C# .Net Web Development

In an attempt to refresh my programming brain. I have attempted to seek out some nice friendly web development tutorials...

After a bit of hunting I have decided that MSDN as usual is the source of all knowledge...

I started with http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k4cbh4dh.aspx

This walkthrough has illustrated the basic features of the Visual Web Developer page designer. Now that you understand how to create and edit a Web page in Visual Web Developer, you might want to explore other features. For example, you might want to:

• Learn more about how to edit HTML in Visual Web Developer. For details, see Walkthrough: Basic HTML Editing in Visual Web Developer.

• Add data access to Web pages. For details, see Walkthrough: Basic Data Access in Web Pages.

• Learn about the debugger for Web pages. For details, see Walkthrough: Debugging Web Pages in Visual Web Developer.

• Create Web pages that are specifically designed for mobile phones and other devices. For details, see Developing Web Sites for Mobile Devices.

• Create a consistent site layout using master pages. For details, see Walkthrough: Creating and Using ASP.NET Master Pages in Visual Web Developer.

• Add navigation to your site so users can easily move between pages. For details, see Walkthrough: Adding Site Navigation to a Web Site.

Happy Web Deving...

And so we come to the end of 2008

Well haven't I been pretty rubbish at keeping this up over the last month...

The end of the year has given me a chance to reflect on the year gone by and thought it was about time I blogged again. It's certainly been an eventful year... Fallings out, makings up, surviving final year of Uni (it seemed doubtful at times), getting a job, graduating, leaving Belfast and going to London, going to India with work, moving to Canada, meeting hundreds of new people, holidays.... A lot for a little person to pack into a year that's for sure. The end of an era some would say leaving education (finally) and joining the world of work (even it has been a rather rocky start!).
Looking back I was either incredibily brave or particularly stupid to just up and move to Canada without knowing anyone or where I was really going. But two months in and I've started making myself a life there. Quite proud of myself really. Great little apartment, wonderful friends who have just accepted this little crazy english person, skiing at the weekends and living in such a beautiful part of the world, and hopefully some seriously interesting and challenging work things will come my way in the new year too.

December was a super busy month in Calgary, much partying was had and of course some working too! The Christmas party was fun in the Calgary Tower, chance for us all to get dressed up. We scrub up alright I think!

Calgary got super cold and super snowy, which was a bit of a shock to the system. Still getting my head round the fact that I have to trudge through the snow every day to get to work but yet can't ski on it... seems fundamentally wrong to me! As for the layers of clothing needed to cope with -35 degrees celsius and then getting them all off in time so as not to boil when you get inside, not quite got the hang of that yet!

As Christmas drew closer and my trip back to the UK loomed, consulting life as I didn't previously know it reared its perhaps ugly head. A lot of the people that have made my move to Canada much easier are moving on to other things. Either in other companies in other countries, or with ThoughtWorks still but in other countries. I was told not to get attached to people in this environment where we're all moving around all the time, but its hard not to when you work/socialise and hang out with the same people. Also makes me think that actually the world can be a pretty small place, and I now know more people in more crazy places! So the new year will be interesting, and with it I guess probably a whole new bunch of people to join us!

And so to holidaying the UK, strange concept in itself. After a seriously hectic time trying to get back to London. Tom who was returning back to the UK office and I landed in a damp and warmer England. Have had a lovely time catching up on all the things that I've missed from the uk, friends, family, fish and chips, surfing...

Spent the first couple of days showing my Belfast friend Danielle on a wirlwind stop tour of Devon. And then heaps of family do's. Christmas with my Mum and Boxing day with Dad, and a particularly cold but sunny surf with my brother. New Years Eve was spent down in the local village pub, complete with all my old friends from Primary School. It was awesome.

So to 2009. Am really looking forward to a couple of days in London ahead of returning to Canada, which I can't wait to do. Looking forward to spending more time with people and hopefully some interesting work opportunities.

I hope that whether your 2008 was good or bad you have taken something positive from it. And may 2009 be the year where everything falls into place.

Moving into my 'permenant' apartment

After a month of living in Calgary I have left the comfy confines of the corporate apartments and moved into my also comfy own apartment...



Still getting used to living in a different place, felt like I was sleeping in someone elses apartment for the first couple of nights. However I have just moved all the furniture around and it's feeling more like 'home' already. My current issue is that there are so many cupboards and shelves... but I have nothing to put in/on them. Need more things!

Xmas decorations are my next plan...

As for what I've been up to, its been a pretty busy week so far. Met up with an old school friend from my West Buckland days who lives in this part of the world on Saturday which was great. Sunday was spent at Lake Louise ski resort, doing some relaxed skiing and watching the World Cup Super G, awesome! Monday was moving day and yesterday I went to my first Flames game (Ice Hockey), unfortunatly they lost, but it was still good fun!


Work wise I have taken on managing the current 'beach' project, for sure it will be challanging but I'm still optimistic! Check back in a couple of weeks on whether or not I've pulled out all my hair!

Thats it for now :-)

Not your average Sunday...

Thought I would entertain you all with this anecdote from my Sunday...

So, I'm having a nice lazy Sunday, I had just loaded my washing into the machine and was happily sat on the sofa watching Back to the Future. I look over towards my kitchen area and I literally see a wave of water pouring through my apartment....

I leap up, roll up my trousers and before I know it i'm ankle deep in water, hot water at that. My washing machine had decided to empty onto the floor rather than out the water outlet pipe. So there's me hopping about in the water, trying to grab everything off the floor, pulling all the electricals out of the wall, turning off the washing machine and desperatly trying to find the number for my landlord. Meanwhile the water is seeping through the floors and through the walls heading towards the bedroom and wardrobe. If only I could of seen myself at this point...

So, my horrified landlord appears, telling me that they had infact been doing something with the washing machine during the week but they had given her the ok to use everything... clearly they were wrong. A lot of mopping up and drying the floor with towels later, I grab my overnight things and head up to another apartment that is empty in the building.

So the next day, turns out all the floors had to be taken up and there are massive drier things in there, See below for the sad looking pictures of my former apartment. I spent this evening moving my things out of that apartment and into this new one!

I am just thankful that I didn't turn on the machine and then go out.... imagine the horror I would of returned to, ruined clothes, water pouring everywhere... HA

The first Ski day of the season!

Yesterday was my first day back on the Ski Slopes for this season.... and damn do I ache today! Getting old!

A group of us ThoughtWorkers headed to Sunshine Village, Canada in the amazing Banff national park. A bizzare place, within minutes of entering the park on the way up to Sunshine, we had spotted 3 Elk and a Bald Eagle....

Sunshine village is about 2 hours max from Calgary, so like a child at xmas we left Calgary at 8am, super excited! By the time we got up to Sunshine, it certainly wasn't living up to its name, I think its all a marketing ploy, it was dumping... But we won't complain as its still early season and we need all the snow we can get!

Also took a bit of getting used to the cold, it was -10 degrees most of the day, and its going to get a lot colder, but still those chairlift rides were a little chilly! Sunshine village resort is pretty epic, much bigger than anything I have ever skied before, despite the fact that most of it wasn't even open yet.

Well it was great to get back onto the slopes (note to self must go to the gym more....), and heres to a great rest of the season :-)

Week 3 in Calgary

So, 3 weeks in eh (see the Canadian lingo coming in already!)

I'm still in my Corporate Apartment, I have actually found and signed the lease for another apartment, on the other side of Downtown Calgary, but don't move in until the 1st Dec. Looking forward to moving into my own place a lot. The final stages of settling in.

At the moment I'm up by the river, but the new place is 12 block further Downtown, closer to the supermarket and pubs and shops and stuff, so that will be good, and hopefully I'll be able to survive without a car. Its obviously smaller than the place I'm in now, but I'm confident that I will work out well, the furnishing are all pretty nice, as it used to be let as a corporate apartment. I will report back and send pics when I move in in a couple of weeks.

After struggling a bit over the first week, I'm settling in a lot better now. finding the apartment helped, so did setting myself a time to make decisions about my future here. I've set aside a year to settle in with both the country and with the work, and try not to worry about making any long term decisions until then. Also, whats been brilliant, is that there are quite a few 'travelers' at ThoughtWorks at the moment, be it over for a few months or a year, so they are normally up for going out and doing things at the weekend and in the evenings. There are also a few new starts so we're forming a bit of a crowd, which is really nice! Very ThoughtWorky spending all our days and nights together in a heap, but it makes it much easier to settle in.

As for work, things are still quite quiet, theres not as much work as they thought there might be (seems the story of my life at the moment!), so there are quite a lot of us on 'the beach' waiting for work. We have a little project going on, which I was struggling to find my 'place' on, but we've just kicked off some more analysis work on it, and feel much more comfortable now. Keeps us out of trouble at least.

We had a gathering of "Girl Geeks" last week. Its something that ThoughtWorks have started in Calgary to get together female IT workers from around the city, to share ideas, thoughts and experiences. We went for Indian food, and it was actually quite fun. I thought it would be scary and too Oestragen fuelled but infact it wasn't, there were a bunch of really interesting IT women of all ages.

Its chilly here, about zero or under most of the time, had snow over the weekend, but not got to the really cold stuff yet! In general the weather is pretty good, mostly sunny and cold, but today there was really low cloud, so you couldn't see the top of the downtown Skyscrapers which I found a bit odd!
Skiing wise, the mountains opened last weekend, with a reasonable snow coverage. Didn't manage to get up there this weekend, but hopefully next weekend. I'm also vaguely looking into re-instating my Candian Ski Instructing qualifications and doing some training sessions, in an attempt to keep it up but also to meet some like minded snow people hopefully!

This week I hope to go and see Bond again, it's only just got to this side of the pond so the others havn't seen it yet. We have a monthly staff meeting on Wednesday which I'm told ends in the pub, and a few other bits a pieces, lots to keep me busy!

I will be back in the UK over Xmas, from the 19th to the 28th December, which will be really nice, looking forward to it, only a month away!

I've included some pics, of our trip to Elbow Falls, of the park by my apartment and of our attempt to bring Friday pub to Calgary!

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So I move to Calgary

I've made it to Canada!

After a rather leisurely time back in Devon I'm am back working and I'm living in Calgary.

I am of course pretty jet lagged after arriving a couple of days ago, so I'm struggling to write anything too inspired, but here are a few pics of the apartment that I'm staying in untill I find one of my own, Bye for now.