Sticking to the Surface

I don’t care that my most popular photo of late is a grey image that I made in Photoshop for a laugh, I’m still going to keep posting proper ones…

Well, I’ve had my Surface RT for quite a few weeks now and so I thought I’d write down what I think of it so far.

General usefulness: Very high. It has replaced my iPad as my browsing weapon of choice, principally because web sites seem to work better for me. Especially those which have nasty pull down menus that you can’t access via a touch screen. Because I have the touch cover plugged in I can just open them with no problem. I like being able to plug a memory key directly into the device and pull the files straight off it. And the Office/Skydrive/Printer combination (i.e. I can get documents off my Skydrive, edit them and then print them) is a wonderful thing. Great for presentations too, I’ve got the VGA output and that works a treat.

Battery Life: OK but not as great as the iPad. Having said that, it has never let me down. I just have to remember to charge it.

Fun to Own: Getting better. There aren’t as many apps as other platforms, but because the browser is more capable you can do more things on the web, for example BBC iPlayer. Since they added solid implementations of Solitaire and Mah Jong to the store it has got a lot better for me personally. There is now a really good image editor (Fhotoroom) and I don’t feel the lack of much. I’ve got tons of applications on the iPad that I’ve never actually used after the day I downloaded them.

Annoyances: The Mail client is very weak and deeply annoying to use. I really miss Outllook. I was upset to find that there is no Silverlight support. There seem to be more updates that I expected, and the application updater seems to get stuck every now and then. Having said that, every time I turn on my iPad I find that at least four or five applications need updates there too.

Surprises: I was gobsmaked to find that I can actually create and deploy applications on the Surface RT using Visual Studio. Nothing anywhere tells you that this is possible, I was convinced that the only way I could get code onto the device was to put an application in the Windows Store and then buy it. If you want to do this you can find out more here. The really nice thing is that once you have remote debugged an application it remains on the Surface RT for later use from the Start menu. When you install the remote debugging client on the Surface you have to give your developer id but after that it all just works, barring a bit of fun and games configuring remote debugging.

Conclusion: I’m pleased I bought a Surface RT. Having said that though, I’d love to get my hands on a Surface Pro, that could well be my dream computer.

Back to Work

An actual picture of the view outside my window first thing this morning.

How does the weather know when it is time to go back to work? It’s not that I don’t like my job, and it does get me out of the house, but today the weather seemed determined to make the process of getting up and out of the house as unpleasant as possible.

Or perhaps it is just that I got up an hour earlier than I’ve been doing for the last week or so.

Anyhoo, nice to be back at work really, and thanks to the folks at Brno University of Technology whose card has been languishing in my post at the office since well before Christmas.

Update on Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 09:28AM by Rob

My Grey picture has actually had more views than many of my other pictures on Flickr. Not sure what this says about my photography...

Bright New Year in Hull

Today was another of those strange occasions where it actually gets lighter in the house when you open the curtains. So we went for a walk around Hull Marina, which is looking very spry in the New Year sunshine.

This is a slightly processed image of the inside of the lock gates.

This is Princess Quay looking good.

..and this is where we had lunch.

Here’s hoping for another 364 days of sunshine in 2013.

Gloom is all about Fun

Another game we spent some time playing over the holidays was Gloom. This is a card game where you make bad things happen to bad people and get points for it. You take control of a thoroughly disreputable bunch and inflict pain, torment and ultimately death on them for fun and profit. You can also make nice things happen to your opponents, should you feel that way disposed.

The winner is the one who manages to make the most unhappy bunch of corpses in the cemetery. It probably doesn’t sound very nice, but it is great fun to play. Then after this we all got together to wish each other a Happy New Year.

And a very Happy New Year to all my readers.

Hornsea Mere

Today started off in a very strange manner. There was no water falling from the sky, and a strange golden disk had appeared above us shining brightly from a great height. It turned out that there was also a fifty mile an hour horizontal freezing wind, but we didn’t notice that until we arrived in Hornsea and tried to open the car doors.

Hornsea Mere is one of my favourite places to visit. There is a cafe which serves tea and buns. I wasn’t expecting that to be open though, but I did entertain hopes that we could at least get in and take a walk around.

It was open. I’ve never seen the water so high. All the jetties for the boats were completely submerged and the wind was whipping the water into quite a serious swell. There were lots of birds there who seemed pleased to see us particularly when they found we’d brought some bread to dish out. They were completely fearless. They were not just happy to take the food from your hand, they’d try to take your hand as well.

Afterwards we took a walk along the sea front, and lost some pennies in an arcade.

The beach was very quiet, although there were a few hardy souls taking to the sand.