Tile Blindness

These look nice…

Spent some of this morning looking a tiles. I’ve discovered that I can only look at tiles for a certain amount of time before they start to all look the same. Especially if they are all white. The really good news here is that this time I’m just going to choose them. Somebody else is going to stick them on the wall….

Got my own Windows Phone Today

I must admit I was getting a bit worried. It looked as if I wasn’t going to get my shiny new hardware before going to Berlin next week.  Then I got a call from James at the Orange store saying that my chosen device had actually arrived in stock. Apparently there has been quite a run on Windows 7 phones and the one I wanted, the Samsung Omnia 7, was the hardest one to get hold of. I wanted the Samsung mainly because of the lovely screen, and also I’ve always liked things with square corners. I’ve seen pretty much all the WP7 devices now and there isn’t a bad one amongst them, but I like the angular lines of the Samsung best.

The phone is lovely. At last I have phone that is as stylish and well made as an iPhone, but it is not an iPhone. And I much prefer the user interface too. I’ve been using developer versions of Windows Phone for a while and they are OK, but having one in a proper box, and with a proper (sigh) contract makes it that much more official I reckon.  I’ve got a month or so left on my iPhone contract and so I’ll be carrying two phones around with me for a while, but I know which one I want to play with. And it runs Cheese Lander a treat…

Tech-Ed Good to Go

Well, all my slide decks are ready and I’ve made twelve demos (all different) for my TechEd sessions next week. All I have to do now is make sure I have enough pairs of socks for a week away….

Makerbot Thing-o-Matic

I would really (and I mean really) like one of these. It might be the last gadget I ever buy because, in theory, I could use it to make every other gadget I want for myself.  And I could make rabbits as well.

Windows Phone 7 Devices

Students keep coming by my office and showing me their new Windows Phone devices. A couple have the really nice HTC HP7, with the enormous screen, and today someone dropped by to show me a Samsung Omnia 7 which they were very proud of, and quite right too.

I’ve told them all they should have Marketplace accounts and should be making applications and games. Quite a few already are. When I get back from TechEd I think I’ll set aside an afternoon and help folks refine their programs and test them on real devices so that we can get a few more Hull student products out there. I’ve got some ideas for things that I’ll never have time to make myself, and so I think we’ll see if we can get some development action going on them too.