Aug 17
Couple of quick updates for you on the events front.
epicenter 2009: 26th – 28th August, Dublin
Just over a week to go until this Irish development conference. Already on the speakers list are those such as Craig Murphy, Alex Mackey, Barry Carr and Barry Dorrans and in addition I will be speaking on Selenium for the first time.
From the website (http://epicenter.ie):
“epicenter is three days of software excellence – it’s a conference, it’s an expo, it’s a place to hang out! It’s for software architects, CTO’s and developers of all knowledge and experience levels.
epicenter is organised by IrishDev.com – News, Events and Jobs for Irish Software Developers.
website development, design, effects, scripting and backend software is provided by Agile Technologies – expert in innovative Web Interfaces and bespoke SaaS development.”
Scottish Developers
Planning is already well under way for the next season of events and already we have some exciting talks coming up.
September
If you are in the Tayside area you may be interested in coming along for a couple of drinks on Wednesday 9th September. We will be meeting in Laings Bar at 7.30pm and all are welcome.
October
November
If you would like to do a talk for us, even if you have never spoken before, please feel free to drop us a line, we would love to hear from you.
Jul 16
I have been doing some Test-After Development unit testing on an ASP.NET MVC app and hit code that uses the cache through HttpContext.Current.Cache (I bet @serialseb would just love that! 
) which as you may know is a royal pain in the arse for getting at or mocking without a web server.
As most sane people do I binged (that just does not sound right!) for an answer to my problem and came across a few interesting things but the closest I came initially was a post from Phil Haacked on his HttpSimulator cache where someone mentioned that using HttpRuntime got around the issue. I tired, it failed and I went back to Bing and came up with a post on Scott Hanselman’s blog where he details a conversation about simply including System.Web along with System.Web.Caching in non-web applications. I was skeptical but people have noted success with this method so I tried it and what did I find, it sodding well worked!
Granted the articles I found are old but this is the first time I have tried to unit test the Cache before so this was quite useful.
In other news I have ordered a copy of Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers
from Amazon after @chriscanal recommended it, looking forward to having a read.
Jul 08
Just been looking through some of the graduation stuff from the other week and came across the class photo of those who also graduated as members of the BCS. This actually turned out quite well given that we were staring up at the sun while trying to look at the camera. Well done once more to the Applied Computing class of 2009, all the best in whatever you find yourself doing.
The full article can be found at: http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/newsandevents/newsdetail.asp?861
Jul 06
Things have been changing in my life over the past 2 years and I felt it was time to close the last few doors to my teenage life as I move forward. After 6 years of further and higher education I have entered into my first full-time job with the great folks over at Rockstar North in Edinburgh. I am really looking forward to starting so I have my fingers crossed.
This prompted me to look back through my life and my online personality, reading old journal/blog posts and realising how much has changed in even such a short space of time. I used to use the internet handle or nickname “Syberius” which was entirely made up on the spot back during 2002, four years after I first found my way onto the internet. It has been used all over the place, on the PHP Code Gallery, my tag for UberNet and IGUK when I work with them, a domain name… the list goes on. An added irony is that in the new Star Wars film, there is a debate over whether or not Kirk says James ‘Tiberius’ or James ‘Syberius’ which I find amusing if a little strange that people obsess over these things.
So, while playing on the 360 this week between sorting out admin stuff and unpacking the flat (GTA 4 for anyone interested, wanted to complete it before I start work 
) I felt that the Xbox Live Gamertag needed to change, that I needed something newer and fresher. It took 4 hours, 5 Simpsons episodes and the Simpsons Movie to do it, not to mention a string of names that were already taken but my new Gamertag has been created!
I give you…
ForbiddenBacon
Ok, so I changed my Gamertag, why write a post about it? Two reasons, if I am on your Xbox Live or GFW Live friends list then you may be wondering who ForbiddenBacon is, well now you know. Second so I can close this door in my own mind and say goodbye to the tag that served me well for 7 years.
So, I look forward to see you out there on Live, just hoping I get more time to play games once I start work but somehow I doubt it
Jun 25
Hard to believe that my 4 years of student life at the University of Dundee are coming to an end today. In some respects this has been an uphill struggle, in others it has been a wonderful, enjoyable and rewarding experience. I have made mistakes a long the way, I have learned important lessons and I have worked hard to better myself not only as a software engineer, but as a person throughout this experience.
I was planning on collating a number of resources and tit-bits of information and then posting them to the internal mailing list at university, however I changed my mind and decided to write this post making what I have to say open to all. I hope it is of use to someone as the advice I provide here comes from real, solid, “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt” experience.
Not all of it may be relevant to you but it has helped me. Use the links below to view each page (I apologise as it is rather long).
[Update 06/07/09] – Need more proof of how social networking can ruin you if used carelessly? – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8136395.stm (see 5. Be social but be responsible)
