Simon G's Blog

I decided to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional on the HP Mini 5101 from its base install of Windows XP so sent off for the "free" upgrade from HP which requires US$19.99 for postage and handling.  From the time I placed the order until the DVD arrived in my hands in New Zealand was 9 days. Since I do not have a DVD drive for the HP Mini I copied the Windows 7 installation files to a 4GB USB Stick using WinToFlash (which had been recommended by a work colleague) on another machine that did have a DVD drive.  WinToFlash creates a bootable Windows install on the USB Stick, was reasonably intuitive to use, and took about 30 minutes to complete (I suspect my Anti-virus program slowed things down).  Upon completion I noticed there was 409MB remaining on the USB Stick. I checked in the Bios on the HP Mini and by default the option to install from a bootable USB device was turned on but changed the ordering so that USB Hard Disk and USB SuperDisk were prior to the Hard Driv...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from Richard Branson.  This is a good inspirational and motivating book that is very easy to read.  I knew that there were a number of Virgin companies prior to reading this book, however I was not aware of how many different industries Virgin is involved with (music, mobile, space travel, planes, trains, finance, health clubs, …). The culture of Virgin is a key component of the why the Virgin companies have been successful.  Whilst there is not a step by step guide for how to build a successful company, there are many useful insights and lessons learnt.  Caring and Encouraging your people, Customer-focus, Innovation, Embracing leadership, Fun, Learning from mistakes and Social Responsibility are key attributes I now associate with the Virgin brand.

I have just gone through the process of setting up a new Windows PC and thought I would jot down the current applications I have installed: The machine came with XP pre-installed and, for now at least, I've decided to keep it. Downloaded the latest Windows Updates Installed Firefox, with the add-ons of Delicious and IE Tab Tweetdeck (which also installed Adobe Air) Upgraded the Flash Player (when prompted by the browser) Installed AVG Anti-virus Free and removed the previous anti-virus solution Irfanview In terms of other software I expect to install in the imminent future: Notepad++ Open Office Video viewing software and codecs as required Canon Camera Software WAMP Server (for if I decide I want to do development on the machine)

I have had a Nokia E71 device for several months and thought I would share what apps I am using on it and experiences so far.  All the applications mentioned in here were freely available for download. I previously had an Okta Touch (aka HTC Touch) which was a touch screen device so I wasn’t how I would find the E71.  After one day with the E71 I was however pleasantly surprised to find that I was really enjoying the E71 and was not missing the touch screen much at all.  This still holds today although I must say I am tempted to get an iPhone. Connections One of the best applications I installed early on was Birdstep SmartConnect .  This enabled me to create connection groups and to then put a number of my connections (e.g. HomeWifi, WorkWifi, Telecom Data) into a group and prioritise them.  This group is then treated as a standard connection for any of my applications.  This enables me to then be using Wifi if I am in range of one of my known Wifi s...

I was recently in an excellent session with key stakeholders for a project, the aim being for the key stakeholders to jointly agree the importance of each of Scope, Cost, Time, Quality, Users and Team and how fixed or flexible each of these is.  Represented by Sliders that cannot be at the same level, this aids in providing a basis for the rest of the project to aid in decision making when trade-offs are required. Source: Rob Thomsett, Agile Academy http://www.agileacademy.com.au/agile/sites/default/files/aboutpdfs/AgilePracticesSlidersAgile%20Academy.pdf Getting agreement by all key stakeholders as to what is important for the project should be achieved in a single session, but what is interesting is the discussion required to get agreement and the information that all parties glean from the process.

Following on from the largest tweetup I've ever attended on Friday night with 50+ people in Auckland (and was awesome), I attended Barcamp Auckland 3 (#bca3) today (which was also awesome). These were both excellent opportunities to network with a wide variety of people, have some great discussions and learn from them. If you want to know what a Barcamp or Unconference is check out my synopsis of Barcamp Auckland 2 . I attended a number of sessions throughout the day. My key notes (as aggregated from my twitter stream ): Easy iPhone Game Development cocos2d-iphone is a framework similar to Flash. The Spaceship Tutorial (based on cocos2d-iphone ) sounds like it is worth checking out as an introduction to iPhone game development. Augmented Reality Different types: projector based, window based, retinal display (most common). Augmented Reality Phone requires GPS + Compass + Video + Accelerometer. More information can be found at http://www.8degrees.co.nz/2009/07/12/is-augmented-rea...

Having read Tribes from Seth Godin and enjoyed it I decided to give Purple Cow a go. Written in a very similar, easy-reading style, I took away two key messages from Purple Cow : 1. Be Remarkable 2. Focus on the Innovators and Early Adopters Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff, a lot of brown cows, but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. By building remarkable features into products (as opposed to thinking of marketing as just slapping some paint on top of the product or service) the idea is that the Innovators and Early Adopters (aka the “Sneezers”) will essentially sell the product or service for you. It is therefore important to ensure that it is an easy sell for them. I found many of the examples to be a bit too US centric but the key points were still easy to comprehend. Whilst the message is very simple, this book provides some great motivational passion for creating products that stand out and make a difference. A recommended...