dale lane

Calling the Windows Mobile emulator

January 10th, 2007

This is apparently an old tip, but was new to me so thought it was worth posting:

…you can make phone calls or send SMS messaages to yourself in the [Windows Mobile SDK] emulator. The phone number for the emulator is “+14250010001”. This is really handy for testing SMS interception or how your apps responds to an incoming phone call, etc. Just send an SMS to +14250010001…

…It’s also a great way to freak your buddy out who’s working on the emulator and doesn’t know about this feature.

Write a little app that will place a call to the emulator with a time delay before it places the call, deploy it when he’s not looking and start it. Wait your prescribed timeout and watch as he tentatively answers the call from his emulator 🙂

from Windows Mobile Team Blog

Cool! 🙂

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More to ‘Blu-Ray vs HD DVD’ than I realised

January 9th, 2007

I’ve been vaguely aware of the format war between the new high-definition video disc formats hoping to be the successor to DVD: Blu-ray and HD DVD. But, to be honest, I’ve not paid much attention – I assumed that the two formats would just be different approaches to making pictures so pretty and detailed that they would be hard to tell apart, and that ultimately it would be stuff like pricing, licensing approaches, deals between supporters, and other more business-related drivers that would make the difference.

But, with all the coverage of high-definition video that CES has stirred up, I thought it was about time that I find out a bit more about them.

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Happy New Year

January 8th, 2007

Holidays over… I’m back! I didn’t post much over Christmas, as I was trying my best to avoid computer screens for a couple of weeks.

That’s not to say that I didn’t learn anything new at all over the festive season. I learnt many things – for example, being at home with my daughter taught me that potty-training a two-year old isn’t the easiest task in the world and that if you’re made to watch The Snowman enough times it can actually drive you a little bonkers.

Board games with the family taught me such nuggets as that tiger stripes go through to the skin not just the colour of the fur.

And what little web access I got away with before getting glared at reminded me that Hursley can look pretty cool (thanks, Andy!).

Hope everyone else had a good break.

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“Admin costs are dead”, apparently

December 30th, 2006

From Intelligent Giving:

ADMIN COSTS ARE DEAD. With the new accounting system enforced by the Charity Commission (“SORP 2005”), which nearly all charities are now observing, it is now impossible to work them out – and we will have to drop them from our site in the New Year.

The change represents an over-reaction (presumably an uncontested one) by the voluntary sector’s lobbyists. Clearly the public wasn’t consulted about the new SORP; but the public wants at least *some* clue of how much is spent on support costs. Now it won’t have anything to go on at all.

It’s a pyrrhic victory and a big shame: it won’t increase the public’s confidence in charities; it will just make people more suspicious.

I haven’t really got anything to add to this – I’m still in holiday-mode so haven’t looked into this any further. I’ll try and find out more in the New Year, but thought it was interesting enough to post now.

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Toejam And Earl is now available on Wii Virtual Console

December 27th, 2006

I was showing a friend the Wii Virtual Console and noticed that a bunch of new games have been added since I last looked – including Toejam & Earl!

I loved this game as a kid, and bought it straight away. Nintendo seem to be adding new titles to the Virtual Console library regularly, and I can see this costing me far too much money… Damn nostalgia 🙂

A list of current games is being maintained on Wikipedia, and the official list is on Nintendo.com. I hope they add Toejam & Earl II soon!

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Eating is a benefit

December 22nd, 2006

Some flyers have appeared in the canteen at work advertising a new benefit hopefully coming soon for us. The idea is that we will be able to transfer money direct from our gross salary to our ID badges which we use to buy food in the work canteen. In this way, we make a saving by not paying NI and tax on money we spend on food and drink at work.

When you add up the amount I spend at the canteen for lunch each day, as well as the amount at the coffee bars and vending machines, this could actually add up to a nice amount of money!

I already do this ‘salary sacrifice’ thing (paying for stuff out of gross salary to save money on tax and NI) on pension contributions, and childcare vouchers. Thinking of food and coffee as a benefit sounds strange though! 🙂

Posted in ibm | 1 Comment »

Youth Achievement Awards as an alternative to MV?

December 21st, 2006

I’ve mentioned before that the Millennium Volunteers’ Award of Excellence (currently the main accredited award we give to young people in Solent Youth Action) might not be around forever, and that one of the focus’ of the new V charity is formal recognition for volunteering. As such, it is useful to know what alternative programmes are around.

Which ones will the young people that we work with get the most of? Which one has the highest profile and, which are likely to be around the longest?

With this in mind, I’ve been reading about the Youth Achievement Awards run by UK Youth – a national youth work charity.

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Chris Huhne is the new chair of Make Votes Count

December 20th, 2006

Make Votes Count is a cross-party campaigning organisation which aims to call for and win a referendum on changing the way we elect Members of Parliament to a more representative system. I am a big supporter of this, and have been a campaigner for Make Votes Count for a couple of years.

So, I was interested to find out this evening that Chris Huhne MP has formally taken over as Chair of Make Votes Count. I used to work as a volunteer for Chris – including as a team leader on the campaign team to get him elected as MP last year. I rarely see him nowadays, but I think he’s a good choice and will make a good Chair. Congratulations and good luck, Chris!

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