Sophie's fame just keeps on growing

Looks like we've been featured on GeekParenting's "Lil' geeks of the week" spot. The photo's from a few year's back, I should point out...

RAND#33: The Twitter ecosystem

Or should that be the Twitterverse, or even Twittersphere?

I've already blogged about Track Daily Goals, and am now following some "corporate" users (tworps instead of tweeps?) such as CNN Breaking News and BBC Click, and recently took a look at Twitter-based charting tool (twool?) Uladoo.

Are there any others interesting bots, tools, etc. you've come across that are worth looking at?

RAND#32: This mobile life

Since getting a G1 for Christmas (thank you Google!) and then managing to pick up a good deal on a dataplan from T-Mobile, I've had far more reliable mobile Internet access than the "Will the coach have wifi?" situation before.

So what have I been doing with it, you may ask? Well truth be told not that much for the first couple of weeks, mainly trying to keep on top of email and blog reading. However, in the last week I've rediscovered Twitter (catch me here), found the excellent Track Daily Goals to give it a chance of having a net positive effect on my productivity, and even written a couple of blog posts.

At first I thought Twitter would finally kill off my attempts to blog more frequently, given the obvious overlap between microblogging and my RAND#nn posts. However, at the moment the two seem to be synergistic, as Twitter gets me in the habit of writing more about what I'm up to, whilst the fact that not every subject fits in 140 chars means that at least some should end up as blog posts. Well that's the theory anyway - let's see how it turns out in practice. After all:

Q: What's the difference between theory and practice?
A: In theory nothing, but in practice plenty!

RAND#31: C++, dialects and compilers vs. toddlers

(Some fairly random thoughts, triggered by me doing some C++ at work recently)

C++ has many "dialects" and is often spoken with a very heavy accent. By this I mean that in most C/C++ code I've written, the density of macro calls and/or typedef usage is pretty high. The bulk of my (semi-)recent experience was with ATL/COM code, so seeing a new C++ codebase was kind of odd - it was recognisably C++, but it was a while before I actually knew what it was doing. And I'm pretty sure exchanging the codebases in question (i.e. showing some of my younger colleagues some ATL code) would have produced the same effect.

Even compilers speak with different dialects; it was a good few minutes before I worked out what gcc was trying to tell me when it said "Incomplete type Foo used in nested type definition" or something similar. As an aside I noticed that compilers are very much like toddlers in such situations; you keep on asking questions in subtly different ways but keep getting the same (unsatisfactory) response. And although a compiler has never actually told me "No!" or "Why?" I'm sure that's what they normally mean :)

RAND#30: Snow!

I’m conscious of the fact that way, way back I was once rather dismissive about people blogging about the weather.

I’m also rather embarrassed at how ill-prepared the UK always seems to be for any type of weather.

But it’s another excuse to post a couple of pictures, and try out the Polaroid Picture Plugin for Windows Live Writer so here goes :)

RAND#29: Coding update

Aside: looks like I'm falling back to my old infrequent blogging ways. Must... try... harder... :)

Very quick summary:

• Sophie loves Storytelling Alice


• I'm going to take a quick look at Processing before deciding on what to do for my next mini-project (Or at least what I say I'll do, and then never quite get around to. Sigh...)


• I took a look at the Google AJAX APIs Playground last night - looks pretty neat!

More updates soon - honest :)

RAND#28: More poetry

I started with some poetry, albeit in German, and it seems like time for some more...

Josh Kaufman over at The Personal MBA just posted about "Desiderata", which got me thinking of one of my favourite poems, namely "If". Though not actually a poem I also admire "The Serenity Prayer":

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Changing the last line to "the firepower to make a difference" seems to show up as an anonymous quote, though for some reason I though it was "The Minuteman's Prayer" -- not sure where I got that from! It does remind me of Jack Nicholson's line from "A Few Good Men" though (excellent film, so many great quotes to choose from...):

Walk softly and carry an armored tank division, I always say.

RAND#27: Gaming keyboard for dev work?

Just seen the specs of the new Logitech G19 gaming keyboard and I can't help but think some of the LCD and programmable keys could be useful for a developer.

Anyone tried using a gaming keyboard for dev work?

RAND#26: A couple more kid-oriented programming ideas

A bit convoluted, but thanks to Harry "DevHawk" Pierson's post I found out about Kodu. As this is for the XBox 360 it's not much use to us (Wii + PS2), but the team page mentioned Alice which looks interesting, especially in its Storytelling Alice variant.

Phew!!! Got all that? ;)

RAND#25: What next?

OK, photo kit time... I have a Nikon D60 with 18-55 and 55-200 VR lenses, an Olympus FL-36R flash, a couple of cheap pan-and-tilt tripods, a wireless flash kit and a 5-in-1 reflector. I mainly shoot general family stuff, plus loads of portraits of my daughter (show-off that she is), and whatever compos are going on at any given time (esp. DPChallenge). So what should I buy next? My thinking is along the lines of:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 prime

But what about the AF-S 1.4?

Backdrop of some sort

I have a T-bar stand already, which cuts down on the cost, but then again I also have a couple of sheets of A1 card that are fine for head shots

Lighting stand(s)

But my flash currently fits OK on a tripod via the receiver end of the wireless kit

Umbrella

Probably favourite currently, but will it need a lighting stand?

Or maybe something I've not even thought of? Suggestions in the comments...