GAMTUG: Conversations

The Developer and the Designer should be friends ...

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:15:15 GMT

Just like the Farmers and the Cowboys , in Oklahoma , late 1870's - we developers need to try and come to some understanding of what makes this rare breed - ' the Turtle necked' Designer tick. Lucky enough Microsoft has helped us somewhat by organizing these MIX and ReMIX events - and the best news is all the sessions were recorded and are available on line.

REMIX the experience INNOVATE the web

designers and developers UNITE

click on any of these links - sample the sessions - you'll be well on your way

Community @ Work : Andy Wigley's Irish Tour

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:58:48 GMT

Taken from GAMTUG: Andy's Visit

Believe it or not , that's Andy at the bottom of this superb lecture Theatre at GMIT presenting a session on Mobile Development to some 70+ students of the GMIT Computing Department on Day 4 of his Irish Tour. He had already been to Dublin and Cork and later on he presented to GAMTUG and the next day departed to Belfast to present to NIMTUG.

Visiting lecturer's like Andy are the salt of the earth. To come on this Irish tour they take a whole week out of their busy schedule (without pay) to share their knowledge and expertise with us.

If anyone is still harboring any doubts about the need to Grok Mobile development look no further than "Cell phones revolutionize Korean lifestyles"

Continuing the Conversation - BAR CAMP Galway 2007

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:11:53 GMT

We're all familiar with the 'Tower of Babel' - and that might go some part of the way to explain why we all speak/use different languages to talk to these computer chips . We've all been confounded..... now what would happen if you could reverse this process ... this is what bar camp is all about - 20 to 30 minute conversations of what I do and why I do it this way. When it started at 10:00 am we all entered speaking Geekish - each in our own peculiar accent - but by the conference end we all realized that by talking we had reduced somewhat this language barrier. Remember it's the same set of ones and zeros stored in those chips that we are all addressing.

Where better place to hold this meeting of minds in than at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute who are helping to make the semantic web real. Met some more great people.

Don't miss the next BAR CAMP - I'll definitely be going again ....

Let's Start the Conversation ...

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:45:45 GMT

Microsoft's Theme for MIX 06 and MIX 07 was "Let's have a 72 hour conversation". Unfortunately, I didn't get to either - but Microsoft has made the sessions available on line - see Useful Links (Mix 07). I did get to go to MIX UK (sessions will be live any day now once encoded - again check Useful Links (MIX UK).

So what do they mean by conversation ....

MIX was designed (pun intended) to bridge the Semantic Gap between the Designers (read Turtle Neck types with intense Vision) and us poor Aesthetically Challenged Developers [think: Oklahoma - The FARMER and the COWBOY should be friends (I'm not saying which is which - I've enough problems with my C# friends)]. Watch the free videos on line and you can judge for yourself whether they're succeeding or not. If your answer is in the negative - tell them so - they really want to know !! Also check out the MSDN Ireland Blog(Blog List) and the MSDN UK Nuggets (Useful Links) again on the left. [By this time you'll probably come to the correct conclusion - don't bother reading these blog posting just explore the links]

MIX UK was a BLAST - met some great people - and believe it or not - we have 8 to 10 UK Speakers planning a DDD (Developer D D) conference for Spring 2008 in our fair city - don't forget to link to our events RSS feed (again on the left).

It was spread over 48 hours with fantastic sessions but the session that really stood out was entitled 'A nice cup of Tea and a sit down - it could only happen in England - fantastic bean bags - great tea and fantastic conversations - hence the Spring conference - pencil it in - sometime April/May 2008

I thought to myself - you couldn't top that - but I was wrong .....