Letter from America

January 2012

A few days into the New Year we received a lovely letter and parcel of goodies from the Sappington family of Maryland, USA. This was to say thank you for helping 14-year-old Anna with her STEM assignment.

Well Anna did very well indeed, and is a keen engineer in the making - well done you! Here's to regular correspondence between our two families in the months and years ahead.

See also:-

• Questions from across the water

The obvious New Year's resolution...

January 2012

...stop wearing shoes.

Barefoot for months on end isn't a problem, but now and then there's some sort of punctuation: heavy snow, some social event or other.

Time to stop messing about and just do my thing! So I'll spend all 365 days of 2012 barefoot if I can. A family holiday abroad this summer might be particularly challenging, but if I can get away with leaving the clogs at home I will.

Maybe I should be turning this little exercise into a fund-raiser for the environment and the natural world...

The Diary of Anne Frank

December 2011

A few nights ago we sat down as a family to watch the BBC's outstanding five-part dramatisation of The Diary of Anne Frank. I saw it when it was first aired and wanted to see it again, Helen hadn't seen it but wanted to, and we both wanted the children to see it.

The children were engaged from the outset, but I in particular had wondered whether the potency of the ending might be over their heads a little.

I need not have worried. Even though I know the story, and even though I've seen this series before, the ending has me in tears. Seeing how distressed we both were - and me in particular - seemed to drive it home to both children how important and sombre a story this was. I'm very pleased they took it on board, and indeed they mentioned it to several of their friends in the days that followed.

See also:-

• Food for thought

Experimenting with TweetDeck

November 2011

I've been experimenting with TweetDeck v0.38.2 as a tool for making more use of Twitter for my business.

First impressions are very favourable. I like the UI, I like the columnar layout. I particularly like the ability to filter columns, mark selected tweets as 'seen', and then clear seen items. It's a handy way of quickly skimming through a volume of tweets where some are of interest, and others not.

One noteworthy shortcoming though is that when tweets are marked as 'seen' in one column, this status isn't reflected on the same tweets in other columns. A spot of googling suggests that cross-marking in this way is a feature that has existed and may return, and I rather hope it does. Without cross-marking, the usefulness of lists in TweetDeck in somewhat impaired IMHO.

Another minor request I'd make of the TweetDeck dev team: if at all possible, the 'clear all' button should be moved away from 'clear seen', or prompt for a confirmation.

See also:-

• A quick mention for @lookeastmidland

Questions from across the water

November 2011

A few weeks ago I had an email out of the blue from 14-year-old Anna Sappington of Maryland, USA. Her class had been assigned the task of interviewing a local engineering business who operate in their field of interest, and in Anna's case this was computer software engineering.

Anna and her Mum happened across my website, and suffice to say they soon realised I wasn't exactly local! Nevertheless, they picked me, and Anna and I had an email exchange regarding her assignment.

Well, the questions have been answered, and the assignment handed in. Good luck Anna!

See also:-

• Letter from America

Tales from the Tinyholding

November 2011

It's not all gadgets and gizmos here at Barefoot Software: we also have two chillun, five pets, two ducks and seven chickens. And a garden to grow things in.

My partner Nell has started an entertaining account of how we all make the most of our home and garden - Tales from the Tinyholding.

I'm particularly fond of Cook-along-a-boglin, and not just because I took the photo :) Nesty had a great time preparing dinner, laid a nicely presented table, and it was delicious!

Nell and I invest our barefoot values into the running of our businesses, home, and our family, so stay tuned for the occasional Tinyholding update.

A quick mention for @lookeastmidland

November 2011

Considering I'm a techie, I can be a bit of a Luddite at times. When I first joined Twitter, I was convinced I wouldn't have the patience/enthusiasm/time for it, and was a bit short-sighted in seeing its value to my business.

That was then; this is now. There's a growing virtual business community here in Derbyshire, and I'm all too pleased to be a part of it. And special thanks go out to @lookeastmidland. Each day they pick a 'biz of the day' and tweet mentions to their (as I type) 1700+ followers. What a great idea! Today was my turn - very pleased indeed!

See also:-

• Experimenting with TweetDeck

BlackBerry OS 6: a worthy upgrade

July 2011

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my BlackBerry Bold 9700 to the new OS 6, and I must say, I'm impressed with the end results.

Things got off to a promising start with the upgrade itself. The BlackBerry desktop software presented v6.0 bundle 2534 as an upgrade option, and proceeded to give clear, user-friendly instructions at each step of the upgrade. The entire process took about 40 minutes.

There was just one blip. After the point of no return had been passed, the upgrade process reported a USB error saying it couldn't find the BlackBerry device. As an engineer one of my pet hates is unhelpful messages that don't suggest a course of action, but BlackBerry got this one right: the error suggested various remedies, including connecting the device direct to PC (i.e. not via a hub). This I did, and the upgrade recovered and proceeded without further complaint. Refreshing. (This issue only existed during the upgrade itself; I've since connected in my usual manner via a hub, and all is well).

With the upgrade complete, I immediately liked what I saw. The new UI is smart, snappy and well laid-out. The new notifications bar is very handy. Apps, messages and media are now easily accessed via 'trays' that slide open and closed as needed. Options are extensive, well organised and all have sensible defaults as far as I can see. And of course there's the new universal search facility: just start typing, and results from your messages, apps and media will progressively narrow with each key stroke. The new OS 6 browser is much better than its predecessor, although having multiple tabs open should be used sparingly on a device with just 256Mb memory.

I'm also pleased to say that OS 6 fixes a particularly annoying problem that seemed common on Bolds running OS 5. With lengthy SMS conversations, the Bold would occasionally get its knickers in a twist and refuse to open the thread, or allow new messages to be added to it. Sometimes the only remedy was to delete the thread and start afresh. OS 6 has no such issues.

One annoying problem not fixed though is the occasional tendancy to fall off the Wifi network, and refuse to re-associate. This seems a common problem, and as yet I don't have a clear idea of cause or remedy. On a related note I can 'fix' the problem by rebooting my router, but thereafter OS 6 seems much more reluctant to re-establish UMA connectivity than OS 5. More research and fiddling in these areas required.

A new problem introduced by OS 6 really needs fixing soon. If the device is turned 'off' with the red button, when switched on again I'm prompted to select an Orange Plus service - either to make a call (e.g. to my voicemail), or to select an SMS information service. I can of course cancel, but it does this every switch-on, and - more imortantly - it does so before the password prompt. This is a serious security flaw IMHO. This issue doesn't occur during a reboot proper.

Overall performance is good, and the new application manager is very handy for monitoring CPU and memory usage. Just search for 'app man' and you'll see it there, under options. Thus far I've had one post-upgrade incident of the Bold slowing to a crawl: it wasn't going to recover and was hammering the battery. I rebooted via ALT-SHIFT-DEL, and all was well thereafter.

See also:-

• Crackberry's BlackBerry 6 Review, FAQ and New Features article

Gardening for softies

July 2011

Weeding takes a little longer when you're a softie.

I was helping with some weeding on the parental rockery over the weekend, and happened across an ants' nest. Much as it was necessary to get the job done, I'd have preferred not to have disturbed their home. As it was I moved rocks as gently as I could, and stood over them, watching, shielding their delicate eggs from the hot sun as they hurriedly busied themselves with moving their babies to safety. They are plentiful in number of course, and my gardening won't impact the overall population. But that doesn't preclude a little care for the natural world.

Blue Peter test equipment

May 2011

I've been having some fun making some home-made test equipment.

I need the facility to independently switch multiple low-voltage circuits between fully on, and briefly on when a push button is pressed. The software project I'm working on will respond to these signals and do appropriate things.

So an alternative home was found for some old photos, and I drilled 24 holes into the plastic case they came in. A strip of 5mm ply was glued to the back of the lid to strengthen it, which handily doubled up as something to attach the connector strips to.

Tinning 60 switch tabs and soldering on 48 bits of wire was a bit tedious if the truth be known, but I have ended up with a very handy 12-way control panel. I'm rather pleased with it, and if that were not reward enough, I now have a most pleasant glass of a 2002 La Mancha on the go.

Photos: Almost completed, and all connected up. Some wall fixings also proved useful :)