November 2006 Entries

Zune; a lonely UK user with no-one to share with

So I bought a Zune whilst I was in California. My old MP3 player, a Creative Labs Zen was just getting too long in the tooth and didn't hold all my music so I was due an upgrade anyway and what with being a fan boy I really only had one option. Of course I simply had to get the brown one. First impressions were good, the packaging was simply gorgeous and the Microsoft logo was hidden away on the base so you'd never see it unless you were looking. The box slide up and off to reveal the device, head...

posted @ Tuesday, November 28, 2006 6:34 PM | Feedback (29)

And this is why you should avoid Podcasting conferences...

Stealth disco; Bad Jen, naughty Jen!

posted @ Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:27 PM | Feedback (3)

nxtgenug Oxford December Meeting : "Hacking Websites for fun and profit"

I'm trotting out that old favourite "Hacking Websites for fun and profit" for the December meeting of the Next Generation Usergroup, Oxford Branch (Wednesday 6th December, Research Machines offices, Abingdon). The session aims to cover the safety of your ASP.Net web sites by looking at parameter munging, cross site scripting SQL injection and information leakage with demonstrations on how exploits are used ran against some deliberately bad code. Chris Seary will be presenting a nugget on "Securing Web Services with WSE". Attendance is free, there's even pizza (if the delivery guy can find the RM offices, he got lost last time) so...

posted @ Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:23 PM | Feedback (1)

Even when on holiday ....

I see signs of Microsoft everywhere

posted @ Tuesday, November 21, 2006 3:57 AM | Feedback (3)

Social Networking Experiment

http://www.lost.eu/4682 "LOST is a student project. The aim of LOST is to show how 7 million people connect to one another, and break the record for the game with the most players ever!" The "game" ends if it reaches 7 million people. In theory, if the idea catches on, it shouldn't actually take that long. From the way it looks at the moment, it should take 70 days. Click the link and join in. They're not taking email addresses, so no risk of spam. Oh and change your name so I know who you are.

posted @ Monday, November 13, 2006 10:53 PM | Feedback (4)

DDD #4 registrations open

A bit late to the game, although I did get told this last night, but registration for DDD #4 is now open. For those of you who haven't a Developer Day before get signed up, the 300 places go fast. It's a free event, held on Saturday 2nd December at the Microsoft Offices in Reading. The speakers are not Microsoft employees, but are drawn from the community. As usual I've managed to con my way into presenting, this time on "Securing applications and communications in ASP.NET". If the topic is of interest now is your chance to influence the content, leave...

posted @ Thursday, November 02, 2006 5:50 PM | Feedback (1)

nxtgenug oxford kickoff

Chris Seary, Dave Oliver and I kicked off the Oxford branch of the Next Generation Usergroup last night. Chris press ganged me into giving a nugget, a quick presentation, on ASP.Net's membership database. I attempted to show how easy it is to add membership facilities with a couple of clicks and a drag. I got a laugh when I pointed out the login and registration controls use table based layouts, bad Microsoft, bad! This was followed by pizza and then Tony Rogerson gave a stunningly detailed presentation on developing for SQL server including how to track deadlocks, how...

posted @ Thursday, November 02, 2006 5:36 PM | Feedback (2)