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So my eldest daughter has just left school and she’s gotten herself a job whilst waiting to go to University. She got her first pay packet and paid her first tax; welcome to the adult world! Only, she’s not an adult, in fact she’s only recently turned 17 which means she’s too young to vote. So a government that she didn’t vote for, nor can she vote to remove, still feels it has the right to tax her. Hmm, that just doesn’t feel right to me. In fact I seem to remember a certain Reverend saying the same thing in Boston a while back and that didn’t end well for the government of the day. If you are too young to vote, you are too young to pay tax I say!

Jun 17, 2008 | One Comment

If you know Daniel Moth, you may want to listen to this podcast.

Jun 08, 2008 | One Comment

Dustin faces up the "The Steak" at a Developer Express dinner. My money's on "The Steak" LOL

Jun 08, 2008 | One Comment

Check out this video showing what happened when Scott Hanselman stopped by the DevEx booth whilst Mark Miller was demonstrating Coderush. Watch it all the way the end and you'll find out Scott's grandparents came from the same small town in Scotland where I was brought up. Small world eh?

Jun 04, 2008 | Add Comment

Well that's not true, but I'm not around at the moment, I'm currently hanging out at TechEd 2008 in Orlando - if you happen to be there, stop by the Developer Express booth and say hi. The usual drivel will be resumed on my return :-)

Jun 04, 2008 | One Comment

After my talk at the Newcastle branch of VBUG, I caught up with Andy and had a few words about his role within the organisation.

May 22, 2008 | 2 Comments

I'm speaking at VBUG Newcastle this evening on the subject of the Web Client Software Factory, if you are coming along and you read this blog, then don't forget to say hi!

May 21, 2008 | Add Comment

A sit down interview with Developer Express CTO Julian Bucknall, where he talks about the latest Developer Express news.

May 16, 2008 | Add Comment

Yes that's right, Colin Mackay has pulled out all the stops and has gotten the audience feedback from the event (which only finished two days ago) out to us speakers. My talk on the Web Client Software Factory seemed to go down well. My scores (out of 5) were as follows:-

The free form comments were:-

What did you like about the presentation?

"Live" Demo

Kept Momentum through glitches.

Good overview of positive and negative.

Engaging the audience.

Good speaker

Relaxed and informative

Great presenter. Very informative

Good speaker. Good content.

I learned something

Excellent speaker despite technical problems.

The technical problems they were referring too was the fact that Powerpoint decided to advance my slides automatically for me at an ever increasing pace, I had to stop it and restart the presentation to get it to behave; weird, never seen Powerpoint do that before.

What didn't you like about the presentation?

Would have been nice to have a “here’s one I prepared earlier” due to generation speed.

Fizzy water.

Difficult topic for one hour

Speaker very good talker

Although I'm not sure that last one belongs in the "didn't like" category. :-)

Any other comments?

Excellent talk!

The version I saw in Dundee was better.

Sorry I was late in.

So all and all I'm very pleased with how it went, and I'll take the negative comments on board and I'm sure the next time I give this talk (VBUG, Newcastle May 21) it'll be even better.

May 12, 2008 | 2 Comments

Well I got back from Developer Day Scotland this morning and what can I say? I had a great time. There were lots of great speakers and everyone who attended seemed to have a good time and, most importantly, learned lots too.

I'd also like to say what a great Job Colin Mackay did of organising the event, though it did take a lot out of him, here he is looking a bit tired during the geek dinner

And it was a pretty embarrassed Colin, who a few moments later, was presented with a set of cuff links for his sterling efforts. Well done Colin!

May 11, 2008 | 3 Comments