David Hill's WebLog : Random Blather

Blogging - Not as easy as it looks...

dphill — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 17:19:00 GMT

Ah yes, the blog... I obviously haven't quite got the hang of this blogging stuff. I don't get time to read many blogs so I suppose that keeps the whole blogging thing from the top of my stack. So, my new year's resolution (well one of them anyway) is to read more blogs and to update mine more often than once every six months. There is a lot of cool smart client stuff going on at the moment too...

Things to be thankful for in .NET

dphill — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 22:42:00 GMT

Check out http://www.theserverside.net/cartoons/Top10_NET_Thankful/Top10_NET_Thankful.swf.

No.8 is good, but No.3 is better :-)

And the winner is.....

dphill — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 23:00:00 GMT

This morning I was recorded on video as I gave a presentation on Smart Client architecture. Gripping stuff I’m sure you’ll agree and a surefire contender for next years Oscars (category: Best delivery of a PowerPoint presentation on Smart Client architecture by an English bloke). The recording took place at Microsoft’s video studios on campus here in Redmond and it was quite an experience. Of course I won’t know whether they succeeded in making me look like a young George Clooney until all of the special effects have been put in.

Must go and prepare my acceptance speech - If you need me, I’ll be in my trailer…

Oh, the things you do when you’re young…

dphill — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:29:00 GMT

I just changed the tag line for my blog to a quote from Nicholas Negroponte’s book “Being Digital”. I think it succinctly conveys the fact that, whether we geeks like it or not, computing is becoming ever more pervasive. I’m not going to get all philosophical on you, but being technical and having spent most of my life working with computers and various gadgets, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the majority of people don’t like technology for technology’s sake – I have even been told that most people aren’t geeky at all and lead interesting and useful lives without wanting to check their email every hour or so! Farfetched I know. Anyway, I think it’s interesting to think about how technology is really used by people who aren’t in the least bit interested in how it works…

For those wondering what the previous tag line was all about (”The jugged fish is Halibut”) I'll explain - it was from a Monty Python sketch which still makes me laugh. Of course, you might only find it funny if you had the sense of humour of a 12 year old, like me, or you had a gang of friends who used to spend hours reciting Monty Python sketches to each other. That last bit makes me and friends sound like a right gang of geeky losers (or maybe just me). The only thing I can say in my defense is that this was before I discovered the fairer sex, beer and computers…

Blog.Start

dphill — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 16:52:00 GMT

I have my very own Blog at last! Who am I and what do I do? Let me introduce myself…

I am a solutions architect working in the .Net Enterprise Architecture Team at Microsoft here in sunny Redmond. I focus on the architectural issues surrounding smart client applications and as part of my job I get to work with some of Microsoft's enterprise customers and help them architect and develop their smart client applications. I also get to work with the product teams who are building the next generation of Microsoft stuff and help to ensure that it’s ready for the big time. So, I am in the cool position of being able to write code for real world applications and I get to play with all the new stuff too!

So what can you expect from my Blog in the coming weeks and months? Well, expect lots of inane waffle on smart clients - things like how to make them work offline, how to deal with caching data, how to deal with concurrency, how to manage deployment, how to make the UI cool, etc.

And obviously there will be lots of stuff about Lord of the Rings - only 12 days to go, not that I’m counting or anything…