Thursday, October 25, 2007

Microsoft comes to Hull

On Tuesday, Ed Dunhill from Microsoft came to give a talk on the Microsoft .NET Framework, which is fast becoming my favourite platform for program (not that I program on any other platform). The idea that you can use your preferred language to program anything from a desktop or laptop computer running Windows XP or Vista to Windows-based smartphones to Automated Teller Machines to washing machines or even cookers sounds appealing. He covered Microsoft Silverlight, which is Microsoft's 'version' of Adobe Flash player. He also did some things on XNA. I really enjoyed the presentation. We were all given Microsoft T-Shirts that were originally cubes that we could put in water and they turned into T-shirts.

I write this post as I am on the train coming back to Hull. Yesterday I was in Bradford being presented with a care leavers' award for what I've achieved in university so far. It was a good ceremony but I came away early and went to my sister's house.

T-Mobile finally gave me the subsidy pin to unlock my Nokia 6280 yesterday before I set off home so I have put my contract Vodafone SIM in that phone now and I'm very happy with it.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Makeover for JayWakefield.co.uk

I have decided to make a few changes to my web-site. Firstly I have changed the theme on my home page and download section. I have also decided to change the look of my blog. This is to try to make my site and blog bear more consistency. I haven't been able to fully integrate that yet however. You'll also notice that this blog is no longer called Jay Wakefield's World. It is now called JayWakefield.co.uk blog. This is again to try and make the blog more a part of the JayWakefield.co.uk web-site. I am hoping in the future that the blog will have the same theme as my site, but for now these are the only changes I am planning to make. Please tell me what you think of these by posting onto the guestbook on the homepage, or clicking on "0 Comments" below this post and following the instructions to make a comment.

Also, did you notice the introduction animation that comes up as you access my homepage? What do you think? Dial-up users please tell me if this has a significant impact on your experience on my site.

Also if my blog is difficult for any visually impaired people to see then please let me know so I can do something about it.

Having problems with the sidebar in Windows Vista

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

First Year Textbook for Sale

Seeing as I passed my Computer Systems module in first year. I am selling my copy of Operating Systems by William Stallings. If you are interested in buying this book then please click here to go to my eBay listing.

Friday, October 12, 2007

My Smartphone’s better than yours – I wish

Take a look at this tasty item. I would love this hand set. It features Quad Band, Windows Mobile 6, a 2.0 megapixel camera, Microsoft pocket Word and Excel, a full Qwerty keyboard and you can buy it on Vodafone so no more messing about with getting the darn thing unlocked and trying to teach it that it should NOT connect via T-Mobile GPRS or O2 Mobile Web. The only thing that lets device down is the lack of a 3G connection, which is rather shocking in this day and age considering some of the newer HSDPA enabled devices are able to connect to the Internet at around 8Mb, which is the speed of my home connection. Apart from this I love this device and would be quite happy to trade in my N73 Music Edition for it.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Talk To Me!

I went into town today to collect my Nokia N73. Vodafone offered me the service for free seeing as I got the phone on contract directly from them. They have performed a software upgrade on the handset and have put Talks 3.10 on it for me. I have been given the standard UK Eloquence voice. I was hoping for Zooms but it wasn't to be. I am happy with Talks however as I can still use the phone's camera while Talks is enabled. For those of you who do not know what Talks is and what it does I'll explain: Talks is a screen reader that is available on Nokia Smartphones. It reads aloud whatever is displayed on screen so that visually impaired users can access the phone. I had it installed because I find it difficult to see the font that is used in text messages. If you have a Nokia N-series or E-series phone or any other Nokia S60 phone, you can find out more about talks, and download a demo for your handset here.

Vodafone have also upgraded me from 250 to 500 texts, which I like. They have really looked after me.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Teachers’ TV Programme

I am going to be on the TV. I am going to be on a program about Looked after Children at Hanson School. It is being shown on the Teachers' TV channel on Tuesday October the 16th at 11:15am and 7:15pm and at 1:15 in the morning on Wednesday the 17th October. I only get a short part at the beginning and the end but I'm still there. Teachers TV is available on Freeview and Sky. If you haven't got access to Freeview, you can register with Teachers' TV and download the program here.

Please comment once you have watched it.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Romance and 8-meg broadband

I have just spent two fantastic days with my beautiful girlfriend. She came down on Monday night at 9:45PM and went home today. I had to go to lectures yesterday so she was in on her own for a while but this gave her time to do some studying. After the lectures we went into the city centre so I could purchase a wireless router so that I could share the connection with everyone else at Chez Student. We then went for a meal at Pizza Hut, after which we went to check out the new St Stephen's shopping centre. It kind of reminds me of the Triangle in Manchester, albeit much smaller. Hull now has three shopping centres in the centre of town; Princes Quay, Prospect Centre and St Stephen's Centre. Also new to Hull is Paragon Interchange. This is basically an extension to Hull Railway Station so that all busses terminate there now. I like it because it brings busses and trains together. A few months ago if you had wanted to be near the railway station and you were on Cottingham Road, you would have had to catch the Number 15 bus which would drop you off outside Argos, which you would then have to navigate your way across the road and walk around the Victoria Hotel to the train station. Now if you are on Cott. Road and need to be at the train station, you can catch pretty much any bus that is heading towards the city centre and it will wind up at Paragon Interchange. I like that a lot. The East Riding of Yorkshire know that people still do use public transport.

Today I had to wait in for my broadband, and what a day it was. It started off with a few power outages that, after a lot of troubleshooting, were found to be caused by the cooker in the room designed for disabled inhabitants. Next came the engineers who were going to 'install the ADSL socket'. Trouble is – I had already rigged up the router and had a broadband modem to hand if anything went wrong. All I needed was for Kingston Communications to switch on ADSL on my phone line. After a few phone calls, they did so, and the modem, which was connected to the computer, sprang into life. I connected to the Internet through the modem to find that it worked well. When I connected the router, however the DSL light was on but the Internet light refused to flash. I was on the verge of taking the router back to Currys Digital where I had bought it. I decided instead to just go there and find out what was wrong once I had dropped my girlfriend off at the train station. Once at Currys they gave me some 08 number to ring, which I did once I was home. They gave me the number for Tech Guys, who could help me. However, instead of ringing them, I decided to restore the router to factory settings. I followed the wizard and found that I had incorrectly entered the username the first time round. I entered in the correct one, set up the rest of the router and I am now online through my router, although my laptop won't connect to it at the moment but I will troubleshoot that later, I think.