stone to the Ireland game. Perhaps wales can score with wild abandon and get even more confidence ready for the Croke park show down.

France had an electric first half against Ireland, but seemed to tire in the second as the men in green worked hard to claw back to within winning distance, but couldn't quite pull it off.

I believe Wales will beat Ireland at home, but France will be the test. Le Bleu play such a wild exciting style of rugby it's impossible to predict how they will come at you. So confident with ball in hand it will be difficult and Wales will have be strong defensively, and take what opportunities they can from the boot of James Hook (Or Stephen Jones, hopefully not till late in the second half though).

I think this will be Wales' second grand slam in 4 years, and we all remember the thrill that was, back in a hot March day in 2005 I jumped and screamed in the Pitcher and Piano as we managed to beat Ireland in a thrilling match, I want to do the same thing this year.

Come on Wales!

Tags: Rugby Wales 6Nations