Steve's Seaside Life

Steve's Seaside Life Blog

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The future of technical architecture

I work in a group that works a lot on technical architecture.  Having just watched this video I now see the potential of the next generation of design tools.  Its a Microsoft centric view but its compelling viewing none the less. 

Even better it makes the physical server configuration of your deployed service just as easy.  Combined with utility computing automated provisioning model it makes many technical architecture activities almost point and click.

I guess the next step is to do the same for configuration and instrumentation of the applications themselves.  The IT world starts to look a lot simpler.  Just makes me pleased that my focus is on how to use and exploit the IT and not how to deploy it!

 

All Posts / Personal Posts

Investing in living

I am currently changing my approach to spending money, in the most obvious, (in hindsight) way.

First I did an audit of how I spend my time, then I looked at how much I could improve my level of enjoyment or productivity by investing money in support of each activity.  I also looked for new activities that I could add to my life if I spent some money.

I ended up with a fairly simple list in order of Return On Investment.   Without going into all of the details here are a few of the outcomes:

– I have sold a whole load of old gadgets on eBay, because I only used them for a couple of hours a month

– I reaffirmed my decision not to spend any money on cars for a long time,  my current car get used for about an hour a week, although my wife uses her’s more, so we won’t be investing in a second car when hers gives up in a few years time.

– I invested in some great walking gear and swimming gear because that’s an activity I do every day and I want to maximise my enjoyment and minimise the …

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Beagle – innovation in action

Its great tgo see that even in a application space dominated by the big boys MS, Google, yahoo etc there is room for innovation, check out Beagle on Linux http://nat.org/demos/, great UI, Command Line, API etc.  Of course being a die hard X1 user it won’t tempt me, especially now...

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Deception Point

After The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons Dan breaks away from the religious theme and writes a traditional thriller.  Its got good pace, lots of mystery and conspiracy and some interesting science.  Like all of Dan’s books he opens them by stating that all of the technologies he describes all exist, which gives the books that extra bit of interest. 

I liked this book.  In some ways it was better written than the previous two which made up for the fact that the subject matter was not quite as facinating.  Not a book you will remember for long, but if you want a good book for a long plane journey, train ride etc it’s ideal.

Dan has a web site where you can find more details

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More about SwimMP3

I wrote a short article yesterday about how my SwimMP3 player has transformed the way I swim.  In this article I will provide a better review of the device itself.

First off it looks quite strange, you get lots of looks whilst swimming.  If you like to chat to people then it’s a good ice breaker!

It has 128MB of memory, which is reasonable for music, if you set it to random then most people won’t get bored even if they swim every day.  If like me you listen to talk shows, conferences etc then 128MB is more than enough, in fact the way I use it I tend to load it up with just 2 * 30 minute MP3 files, less than 30MB, why 2, just in case I don’t fancy the the content of the first one and need an alternative.  Each day I just delete the talks I have listened to and download another.

My main source of talks right now is IT Conversations

I find that lots of the things I want to listen to are too long for my swims, so I split them into 20-30 minute sessions depending on how long I want to …

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Working while you swim

I have recently restarted swimming.  It’s a great way to keep fit and it really helps ease my aching muscles and joints, but it’s really boring!  I recently found the solution though.  I purchased a waterproof MP3 player, that looks like this:

and it works by bone conduction of sound. When the device is placed on any bones of the skull (i.e. the cheek bones or the mastoid tip) it leads to vibration of the fluid in the inner ear. Thus I can enjoy clarity of sound with the SwiMP3 device that was never before possible.  Jon mentions it in his blog as well.

At first I thought I would use it mainly for music, but then I discovered the IT Conversations web site, which is chock full of really interesting downloadable talks, many of which are so relevant to my job that I can make a valid claim to be doing research while I am swimming!

I found a slight glitch in that there is no way to bookmark the point you get upto in a talk and restart at that point the next day, so for longer mp3’s I have had to split them into 20 – 30 …

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New Years Resolutions – 2005

 

  1. Establish a healthier way of life (now that I seem to be “fairly” stable and know which activities help keep me that way)

ü      Cycle or walk daily

ü      Swim daily

ü      Take plenty of short breaks

ü      Don’t eat sweets or dairy products

ü      Reduce the amount I eat at night

ü      Drink more water

ü      Learn to cope with pain and frustration (cognitive therapy or meditation)

ü      Make it possible to work in as many enjoyable places as possible

ü      Continue to improve on the limited success in not biting my fingers and lips!

ü      Get my weight down to 11 Stone

ü      Use my blog as an outlet for my interests (mainly those not funded by my company or shared by my family)

  1. Eat out once a week and take Debbie out at least once a week (Friday and Wednesday)

ü      Wednesday is evening meal, Cinema or Theatre and maybe in the summer just walking/cycling

ü      Friday is a walk and lunch or breakfast together

  1. Establish my new role at work

ü      Final edit of what I think the conclusions are and …

All Posts / Chronic Illness

Looking Back

I thought I would take the opportunity to look back on my year (and a funny old year it’s been) before looking forward to the new year in a few days.  It’s nice and quiet in the house and after such a lovely time (Christmas Morning) it’s left me in an appropriately reflective mood, so here goes:

 

Health

What a year it’s been, around the middle of January 2004 I started with another flare of Adult Onset Still’s Disease, which had been in remission for about 8 months.  This time no remission has occurred and one year on I am still suffering. However I have come to terms with it well and am approaching the point after many experiments (often painful) and lots of record keeping, research and analysis I think I am on the brink of getting things under control. …

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Christmas

It’s Christmas day today and the girls have had a fantastic time opening and enjoying their presents.  It started like this:

 

  1. On Christmas Eve the girls were allowed to choose one present to open, inevitably they chose ones that looked most like clothes so that they could where them on Christmas morning!

  2. They all went to bed nice and early without a peep (very unusual) as they all understand that Father Christmas misses any houses where children are awake J

  3. Debbie and I acting as Father Christmas’ helpers then packed up 4 gift bags that Father Christmas was to deliver that night to their bedrooms, one of the nice touches is that during holidays the Twins sleep in bunk beds with their older sisters instead of together.

  4. On Christmas morning we let the kids open their presents from Santa at 7:00AM (and the rest after breakfast) although they often hold one or two back to open on boxing day; which is my Birthday.

  5. This morning Debbie crept into their rooms just after 6:00AM and found them sitting on their beds surrounded by unopened gifts patiently waiting for 7:00 to arrive (bless) I think she let them sneak a …