Last weekend, I tweeted about my “new toy” – Griffin’s Helo TC remote control helicopter, which is controlled from an iOS or Android mobile device:

New toy :-) twitter.com/markwilsonit/s…

— Mark Wilson (@markwilsonit) May 18, 2013

I got quite a few replies asking me to write about how I got on with it so, here goes.

I already had a BlackGhost RC chopper that I was given by Microsoft at the UK Windows Server 2008 launch.  I flew that when I got back to the office (once, before one of my colleagues got annoyed) and then at home a bit, but after a few crashes it mostly stayed in the loft until my son spotted it and pestered to have a go. To be honest the BlackGhost was a bit big for indoor use, a bit rubbish outdoors and is only made of polystyrene and plastic.  My son was really keen to get something a bit better – only he fancies a decent quadcopter (no chance – it’s me who’s paying for this, not him!) so, when I saw the Griffin Helo TC in the supermarket for £30, I thought we should give it a go.

Firstly, I should point out that it’s an indoor toy.  That’s not clear from the packaging but we took it outdoors and struggled a bit. Even the lightest of breezes would carry the Helo TC out of range and send it crashing to the floor.  Thankfully it’s more resilient than it looks!

“Back at base” (after the boys were tucked up in bed), I had another go and was much more successful inside the house – but you really need a lot of space to get used to flying (more than I have).

Based on my complete lack of prior research I had expected the Helo TC to be Bluetooth controlled but it actually comes with an IR remote that clips on to the iPhone/iPad/Android phone and plugs into the headphone jack.  Engage Airplane Mode (seems appropriate!) and turn up the volume, then control the Helo TC with a free app that sends control signals via audio to the IR unit.  Power comes from a USB charge (approx 35 mins), engineering quality is pretty good for such an inexpensive device and it comes with spare rotor blades (main and tail). If you want a full review though, there’s more detailed online (including Engadget and LegitReviews).

My verdict: definitely an impulse buy; a bit of fun for some father-and-son time – but really needs a lot of space to learn to fly!

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Big boys toys: Griffin Helo TC smartphone-controlled RC helicopter

Much has been written in recent years about the state of ICT education in Britain’s schools, so imagine my pleasure when my wife told me that my son was learning Scratch at school. I’d hoped that he would do something more than Microsoft Office and Google soon but had a suspicion we might have to wait for secondary education (he’s currently in year 3).

I asked him about it and he seemed really enthusiastic, so I asked if he’d like to do some more at home. Then, this weekend, I plugged the Raspberry Pi into the TV, loaded up Scratch, and asked him to show me how it works.

Wow! After two lessons at school, he’s off and away. Within a few minutes we (actually, no, I was a bystander – it was my son doing the “driving”) were drawing shapes on the stage with a helicopter sprite. He progressed from squares, to circles, changing the colour as each pixel was drawn on the screen, then worked out how to draw triangles and within a short while was doing what I can only describe as the modern equivalent of a Spirograph (remember them?), running two scripts in parallel with a single keypress.

I was about 12 before I got my first computer (a Sinclair ZX Spectrum+) and took my first tentative steps in BASIC. Meanwhile, my kids are growing up in a world of smartphones, tablets and netbooks. It’s fantastic and I only wish there was some special STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programme at his school as he clearly enjoys it (sadly, he finds writing more difficult and I had to “bribe” him to complete his spelling homework by saying he could have some more time in Scratch if the spelling was completed without any fuss…). Private education is out of our reach but I’m pleased he’s getting exposure to Scratch at such a young age.

I’ll have him on JavaScript and C# next!

This blog post was written for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2004-2013 Mark Wilson. All Rights Reserved. (What is this footer about?)

Learning Scratch, from an eight-year-old

Before one of my recent business trips to Manchester, my eight-year-old son expressed concerns about my sleeping arrangements. It seems that, until my wife explained that I would be staying in a hotel overnight, he thought that I might have a comfy chair to sleep in, in the office!

Sometimes though, it does feel as though that might be the approach I need to take…

Ten or so years ago, working from home was an occasional event – and I could get done in 5 hours at home what took 8 in the office (no distractions), with the added advantage of no travel. Since 2005, I’ve officially been a “home-based worker” with varying degrees of working on customer sites and, in recent years, typically working from home most days with only a couple of days in the office each week.

This has some significant advantages (both to me and to my employer) – I’ve seen my kids grow up, never missed a school nativity play, or sports day etc. but it also re-calibrates the expectation of working at home. The new normal is to be in my home office for a full day – and then to probably go back again in the evening.  I don’t have a desk at the company office (I barely even use a hot desk), and modern communications mean that I’m contactable almost 24×7, if I choose to be (at least 12×5).

These last few weeks have reached a new level and this week was particularly bad.

On one day this week I had no breaks between dropping the kids at school and wall to wall conference calls.  I had to ask my wife to bring me toast and Marmite when it reached 11:00 and I hadn’t managed to get any breakfast, then to do the same for me with a sandwich at lunchtime (munched on mute whilst taking part in a call). At 15:30 I finally got off the phone (mobile phone battery severely depleted, my ear seriously warm) to deal with the day’s email – and it was the evening before I got around to doing something productive.

I’m slightly embarrassed to say that, on one day, I managed to go straight from bed (after working into the small hours the night before) to work, and back to bed again in the evening without having got dressed. I do feel sometimes as though I live at work, rather than work at home.

So, the next time someone is working at home, and you joke about skiving off, remember that the 9-5 has its advantages too…

This weekend, I’ll be continuing my drive to separate home and work IT (just as I do for telephony) in a quest to be able to switch off the laptop at evenings and weekends…

I can but dream…

This blog post was written for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2004-2013 Mark Wilson. All Rights Reserved. (What is this footer about?)

Working from home vs living at work

Last night, I wrote a post about shopping for second-hand smartphones. Of course, that’s only one half of the deal – the other essential element is a subscription to a mobile network. I’ve been SIM-only for a while now (add up the cost of a contract, take off the cost of the “subsidised” handset, and see how expensive it really is) and, for the last year or so, I’ve been using Giffgaff.

Giffgaff is a no-frills MVNO, owned by and operating on O2′s network. Sometimes though, I have to remind myself that you get what you pay for - for example, tethering still doesn’t work properly on an iPhone and there is no visual voicemail service. Whilst tethering is potentially an issue, visual voicemail is not a problem – my Lumia and my iPhone both tell me when I have new messages and I dial 443 (GIF) to get to my voice mailbox. Annoyingly though, iOS includes an icon in the phone app labelled Voicemail – and that’s still set to O2′s 901 number instead of Giffgaff’s 443.

It used to be possible to change this by dialling *5005*86*443# but Apple killed this feature in iOS4. It seems that now, the only way is to use a third party voicemail app (like Hullomail), or to jailbreak the phone and start messing around with plist files…

…guess what I’m looking into doing now…

This blog post was written for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2004-2013 Mark Wilson. All Rights Reserved. (What is this footer about?)

Want to update your iPhone voicemail settings? Looks like a jailbreak is needed

It used to be said that nobody got fired for buying IBM. These days it seems to be that, for non-geek consumers at least, the common denominator is iOS.

Now, before the Android and Windows Phone fans (Blackberry fans, anybody?) start flaming, let me explain…

My wife is not what you would call one of technology’s early adopters. To call her a laggard would be unkind but she only took her first tentative steps into social media last year and getting a smartphone was a big deal…

I consider iPhones to be overpriced but as I’ve never owned an Android phone I couldn’t really advise on alternatives. We did spend some time looking around in Carphone Warehouse but I had to leave Mrs W to it for fear of what I might say when the salesperson’s ill-informed “advice” got too much.

Android? Windows?

We liked the look of the HTC One X, but Mrs W was put off by some reviews on the ‘net (moral, never read reviews from non-tech writers…); some of the Samsungs looked OK too but whilst the form factor may have worked for my “man hands”, those of a daintier persuasion may find a large screen just a little too… large.

Indeed, far from helping my wife to choose a mid-priced Android handset, the experience actually swayed her towards the iPhone. I might have said take a look at Windows Phone 8 but my experience with Windows Phone 7.x has left me with little more than apathy for that platform (give me time, maybe I’ll be back in a couple of years if and when it finally takes off).

iPhone?

So, why not get an iPhone? After all, most of her friends have one. I’ve had one since the UK launch, either for personal use or for work. And “my” iPad seems to have become the family iPad now. I guess that means we’re pretty much an iOS household already.

But I still baulked at the price.

Buying second hand

Then, one of our friends mentioned smartfonestore.com. After waiting a few weeks for stock to come in, I managed to pick up a 16GB SIM-unlocked iPhone 4S for around £265, in mint (grade A) condition. Two days later and I had an SMS from Mrs W. saying how she loved her iPhone (yes, “love” was the emotion expressed by this non-geek consumer).

Ever since then, I’ve been admiring the 4S from afar, trying to convince myself that my Lumia 800 was better and that I could make do with the company-supplied 3GS. I tried to get myself another Grade A iPhone 4S but then, in a moment of weakness, I jumped for a Grade B condition unit instead. To be honest, when it arrived last Saturday, I couldn’t tell the difference!

SmartfoneStore send out the phones in their own packaging and both the iPhones I’ve purchased both came with a USB-dock cable and a SIM extraction tool. Mine also came with a screen protector and a bumper (although it’s not the Apple version, and not a great fit). I’ve yet to use the other side of the business (fonebank.com) but it may well be the destination for recycling my Lumia 800).

So now, we really are an iOS family. A 3GS, two 4Ss and an iPad.

(OK, so technically the 3GS is not mine – and I am considering replacing that with a cheap HTC Desire so that I can have a play with Android - but there are plenty of iDevices to go around…)

I’ve been impressed by SmartfoneStore (and remember, they were recommended to us by a friend too) so, if you’re in the market for a second-hand smartphone, they might be worth a look. Unfortunately there is no waiting list for a particular model to come into stock but you can register for notifications and soon enough, you should find something that suits for a lot less than the cost of a new handset.

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Shopping around for a smartphone? Have you considered buying second hand?

Last year, I developed a new sporting interest. In common with many others in the UK, I found myself glued to the TV highlights for the Tour de France, followed by the various cycling events at the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Vuelta a España, and even taking a day out to watch the Tour of Britain. I haven’t got a road bike yet (hoping to get one soon – I’ve entered a trialthlon later in the year and am hoping to ride London to Paris next year) but I was looking forward to watching the Giro d’Italia. At least, I was until I found out it’s not available on free-to-air TV:

MT @TeamSky: Extensive [#Giro] race guide. Stage info and TV times here: http://t.co/FJTZfCHs5J ^MW Gutted it’s not on Freeview @itvcycling

Monday 29 April 2013 23:31 via Mobile Web (M5)ReplyRetweetFavorite

@markwilsonit

Mark Wilson

Tonight, determined not to miss Bradley Wiggins in action in the first of the Grand Tours, I was searching the Internet for Giro highlights and even considered taking out a Sky subscription after reading that I can get a Sky Go monthly ticket and watch via my Xbox.  An online chat with a Sky representative confirmed that I would need to pay £35 for a single month’s TV and even thinking of that as £1 a day didn’t help.

I considered hitting the torrent sites until I learned (thanks to Ian Murphy/@journoian) that the highlights are on Eurosport as well as Sky Sports.  A little research suggested that, for £4.99 “Crowd Pass” I could access the Eurosport Player for a month (Android, iOS and Kindle apps, PC and Mac, as well as Sony and LG smart TVs – unfortunately not Samsung…). There’s also a £2.99 “Sports Fan” option but that involves a 12 month commitment.

So, despite being delayed by two sullen blokes hitting coloured balls around a big green table, here I am, watching Cav, Wiggo and co. racing on the Italian riviera, just as I suspect I will be for the next three weeks!

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Eurosport Player lets me watch the Giro, without a Sky subscription

Despite being what many people would consider to be technology-inclined, I don’t have a Sat Nav in my car.

I’m fortunate to have a good sense of direction, my childhood was spent touring the UK (we didn’t have foreign holidays but we did have lots of days out) and I spent the first part of my career visiting customer sites, placing me in the “18,000 mile club” (those of a certain age will remember the company car tax break that encouraged high mileage).

Generally, I get by with a £4.99 AA Map Book supplemented by my own knowledge of the UK road network.

But last weekend I was visiting friends in Winchester and, although I knew how to reach their house from the north/midlands, I was heading up from the south coast and thought there might be a better route. No worries, thought I, I’ll use Nokia Maps on my Windows Phone.

I entered their street name (let’s say it was Acacia Avenue, Winchester – of course, it wasn’t, but bear with me) and was somewhat surprised to see a map of Manchester. I thought it was an autocorrect issue, so I tried again. “Never mind”, I thought, “I’ll look up the postcode”, so I put the same search string into the phone’s search engine (Bing of course) and got some Manchester results…

I was frustrated by now. So frustrated I considered using my Wife’s iPhone and Apple Maps…

In the end, the Royal Mail website gave me the postcode, which Nokia Maps was happy to accept and use to take me to “Acacia Avenue” but there’s a much bigger issue here.

It’s not about Bing, or Nokia, or Tom Tom or Apple Maps but about trust. When I want to get somewhere, I want to get to the right place. I know, for example, that Apple Maps has some terrible information for the town where I live (e.g. many businesses in the wrong locations and some there that no longer exist). If I can’t trust a mapping service for a locality that I know well, why should I trust it for one that I don’t?  Similarly, if Nokia Maps is going to send me to Manchester instead of Winchester, I don’t much fancy the fuel bills and travel times if I rely on it to get me somewhere in a hurry…

The map data will improve – and I’ve suggestfully proposed changes to Google Maps too (a typo in the name of the local Rugby Club is probably not too big a deal though). Open Street Map is another alternative – although someone there reversed some of my edits (so that’s only as good as the community that moderates it…).

The real point is that, as we become increasingly dependent on digital services, we also need to take stock. There’s an old saying in computing – garbage in, garbage out (GIGO). Maybe technology is not always the answer and we need to rely on a little common sense too?

Photo Credit: touring_fishman via Compfight (licenced under Creative Commons).

This blog post was written for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2004-2013 Mark Wilson. All Rights Reserved. (What is this footer about?)

Ignore Sat Nav and engage brain

Over the last few weeks, I’ve dropped a few hints online about a change in my job at Fujitsu. Some, eagle-eyed LinkedIn connections saw me update my profile a couple of weeks ago to add a new position – as Fujitsu’s Head of Practice and Lead Architect for Messaging in the UK and Ireland – and today is my first day (although I’ve been picking up parts of the role for a few weeks now).

After almost three years in a strategy role, supporting two Chief Technology Officers with very different areas of focus, it’s time for a new challenge. My new role is a mixture of line management and practicing consultant so I’m actually returning to my technical roots whilst gaining additional experience of directly leading a team and being responsible for growing part of our business (including some challenging financial targets). Added to that, as messaging moves into our Business and Application Services service line, this is an opportunity for me to work in an applications business whilst building on many years of infrastructure experience.  There’s also some pretty exciting stuff going on with Microsoft (I’m not sure that’s announced publicly, so I won’t say anything more here) – but it’s a great time for me to be making this move.

Messaging is not entirely new for me – from the mid-1990s through to the mid-2000s, I worked on a number of NT and Microsoft Mail/Exchange migrations/implementations and I was one of the consultants working on ICL’s partner stand at the Microsoft  Exchange 4.0 UK launch roadshow.  In addition, one of my technical career highlights was the work I did at Polo Ralph Lauren, to design and project-manage a migration from Novell Netware to Microsoft Windows Server, from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange Server and to roll out a standard desktop build across Europe, in multiple languages, with just two Windows XP images (one uniprocessor and one ACPI). The success of that project was down to the professionalism and capabilities of the team around me – and it will be just the same in this new role.

As for this blog, well, I’ve been pretty busy for the last few weeks, as I’ve juggled two jobs – and I expect I’ll be just as busy over the coming weeks and months – but I’m still tweeting and I’ll still knock out the odd blog post too.  There might be some more Microsoft Exchange and Lync content but I expect that the usual mix of photography, social media and observations on the state of tech will persist.  This blog has been here for 9 years now, the content just shifts slightly as I do different things in my life and it seems that some people still find it interesting enough to read (or at least to subscribe)!

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Major change to my role at Fujitsu

Over the last couple of years, I’ve written a few SharePoint-based blog posts as I’ve hacked my way around the company’s infrastructure, trying to get it working the way I’d like it to (creating dashboards, adding the odd bit of workflow and custom columns to pre-populate list data, embedding video, etc.).  There’s a rumour that we might get SharePoint 2013 soon but, for now, all of my hacks/tweaks have been based on 2007.

In the last few weeks, one of the projects I’ve been involved in has taken a major step forward, engaging a real designer and a real web developer, instead of li’l ol’ me.  From my perspective, this has been great news, although there have been some times when I’ve questioned the maintainability of custom code used in situations that have caused problems in the past (e.g. to edit the default forms used for displaying list items).

As you might expect, I’ve also picked up a couple of tips, working alongside some experts – and I thought I’d make a quick note of them here, for future reference.

Editing list forms without using SharePoint Designer

First up, a handy little trick to edit list forms (like DispForm.aspx) without having to resort to using SharePoint Destroyer Designer, which is little more than Microsoft FrontPage (just about OK in it’s day but long past its sell-by date now). Just add ToolPaneView=2 into the query string, for example http://sharepoint.intranet.com/00001/Lists/ListName/DispForm.aspx?ToolPaneView=2.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work on my Office 365 SharePoint site, so it might be 2007-only but useful nevertheless. In our case, this was used to add a (hidden) Content Editor Web Part with some jQuery and CSS to style up the form.

Hiding page elements

Sometimes, there are standard elements of a page that you don’t want to display and, without access to the templates used on a corporate site, that might be difficult. As it happens, all that’s required is a little in-line CSS, included in a (hidden) Content Editor Web Part:

Just use the Developer Tools in Internet Exploder (or similar in your choice of browser – although, if you’re using SharePoint 2007, it probably will be IE) to find the class of the element to be hidden. In this case, I removed some standard text that was inserted below the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page but I’ve also seen it used to hide the page title and it could be applied to other elements too.

Credits: Thanks to Steve Haxell for sharing these methods with me.

This blog post was written for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2004-2013 Mark Wilson. All Rights Reserved. (What is this footer about?)

Some SharePoint tips/tricks for editing list forms and hiding standard page elements

I’ve used WordPress’ conditional tags in the past, for example to make sure that something only shows on a certain type of page or post but, a few months ago, I wanted to limit some code to only run on a specific post – and that was proving to be a challenge.  Then I found a useful plugin called Widget Logic.  As the name suggests, it adds some logic to widgets such that they only appear according to the rules specified using conditional tags.

All I needed to add was is_single('postnumber') to limit the widget to appearing only on the post I specified.  It’s also been handy to limit my warning that older content may be out of date so that it’s not shown on pages, only on posts (using !is_page()).

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Displaying a widget on a single WordPress post