Gadgets at the Rather Useful Semiar

The Rather Useful Seminar today described how you can use your C# and Visual Studio smarts to create embedded gadgets using the .NET Gadgeteer system.

Most of my demos worked, apart from the ones that didn’t. You can find the slides from the talk here.

I’m really looking forward to the seminar next week. Simon will be telling us all about the Unity framework for game creation.

Water Good Joke

In the middle of the first year programming lecture this afternoon, for no reason that I can think of I said:

“Did you know that every year 2,000 road sweepers drown in Venice?”

Total silence.

I think it was the way I told it.

Smart Glass Fun and Games

I fired up my Windows 8 mobile and used it to talk to my Xbox this evening. I used the new Smart Glass application and was able to find and stream music very handily. I’m on the monthly pass thing which used to be called Zune, but now probably isn’t. This means that I can have “all I can eat” music and store the stuff on 4 devices. I can also stream content onto other devices things too, including the Xbox. The range of music has got nice and wide, I even managed to find all the albums by Brian Protheroe, a particular favourite of mine in the ‘70s. (search out the single “Pinball” if you want to hear some really good stuff).

Virtual Barber Shop for Windows Phone

I had my hair cut yesterday. And not before time I hear you saying. My hair had got so scary that only the chap in charge of the hairdresser wanted to take it on. It is a lot tidier now, and hopefully a bit less frightening.

I found the place to get my haircut using the Local Scout in my new Lumia 925 (have I mentioned I’ve got a new phone?). I also found the above application in the Windows Phone store, which is astonishing. It is just a short audio track really, but it has been recorded in such a way that if you listen using headphones you would swear that there is actually someone walking round your head and cutting your hair. It’s a free download and if you have a Windows Phone you really must check it out. Amazing.

Rob gets a Lumia 920

Well, I managed to get my Lumia 920 today. I had this idea that I might fancy one of the bonkers yellow ones, but they are a bit hard to get hold of, and so I’ve settled for a rather nice matt black one which actually looks very distinguished and doesn’t show fingerprints, which is nice. The man in the shop was very keen to show it off and said there had been quite a lot of interest in the platform (but then he would say that I suppose, he is selling them).

Of course I like it. Windows 8 has a bit of a turn of speed compared with earlier Windows phones. Some of this is down to the fact that it has a hairier, dual core, processor and some of it is down to the way that the applications are now deployed in a faster way. Whatever, all I know is that the apps snap into memory and run real fast. The phone itself is very solid in the hand and has a nice balance to it.  The screen quality is excellent, although for screen contrast I reckon the Lumia 800 just beats it. The Lumia 920 does have an LCD panel with lovely resolution and colour rendition though. And being LCD means that you can display bright whites without flattening the battery.

I’ve not had the chance to try the wireless charging yet. The shop I bought the phone didn’t have any of the chargers in stock yet, I should get a free one soon. However I have played with just about everything else on the phone. The camera is very good, pictures are perhaps a bit flat in normal light (although I’ve got a program that I can use to give them a bit more punch). In darkened conditions the results are really good.  Moving videos are great. The audio output quality is the best I’ve heard from a smartphone (except perhaps the very first iPhone, which was amazing) and they have this funky equaliser which you can use to fiddle with the sound if you want. They also have a Dolby gadget which didn’t do a lot for me when I tried it but you might like the phasey spaced-out feel it seemed to add to the music.

I’ve unlocked the phone for development and slapped a few programs on it which worked fine. Next thing is to fill the phone with music. One difference in Windows 8 phones is that they don’t use the Zune program to talk to the PC. You can just plug the phone into your PC and it will show up as an external drive you can load up with content. There is a ‘Windows Phone’ application you can get for Windows 8 that makes it slightly easier, but you don’t actually need this to get content onto your phone. I’ve moved a few files over. If they are in the MP4 audio format (i.e. they came off a Mac) the transfer process offers to transcode them (which implies they need to be converted for phone use) but I said “no thanks” and the music worked fine. Being a Windows 8 phone I can actually take screenshots now (touch the Windows key and then press the Power button) and you can see what my phone home screen looks like above.

I admit it, I’m a Windows Phone kind of person. I had iPhones for a while and loved them all, but I prefer the user interface of the Windows Phone. And I reckon that the Lumia 920 is an absolutely cracking phone by any standards, including those of the folks from Cupertino.