Paul Grenyer

It’s clear from the comments on the SyncIpswich website and the buzz at the events that the local community feel a great deal of affection for the group. That’s exactly how it should be, just like it is with SyncNorwich and I am immensely proud to have been involved with the founding of both. The latest event on Thursday 27th of June was a great deal of fun and exceptionally interesting. I learned a lot. It started off with Vickie Allen who told us about SyncDevelopHER , a group she’s starting in Norwich to promote women in IT. This is the third time I’ve seen the presentation and she gets better each time. Tonight she had it finely tuned. It always gets the same warm reception and the same question. To find out what that question is and to see if it can be answered, go along to the first SyncDevelopHER event in October. Next up Ross Scrivener told us about his one man startup 365project , which is a photograph community website that encourages its members to take and up...

SQL Relay is by far the best conference I have attended for quite some time! SQL Relay is an annual community run series of SQL Server training events across the UK. The aim is to enhance the existing SQL Server community in the UK by bringing world class training to your region. Each SQL Relay spans 2 weeks, running 1-day conferences in a number of regions throughout the UK. With speakers from Microsoft, global IT companies and a host of MVPs, and covering topics from DBA, business intelligence and development. Each event is run by the local SQL Server user group leaders. SQL Relay 2013 Norwich was run by Mark Pryce-Maher of Norfolk SQL Community at the Kings Centre on Thursday 20th June.  I estimate that between thirty and forty people attended and much to my surprise there was only a handful of the regular Norwich tech crowd. So what made if by far the best conference I have attended for quite some time? Quite simply it was the quality of the speakers and their ...

Norwich is a beautiful city. Especially when viewed from the top of St. James' Mill, the venue for the latest group for technologists in Norwich, Norfolk Developers . Norfolk Developers complements the existing tech community and peels back the high level going straight to the heart of software development practices and processes. It aims to bring local, national and international speakers and workshops to Norwich. On Wednesday evening we made a pretty good start with Norwich favorite and regular Liz Keogh who came from London and Phil Trelford from Ely (Ely can of course be considered nation or local, depending on your point of view). So all we need to work on now is an international speaker! I love it when Liz keogh comes to speak in Norwich! I first brought her here in June last year for the final Agile East Anglia and then in February of this year for SyncConf . What’s even better is that Liz seems to love coming to see us too and I have plans for her to come back in ...

I’ve just started reading Little Miss Geek: Bridging the Gap Between Girls and Technology by Belinda Parmar. One of the early chapters is entitled Five Reasons Why A Technology CEO Should care. One of the reasons is that Women Are Untapped Consumers In The Market. The basic argument is that if you can sell more products by targeting different groups of people in the market, why wouldn’t you? Businesses are there to make money and many of them, especially tech manufacturing businesses do that by selling more products. The more people you appeal to, the more products you sell, the more money you make. It’s common sense and not rocket science. I don’t see how anyone can argue with it. However, this blog post isn’t about women in technology it’s about attitudes in mobile development. Reading this section of Little Miss Geek reminded me of a common argument  I have with many mobile developers. I’m always surprised, no shocked when a company or individual is only developing an app...

By Alastair Reynolds ISBN: 978-0575088306 Alastair Reynolds is still by far my favorite author and I loved this book, once it got going. I understand how important it is to build characters, but I like to get straight into the action and that started from about a third of the way through. This book is clearly the foundation for some much bigger stuff and I’m really looking forward to it. I love books that force you to concentrate. Blue Remembered Earth takes you on a mystery tour and there is always something you don’t know that feels imperative to find out, right to the end. I also didn’t see most of the twists or surprises coming, which is always refreshing. I didn’t like the main character Geoffrey much. He was just too reactionary and angry with everyone all the time.

What: Simon Elliston Ball: Glimpse & Phil Nash: Is it really possible to TDD iOS apps? When: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 @ 6:30p Where: Virgin Wines, 4th Floor, St James' Mill, Whitefriars, Norwich, NR3 1TN Sign-up: http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/119849182/ Phil Nash: Is it really possible to TDD iOS apps?  @phil_nash How feasible is it to develop iOS (or any mobile) apps using Test Driven Development? Mobile brings with it numerous challenges and differences in culture and mindset that have led some to question if it is worth even trying. We'll look at some of those challenges and how to overcome them - as well as when it might be better to take a different approach.We'll be using iOS in our examples but many of the concepts generalise to other platforms. Some familiarity with iOS development will be needed in places, though. A basic understanding of TDD is also assumed. All the principles discussed have been used in high-profile ...

Marie Cooper and I have been hard at work the last couple of weeks promoting MobDevCon , Norfolk’s first mobile development conference. We have a five minute presentation telling people about the venue, the speakers and their topics, the technologies and the sponsors. We always get a very warm welcome. We started off at SyncNorwich ’s May event , then a week later we did Hot Source ’s May Talkie in Norwich and then SyncIpswich ’s May event on the same night! The picture, taken by Ben Taylor , show’s Marie and I talking to Hot Source in front of the huge screens at The Forum . Chris Spalton put together a Hot Source sketch note that included us: Later this month we’ll be speaking at SQL Relay in Norwich and then at the first Norfolk Developers event before going back to SyncIpswich to hopefully catch a bigger crowd! * Yes, that is a Marillion reference.

MobDevCon is delighted to announce that Basho , the makers of the Riak database as Elite sponsor. Basho will be there on the day and will be giving the sponsors presentation just before the end note. They will also be on hand throughout the day to answer any questions you might have about Riak and how it can be used in a mobile context. Basho 's elite sponsorship comes hot on the heels of their sponsorship of the highly successful SyncConf in February, further strengthening their ties with Norfolk. We're looking forward to welcoming Basho back in July and, hopefully, many more times after that.