Street View - Now Covers 95% Of UK

I tend to be a big Google user, and I'm a massive street view fan. When I was searching for a flat in London it saved me loads of time. Estate agents don't always show the property in its true colours, and therefore street view enables you to get the true picture of the property and the surrounding area at the comfort of the your home before deciding to visit it yourself.

Street view is also great for finding out directions to where you need to go beforehand, especially when on foot. It enables you to see landmarks that you'll recognise when out and about.

With 95% of the UK now being on street view I think most of the UK will soon be looking up their home, previous Uni dig's etc! It's strangely entertaining!

Code Bubbles - Rethinking The IDE

While I think IDE's have come a long way and on the whole are very productive tools, I still think they aren't as usable as they can be. With whatever IDE I use (XCode, Eclipse, Visual Studio etc) I always find myself flicking between files, especially when debugging a problem.

Today I came across a project that introduces a new UI concept for IDE's in the form of Code Bubbles.

Basically it allows you to put code fragments and related information in code bubbles which allows you to code and view several fragments simultaneously with ease.

A brilliant concept in my eyes. Check it out here.

Event Driven Architecture - It's The Future!

It seems a common thing today that everything is real time, or as real time as you can get it - Twitter posts, Facebook updates, Google searches, video etc. The world is becoming more event driven, and so are businesses.

Building a technology infrastructure that supports this real time demand and in a scalable way is no easy task. Recently I've started to use an event driven architecture (EDA), and it's so refreshing. Suddenly the doors are open to reacting to events and building applications that no longer need to poll.

A book popular on this subject in the office is David Luckham's classic event processing book.

Android v iPhone - Quick Thoughts

Ok so the whole Android v iPhone war has been declared over and over again. For me I have no desire to put myself into one camp and defend it whatever. Technology has disadvantages and advantages and it's important to recognise that and then choose the most appropriate technology for the purpose you need. Also, sometimes you need to be pragmatic and choose a technology that's most suitable for your customer base, budget, time constraints etc.

I've been using a HTC Hero Android phone from work for a while now, and building sample applications as a side pet project in preparation for a future project that might come my way. I've been very impressed with the phone, but also the development environment for Android.

I looked at Android when it first came out, and now I've given it a proper test drive I can say I much prefer it over the development environment for the iPhone. The Android integration with Eclipse has been thought about well, as well as the general methodology of building an Android application using the SDK.

A while ago I started developing for the iPhone and found it unnecessarily awkward. While being a fan of my MacBook, I'm not a fan of the XCode development environment with the many windows you have to have open, and for me the process of creating and releasing an iPhone application is again unnecessarily awkward.

I accept the iPhone is sexier than Android phones, however, if a popular Android phone comes out in the UK (maybe the Google Nexus One or HTC Desire) then you may start seeing Android applications becoming developed even more rapidly.

For me while I found using an iPhone cool, I missed being able to do simultaneous things such as listen to music and browse the net. As a developer I also prefer the openness of the Android platform as it breeds innovation. Hence why I traded in a work iPhone for a Andriod one.

My monthly contract ran out on my current phone a while back and I'm currently on a rolling contract until a killer Android phone comes out in the UK. I'll wait and see... But in the meantime, I'll continue developing and learning technology most suitable for customer. At the moment that include's the iPhone and Android.

Twilio - Telephony In The Cloud

This is a company that I've been keeping an eye on for a while now. Twilio provides a web service API to create communication applications. For example, you could create a service that automates a customer inquiry line. While this has always been possible, Twilio breaks down the ins and outs and offers the service as a simple API that has proved to be popular. You can now imagine the mash ups possible for your business or pet project, and achieve them quite quickly! The company have also recently added SMS support although I'd advise on using a UK focused SMS gateway company for this.

The downside for me is the company is a US based company, and while they allow outbound international numbers, they don't provide international phone numbers. A way around this might be to use a Skype In number that is a UK number and routes to the US number provided by Twilio. This would result in extra charges but wouldn't put UK users off by offering an US number. I'm sure this would still provide a cost effective way to provide a UK focused communication application that is fully automated.

BitFolk - VPS Hosting With Great Service

As I've only just started my blog so I imagine for the next few months I'll be reporting about things I've been using for a while and still find useful/cool, as well as looking at technology that's only just coming into my radar.

In a random unordered fashion I'll start by mentioning a company called Bitfolk. They offer a VPS hosting solution with full root access, excellent support, a wide range of Linux distributions, UK hosting, great pricing and so on, and so on.

They've become popular and all there hosting plans are currently sold out, however, they expect to have more capacity very soon.

I've been a customer for a good couple of years now and it allows me to host pet projects and technology with ease. Compared with my previous VPS provider they're a breath of fresh air, and would recommend them to anyone looking to get a hosted personal server with full root access. Everytime I've communicated with them they've always responded in a way I'd liked to think I would if I was in their shoes, and they also have an active mailing list for community support/learning too.

Personally I think old fashioned customer service gets forgot about sometimes in businesses, however, it's so important to customers. I suspect many of their customers have been very loyal during the recession and hence the current popularity.

It's nice to be able to start my blog with such a post. Great work Bitfolk!

New Blog

I've decided to create a blog to highlight technology related information and news I think is interesting. Due to being an experienced software engineer I tend to look at technology news everyday and I feel like I have a good grasp at what's exciting and relevant. Now's my opportunity to prove this! Or not - you decide!

At first it may take me a while to get into my stride to blog so please be patient, however, I will get there!

Hope you enjoy the blog and please leave comments to make this a two way street.

Thanks

Mike