General

One weekend many years ago, my youngest daughter Erin was looking for something to do. She was a very creative child so I suggested “why don’t you write a book?”

She said she could write one, if she only had a title. I told her that you could write a book about almost any title. I randomly picked:

What the duck didn’t see

(with the emphasis on didn’t)

To get her started, I wrote some content, then asked her to continue. She did the same, and then I wrote some more. I turned out to be quite fascinating. I had no idea where she was taking the story and I’d be excited to read what she’d written. Along the way, my eldest daughter Kirsty wrote some content as well. My second daughter Andrea’s name was used for the main person in the story.

2022-01-25

If you follow anyone that’s part of Microsoft’s MVP program, you might have heard there has been a global cloud skills challenge happening lately: #TheMVPChallenge.

There were three challenges that each of us could complete:

• Azure Data & AI Challenge
• Dynamics 365/Power Platform Challenge
• Microsoft 365 Challenge

You can imagine which one I chose to complete. I did the Azure Data and AI challenge. Data and AI are a pretty common grouping.

2021-05-07

Camtasia is one of my favourite products. I use it regularly. I’ve been so excited to start to get to use Camtasia 2021 that was released just recently. It’s a nice step up from an already great product.

But what I didn’t like after upgrading, is that every time I started Camtasia, instead of the “normal” editing screen, I got a cutesy little popup that asked me what I wanted to do with the product today.

2021-04-30

IT people get accused all the time, of being out of touch with other people, and for using language that is overly complex.

So many times lately, I’ve come across dialog boxes like the one above.

It’s clearly asking a Yes/No question. Why on Earth doesn’t it give the user Yes and No as answer choices?

Why do we do this to users?

If you’re building apps, please don’t do this. If you ask a question that in normal language would lead to a Yes or No response, please give the users Yes and No as answer choices.

2021-04-02

I’ve been amazed as the pandemic has continued, how many companies that claim to understand remote work, still really don’t get it. I’ve decided that a good test of that, is whether job advertisements still show a city or location for the work.

Now, not everyone can work remotely, and not everyone has anywhere suitable to work from remotely, but the majority of knowledge workers can do just that. That’s who I’m talking about here.

2021-03-16

There’s a café in Melbourne that I’ve liked going to for a while. It’s not far from where I live when I’m in Melbourne, and it has all the makings of a really nice cosy suburban café. But there’s something missing.

When I sat there the other day, my meal came as ordered but it was just a shadow of what it normally looks like. I put that down perhaps to a different chef that day. It’s not great that they haven’t all agreed on what those meals are usually made like, but that could have been a one off thing.

2021-03-12

I’d been using an iPhone6+ for quite a while, and it still worked fine. Lately though, I’d been running into things that needed a later version of iOS than what was supported on that phone. So I changed to an iPhone12 Pro.

So far, that’s been a big mistake.

One thing I’ve seen over the years while working with technology, is that development teams often get enamoured with the new features. And they forget to make sure that core functionality works as expected. The core functions seem to get lost in the weeds.

2021-02-09

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to make a post to wish you all a happy new year for 2021.

I doubt there’s anyone much on the planet who didn’t have a very, very peculiar, or very, very difficult 2020, and while there’s a glimmer of hope with the virus now as vaccines arrive, I suspect that 2021 is still going to be dominated by the coronavirus, and a very tough year for so many.

2021-01-01

We had a new house built a while back, and in a few rooms there was a double switch: one for the light and one for a fan.

But which is which?

Now the old way to do that would have been to put a label on each one. Seems like a reasonable idea but unless that’s a braille label, and you can read braille, that’s not going to help you in the dark. You want to just reach in and turn on the correct switch. That’s easy enough to do, but it really only works if the electrician who installed them followed a pattern i.e. the switch furthest inside might be the light, and the one closest to the door might be the fan.

2020-10-20

Many years ago, I spent a lot of time in universities. I ended up finishing my studies at QUT in Brisbane

and I have a great and continuing fondness for that institution. Earlier on though, amongst other universities, I did quite a lot of study through Charles Sturt University

Over the years, I’ve maintained a continuous link with my friends at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Back when we used to run Code Camps for both developers and DBAs, CSU were only too pleased to jump in to help us. From the minute we arrived that first day in Wagga Wagga, I knew it was going to be good. Associate Profession Irfan Altas was an amazing help and remains a friend to this day. I’m always pleased to get to chat to him.

2020-08-16