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Browsing posts in: Microsoft
Apr 4, 2018    |      0 comments

Introduction to Quantum Computing with Q#

In the last 3 months I have been studying more and more about quantum computing, spoken to members of the Q# team at Microsoft, recorded a new Pluralsight Play by Play course and recorded a new episode of The Future of Tech. I find the area both incredible mystifying and very rewarding every time I understand a new concept. The below article is a quick intro to starting with Q# and Visual Studio and was first published on gooroo.io. 

For the past 47 years since Intel released the 4004 in 1971, computing has been following very much the same path. Microprocessors based on transistors and bits switching between 0 and 1 have been the cornerstone of every single consumer and commercial computing experience since then. While we rely on computers for increasingly more tasks, there are calculations that just aren’t feasible with traditional computing, and this is where quantum computing can prove both superior and immensely powerful.

Quantum computing and quantum mechanics has been topics of research for over 100 years, since Max Planck release his Quantum Hypothesis in 1900. Albert Einstein has used quantum theory to explain several hypothesis and many more scientists since expanded and corroborated the theories. Today we have quantum computing which promises dramatic improvements for certain types of problems.

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Jun 30, 2017    |      0 comments

Europe Trip 2017 – All the Things!

I am writing this as I sit in a comfortable Danish train on first class enjoying the space and enjoying the expectation of what lies ahead. As I zoom towards Hamburg to pick up the family and spend three weeks in Europe visiting friends, family and discovering new places, I think back of the last three and a bit mad weeks. The biggest trip I have ever done in terms of conferences, user groups, presentations, workshop and so much more.

Having been travelling for conferences and other work commitments extensively for the past 4 years, I have now come to a point, where any travel needs not only expose my brand and my content to a new and larger audience, but I also need to be able to fill out any spare time with other work and exposure. Being a freelancer and independent software developer, my time is always in demand, either for paying bills, building brand or, of course, spending with my family. Every decision to spend time away from home needs to be an absolute win.

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May 1, 2017    |      0 comments

HoloLens Development: Spatial Mapping

I have been doing HoloLens for a while now, and I am continually amazed of the ideas and projects the community is creating. A lot of the best ideas evolve from the desire to interact with digital assets in a physical world, which is what mixed reality (MR) is all about. This is enabled through spatial mapping, which is easy to use and difficult to master. This article first published at Pluralsight.

Interest in HoloLens, and digital reality in general, is growing rapidly. And a large part of that interest comes from developers wanting to know how to build software for HoloLens, the mixed reality device from Microsoft.

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Apr 6, 2017    |      0 comments

Using the HoloToolkit for HoloLens

This article was first posted on gooroo.io

Developing applications and experiences for HoloLens is not hard to get started with, but after you have started a number of projects and worked through the same setup and plumbing a few times, you wish there was an easier way to do it. Well, there is! Created by the team that produced Fragments and Young Conker, the HoloToolkit is a collection of scripts and components intended to accelerate the development of holographic applications targeting Windows Holographic.

The toolkit is all free and comes in two varieties: one for Visual Studio and one for Unity 3D. Developing for HoloLens means spending a LOT of time in the Unity editor, and the HoloToolkit is a simple .unitypackage file you can download and import into your Unity project.

Import Custom Package

 

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Feb 21, 2017    |       4 comments

Microsoft Ignite AU 2017 – A Recap

I have just returned from a 3,200km round trip to the Gold Coast to attend the yearly Microsoft Ignite conference (formerly known as Tech Ed). I had only done that drive once before, in the opposite direction, and this time I took the family along. Normally you would fly this distance, so it was a great opportunity to see a tiny bit of the enormous country I live in.

Route to Ignite

It is a long drive up there, but at least we had some great places to stop on the way. It took us two and a bit days to do the drive, but the breaks were just bearable.

Razorback

Enough about the journey. This is a recap of the return of Microsoft Ignite after more than a year off the events calendar. If you aren’t familiar with Microsoft Ignite Australia, it is the premier Australian Microsoft event of the year, traditionally held on the Gold Coast in Australia. It is of course a very corporate event, but it does showcase all the latest and greatest in the world of Microsoft. Most of the great Aussie speakers in the space are there and the content and quality is always top notch. I do enjoy going there. Continue Reading

Sep 6, 2016    |      1 comment

The Force Awakens – Part of My Journey

I recently got to be part of the amazing NDC Sydney conference in it’s maiden form Down Under. I have been a more integral part of the event than previous NDC events, as I got to form part of the agenda committee, choosing sessions and creating the agenda for the conference. That isn’t to say that people on the agenda committee choose themselves, but rather we try to form the best possible agenda in terms of speakers, content and breadth of topics. If the committee fits into that and want to speak, great.

One of my submissions was a talk I have been mentally forming for the last 6-7 years. It is a extremely personal talk, but also a talk I believe could help a ton of developers in the community. It is a talk on my journey from being content, complacent and frankly, clueless, to being ambitious and always wanting to explore and try out ideas. I share as much as I can in terms of life decisions, tips for getting ahead of the competition and how to lead and empower your journey in life.

I have done the talk twice since NDC in Sydney and each time is slightly different, but all have been extremely well received. Below is the NDC Sydney recording of the talk and if you are interested in having me give the talk at your event, let me know. It is one of those talks that keeps giving and makes the world a little bit better.

Sep 4, 2016    |      0 comments

Tech Tips for Lenovo

A couple of months ago, Lenovo in Australia asked if I was interested in creating some short tech tip videos aimed at consumer users. I have been doing things with Lenovo since about April (mainly because I bought the amazing Yoga 900 and was a bit loud about it), so I was keen to give more back to the community. Initially I came up with ideas that were way too technical and too nerdy. I didn’t quite get what non-geek consumers find useful, but after some conversation with Lenovo I came up with a list of 12 ideas, of which we agreed on producing 5 of those.

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May 3, 2016    |      0 comments

Developing Holographically with HoloLens SDK

Techorama1

I have just delivered a talk  at Techorama in Belgium (awesome conference btw) on the HoloLens development experience. It is still very very early days for the technology and for the developing experience as well. As I don’t have a physical HoloLens device (yet) I did the talk using the HoloLens emulator and the tooling that is available now.

Because the topic is so new and fresh, my demo was using the Origami collection as per Microsoft’s tutorials so that attendees could go straight out and start playing with it. And speaking of that, I promised the audience I would post links to the necessary tooling, so here it is:

And that is it. You can now build Holograms for the HoloLens. I would recommend starting with the Holograms 100 tutorial or the Holograms 101E for starting to use the origami collection with the emulator. And of course all of the tooling is completely free.

If you have any questions around any of this, leave me a comment or ping me on the twitters.

Dec 14, 2015    |      0 comments

Hour of Code – Teaching Kids to Code

Hour of Code

If there is one thing I am really passionate about (besides Windows phone and Microsoft Kool-Aid) it is opening up kids’ minds to the world of coding. Watching kids in that light bulb moment when they suddenly realise that they can control computers and make them do their bidding is just priceless. I love it. Continue Reading

Oct 4, 2015    |      0 comments

Windows 10 for Mobile – The Full Experience

[This article was first posted on gooroo.io]

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Recently Microsoft announced they intended to cut some 7800 jobs, mainly from their acquired Nokia division. While these are real jobs and I have full sympathy for the people that are about to lose their position, it was also a necessary step for Microsoft to not get stuck in the past and continue to move forward. Unfortunately, the way it was announced by the tech giant was unfortunate and quite poorly handled. If you think that Windows Phone is dead and there will be no Microsoft mobile experience, you couldn’t be more wrong. Pure and simple.

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