Children learning Computing

•April 4, 2008 • 3 Comments

Just read an interesting article on BBC News pointing out that in the UK less and less children are learning how to programme computers and more and more children though are learning to be end users, I slightly disagree from what i have seen in all honesty. When I twas a child i hadn’t even heard of such things like computer code etc. I had no idea at all with the exception of what a word processor was maybe.

Today children seem a LOT more educated in subjects related to computing, even if these subjects are not in detail, the concept of what a computer does and there importance is a message well received.

News article here:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7324556.stm

G.O.D

•March 4, 2008 • 2 Comments

Thought id type this address randomly for curiosity…

http://www.god.co.uk/

 And the owner wants adverts… making money out of god, tut tut. 

working and learning

•February 5, 2008 • 2 Comments

When working nine til six five days a week I find it really hard to sit myself down and read or code in my spare time, and I have loads of ideas and little jobs to code as well as loads of subjects I want to read up on, i miss being a student!

Keyword Map

•January 21, 2008 • 2 Comments

I came across an interesting website just now called Keyword Map.

You type in a key word and the ‘engine’ spits out many related words to the word you specified that are on the web. The site has a back-end database holding loads and loads of website addresses etc… like a search engine, except instead of giving just results of your search as web-pages themselves, it gives you some words that can help you refine your search with further, or give more accurate results.

Clever idea, except it is only based on websites kwmap ‘knows’ about which is not entirely accurate… but a Nobel idea nonetheless.

My Photo Wall

•January 20, 2008 • 2 Comments

Relatively recently I decided to spice up my room with lots of photos’ and some art (thanks to my sis for this).

I am quite proud of my photo wall, every time i look at different photo’s different memories are resurrected from the depths of my mind (: Includes family,freinds from my college years, friends from uni,my clubbing buddies and other randoms too!

After looking at Chris’s post about his freezer (here) and from a recomendation from my housemate, I decided to share a random image of my wall lol!

My Art

My picture Wall

human thinking via paper or computer?

•January 17, 2008 • 3 Comments

Throughout the last hour at work i have been designing an extension to an existing web application, what pages link to each other, what values are passed on the query string, where post-backs must occur and database connections are opened close - that sort of thing. I have found several times now that it is far easier to think and ‘brainstorm’ on paper and with peers away from the computer than it is using MS Visio or word to write your thoughts, ideas, diagrams etc…

I don’t think it is the software at fault, is it more a psychological thing?

Why is it far easier to think and express your thoughts on paper than it is when on a computer? I know others who feel the same too including old tutors at college as well as some Maths lecturers I have spoken too…

Do we associate computers with remedial tasks and this is blocking the left side of our brain? Does pointing & clicking a mouse interfere with thinking?

I just thought i would place a seed for thoughts to spring from with this post…..

‘Screen Shot’

•January 16, 2008 • 3 Comments

Why does everyone call this something different? Screen Capture, Screen Dump, Screen Flash, Screen Save, Print Screen, Frame Capture….

Is there a definitive REAL definition for this function of a personal computer?

Why does everyone call it something different? It’s like an accent of IT literate speech. Well my accent is ’screen shot’ hence the title… whats yours?

Two Camps. Open Source vs M$

•January 16, 2008 • 5 Comments

I had an interesting debate in the office this morning about different database types and the pros and cons of both, a subject i knew little about so i listened in for some information. MySQL came into the debate which turned the conversation towards the title of this post: Open Source vs M$.

I was very shocked to hear that several developers in the office are AGAINST open source, they say that allowing all to update a piece of software provides it with instability, little support and errors that are annoying to fix.

Some people in the office actually prefer M$ dominating software development technologies as everything would be ‘the same’ and ‘easy to use and find answers to questions’.

Some other developers argued for open source saying that support is plentiful, updates are quicker and bugs are easily fixed or avoided due to a massive community of developers updating the software continually.

So it seems from my limited time in the IT industry you are either FOR or AGAINST open source, there seems to be none without an opinion in IT.

facebook extended profile

•January 16, 2008 • 2 Comments

Went onto facebook this lunchtime as I usually do for a break and noticed something revolutionary… (well kinda :p) People have been complaining that the introduction of facebook applications has ruined the simplicity of facebook (Kieron has also talked about this here). And I agree.

The simplicity is what made facebook so appealing and IMO what ’stole’ users from the top social networking site at the time: yes MySpace. 

Some applications are beneficial and fun to use, and as these applications can be developed by all, this makes facebook a true web 2.0 experience, so i see why Mark didn’t want to get rid of them! What they have done to keep the users happy is have the option to put unused or irrelevant ‘profile boxes’ belonging to third party facebook applications within an extended profile which can be accessed via a link at the bottom of what i am labelling the ‘primary’ profile. What a wonderful idea! It keeps all happy, as the application profile boxes are still accessible without scrolling to the bottom of the page via the ‘quick links’ below a users profile picture.

Bravo Facebook, Bravo! For listening to your users wants. impressive. 

Goodgreef vs Sundissential ‘Tug of War’ experience

•January 2, 2008 • 1 Comment

Intro
For those unfamiliar with the hard dance scene, Goodgreef and Sundissential are the north of England’s largest hard dance clubs. These clubs don’t stick to one venue, they host events at lucky locations across the north of England. The south of England has a similar thing with Storm and Frantic being the main clubs, amongst others. Each club has famous DJ’s signed to there label to increase publicity and this event has the best of both batting out, along with some special guests from Continental Europe.

Location
The event was located at the Mission nightclub in Leeds. It is one of the first time Mission has hosted such an event as normally if Goodgreef or Sundissential come to Leeds they have gone with Evolution or Gatecrasher as the venue due to the size, after Missions refurbishment to include Mission Annexe the capacity has increased. Even after the refit, it was still very very full, at the max capacity at least, very packed out!! Phew! The staff did a good job at the bar I must say as even with thousands of people I got served relatively fast. The one thing that Mission let us down on was drinks prices, seriously WTF, a bottle of water was cheaper @ creamfields than here! £3.50 a bottle!

The event had three rooms playing three distinct different styles of hard dance.

Room 1, the main room: Extra Hard Hardstyle.

Room 2: Trance/ Tech Trance

Room 3: House / Funky

Atmosphere
The atmosphere was amazing as everyone came to enjoy the music and dance like crazy, I have to say this event was the most energetic (and Ive been to a fair few now) and ‘hard’ event I have ever been to, seriously! The crowd went mental when DJs were coming off and on, and went even mentaler at classic hard dance toons. The middle of the dancefloor there was an elevated podium thing, people were dancing so hard some wires dropped from the roof! BOOM BOOM BOOM! F**ckin awesome! When the hardcore techno came in signs were ripped down and danced with haha (pic). I don’t think Missions bouncers are used to this hardcoreness lol, as they did nothing.

Music

Now to my review of the music, which of course is the whole point of going lol. I cant write a review of everything as I would have to be everywhere at once to do so, so i will give comments about what I did see:

Started off in the Tech Trance room for a bit and saw Kane Nelson (pic), I haven’t seen him before, not surprised really as the opening acts are usually relatively new to the clubs. Kane nelson opened with some good trance tunes mixing in electro and techno beats, I enjoyed that, was entertaining to watch!

I then went onto the main room to see the tidy DJs who I recognise from the Tidy Weekender I went to a few months back. They played classic tunes from Tidy as well as some new stuff, reliving the memories of the weekender i was here. Good tunes, did a good job boyz!

Spenner my mate wanted to see Matt Pickup playing B2B with Steve NRG as hes a fan so i stopped in the main room for this, I was at the Bar a lot when they were playing chatting to randoms. Cally Cage was on next, i previously heard uncool comments about here DJing abilities on the web but was very surprised. She got the crowd going indeed, blummin heck - played some right belters!

The big guns were on next and you can tell this because the main room got extremely packed, i was going crazy to “Andy Whitby between two bikini clad woman so I wasn’t complaining d: Andy Whitby won the best DJ of 2007 in the hard dance awards and rightfully so too in my opinion, he plays very technically indeed, very impressive, he started at 10:30 i looked at my watch 15 mins l8r and he had to have played up to 10 tracks mixed up in that space of time! The crowd went mental for Whitby as always - hard style. Nearly everyone in the crowd was singing along to his classics too, and I was shoutin’ my head off, i like it when I’m in a club with like minded ppl lol.

11:30 saw Alex Kidd (pic)come onto the stage, i have seen him before and was very impressed, he really gets the crowd going with rather than playing just his tracks and mixing them, but making a song out of turning the turntable on the song - you will know what i mean if you hear it. Absolutely awesome. DJ Alex Kidd’s visual effects were a good touch as well. Link to his website: “How Dare they try to test DJ Alex Kidd!”

The worlds number one hardstyle DJ come over all the way from Holland for this event, my first time seeing her live - DJ Lady Dana (pic). She played some ace toons, and some really hard stuff which i enjoyed loads but i think she could could have been more entertaining to the crowd IMO.

I slipped off to the tech trance room to see Adam Sheridan for half an hour for a relative rest before my favourite DJ came on in the main room. He played some gorgeous trance tunes, the ones where you lift your arms into the air to the highs and the wonderful lyrics *sigh*, and then bust into some crazy hard techno stuff after building up the crowd with the gorgeousness - I am very impressed with Sheridan, you can definitely tell he has played with the best of the best in the trance room in the past (Tiesto, Armin Van Burren etc…).

I went to the main room to see Lady Danas’ last track and the crowd was chanting “Mark EG, Mark EG” over and over haha, I can see she wasn’t mega happy @ that lol! The man (pic) came onto the stage and stopped the music WTF, played some famous quotes from some film he loved, did some crazy dancing - and pounded the F*CK out of the soundsystem all of a sudden getting the crowd to go mental with his chanting about ‘only living once’. Mark EG is a legend - his music was good, very hard, repetitive, underground cybergoth techno style, but not as technically proficient as the others. He really made a great performance though, living true to his name. I managed to get a great pic of him going mental up close too!

Last to the stage in the main room was Radio 1’s Kutski (Pic) vs Greece’s number one hard dance DJ Ilogik. I am a huge fan of Ilogik and have seen him twice before (once where i shook his hand woot!), he’s a technical genius when it comes to the decks, he concentrates a lot when playing so hardly looks at the crowd at all. I havent seen kutski before tonight, i have been told about his abilities though but was skeptical before tonight, my my he is bloody awesome at mixing. His set i have to say was the best of the night, Mark EG and Alex Kidd even joined him on the stage at one point looking at him DJing (pic). Wow - well impressed!

Overall
Overall i definitely had an awesome time, listened to, raved my heart out at and seen some great performances who were technically amazing. The crowd was the best ever i have experienced at an event of this size too. great stuff.

Some links to random pics i took on my phone are below, apologies for the quality but I think i did okay as the night was mental.

Attractive raving female

Random crowd 1

Random crowd 2

Random crowd 3

Army girl!

Funky / House room

Very Sexy!