Posts by Nigel Leeming

Post-defenestration Microsoft: It's the APIs, stupid. And Metro

Windows 8 learning curve

I installed windows 8 and was quickly frustrated by it. Then I searched around for a bit and got used to it. All you have to do is hit the windows key on the keyboard or hover around the corners of the screen. Now I'm used to it's super quick boot time and tiles that tell me the weather and things without having to do anything, I like it. I don't like the new IE app, as I find it fiddly with a mouse to open up a favourite, but I understand with a touch screen it would be a more pleasant experience. Want to open word? Go to the metro interface (hit the windows key) and hit W. Oh look there it is. Yes, it took me a few days of getting used to, but I would feel robbed if I went back to Windows 7. All that for £25. Not bad at all.

Intel bakes palm-sized Core i5 NUC to rival Raspberry Pi

Not the only shows in town

No-one heard of the .Net Gadgeteer or the Arduino?

Microsoft slips out Silverlight 5

End of an era of productivity

It's a shame. Silverlight is a pretty productive environment to develop for. We'll have to see what HTML5 will bring, but I'm expecting the usual 2 days to develop and 20 days to get it to run nicely everywhere kind of approach. Maybe I'm getting old but fiddling endlessly with CSS has put me right off being a software developer.

UK's top tech startup: Glasgow's tiny circle of animation wizards

Not at all

All you have to do is go to the website, download it and start playing to see what a joy this software is to use. All of the animation I have done in the past has taken me about a week for 30 seconds of video. With Muvizu, I created a pop video in 3 days, and that included learning how to use the software. The software has its limitations, such as only having cartoon characters, but the limitations have to be measured against what can be achieved, animation wise, in an extremely short time, and also against the potential of creating animation this way - the software is still in beta.

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8S8wkjBtmw, the first animation I made with Muvizu. If I posted the first animation I made with Maya, you would be forced to conclude that Maya is the poorest animation package in the firmament, and if you downloaded and tried to use it, your opinion would be reinforced. It was good enough for Avatar though, and in the hands of a semi-skilled animator/producer, so is Muvizu.

What the heck is an IT Architect anyway?

Architects

As a former IT architect, and writer about the software/IT architects(www.ivencia.com/softwarearchitect), I am bound to claim that an architect is as necessary in IT as in building. I have worked on many IT systems for many companies, and those hurling together software without any oversight from an architect are creating incomprehensible messes.

However, as pointed out in this article, we are still in the beginnings of understanding software creation, and being an architect is a challenge I have now given up, to focus on my own software products while contracting to support this endeavour. I move ever backward to the view expounded and ignored 30 years ago by Fred Brooks that the mind which creates should be the centre of its own universe.

Nigel Leeming