Trevor Baylis who spoke about inventions and patents at the the IAP Symposium Trinity House in 2001 is to be honoured today, he will receive his CBE. The presentation will be at Windsor Castle. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31760266

If any of our members are working on this project, perhaps they would like to give us some more detail. The idea that Barbie is IP addressable could lead to some interesting hacks. Will we have invasion of the Barbie Dolls with hundreds of interconnected over proportioned toys. Could this be the ultimate blonde ambition! […]

There has been an explosion in the variety of examinable subjects that can be studied at school and university, but we are frequently told that youngsters do not have the skills that employers want. More specifically we have the perennial IT skills crisis with yet another cohort of hapless young people leaving school or graduating […]

A manuscript handwritten by Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing could fetch more than £1 million at auction. The 56-page document, which is full of mathematical notes, is thought to be have been written by Turing during World War Two. It will be sold at Bonhams auction house, New York on April 13. http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11737376.Codebreakers notes_auction_could_top 1m/

I found this on the BBC web site and thought it might be of interest to those of you working on the Internet of Things. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30224853 If you have anything you would like to share about projects you are working on in the IoT field; please send them to me ellisj@staff.iap.org.uk

After this years Symposium I thought this article on the BBC web site might interest some of you. Build it yourself Internet aware devices. You configure and ‘Program’ them to do your bidding and they transmit data back to you http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30052681

You may have seen this recent article on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30054140. Where a 5 year old boy passed a Microsoft exam and now is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). While his skills are not in question, it does raise the issue that without real in the field work experience would you employ him? also […]

A recent article in the New York Times, highlights why network managers and software developers are having to take great care in implementing systems. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/middle-eastern-petrochemical-plants-are-targets-of-hackers/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_r=0 The worry of course is that as more and more devices become IP aware; they too will become a target for the undesirable elements in computing. I recently drove past a […]

VACANCY NOW TAKEN I’m working on a major project at the moment for a government (not Defence) client. There are three of us on the team at the moment and we’re looking to add another developer. This would be a “work from your own office” assignment, good rates, and an exciting project which is likely […]

“Legacy code” is that code in an organisation which has been around for some time, and it bears considering the career issues that it represents.  It can be both an opportunity and a threat to our careers.  On the plus side, legacy code can have the attraction of offering some stability and comfort.  For those […]