Andy Gibson

I am a student software engineer currently in my final (honours) year at University. I primarily work with the Microsoft .NET framework (2.0+) and surrounding technologies including WPF, LINQ, ASP.NET (+ MVC Framework) and Visual Studio. I also spend a lot of time in the web development arena and I have strong experience with XHTML, CSS, Web Accessibility, PHP and jQuery. I enjoy learning more about my fields of interest and am happy to lend a hand when I can.

The End (And Beginning Of) A Gamertag

 Gaming, Life, Xbox Live  No Responses »
Jul 062009
 

rockstarnorthThings 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

Syberius RuneOk, 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 ;)

Posted by Andy Gibson at 18:43  

Software Students: 6 Tips From A Graduate

 Life, Scottish Developers, University  No Responses »
Jun 252009
 

University of Dundee

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)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Posted by Andy Gibson at 11:30  

Some Good News

 Events, Scottish Developers  No Responses »
Jun 212009
 

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.

Posted by Andy Gibson at 01:16  Tagged with: , ,

Updates: jQuery Talks and Developer Days

 jQuery, MEF, Scottish Developers, Talks  1 Response »
Mar 092009
 

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

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 ;)

Posted by Andy Gibson at 12:24  Tagged with: , , , ,

And you enter your Dawn of War 2 pre-order code where?

 Games for Windows, Gaming  17 Responses »
Feb 202009
 

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

gfwl-code

3) Enter the pre-order code into the boxes

gfwl-code2

4) Click redeem code and confirm the wargear set

gfwl-code3

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

gfwl-code4

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

Posted by Andy Gibson at 11:30  Tagged with:
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