Oliver Sturm and Gary Short have recently started their new podcast, called “Sod This”. Only the surface it is Oliver and Gary randomly talking, but underneath is some in depth solid information and insights in interviews from some interesting people. They promise to deliver the podcasts on a fixed timetable of …

Microsoft Press have just announced that they have made some books available for free during April Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator's Companion Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! b.

I spent too much of my misspent youth looking into optimization techniques and scheduling problems and I would always come up against computationally intractable solutions and then looking for a more practical solution. I think that these experiences have made me the pragmatist I am today (best effort is better than …

I am so pleased to be renewed as a MVP this time for the Connected Systems Division (CSD). My deepest thanks to the great guys in the CSD group and the UK MVP team for making this happen. This is my third year as a MVP and during the last two years (and a day) , I have been a BizTalk MVP twice and an Architect MVP …

I am no longer an Architect MVP, I have been an Architect MVP twice now and my passion for architecture is still strong but I am spending more time with M(Oslo) and engineering presentations in my community work than Architecture. I am still an Architect by day but by night I still fight as an developer. b.

Today I was told by the BCS that I have been awarded Fellow of the Society (FBCS) , I so very proud of the work the BCS is doing to improve the community and I feel that I am pushing to do my bit in the North of England (and the rest of the country given the opportunity occurs) I was waiting for some pictures (yet to …

The 4th annual Architect Insight Conference has just been announced and this year I am happy that Black Marble is helping make it happen. I will be presenting on Microsoft's Vision of modelling using “M” , I think M has a huge future in architecture and while it is only available in it base level , it is important to …

Over the last week I have received many comments on my recent post about bad apples, it seems to have resonated with a lot of people in the industry ( many of whom already read the great coding horror blog ). The two common questions have been, i) how do you spot it? , ii) what do you do? The first is easier than the …

I love travelling and going to conferences, seeing friends both new and old. Normally the kind events that I attend are technical , architect and developer focused. Now and again I bump into the wonder that is Marketing and Sales who take our beloved technology and add their own terminology, very occasionally I end up …

I am just back from the MVP summit, this is my second time and interestingly I am attending sessions by both the ever lovely Connected Systems Division and the Architects group. it was great to see friends and colleagues both new and old. Mike Nash has posted a “I’m a PC with MVP video” taken at the summit , if you …