Paul Grenyer

After a period of restructuring, we are proud to reveal our brand new website! We’ve also made our glossy black brochures even better (with even more kids strapped to rockets or pulling silly faces). We’d love to know what you think of our efforts, so please head over to nakedelement.co.uk and take a look at our shiny new home! Our blog section is crammed with tech articles, event reviews and musings from our apprentice Lewis, our brochures are all available online (naturally) and you can also find us on all the usual social media platforms – facebook , twitter and LinkedIn . You’ve no excuse not to check us out!

I actively avoid posting about politics on social media. To me it’s a personal thing. I’ve also been avoiding posting about the European Referendum. I have a view, in fact I’ve already voted, but it’s personal. There are a lot of businesses who are encouraging their employees to vote one way or the other, notably BMW and JCB. I’ve considered the referendum form a Naked Element point of view and, as things stand, I cannot see clearly how either outcome would affect us. Our current clients are continuing to invest in the software we’re writing for them and don’t appear to be putting off any decisions until after the referendum. New enquiries are still flowing in at the same rate. We have a client for whom we recently finished a web application. They asked us to bill them for the hosting every month. Following the first invoice they asked if they could be billed for the next twelve months instead. We use Digital Ocean for hosting and they charge in dollars. Normally this wouldn...

There’s been another tech buyout. Microsoft has announced the purchase of Linkedin for a cool $26.2 bn. Even for the titans of software, that’s more than pocket change. Indeed, it’s the tech company’s largest acquisition ever, so it’s safe to say that plans for future growth are floating on a cloud of optimism. But will this partnership have the whereabouts to satisfy professionals of the business world? Let’s face it, neither Linkedin nor Microsoft have the best track record for performance or a reputation that fills end-users with confidence. Microsoft products are often described as “useless” and their customer service is a shambles. Linkedin is not without its user critics either and attacks by cybercriminals have dented the credentials of social media platforms. However, let’s give innovation a chance here and float on that same silver-lined cloud the companies CEO’s are sky-surfing on. Maybe between them, Microsoft and Linkedin can cover themselves in glory. Increas...

What: Fast-paced multiplayer & Stories of British-based Robotics Start-ups When: Wednesday, July 6, 2016 @ 6:30pm Where: The King's Centre, King Street, Norwich, NR1 1PH How much: Free RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/231093858/ Fast-paced multiplayer: an introduction to client-side prediction and server reconciliation.  Gabriel Gambetta ( @gabrielgambetta ) Creating multiplayer games is hard. One of the reasons is that networks are unreliable and laggy. In this talk we'll discuss several techniques to give players a smooth experience even under suboptimal conditions. Gabriel Gambetta  Gabriel was a senior software engineer at Improbable for a year because turning into its Head of Marketing for some reason. Before Improbable he had spent four years as a software engineer at Google, and nine years running Mystery Studio, a small indie dev studio, where he started researching networking techniques for multiplayer games after...

I’d like to introduce you to a little piece of code. If, as an experienced developer, you’ve had an interview with me, the chances are you’ve been asked to evaluate this piece of code in one form or another: public static void main(String[] args) { try { Class. forName ( "sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver" ); final Connection con = DriverManager. getConnection ( conectionString ); final Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); final ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery( "..." ); while (rs.next()) { System. out .println(rs.getString( "id" ) + ": " + r s.getString( "message" )); } rs.close(); stmt.close(); con.close(); } catch (Exception e) { } Assuming nothing goes wrong, this piece of code is just fine. However,...

What: My last ever null check & Security: It's A Cloud Thing When: Wednesday, June 8, 2016 @ 7:00 PM Where: Sunway House, Raglan Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 2LW RSVP : http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/231093686/ 6.30pm - Free Beer 7.00pm - Introduction 7.10pm - My last ever null check 7.55pm - More free beer 8.10pm -  Security: It's A Cloud Thing 8.55pm - Finish As the June Norfolk Developers event is being held in Lowestoft we’ve arranged for a free minibus to leave the Kings Centre at 6pm on Wednesday 8th June to take you to the venue and for another to bring you back. Places for the taxi must be booked in advance. Please email nordev@nakedelement.co.uk to reserve your place.  Security: It's A Cloud Thing  Steve Love Cloud Computing brings a multitude of benefits to businesses of all kinds, whether in the tech sector or otherwise. It is not without risk, however. Some of the risk is new, and some of it all too fam...