Free Pocket PCs

We have an embedded course as part of our degree. This year for the practical David has designed this rather neat project which uses the current location of the user to plan routing and stuff. Only thing is, to really do it properly you need a Pocket PC with built in GPS.

So we bought a few.

Each student gets the use of the device for the practical work. This means they get proper experience of real device development. I dropped by to take pictures of the first students picking up their devices.

These were the first two to pick up their toys. Have fun...

Rob in Micro Mart

You know you've made it big when you are in Micro Mart. At the end of yesterday's lecture I was shown a picture of my ugly mug staring out of page 94 of issue 997 of Micro Mart magazine. It was part of an article about Social Gaming, and I had been quoted saying sensible things about XNA (I must have been caught on one of my "sensible days" - which are getting fewer and further between these days).

Of course I shot over to the Students Union and bought a copy of the magazine (incidentally, and I've no idea why this should be the case, but our Students Union shop has an absolutely fantastic range of magazines. There are titles there that I've had bother finding in other places. Kudos.)

Anyhoo, I like the magazine. And not just because it has me in it. For a weekly magazine it has some very good editorial content and it made a very good lunchtime read. Of course the downside is that it also has lots of adverts for stuff, and so it might have proved a rather expensive purchase.....

Single Spies

Went to the theatre tonight. Single Spies by Alan Bennett.  Two tales of soviet espionage. In the first half we had Guy Burgess in his awful Moscow flat (which reminded me a bit of my first bedsit) getting actress Coral Browne to order him a new suit from his London tailor. In the second half we had Anthony Blunt being buttonholed by the queen who may, or may not, have been aware at the time that he was the traitorous fourth man.

The dialogue was very sharp and very funny. I'm not sure that real people speak in a way as well written as these did, but the leads, Nigel Havers (who played both spies) and Diane Quick (who played Coral Browne and the Queen) did a splendid job in recreating the times and trying to give some insight into what makes people turn against their country. The answer, in both cases, seems to have been that it seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.

Failed Fool

April Fools Day is now an institution, perhaps it is even beyond that. When the first thing you hear on your radio alarm at 7:30 is the question "Have you found any hoaxes yet?", the chances of catching someone unawares are somewhat limited. But that doesn't stop fools like me trying.

I had a 9:15 lecture with the First Year and we hardly ever have lectures on April Fools day, so I had to try something. Plan 1 involved me demonstrating debugging with a hammer and chisel. This would have been very impressive but there were health and safety implications, and anyway nobody would lend me their laptop for the demonstration.

Plan 2 was much more subtle. So subtle that nobody noticed. When my machine went live on the video projector to show the presentation the desktop showed an open copy of Word with the document "Exam Questions 2008" available for viewing. I left it up there for a while but nobody seemed to spot this. Ho hum. I switched the view to document 2, "Top Secret Plans to merge the Computer Science and Media Studies departments". Still nothing.

Ah well. Maybe next year.

Driven to Distraction by Gran Turismo

I've always liked Gran Turismo. Ever since the first version on the Playstation 1 I've enjoyed it. Of all the car games I've played it seems to capture the spirit of driving better than any other. I was a particular fan of the PS2 version, I even bought the force feedback steering wheel with the game on the day it came out, which must have been nearly seven years ago.

So, on Saturday I bought the Prologue version for the PS3. I was expecting it to be good. I wasn't expecting it to work with my nearly seven year old steering wheel. But it is and it does.

Once you've played a driving game with a proper steering wheel you can't go back. My first ever attempt at this was with the Mad Catz wheel for the Playstation 1, which I used with the original Need for Speed. I blu-tacked the thing to my desk and had a whale of a time getting caught by the cops. They only had around four or so "cuff and stuff" videos for when you got pulled over, but they were great fun none the less. The actual wheel was a bit primitive, what force feedback you got was provided by a large elastic band, but the sensation of driving was much better. I've been through a few odd devices since then. There was that strange Necon twisty thing, and a very odd jogcon force feedback controller which sort of worked. But nothing beats a real wheel.

I never got around to buying the wheel for the Xbox 360, maybe I'll get one some time. But with Gran Turismo a steering makes the whole thing like driving. It is hard to turn when you expect it to be, and you can feel the weight of the car shifting on the tyres as you go into corners. You can even feel the front wheels letting go at the start of a skid. I've spent far too much time today trying to coax my little car into third place on one of the B series races (the solution for me was to ignore the racing line and just blast around the outside of the track) but I've enjoyed every minute of it. If you have a PS3 you really should have this game. And a steering wheel.