Saturday, April 27, 2013 at 07:16PM I’ve been playing with Python for a while now and I quite like the language. If you’re looking for a good book to get you started writing Python for the Raspberry Pi and having fun doing it, I can recommend this one. It covers the language in a very useful way, and also has space for some nice coverage of game development and hardware connections.
Friday, April 26, 2013 at 06:35PM 
I’m very pleased to be able to report that I’ve been invited to deliver a couple of sessions at TechEd North America 2013 in New Orleans. I’m doing WPH-B302 “Secrets of using background agents for Windows Phone 8” and WPH-B301 “Speechifying your Windows Phone 8 Applications”. New Orleans is a place that I’ve always wanted to visit, and now I’ve actually got the chance to go there, which is great. If you are going along to the conference (and it looks like it is going to be very interesting) then it would be lovely to see you there. I’ve even got some new jokes just for the occasion.
Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 08:58PM 
A couple of dates for your diaries. May 30th and May 31st. These are when we are doing our Grand Finale events for the year. On May 30th we will be starting a Three Thing Game and having a Summer Bash. Hull students can take part in either, or both. Tickets for the Bash, with the usual menu of video games, wordsearch, pop and pizza, will go on sale soon. And we will also be registering teams for the Three Thing Game. The timetable is tight, we are only able to run the events after all the exams have finished, and we want to make sure that if you are heading home at the weekend you can still take part.
We will be holding the thing auction at lunchtime on Thursday 30th of May. Teams will build their games on Thursday and Friday with the judging and awards on Friday afternoon. There will be a break for bash activities on Thursday evening. We’ve got Boss Alien, a game company based in Brighton, coming up to take part and help with the judging, and there will be the usual selection of awesome prizes and Lego.
I’ll be kicking things off on Thursday, but then I have to head out to New Orleans and TechEd US on Friday. I’ll be leaving everything in the capable hands of Simon, Martin, David and the rest of the team. In fact, there might even be a staff team in this TTG. I’m only sorry that I can’t take part in it.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 07:01PM 
Liz Johnson from the university Knowledge Exchange gave a Rather Useful Seminar on starting your own business today. We had a very good audience which was nice to see. The great thing about a Computer Science student is that they already have a bunch of skills that can actually drive a small business along.
There were some great tips for getting started.
Let people know that you are running a business
People like HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) like to be told if you are earning money. If they find out from someone else that you are working – which is pretty much guaranteed as soon as you get paid something by another company – then they might get upset and give you a hard time. Your landlord might need to be told if you are working from home, particularly if you customers back to your place for meetings. This will also affect your household insurance. If you are driving to customer meetings and delivering stuff make sure that your car insurance covers this. If you are starting a business alongside an existing job, it makes sense to tell your employer. They could get rather cross if they find out, and you might be able to work with them to leverage some useful synergy (proper business talk eh?)
Cover yourself in respect of liability
Perhaps the most important one here. Make sure that you have insurance that will cover you in the event of a dispute with a customer. Nobody starts a job thinking that it could all go wrong and you could get sued, but it can happen and you need to have protection. This is kind of expensive, but you can pay by instalments, or get insurance for each job in turn. The price of not doing this is very scarily high.Of course this insurance will count as a business expense, so you can count it against tax that you would be paying on the work.
Take Care Over Your Name
If you are going to give your enterprise a name, spend some time picking a good one. Practice saying the business name and make sure it sounds good to you. Think how it would sound to someone who rang you up. (I thought this was wonderful advice). See if you need to protect your name, and make sure that you are not using the same name as someone else, that could end really badly.
Get Help
You will need as much help as you can. Use skills from helpful family members, even if it is just as a sounding board so that you can make sure your ideas aren’t too wacky. There are lots of agencies who can help you find grants and all kinds of other things, starting with the Knowledge Exchange on the university campus. The Platform Expo folks in Hull are also a great source of resources, particularly if you need things like office space and help setting things up. Look up Microsoft BizSpark for free software.
One piece of advice that I heard from another source was that if you are not sure whether or not you need funding, you probably don’t. If you need money, for example to buy a new machine or some stock, you will really know that you need it. Don’t just think you need to get cash just so you can get started. If you have your trusty laptop, a good network connection and can afford to live, then for a developer that is probably all you need.
Do what you like
If your business is a success you are going to be spending quite a lot of time doing it. So try to find something you enjoy doing. If you have a hobby that could become a business, that is not a bad way in, either way, if you do it right you should avoid the “Monday morning feeling”. And maybe even become rich.
If you want to find out more, go here:
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 06:36PM 
I’ve been doing some more printing for Peter’s 3D printer. It seems like one of the principle uses for a 3D printer is to print parts for another 3D printer. I think this is probably how they are going to take over the world……
Ultimaker 