I have been quite busy over the last little while between moving flat, finishing university, looking for a job and other things and as such I have not had the time I would have liked (as well as the energy) to write a couple of the posts I have in mind although there are some drafts now kicking around I am working on.

In the mean time I have been invited to join the Scottish Developers committee and as of yesterday I have taken over the role of convener for the Dundee (well, soon to be Tayside) branch of the user group. I am very happy to be asked to fill this position and I look forward to getting started.

Thanks again to Colin and the rest of the committee for the opportunity.

Haven’t updated in a while so I figured 2 birds with 1 post.

jQuery Talks

I would like to say thank you to all of the people who voted for my jQuery Deep Dive session at both Developer Day Scotland and Developer Day Belfast, I will now be speaking at both events. I am still very surprised at how popular the sessions have been so far and I just hope that what I deliver on the days lives up to the expectations.

Developer Days

Ok, a bit of an update on these.

DDD Belfast 4th April 2009 in Belfast
Web: http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/belfast/
Status: Registration Open

WebDD ‘09 18th April 2009 in Reading
Web: http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/webdd09/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Opens on Monday 30th March

DDD Scotland 2nd May 2009 in Glasgow
Web: http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Open

DDD South West 23rd May 2009 in Somerset
Web: http://www.dddsouthwest.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Open

The events are getting pretty close now, Belfast is in less than a month so if you plan on attending any of the above, get your registrations in! If you are attending then I hope to see you there

In addition, if you are on Twitter you may wish to follow

• scottishdevs
• developerday
• dddsouthwest

In other news…

My blog is bothering me. I like WordPress, it has some nifty features that make blogging easier (although I probably should use Live Writer more often) however I still want to roll my own. Why?

There are a number of reasons:

1. Because I can (not a good one, but still top of the list)
2. Because I want to use ASP.NET MVC to build a blog engine
3. Because I want to demonstrate various technologies all working together
4. Because I said I would build one

The problem is time, I still maintain there are never enough hours in the day. Anyway, I have a couple more things to look into and then I will most likely start work. I want it to be an exercise in blogging because I don’t really blog as much as I should on some of my discoveries. Just something else to keep an eye out for.

And finally

Graduation is getting ever closer and the date is now set. On 25th of June 2009 I will graduate with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Computing. On June 26th, the first day of the rest of my life will begin (Actually, no, that is a lie, June 26th will most likely be a recovery day from the alcohol consumption of June 25th). I think I should go spin the job wheel and see what I can find

Update [20/02/08]: If you would like even more free wargear and extras (Chapter Command Wargear Set) from THQ, all you need to do is register your game on MyTHQ and you will get some free bonus content which can be added to your LIVE profile the same way as described below. You may need to be quick as the UK site does say for the first 100,000 people to register their copy. Note: This is not the free (Artificer Wargear) set that THQ were giving away if you pre-ordered from them directly.

Update [23/02/08]: Relic put a post up on the forums after my blog post with pretty much the same information: http://community.dawnofwar2.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11232

Ok, so this isn’t development related but since someone *cough*THQ*cough* forgot to inform some of the customers who pre-ordered Dawn of War 2 how to use their pre-order code, I felt I should post the missing information. Dawn of War 2 was released today but if you are in the UK and you pre-ordered from Amazon, Game, HMV or direct from THQ, you got a pre-order code which depending on where you ordered from, unlocked different things for the game. I believe other countries have similar things using the same pre-order code system.

I should point out that I got the game from Amazon.co.uk so I do not know if Game, HMV or THQ actually tell you what to do with it, but all I got from Amazon was:

Dear Amazon.co.uk Customer,

Thank you for pre-ordering Dawn of War II from Amazon. We’ve teamed up with THQ to offer you a free Sternguard Wargear set giving you a host of in-game items. Please find your code enclosed.

This was followed by the code details. Right, so first things first, the game uses steam as it’s deployment platform, lets start there. I checked the Steam client for any options around DoW 2 to add a coupon or something similar, I found zip.

Ok, maybe you need to enter it in game, perhaps through the Games for Windows Live interface as that is the multiplayer platform. I hopped in and started looking, played with the GfWL interface, looked around still no option to redeem this code.

I decided to google for it and I found a couple of people having various problems getting the code recognised but not saying where they were trying to enter it. Then I found references to a Games For Windows Live Marketplace client, ah-ha! The missing piece became clear, Microsoft have released a desktop client for Games For Windows Live (I was wondering how long this would take), once I installed it (you can find it here by the way if it isn’t already installed) everything became clear.

1) Load up the GfWL client and click marketplace in the top left

2) Click on Redeem Code on the left of the sceen

3) Enter the pre-order code into the boxes

4) Click redeem code and confirm the wargear set

5) Be happy that it all works and click on the My Media tab to see the download progress.

I hope this has helped, would be fine if Amazon gave clearer instructions on what to do with the code.

Wednesday evening saw my first non-university talk in front of a public audience. Due to a ridiculously resilient headache over the last two days I am only now getting around to posting the slide deck and code.

They can be found on the Talks page.

I would like to thank all who attended and if you missed it or want to see it again, there will be a repeat on the 8th of April at Microsoft’s offices in Edinburgh.

In addition (shameless plug time), I have session proposals up for both Developer Day Scotland (2nd May 2009) and DDD Belfast (4th April 2009). For DDD Scotland I have submitted “jQuery Deep Dive” which will look at jQuery a lot more indepth, revealing some of the more powerful features under the hood and what jQuery is actually doing when you run code. For DDD Belfast I have submitted both the deep dive and the introduction.

Voting for DDD Scotland is now open and Belfast wont be far behind.

Once again, thanks to everyone who attended and to Colin and Barry for organising the event and the support they have provided.

Again, about a week late in announcing but I have been tied up with other things.

DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! (DDD) Day South West is now accepting session submissions however with an aim to encourage new speakers there are some restrictions:

• You must live in the United Kingdom.
• You must not have presented at a major event before (including but not limited to any DDD, TechEd, DevWeek). Speaking at a user group is fine (and encouraged!).
• You must have presented your full session at a user group at a date prior to DDD South West (in other words there must be a live practice run to a public audience other than your work colleagues).

The big difference here being the second restriction. So if you haven’t spoken at a large event before but are active in local user groups (or any user groups really then this could be a good opertunity for you to submit a session proposal.

The event will be held on Saturday, 23rd May 2009 at Queen’s College, Taunton in Somerset.

• http://www.dddsouthwest.com

DDD South West is just one of the regional Developer Day events that will be running this year.

• DDD Scotland (Session voting now open) 2nd May 2009 in Glasgow - http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Default.aspx
• DDD Belfast (Session voting due to open soon) 4th April 2009 in Belfast - http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/belfast/
• DDD 8 (Planning) - http://www.developerday.co.uk

These events are all free to attend!