A round of applause

So, I have been doing big mobile stuff over the last month or two.

A groovy mobile app for a well known brand's salesteam no less. It is based on Nokia phones and J2me; Java server side with Hibernate, Spring and Apache Axis for web services and Postgresql for database.

And the lessons are:

1. Java is very slow to develop in and that's why the Ruby boys are going potty.
2. The Nokia 6230i is a very very powerful little phone and is mostly free with a contract these days. This means that Jo phone is now hung like a grand national winner.

The app is live and I must say I am rather proud of it. Best of all, at the end of the role out training session the users gave us a round of applause. It wasn't spontaneous but as my colleague correctly noted:

"That's the first time thats ever f*cking happened"

Bits of kids

Festival ukes new website

Check out the new Festival Ukes web site and feel the special warmth of ma lerrrrve.

Mmmm yeah.

Doing a Mr Benn

I am off to Bristol today for a meeting. I like Bristol a lot as I went to University there and had lots of fun. The meeting is in Clifton and will be near the Greyhound pub which has fond memories as we often used to do a Mr Benn there.

Whats a Mr Benn?

Well to do a Mr Benn (According to the profanisaurus) is where you:

Get so mullered that one goes into a toilet in a pub, and the next thing one remembers is coming out the toilet of another pub, suspecting one has had a little adventure inbetween

In my case often the next day somewhere in St Pauls.

Ahh memories.

Software Development Terminology

Today's terminology has included:

1. The UI may look good but it is a right Benny Hill show underneath I can tell you ....."

2. These are the last changes, we are deploying tomorrow so we need to get the tomatoes in and get the shutters down by five at the latest.

We're going in.

Mr Spug: Mr Sulu, there is a problem in the vast open source xml files of planet Postgresql 8.1. The Captain and I are beaming down. We may be gone some time.
Mr Sulu: Rather you than me bigs ears, that sounds like a right pain in the arse.

My 2006 Calendar .... a special present.

Spug's Choice

Here's a new addtion to Spug's Choice, the top internet technical review type thing.

Aqua Data Studio We like it a lot as we have been doing a lot of SQL farting about. It supports all the big dbs and has load of handy tools for exporting, importing and creating scripts. Better than sex? Well no not really to be honest.

For for those who were wondering what else has been Spug's choice in the past, here are the other two items which have made it:

1. Old Spot




2. Newcastle United Football Club

Food for thought

Being a mobile-uber-groover-dream-maker-innovator on the edge of oblivion kind of chap I felt I had to ask Betty the dog this morning:

"I wonder if the guys at Palo Alto use to start the day with a giant bacon and egg oblong from the lorry drivers cafe on the A46".

Betty was sure they did, although I think she was just making it all up as usual.

Old picture of me and uke ...

I found this old picture of me and my uke. . .. .