XNA Fun and Games in Dublin

We were up bright and early for a "Breakfast Round Table" discussion with academics from all over Ireland about the teaching of XNA and Computer Science.

Some of the delegates had got up at scarily early hours to travel here and take part. Once I got over the disappointment that the table wasn't actually round a great discussion was had. It was interesting to hear how the computing scene in Ireland is not that different from the UK.  Quite a few places are getting their students to write games as part of their teaching, others are starting game development courses. At Hull we have been doing this for a while, and so I delivered a bit of insight into how we make things work. And gave the book a good plug.

Then the student presentations started. Due to popular demand we were running two tracks and so everyone gave their sessions twice.  I took some pictures of the audience looking happy at the start of my sessions (I always take the pictures at the start, in case it all goes horribly wrong).

The audience for session 1

The first session went really well with a great audience. Then I staggered out of the lecture room and into the second session.

The audience for session 2, how they appeared at the start....

However once I got the laptop working on the projector things settled down a bit and I was able to focus on the job in hand....

Another superb audience.

I had another great session with these folks, and then it was off to the airport for a flight back to Hull.

The XNA European tour goes on tomorrow to Vienna. You can find out how they are doing on Charles Cox's blog here.

Sunday in Dublin

The hotel had some really posh flowers

Sunday finds me in Dublin, for the XNA European tour. This evening I met up with the tour team, who face the enticing prospect of seven European cities in as many days. Charles and Dave from the XNA group were amazingly chipper, despite having arrived only today and being deep in jetlag country. We had a splendid meal out and talked technical and non-technical (including my delivery of the "Orange for a head" joke - which probably represented the low point of the proceedings).

I'm just around for the Dublin event, I'm giving a couple of sessions tomorrow. Should be fun.

York Trip

What a way to start the day

Today we headed off to York for a family get together. I had a plan to get yet another camera (don't ask) and in the process rationalise my camera collection a bit. The weather was pretty horrid, and I wasn't very hopeful of any nice pictures. Nice sunrise notwithstanding.

York Minster and Moon

Seems like I was wrong. We ended up going on the York Wheel at the Railway Museum. You really should go there - the museum is free and wonderful and the York Wheel, while no London Eye, is really good. And you do get some nice pictures.

York Station

The Wheel

Yes, I did get another camera. If anyone wants to buy a Canon EOS 300D (lovely camera, just not quite as nice as my new one) then let me know.

Taking the train

XNA 2.0 Available

Great news for XNA developers. Version 2.0(beta) is now out. Even as I write this it is installing on my machine. The list of improvements is long, and includes lovely things like XBOX Live network support, which is really interesting.

Find out more here : http://creators.xna.com/beta/betahome.aspx