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!