Next Gen Developer

So far Mobile related London Events are planned as follows:

Event Name: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When: 6:30 PM, Wednesday 14 June 2006
Where: United Kingdom
Join us at The Nordic Bar, Newman Street, London W1 for an informal drink and a chat about mobile courtesy of our sponsors at Admob (http://www.admob.com)

Event Name: Mobile Monday
When: 6:00 PM, Monday 5th June 2006
Where:  Sun Microsystems, CBC, Regis House, Ground Floor, 45 King William Street, London, EC4 A map can be found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/files/2006-06-05/ 

Speakers will include Sun and Consult Hyperion and we will feature demos from 3G Doctor, Reg Oxygen, Bluetrail and Ikivo. This is shaping up to be a very interesting event!

If you'd like to attend, please register here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/database?method=addRecord&tbl=9

Why is it that developers are drawn to caffine? Is it the late night coding, the need to stay awake when looking at a computer screen constantly? Is it the fact that you have to concentrate for hours on end... I have no idea... All I can say is that I as a coder need to have tea or even these days coffee around me when I code... I do wonder if I can code on a caffine free diet... maybe it is an experiment that I will have to conduct at some point ;) I never used to like coffee... these days I actually enjoy it first thing in a morning. This week however I am taking to early morning gym sessions at 7:30am... I will see if I need that caffine injection this week... I shouldn't but it will be interesting to find out.

A lot of companies are beginning to put a lot of emphasis on personalisation of software, systems and even hardware. I guess the question at some point has to be asked, what is personalisation to the individual? Surely personalisation is something different to each individual. It is not always about the stylisation of information, or even how that information is portrayed but also to some degree also about the way the systems are used, or even how you interact with the hardware. There have been a few conversations between myself and friends about how people interact with systems and where these systems or rather the design of both hardware and software make it very different for each individual to feel 100% comfortable with the system. People instinctively don't like to have to log on to something to personalise it. They want it to be intuitive, and to just know that it is them using it... they want something that they find easy to use, information represented in a manner that makes sense to them. In my case I like lists of facts, other people prefer images and graphs. I guess it all depends on who you are and what it is that you are trying to do. Based on what I have noted from talking to people, systems need to be intelligent, intuitive and adaptable as well as being interactive and simple, but with the subtle intricacies that are only apparent to the most astute of users. This is the time of the interactive system designer... the architect and the user. More and more software engineering is moving away from the low level programming and complex programming, and into information flow, interface design and interactivity. It doesn't matter what sort of system that you are designing or developing these days if it doesn't flow in a usable manner, people don't want to use it, and eventually it get's re-designed into what it should have been in the first place. I'm not going to go into detail about how to make things context aware... this I leave to you to define... lets see where it leads. Feel free to put your views forward about what you see personalisation as and how you would define it... where would you like to see it going in the future. The above are just a few comments and ideas that have been floating for a while.

I'm off over to Nice on Friday for a bit of a break from things and also for the Mobile Embedded Developer Conference, Europe.  I guess I will catch some of you over there to catch up and also to share ideas etc. If you are going to be over there then do let me know.  I will be in Nice from 2nd - 11th June. 

I will be out training for London to Brighton whilst I am out there, so long as I can manage to find or hire road bike that has look pedals on it. (for cleats... need practice with my road shoes) 

If all goes well I should have a good time out there and will be full of info on WinCE, XP Embedded and who knows what else... Next week will be one of those weeks where business and pleasure collide.  (Roller Blading along the Promenade de Anglaise, cycling in the hills and geeking out at the conference... what more could a geek want ;) )

Since I know that there are at least 4 people already going to the conference that it would be good to catch up with (Keni, Mike, Sue, Marcus) so I was thinking of catching up over dinner one evening or something.  I'll probably sort it out with people when I am out there or on the first night, at the drinks social networking bit in the evening.  I look forward to catching up with everyone again. :)