Bland and boring user experience

I am currently reading The Starbucks Experience, a book explaining the core Starbucks practices for creating an extraordinary customer experience. In chapter 1 the author explains how Starbucks partners (employees) go the extra mile to create an amazing experience for their customers.
It occurs to me that we should all strive to do this with our software products. So many software and web experiences are bland and boring. By making the extra effort to create extraordinary experiences for our users we can help take our software to a new level.
My work in the past with fantastic interaction designers such as Tricky and Tim Brooke helps me to realise that the potential is huge to go beyond the norm.

The meme continues...

Hugo "UberTablet" has passed the meme on to me.
So here are 5 things you might not know about me:

1. I am a Pisces

2. I love motorbikes and have owned, ridden into the ground and then sold 9 motorbikes ranging from 125cc to 1000cc

3. I have not been clean shaven since the age of 22. I can't be bothered with all that every morning, think of the time I have saved in my life to do something more interesting :)

4. I have not been employed full time (had a real job) since 1992. I have owned my own companies and employed other people. I currently provide consulting on a freelance basis.

5. I have been to Burning Man. It is a blast, full of freaks and friends (some of them both).

I pass the meme on to the other 2 RDs in Australia
Adam Cogan
Greg Low

previous editor on TechTalkBlogs
Mitch Denny

and ViaVirtualEarth friends
Tatham Oddie
John O'Brien

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2007, another year, another set of possiblities.

The start of a new year is a good time to set your sites on new targets and goals.

What goals do you have for 2007?

Create your own heaven in 2007 :)

Dr. Neil's Notes 35

Welcome to Show 35

News:
Relaxing between Christmas and New Years celebrations
Google broke my blog :(
SportSPeak.NET a new project.

Plans for the new year
Goals - write out a list


Happy coding

This podcast was recorded with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 34

Welcome to Show 34


News!
A busy week leading up to Christmas.

Sunday Breakfast with Nick Randolph - MVP

Christmas Gadget; Zune

TechTalk Blogs

New mashups on ViaVirtualEarth
SportsDo

MEDC talks



Happy coding and a Merry Christmas!

This podcast was recorded with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 33

Welcome to Show 33

Staring Hugo Ortega

News!
Samsung power bank
Hugo's T4210 has gone he is now on the Q1 UMPC as his primary machine
TechTalk blogs guest editor with Dr. Greg and Adam Cogan
TechNet user groups on VE

Topic of the show - Passion....

Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results
Show us your passion

Happy Coding!

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

No more conferences this year

As the year draws to a close I am feeling thankful I am not jetting around the world for a few weeks and get time to enjoy slowing down towards the holiday season.
It is a time for reflection, a time for relaxation and a time to get ready for the wonders that 2007 will bring.
In my calendar already are:

Global MVP Summit in Seattle
MEDC Las Vegas
Mix 07 Las Vegas
Tech Ed 2007 Orlando
PDC Los Angeles

Dr. Neil's Notes 32

Welcome to Show 32

Staring Hugo Ortega

News!
Castblaster Mike talking to us about UMPC aware Castblaster :)
Hugo still running Windows XP :(
Sun is very shiny in Sydney :)

Topic of the show - Gadgets....

Live.com
Where was Dr. Neil?

Sidebar

SideShow

Dr. Neil's Route Finder Gadget

Developing gadgets
Dev.Live.com

Happy Coding!

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 31

Welcome to Show 31

Staring Hugo Ortega

Welcome to another show

News!
Organizer pack for Samsung Q1
IE7 - Good for screen space - bad for memory

Applications on the UMPC

What do we like?
Outlook! - Craig Pringle on Getting More from a small screen
OneNote
Games - Spider Solitaire
Castblaster
E-Reader pro

What we would like to see

More lifestyle apps
Education based appliactions that use touch


Happy Coding!

Any other topics you would like us to discuss?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 30

Welcome to Show 30

Staring Hugo Ortega


What is cool about Windows Vista?

Start menu search
Programs grouped in Start menu
Sync Center - Dr. Neil's webcast next week
Better TIP
Flicks
Splash dots when pen down

Vista on UMPC

Happy Coding!

Any other topics you would like us to discuss?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Forthcoming Webcasts

This one looks good - I expect the presenter is rather good ;)

MSDN Webcast: Windows Vista Sync Center for Windows Mobile Developers – Mon, 11/27, 1:00 PM PT
Join Dr. Neil Roodyn as he introduces you to the Windows Vista Sync Center, a centralized location designed to provide a consistent user experience for all synchronization activities. Dr. Neil will illustrate how applications designed for Windows Mobile that either retrieve data from the desktop computer or send data to a desktop computer utilize Sync Center by providing a Sync Center handler.

This webcast should be interesting also, I am not doing this one (at least no one has told me I am!). I presented a session on SideShow at DevConnections. It is an awesome new technology so try to get to this one also.

MSDN Webcast: Creating Gadgets for Windows SideShow in Windows Vista – Tues, 11/28, 10:00 AM PT
Learn about Windows SideShow, a new technology that provides users of the Windows Vista operating system with quick access to data — even when their computers are turned off. In this webcast, we provide you with an overview of the Windows SideShow technology and show you how to create a gadget for Windows SideShow.

Remember these are USA pacific times

Update:The SideShow webcast is being delivered by Dan Polivy. I am not sure what Dan's official title is but having worked with him (on and off) over the last 18 months I would call him one of the senior architects behind the SideShow technology. Apart from being a great guy he knows more about SideShow than nearly anyone else. Looking forward to catching this webcast myself.

Wanted (preferably alive)...

Sydney based internship offered in a young company with lots of opportunities - relaxed environment with formal dress actively discouraged and pool table included. Developing on the bleeding edge of the growing Windows Live Services platform, ASP.NET, AJAX and other technologies that start with “A”. Blah blah blah – you know the rest. Send your resume to internship@viawindowslive.com.

I don't care for OneCare

I have been having issues with Vista running on the Toshiba M400. I installed the RTM bits last week. The Windows Mobile Device Center stopped working, I couldn't VPN in to my clients machines, various other features were misbehaving.
This morning I discovered (thanks to Nick Randolph) that all my issues are actually issues with the OneCare beta. 10 minutes later the OneCare beta was removed from the machine and everything is humming along nicely.
If you are working on the OneCare team (or know someone who is) "come on, sort it out!".

Sidebar Route Finder Gadget

Now that Vista has RTM'd I thought I should get some of my demos cleaned up and out into the world.

I did a demo of this Gadget at Dev Connections in Las Vegas 10 days ago.
Dr. Neil's Route Finder uses Virtual Earth to find a route using the VE API's.
The Gadget lets you display the route in flyout windows on the desktop or on a SideShow display if you have one available.

Update: changed SideBar to Sidebar to keep Microsoft marketing and Mr. Moth happy ;)

Woops! The link on the page went to the SideShow test gadget - fixed now.

Dr. Neil's Notes 29

Welcome to Show 29

More chat with Frank Arrigo
We talk about the Regional Director program

Happy coding!

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 28

Welcome to Show 28

Frank Arrigo intros himself
We talk about
The history of Frank....
IBM - Microsoft - MSN - Windows Live

Happy coding!

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

MSDN Webcast: Overview of Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) Development for Windows Vista

A few weeks back Todd Landstad was a guest on my podcast. Tomorrow you can hear more from Todd on how to build great UMPC applications on Windows Vista.
I can recommend attending this if you are in a timezone where the time is acceptable - hint hint...

No need to register just head over here

Here is the offical blurb:

An ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) is a fully functional computer that is small, mobile, and runs a complete version of a Windows operating system (currently Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 and soon Windows Vista). UMPCs present many new and exciting opportunities for application development. Although your existing knowledge and skills transfer directly to the UMPC, there are some unique circumstances to consider when you are developing applications for these devices. Join us to find out what is involved in developing for the UMPC, and learn how to create outstanding applications for these new devices.

Presenter: Todd Landstad, Product Specialist, Microsoft Corporation

DevConnections Presentations

The three presentations for which I was responsible last week in Las Vegas can now be found here:
Building Power and Network Aware Applications on Windows Vista
Inside Windows SideShow
Architecting Gadgets for Offline Use

The SideShow SideBar gadget is available here.

The Power and Network demo code should be posted on MSDN in the coming weeks, I’ll keep you posted.

The other Gadget demo code needs some cleaning and then I will post it up and update this post.

Dr. Neil's Notes 27

Welcome to Show 27

Staring "Markus Egger"

We talk about
Vista
Tablet PCs
Windows Presentation Foundation
Live Services
Dev Connections
Code Magazine

Happy Coding!

Any other topics you would like us to discuss?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Regional Director - Microsoft Australia

After a few weeks conversations, meeting some folks in Redmond and some paper work being passed back and forth I can now gladly announce that I am to be joining Dr. Greg Low and Adam Cogan as a Regional Director for Microsoft Australia.
Frank Arrigo has of course beaten me to blog this.

I have some ideas about what this new role will bring, but will be sure to keep you updated over the coming months as to what it means to be an RD.

Overall I am super happy, it means a great deal to have this kind of recognition of my work in the Microsoft developer space.

Update: A number of people have been asking if this means I am no longer an MVP or if I am now 'employed' by Microsoft. The answer is no. I am still a Windows Live Developer MVP and I am not what 'softies call an FTE (full time employee) or a Blue Badge. You can find out more about the Regional Director program here.

Dr. Neil's Notes 26

Welcome to Show 26

Staring "UberTablet"

News
- Hugo plays with ASUS devices
- Dr. Neil off around the world again - DevConnections

Digitizers - touch, active, external

What does it mean to the user?

What does it mean to the developer?

How should applications behave?

Happy Coding!

Any other topics you would like us to discuss?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 25

Welcome to Show 25

Welcome back "UberTablet"

News
Where UMPC has gone this week:
Vic Police
Country Fire Service

Dr. Neil
Working on Windows Mobile app development

The Main show-
UMPC and Windows Mobile

Any other topics you would like us to discuss?

Happy Coding!



This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 24

Welcome to Show 24

Flying solo today

News:
RC2 up and running on my M400

Cool new mashups on ViaVirtualEarth

Locale - random day out
The River Thames Guide
Update to MSNBC events


Doing some real work :)

Day in the life of....

Zero defect mindest
At what level should the avoidance of technical bugs should be considered in the architecture?

Happy Coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 23

Welcome to Show 23

Welcome back to Hugo "UberTablet" Ortega

2 weeks as MVP for Hugo - does it hurt yet?

UMPC retail or enterprise?

Any topics you would like us to discuss?


This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Dr. Neil's Notes 22

Welcome to Show 22

Welcome back to Hugo "UberTablet" Ortega

The HUGE UMPC video from Hugo

Update on Rohan with cerebral palsy

"Where Was Dr. Neil" live.com gadget
Dr. Neil's Arcasts with Ron Jacobs
Finished a whitepaper on Sync Center in Windows Vista

Leon's favourite Tablet tools
HP + snipping tool

ASUS R2H not shipping with snipping tool?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Happy Coding

ARCast - Zero Defect Software

Another ARCast with Ron Jacobs, this time discussing zero defect software development.

Have we reached the point of giving up on the discipline of finely crafted software? Have we come to expect that every program will crash no matter what we do? I certainly hope not. We can and should do better according to my guest today Dr. Neil Roodyn. We have to have a zero-defect mindset so repeat after me... I will write zero defect software... I will write zero defect software...

Recorded at TechEd Australia, 2006

ARCast - Just Enough Architecture

A couple of months ago on one of my trips to Redmond I met up with Ron Jacobs and recorded this ARCast.
As is typical with most things from Redmond it has taken time to ship but at last you can listen in to our conversation.

How much architecture is enough? I have been on both ends of this. I have seen projects where the architecture was endless filling 3 ring binders with documents that would probably never be read by anybody and I have also been on projects where each developer acted as their own architect and the result was a hodge-podge of functionality cobbled together in a way that was totally irrational. On this episode of ARCast – Dr. Neil Roodyn author of eXtreme .NET shares his perspective on getting the balance just right.

Dr. Neil's Notes 21

Welcome to Show 21

Welcome back special guest Hugo "UberTablet" Ortega

Hugo is a Tablet PC MVP

Dr. Neil is now a Windows Live Developer MVP

Touchscreen tablet for a 3 year old with cerebral palsy

Redmond - what has Dr. Neil been doing there?

Where is my UMPC pod blaster?

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC with Castblaster

Happy Coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 20

Welcome to Show 20

Special guest Hugo "UberTablet" Ortega talks about
the Samsung deal
his Fujitsu
the Vega

Other News

Update to Roodyn.com
New mashups on ViaVirtualEarth.com


This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC

Happy Coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 19

Welcome to Show 19

Todd and Ink Analysis SDK
Download it here


News:

Handango Summit last weekend - demo of UMPC

In Redmond the rest of this week talking to product teams

New edition of Dynamics of Software Development

RC1 on M400 - looking really good

New version of Virtual Earth

This podcast was recorded on a Samsung Ultra Mobile PC

Happy Coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 18

Welcome to Show 18

G'Day
Back in Sydney, Australia

Is it really 3 weeks since I cast to your pods?

TechEd Australia - awesome
Hugo blogs the whole thing from a Tablet perspective :)


Playing around with ASP.NET 2.0
http://www.Roodyn.com/RoodNet2

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/05/02/444850.aspx

RC1 up and running on my M400

Lots of cool UMPC applications on Handango

Judging the UMPC contest

Happy coding

Demoware from Microsoft

I have previously posted here on my lack of approval for Apple's iLife demoware. The iLife product looks great in demos and then produces content that can't be viewed on any other platform than OSX.
Well this time it is Microsoft's turn to take the stick. I have been playing around with updating my website. I want to do it using ASP.NET and use the standard 'out of the box' controls. You can see what I have produced so far here http://www.roodyn.com/roodnet2.
This looks great using IE 6 on Windows XP. In FireFox or Safari it doesnt work quiet so well. It looks like the menu control doesn't scale correctly in FF and totally doesnt work in Safari. The contents don't scale in either FF or Safari. Image alignment doesn't work in FF.
I am only using the standard controls and I am building a v. simple site. I am impressed by the tiny amount of code I have to write to create this site. I am very dissapointed it doesn't just work on all browsers. I could understand there might be issues if I was doing something 'clever' but a basic site like this should just work.
If Microsoft carries on building tools like this then they don't deserve the loyalty of web developers.

Customer Service

It looks like my friend in the UK, Tricky, is suffering from the type of customer service that gives the computer industry a bad name. His M200 Tablet had a fault in the screen and the company he bought it from (PC World) has now had the device for longer than he has!

I was talking to Hugo Ortega about customer service yesterday. Hugo works for Tegatech Australia and one of the things they pride themselves on is a high level of customer service.
It is amazing how much difference it can make to have a faulty product replaced on the same day.

The big companies (like PC World in the UK) don't seem to understand this. They behave as if they are the only company that could ever service your needs. The small niche specialist players like Tegatech are the ones that get the job done and have a passion for their business and the technology they are selling.

Something I have always tried to do is support local small business where the people that work there really care.
It would be good if there was a resource online where we could comment on hardware suppliers. A wiki might suit but there would need to be some policing to prevent the vendors from grading themselves ;)

Dr. Neil's Notes 17

Welcome to Show 17

Greetings from Seattle, WA

Flew out here 2 weeks ago and I have been spending time with friends, reviewing some new technologies and getting demos ready for TechEd Australia.

Presentation by Tandy Trower on Robotics Studio

Jim and Michele McCarthy have a new edition of Dynamics of Software Development coming soon

New content on ViaVirtualEarth - articles and forums changed

Podcast with Ron Jacobs - who is visiting Sydney for TechEd

Monte Christo - abandoned mining town

Happy coding

dev.minigolf.live.com

On Monday evening I caught up with my friend Ken Levy who works with the dev.live.com team. Ken suggested a round of mini-golf and dinner at the Newcastle golf club.
The views from the golf course down over the Puget Sound area are fantastic.
We had dinner outside overlooking the golf course, and Ken commented that if this was a date he would be doing pretty well :) Unfortuntely he was dining with me.
He is right though it would be a great place to take a date.
The conversation was, as ever, very geek oriented. We talked a lot about the community aspect of software development and how the strength of a development platform is often in the support from the users to other users.

Everything in moderation, including success

During my morning exercise I had a thought about the phrase “everything in moderation” and how it applies to the achievements we make in life. I believe that in order to really excel in what we do, we need to have focus, determination and discipline.
If you take the “everything in moderation” approach to life you will be more likely to have a normal balanced life. Guess what? Normal people don’t stand out from the crowd. If you want to stand out from the crowd, fulfill your potential and really succeed in some area then you need to get extreme in that area of your life.

Dr. Neil's Notes 16

Welcome to Show 16
Greetings from the UK

Since we spoke I have been to Wales, Weymouth, Reading and around London

Working with Tricky on some new projects.
Remerged - a place for designers to meet and learn and show off.

Last Wednesday I presented a session at the London .NET User Group on eXtreme .NET
So much of what we do is about attitude.

AWS, excellent work on the RNLI project

Australia has better maps and aerial imagery on Virtual Earth

Happy coding

London .NET User Group

Last night I gave a presentation on eXtreme .NET at the London .NET User Group.
This PDF contains the core content from the presentation.

Dr. Neil's Notes 15

Welcome to Show 15

Greetings from the UK

Singapore
Landing in London - jet lag
Sun shine is here - summer time in the UK

PodShow - is that it?
Issues with finding features

World cup is over

TechEd in Australia
3 sessions - Virtual Earth, Vista features for the mobile PC, Building an app for SP, PPC and UMPC

ViaVirtualEarth
new pushpin hacks
forum is changing

Happy coding

Australian and looking towards the USA

Over the last few years I have been working with CxC. In that time CxC has established itself in the USA and I have helped them expand and start working with new clients.

If you live in Australia and are interested in working in the USA for a high profile company then you should try to get along to one of the next one hour sponsorship seminars running in Sydney on July 24, 25, 26 and 27th. You can register here www.cxcusa.com

If you have a particular interest in working on a project with Microsoft then please get in touch with me to discuss possible opportunities.

Dr. Neil's Notes 14

Welcome to Show 14

G'Day
Back in Sydney, Australia

LeBron James cycles around the map

re:merged article on celebfavorites design process
http://www.celebfavorites.com/

Welcome back to Casey's World wind plugin

WPF and Vista work - wow when will this stuff work?

Happy coding

MS Spaces won't let me write PORN

This morning I tried to write a post about a news story that involves porn filters
http://hitechhobo.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!10912CE24D267E33!331.entry
The word porn is not allowed in a Spaces blog entry. Maybe they shouldn't allow words like OSX or Skype either.

:(

Dr. Neil's Notes 13

Welcome to Show 13

Back in Seattle

TechEd in Boston last week
UMPCs were there
2 presentations:
1 application on Smartphone and Pocket PC
Sharing assets between .NET Compact Framework and full .NET Framework

Next few weeks building samples and writing articles
Anything you would like to see?

Happy coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 12

Welcome to Show 12

G'Day
Still in Sydney, Australia
MEDC Melbourne - felt like a fantastic event
Vista Touch down
Virtual Earth
new articles, new samples on ViaVirtualEarth.com

Dev.live.com getting launched
http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/
Interactive SDK, new forum space

Happy coding

Dr. Neil's Notes 11

Welcome to Show 11

G'Day
Back in Sydney, Australia
MEDC Las Vegas - great event fantastic community led content over 50% sessions
MEDC Melbourne next week
New Keyboard with display the Logitech G15 - awesome


Videocast? interested?

Vista touchdown - learn to use the new features in Vista in your application

TechEd USA - Sharing assets between .NET CF and .NET full and Building apps that run on SP and PPC

What do you want on this show?

Happy coding

Conference Season is here

I have just landed in Las Vegas for MEDC. The pre-conference sessions start tomorrow morning. There are crew running around getting the rooms ready, laying cables, setting up the wireless network and moving furniture around. The speakers are all in hiding no doubt putting the finishing touches to their powerpoint slides.

I am sitting in the speaker room getting some things finished and checking through my mail, even during the weekends it seems to pile up.







Meanwhile downunder my good friend Uber Tablet Geek Hugo Ortega is getting set up for CeBit Australia in Sydney.
Not only is Hugo going to be at CeBit (I expect showing off Tablet PCs) but he is the official CeBit Australia blogger!
Way to go Hugo.

Dr. Neil's Notes 10

Welcome to Show 10

CelebFavourites.com

FindItOnTheFly.com
More here

MEDC in Las Vegas next week
Sync Center features in Vista

MEDC in Melbourne on May 25th
Presentation and UX

Whare have I been

Happy coding

MEDC Australia - Mike Hall beat me

That Mike Hall is so quick off the draw. He beat me to be the first to announce the speakers at MEDC Australia on May 25th.
My last PodCast covered off the content in the Windows Mobile track, you can find out more from the event website.
The speak line up is awesome, it includes 2 (count them) .NET doctors and a professor of embedded systems - what more could you want?

• Dr Neil Roodyn
  
• Dr Peter Stanski
  
• Dave Glover
  
• Doug Boiling
  
• Nick Randolf
  
• Mike Hall
  
• Sean Liming
  
• David Jones (RMIT)

Mike Hall thinks it will be a hoot, whatever that means!

Dinner Conversations

Last night I went over to my friends Lisa and Terry for dinner. The food was amazing, Lisa goes to a special effort when I go over for food, I never complain :)
We talked about SciFi, politics, environment and a heap of other interesting topics.
One of the topics we discussed was DNA and genetics, as an avid reader I ussually suggest some books that have not been read by everyone around the table.
My recommended reading for last night was:

Dr. Neil's Notes 9

Show 9

Greetings
Still in the USA
Last week in Silicon Valley
The buzz is coming back

Web 2.0 what does it mean - Tricky is getting his head around it
http://trickybusiness.blogspot.com/

Coming up MEDC USA and MEDC Australia
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/msdn/training/medc2006.aspx
www.medc2006.com

Happy coding!

Dr. Neil's Notes 8 - special edition

Show 8

Greetings from Seattle, Washington
A special edition with Jim & Michele McCarthy - raw and unedited
http://mccarthy-tech.com/

ViaVirtualEarth

eXtreme .NET

Jim's voice navigation system - was it Madge?

Happy coding!

Dr. Neil's Notes 7

Show 7

Greetings from Seattle, Washington
Weekend in New York
Sync Center Web Cast
UMPC
CTIA Mobile.com
ViaVirtualEarth team members in Seattle
Virtual Earth Commercial use
Live.com
MEDC Melbourne Australia, May 25th
Happy coding!

Playing with a UMPC

This weekend I have been playing with a UMPC ;)
It is a pre-production unit that was lent to me for the weekend. It takes a bit of getting accustomed to a touch screen. I am used to the screen only reacting to my stylus. After an hour with the UMPC I went back to my Sahara slate and found myself trying to use my finger to interact with the machine. Touch is a very intuitive way to interact with a user interface.
I feel there a number of exciting opportunities for the UMPC. I would like one as a coffee table device at home. I can see it would be useful as quick note taking device and have been using it for IM. If the battery lasted a bit longer (getting just over 2 hours on this one) I would like it as a portable media player. The sync story needs to be better, if all my email and contacts could easily (without me having to do anything) sync between my desktop and my UMPC then I would get one as a diary / organiser.

I would recommend getting one with 512MB of RAM, or more. I see some of the offerings out there are shipping entry level units with 256MB and 30GB hard drives. WTF!
I can’t see the point, the device will be unusable for much more than web browsing. I expect many sold with this configuration will lead to disappointment.
The minimum spec should be 512MB RAM and 40GB hard drive. My iPOD has a 60GB drive and is nearly full, and that is just music, podcasts and photos.
I will probably get one this year to play with. I would like to cut some code for the device. I have a couple of ideas rattling around in my head.

What no PodCast?

Sorry I am at the end of the world here in Seattle, where things go a little slower. I am so used to living in the future in Sydney!
It has been a really busy week, members of the ViaVirtualEarth team have been in Seattle. It has been a week packed out with meetings. A true Aussie would say "I'm flat out like a lizard drinkin' "
Tricky has been hanging out with me and getting his head around some cool new technology.
The Poly9 boys have also been in town. It has been a week of mashup madness!

Webcast: Centralizing Data Synchronization - 3/30, 11am PT

I am doing a Web Cast on the Vista Sync Center tomorrow.

Centralizing Data Synchronization
The new Sync Center in Windows Vista will become the hub for all data synchronization between the PC and applications, services, devices and other computers. Join Dr. Neil Roodyn as he takes a closer look at the development framework as well as the end user experience that Sync Center helps create.


Attendee link: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/lmevents/join?id=msft033006ts&role=attend&pw=att2459

Dr. Neil's Notes 6

Show 6
Greetings from the UK
Mix 06

Vista Touchdown Airlift
Ian G. http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/
3 things Ian likes about Vista
1: UAC
2: .NET & Winfx ships by default
3: The little things that all add up ;)
Happy coding!

Dr. Neil's Notes 5

Show 5

Greetings from London
Sunday Sydney - breakfast by the beach
Singapore - Monday meetings
Tuesday night London
Richard "Tricky" Bassett from TrickyBusiness
http://www.trickybusiness.co.uk

Ways to get creative with software development
Tricky will post more here:
http://trickybusiness.blogspot.com

Happy coding!

A Tricky Blog

Over the last 10 years Tricky has become both a great friend and we have worked on some cool projects together, such as ViaVirtualEarth.com. Tricky has started blogging on things that interest him, such as design and branding. Welcome to the wonderful world of blogs!

Dr. Neil's Notes 4

Show 4

Welcome to Dr. Neil's Notes
Another sunny sunday breakfast - with Wayne Smith from the Microsoft Expression group http://www.wayne-smith.org/ http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/default.mspx

SWMUG http://www.swmug.org/
Talk'n Tablet Downunder
http://ubertablet.blogspot.com/2006/03/talkn-tablet-downunder-show-3.html

Project schedules - Parkinson's Law "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"
Schedule delivery on Friday not Monday!

Tuesday was my Birthday!! I got iLife 06 http://www.apple.com/ilife/

ViaVirtualEarth news
- new competition http://www.viavirtualearth.com/vve/Blog/1/108.ashx
- Driving Directions http://www.viavirtualearth.com/vve/Blog/1/110.ashx

Windows Live Preview at NineMSN office in Sydney
If you want an invite to Windows Live Messenger let me know

Happy Coding
Background music by Alex
http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=dfad1507256f9a67e967eacd17ee9991

Tablet Guys Hijack Windows Mobile User Group

Tonight was the Sydney Windows Mobile User Group, I was going to give a presentation on ActiveSync development but for various reasons that got side tracked and then canned. It turned out that Craig Pringle was in Sydney from New Zealand and Uber Tablet Geek Hugo Ortega was also at the meeting.
So all the talk was about Tablet PCs, apps such as Active Words, speculation about Origami and Vista on Tablets. Oh well people seemed to have a good time, maybe that was because we were in the XBox room :)

Another Sunny Sunday Breakfast

This morning I drove into the CBD to meet Wayne Smith who is in town from the UK. Wayne works in the Expression group at Microsoft and was in Sydney for WebDU.
It didn't take much to persuade him to get a ferry across the harbour to Manly and then to my favourite breakfast place.
We chatted about many things; news in England, Tablet PCs, Windows Vista and of course the new Expression tools.
It was a gorgious morning and a perfect way to start a Sunday.

Dr. Neil's Notes 3

Show number 3 is up.

Shownotes
Welcome to Dr. Neil's Notes
Breakfast by the beach - Cogans, Billy Hollis, Luke Burton, UberTablet Geek Family Ortagas
Doing the night shift - a week of getting up in the middle of the night for LiveMeetings
Vista LiveMeeting for Sync Center
MEDC http://www.medc2006.com/
Virtual Earth Madness - want to win an XBox 360? http://viavirtualearth.com/vve/Blog/1/105.ashx
AusDotNet -
Origami discussion
http://www.origamiproject.com/
Estimating time for developer jobs
Break it down - break it down
New version of Windows Live Messenger Beta
what happened to seeing contacts by status?
Happy Coding
Background music by Alex
http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=dfad1507256f9a67e967eacd17ee9991

Dr. Neil's Notes 2

Show number 2 is up.

Shownotes
Greetings
Weekend in Coffs Harbour making new friends.

Patterns and Practices Summit in Sydney
http://www.pnpsummit.com/apac2006.aspx
Lots of content on Agile ;)

Patterns for Introducing Change

Win32 development left for dead?

Scoble nudges us towards Origami Project, what could it be ?
http://www.origamiproject.com/

Until the next time, Happy Coding

Dr. Neil's Notes

Dr. Neil's Notes is the first in what I hope will become a regular podcast. Containing my thoughts and comments for software developers.
Show Notes:
Grettings to Dr. Neil's Notes
Why am I doing this?
Alex Brooke http://japanese.libsyn.com/
UberTablet - http://ubertablet.blogspot.com
Topics from the AusDotNet mailing list
http://www.stanski.com/services.aspx#dotnetlist
Zero Defect Mindset
Chairs - Aeron - Herman Miller

Happy Coding

SWMUG

Last night I went to the Sydney Windows Mobile User Group. A great bunch of gadget geeks. UberTabletGeek, Hugo presented on Tablet PCs, he is very funny and you should read his blog post and his demo video is great!

Update: I promised I would post which VNC viewer I was using on my Pcoket PC - I use the VNCViewer from http://dotnetvnc.sourceforge.net/

Update 2: Leon's email arrived!

Another Tablet Fan Downunder

Hugo Ortega has been busy preaching the benefits of Tablet PC's ever since I introduced him to the wonderful technology last year.
He has now started blogging at UberTablet.
Great work Hugo, and welcome to the blogosphere.

New Wheels for new technology

'tis the season to recieve new technology! One of my recent aquisitions has been a desktop PC to replace the 3 year old box that has been hidden under my desk. The new box is heavier and bigger than the previous one and I have had enough of messing around under my desk.
The plan a set of wheels for the new PC, essentially a skateboard for my PC. The parts; 1 shelf, 4 casters, 2 door handles a bunch of screws. The tools; a drill, a screwdriver, some elbow grease.
The results:

Tablet Guy has left the building

Tablet PC Guy decided to leave yesterday. He now has his own blog where you can follow his adventures.
Good luck Tablet PC Guy.

The Desktop Goes Online with Goowy

If you want to waste some time and explore a possible future for the desktop check out Goowy.com
This is very cool. I love the streaming podcast feature, really neat.
I hope they produce some kind of API so 3rd party developers can start to produce content for Goowy.

Tablet Guy Goes Exploring

He has only been in Sydney for a day but already Tablet Guy has been getting out and about. He is obviously an adventurous kind of fellow.
Today he managed to hitch a ride on boat and take a trip across Sydney harbor.

Tablet Guy joins the party

This morning a little foam chap knocked on my door asking if he could stay. All he had was the stylus he was holding in his hands. As I already have a few foam tenants next to my desk, I figured he could join them. He looked pretty happy to me.

I carried on with my work.

Imagine my surprise when I turned around and saw that he had started brawling with the other characters. Obviously the pen is mightier than I realised!

Tablet Guy is now grinning ear-to-ear as he has his own special place on the window sill.

Mobile PC development samples

Ever since MSDN released the Power Management and Network Location Awareness articles I wrote I have been recieving emails asking where the sample code can be found.
Well here are the links to the sample code applications
Network Location Awareness Sample
Power Management Sample

So now you have no excuse not to build applications that help extend battery life and also seemlessly work with multiple network connections.
Happy coding....

BEROCCA wakes you up in the morning - good for me - not so good for my PC

Waking up a little bleary eyed this morning I went to the kitchen and dropped a tablet of Berocca in a large glass of water and then went to sit down in front of my computer to check email.
Fizzing away I starting checking my email...
In a less than full awake state I reached out for a Tablet stylus and knocked my glass of Berroca over. Spilling all over the desk and down the back onto the power sockets, Fizzzzzzzzzzz,
Arrggghhhhh!!!!!
Everything went dark.
PANIC!
I was awake now! I moved fast to unplug everything, grabbed some cloths and started mopping up.
Lucky for me the power for the entire home was tripped off and nothing seems to have been damaged.
So the food and drink rule is now back in full force, no food or drink near the computer!

KinetiSketch

In the endless quest of avoiding doing any real work I came accross this really cool project called K-Sketch. The aim is to simplify creation of animations using Tablet PC technology. Check out the video. I would love to have a play with this.

TDD: Microsoft is close but no cylindrical smoking thing!

MSDN has a page entitled Guidelines for Test-Driven Development
It has steps for getting going with TDD that state:

1. Define the requirements of your application.
2. Familiarize yourself with the feature areas of your application, and decide on a single feature, or the requirements of a feature, to work on.
3. Make a list of tests that will verify the requirements. A complete list of tests for a particular feature area describes the requirements of that feature area unambiguously and completely.
4. File work items for feature requirements and for the tests that need to be written.
5. In Visual Studio, create a project of the type you want. Visual Studio supplies the initial production code in the form of files such as Class1.cs, Program.cs, and Form1.cs, depending on the project type.
6. Define the interfaces and classes for your feature or requirement. You can add a minimum of code, just enough to compile. Consider using the Class Designer to follow this step. For more information, see Designing Classes and Types.

Note
The traditional TDD process does not contain this step. Instead, it advises that you create tests first. This step is included here so that, while creating tests, you can take advantage of two features in Visual Studio 2005 Team System: the GUI design capabilities of the Class Designer, and the automatic test-generation capabilities of Team Edition for Testers.

7. Generate tests from your interfaces and classes. For more information, see How to: Generate a Unit Test.
8. Compare the tests that have been generated with the list of tests you prepared in step 3. Create any tests that are missing from the list you wrote in step 3. For more information, see How to: Author a Unit Test.
it goes on...

While they do bother to make the note about traditional TDD, they are missing out on several major benefits of TDD:
• TDD is design as you go.
• When you use TDD the interfaces and classes you create emerge as an outcome of writing the tests. This helps to keep the code as simple as possible.
• TDD is about writing one test at a time to DRIVE the DEVELOPMENT of the code. This way the developer does not attempt to predict how the code (interfaces+classes) will look when finished, rather code that passes the tests will be written and refactored as needed.

Dave Glover: How to Globalise/Internationalise Dates and Numbers using the Compact Framework

I was chatting to Dave Glover from the Australian Microsoft team on MSN IM last night. He built this cool conversion app for the Smartphone. Some of the people who were downloading it in France were having some issues. I thought the issue was a globalisation issue and Dave figured out the rest: How to Globalise/Internationalise Dates and Numbers using the Compact Framework

Becoming Agile: How TDD improves development speed and is very cost effective

A common misconception is that test driven development will take longer and cost more.
Dan has a go at answering this on his blog .
A good read.
Becoming Agile: How TDD improves development speed and is very cost effective

Windows SideShow

Windows SideShow is a new technology that will be shipping as part of Windows Vista. It enables hardware to support auxiliary displays whose contant can be defined in Windows Vista software.
SideShow is a project I helped out on by reviewing the APIs and building some sample code. Some of that sample code has been morphed into the examples that will ship with the Windows Vista Platform SDK.
I am looking forward to getting my first machine that supports SideShow.

New Forums section on ViaVirtualEarth

We have just launched a new section on the ViaVirtualEarth site to help developers communicate about building with VirtualEarth - check it out.

Microsoft Professional Developer of the Year?

Recently sited this developer is believed to be an imposter.
A fairly good disguise, but the hair gives him away!

Channel 9 Video

Last month I dropped by Robert Scoble's office and we had a chat about what I've been doing around Microsoft's campus for a couple of weeks. You can see the video Robert took here http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=113881

Where is PDC 2005?

I have built a little site using Virtual Earth to help PDC attendees find their way between hotels and the convention center.
http://viavirtualearth.com/PDC/PDC2005.htm
Want to build your own Virtual Earth page?
Check out all the cool things going on at ViaVirtualEarth.

How they built Virtual Earth

Check out this video on how they built Virtual Earth. Too funny.

PDC - will you be where?

I will be at PDC this year.
Where is PDC this year? It is here.
Thanks to Paul Neeve for building such an awesome Flash app that sucks data from Virtual Earth.

Visual Studio 2005 and Windows Vista

I know I should not be pushing the limits by trying to use a beta development tool on a beta operating system! Sometimes life requires a few little trials and this is one of them.
If you have a few issues with getting it installed you should have a look at this: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=64277

Oh and one more thing if you try this at home...
Good Luck :)

Where in the World was Dr. Neil?

So you want to know where I have been this year, well here is the answer:
WhereWasDrNeil?

Via Virtual Earth goes live

If you have wondered what has kept me so quiet for the last few weeks, now I can tell you.
I have been working on a developer website to help you build applications that use Microsoft's Virtual Earth.
Check out ViaVirtualEarth

eXtreme .NET Quick Links

A number of people who have attended the talks I have been doing have asked for links to resources. Here you go:
Tools
Build batch file
Short presentation

eXtreme .NET MSDN Technical Briefing

Yesterday I presented for a full day on eXtreme .NET in London. It was a lot of fun and I hope everyone who attended had a great day.
Many thanks to John allwright for kicking the day off and to Sean Puffett and Marcus Perryman for their superb demos that provided the audience with relief from my voice!
Topics discussed included:
-Automating the build process
-The Planning Game
-Test Driven Development
-Refactoring
-MSF Agile
& plenty of demos showing off new features in Visual Studio 2005

Mobile Developer Center: Mobile PC Network Location Awareness

This great article has been recently released on the MSDN site.
The full sample can be downloaded
here.

Mobile.Dev.Challenge

I am really looking forward to MEDC Australia next week. I will be presenting a session on using MapPoint in Mobile Applications; Putting Maps in Your Mobile Apps.
There is also a great competition running where developers can showcase their mobile applications. Find out more here. I am looking forward to seeing the entries. It is always good to see what other developers are doing with the technology.

I got PodAttacked!

I have to say it was not a huge surprise to be assaulted by the PodSquad in the middle of my TechEd session. Thanks guys for adding that extra special something to my presentation!.

download the PodAttack

Calling all Virtual Earthlings

Virtual Earth is being talked about so much that there is going to be another demo of Virtual Earth on Thursday between 12 and 1pm at the Mobile Cabana.
If you are at TechEd then I recommend you get there.

eXtreme.NET

Lot's of interest in eXtreme .NET here at TechEd. I was at the TDD discussion last night and it is great to see so much interest in developing better code.
The best news is the book is selling fast in the event store.

Virtual Earth at TechEd

My friend Chandu is going to be talking about Virtual Earth next week at TechEd! This will be a great session.
I have been doing some work in Redmond on the Microsoft campus for the last few weeks and had the chance to see some of the Virtual Earth technology. It is very cool, especially if you are a map geek ;)
The talk is on Monday morning at 10:45.
I am looking forward to doing some work with Virtual Earth, watch this space...

Visual Studio Magazine: Take .NET to the Extreme

My book eXtreme .NET gets a great review in Visual Studio Magazine!

Make your desktop apps mobile!

More figures suggesting that all developers building applications for desktop computers should be paying more attention to the issues faced by mobile users.
PC sales lifted by laptops: survey.

All application developers should consider power managment, network connectivity and data synchronisation. Using these effectively can greatly improve the user experience for the end user on a laptop, notebook or Tablet PC.

Virtual Earth

Now I am a BIG FAN of mapping technologies and the new online products coming from Microsoft and Google are looking super cool.

Books to help get started with NUnit

A number of people have asked for a list of books that would help them get started with NUnit.
Here is a list:

Browser Compatibility

I've made some changes to my main website this weekend. While the number of non-IE users coming to my site is still less than 10% of all visitors, their voices have been getting louder.
In an attempt to keep all visitors to my site happy I have changed the menu control and updated the main page template to accommodate other browsers.