By coincidence, I also received the latest copy of the Open Universities Computing and ICT Prospectus. I’ve only had a brief look but it looks like I’ll be starting either M363, Software engineering with objects or M450, The computing project in February 2011.

It’s the final presentation of M450, before it gets replaced with TM470, The computing and IT project in 2012. I’m not sure if I fancy being on the first presentation of a  course, but I have a couple of months left before I need to register…

This is a fair old change of pace, after all it’s five years since I last worked on aircraft, I’d even forgotten that there was a 0530 in the working day! Still it’s not all bad, the weather up here is a whole lot better than in Cambridgeshire and I once again have a decent broadband connection.

This period of turmoil has unfortunately impacted on my Open University studies, I had to request a two week extension on the last assignment, which I’m pleased to report has finally been submitted. Luckily we had an Easter break planned into the course study calendar, so I’m only a week behind with my coursework. Still only one more assignment and the exam to go and I’ll be study free until next February!

Due to my immanent move (on the Monday!) I opted to travel to and from Reading on the Saturday. This was not my preferred option as I’d much rather of travelled down on Friday and back on Sunday, as this would have enabled me to enjoy the full spread of pre and post event social activities. However, a welcome side effect was that despite a 0500 start I was still a lot fresher than a few of the other delegates.

My journey down from Huntingdon went well and I met up with Gary Short and Rachel Hawley on the bus. As with previous events Microsoft supplied free breakfast rolls, tea and coffee, for everyone once they’d received their badges, although as I’d snacked on a bacon baguette while travelling (by train) I passed on the rolls. During this time I received my official DDD8 shirt, which identified me as a helper/ gofer/ speakers general dogsbody…

As a helper we’d been asked to supply our preferred routes through the sessions, I was allocated my first choices as were all the other helpers I believe. My first session of the day was in Memphis, with Barry Carr for ‘Contractual Obligations: Getting up and running with Code Contracts’, it was here that Barry and I learnt about using the Windows + P shortcut (in Windows 7) to switch projection modes. The audience and I also learnt quickly not to accept the offer of swag from Barry after he tried to maim someone with a Devexpress USB stick! Maybe we were all lucky it wasn’t one of the Rubik’s cubes! An interesting session, which was an improvement on the Prism version I saw a few years ago at a North East Scotland .NET User Group session, although I still can’t see myself using them anytime.

Session two, saw me travel downstairs to Chicago 2 for ‘Commercial Software Development – Writing Software Is Easy, Not Going Bust Is The Hard Bit’ with Liam Westley, a look at some of the problems faced by software development companies and possibly more importantly some suggestions on how to avoid or limit their effects. Even though I don’t own or even work for a software development company, many of the tips were still relevant.

For the third session I was in Everest for ‘An Introduction to Mono’ with Toby Henderson. This was the second time I’d seen Toby deliver this presentation (the first was at DDD7) and I was curious to see what had changed, without a doubt the biggest change was Toby himself, he appeared far more confident in both delivering his session and answering questions from the floor. A perfect example of someone who has developed their speaker skills via the DDD events, I now look forward to seeing Toby with a new session, maybe a more advanced Mono session?

All too soon it was lunchtime and  a mild panic, as for a couple of seconds I thought that I’d missed out on a free lunch, but thankfully I managed to track down a vegetarian lunch, with cheese and tomato sandwiches, result! I then retired upstairs where I met a few of the speakers including Jon Skeet, so no Grok talks for me at this DDD.

After lunch I was back in Chicago 2 for ‘Not Everything is an Object’ with Gary Short, a thought provoking session, which proved too much for Colin Mackay who left partway through for a lie down! I should say that while I enjoyed the session, it probably had a tad too much history and not quite enough code…

I finished off the day in Chicago 1  for ‘A developer’s guide to encryption’ with Barry Dorrans, a great session which overran, due to the inclusion of a series of humorous videos that were definitely not included by Barry, but they were a fitting send off to a DDD stalwart! Interestingly (at least to me) I’d been introduced to some of the encryption techniques mentioned by Barry during my M362 studies last year, albeit implemented with Java. That said the information about which encryption techniques are no longer considered safe is definitely useful.

After I’d returned to Reading I met up with a few of the others (Gary Short, Barry Carr, Rachel Hawley, Andy Gibson and Rob xxx) and enjoyed some fine food and a lively discussion about Objects, although I can’t remember if the person or red wine bottle had the pour method, however, the wine was good! Once we’d finished in the restaurant we headed back to the IBIS bar for a couple of drinks, but all too soon it was time for me to head back to the station for my train home.

All in all an excellent day, but then again what would you expect from a day filled with technology and friends?

• ICQ – I started using this when I was playing Ultima Online in the mid nineties.
• facebook – I created my account following a BCS YPG Congress, yet I have rarely logged in since.
• Yahoo! Messenger – this account was created to chat to one friend who didn’t use MSN messenger!

In the case of both ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger you cannot actually delete your account, all you can do is remove your details. Actually that’s not technically correct for Yahoo! Messenger as you can delete your entire Yahoo! account, but as I’m a member of a few Yahoo! Groups this wasn’t really an option for me.

I still have accounts for the following social media services:

• Windows Live Messenger/ Hotmail
• Google Talk/ Google Mail
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• and not forgetting this WordPress blog!

Out of these the fate of my LinkedIn account is currently hanging in the balance, and while I’d like to drop down to a single IM and webmail service, I have friends who use one or the other exclusively!

21 Dec 09 – update, I’d forgotten about my accounts on:

• Flickr
• YouTube
• Upcoming
• Technorati

We’ve already been notified that due to excessive student numbers, we are unlikely to receive our results in the standard two weeks, but that we’ll hopefully receive them in three weeks, which happens to be around the time I’m due to receive my exam results. Hopefully it’ll be a great week…

I’m pleased to report that I managed to gain the full twenty marks on offer, which is always a nice, if infrequent achievement! Next up is TMA 01, which is due in by 30 Nov 09.

In the past I’ve always downloaded the ‘All supported technologies bundle’, which for Netbeans 6.7.1 is a weighty 302MB. However, on a recent Java Posse webcast it was recommended that you install the bundle with only the features you currently require as not only is the download smaller, but the IDE start up time is quicker as it has fewer dependencies to check. I therefore opted for the JavaFX bundle, I know I don’t use JavaFX but I intend to have a look at it in the next couple of weeks…

A minor issue is that the built in Netbeans Subversion integration doesn’t work in a 64-bit install. It helpfully provides a link to the Subversion client software at CollaNet, however the most recent version for Windows is v1.5.5 which isn’t a lot of help if you are using Subversion 1.6.x.

All is not lost though, slik subversion provide a free command line Subversion package in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This installed without any problems and all that is required is to set the ‘Path to the SVN executable File:’ in Netbeans to C:\Program Files\SilkSvn\bin .

As an aside, at this moment in time there are no 64-bit drivers for my Hewlett-Packard 2600n printer, although we are told that “Print drivers for your product will be available for download from HP when Windows 7 is launched worldwide.”, I wonder when this will actually happen…

This exam felt like it went a lot better than last weeks, however, I did run out of time while answering the final question. I suspect this was largely due to the time it took me to draw my Class and Sequence diagrams!

Still that’s the end of another OU course, so I’ll hopefully be able to resume work on a couple of my long running code projects…

This course has a small introductory assignment, to ensure that we’ve installed the necessary software correctly and to give us experience with the electronic Tutor Marked Assignment system. This is due to be submitted by midnight tomorrow, the 19th October and I’ve managed to submit it early!

So I guess that means I can get back to revising for my M256, Software development with Java exam on Wednesday.

My first quick read through the exam paper did little for my confidence, however, as time passed I found that I was answering more and more of the questions, so maybe I’ve nothing to worry about? That said I’ve done my best, so all I can do now is wait for the result, which should be available just before Christmas.