Archive for the 'Personal' category

27
Sep

Friday Fill-Ins #91

By Damien Guard Categories: Personal Tags: , .

Started by Janet, picked up via Brad.

  1. Settling down in the Redmond area and being with my team are some of the things I'm most looking forward to in October.
  2. Sometimes I am so deep in thought when people ask me a question I look dazed and confused, failing to answer them.
  3. People grow and situations change and that's why there is a saying, "never say never"!
  4. When I'm down, I take a nap, wake up and do something different or creative.
  5. Microsoft Building 35 is where you'll find me most often.
  6. A rainy day is good for splashing in puddles, getting wet and drying off near something warm with cocoa.
  7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to wrapping things up, tomorrow my plans include going out with my Vancouver friends one last time and Sunday, I want to go parkouring and start packing!
[)amien
1 Comment
05
Aug

How did I get started in software development?

By Damien Guard Categories: Development and Personal Tags: .

Ken Egozi tagged me with the latest meme and this time it’s at least relevant :)

How old were you when you first started in programming?

Some time between 10 and 12 when my father bought home a ZX Spectrum and I ended up delving into the excellent programming manual when I finally ran out of games to play. At the same time my school opened up the computer room at lunchtimes…

What was your first programming language?

BASIC on the Sinclair Spectrum (evenings) and BBC Micro (lunch-times and after school). Multi-platform from the outset ;-)

What was the first real program you wrote?

Probably the MultiFile +3 disk & file management tool for the Spectrum in a mix of assembler and BASIC but I was also creating menu and copy protection for the BBC Micro around the same time.

I also trashed an expensive 3” disk drive at the time with a small bug in my end-of-disk detection code that resulted in the drive trying to step itself beyond the end several times and knocked it out of alignment.

What languages have you used since you started programming?

Well I’ve *used* the following although ones in italics for only brief periods involving one or two small applications.

  • BASICs: Sinclair, BBC, Microsoft, QBASIC, Mallard, QuickBasic, ASIC
  • Assemblers: Z80, 6502, 8051
  • Visual Basic, VBA, VBScript, VB.NET
  • C, C++, Objective-C, C#, Java, JavaScript, ActionScript
  • Turbo Pascal, Delphi, SQL, PHP
  • COBOL, RPG, SmallTalk, Algol, Prolog

I’m not sure if XSLT/XPath or RegEx’s count.

What was your first professional programming gig?

Writing IBM AS/400 (iSeries) banking applications in COBOL age 17 joining a team where the leader was already known as the Kindergarten Cop as everyone in his team was “only 23-25”. I got to delve into the kernel, general ledger and securities systems eventually single-handedly developing intricate multi-base-currency support leaving days before my 19th birthday. (Okay, a little pride there ;-)

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Without a shadow of a doubt.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

Enjoy the journey, new languages are going to come and go so learn them just-in-time ;-)

It’s a shame computers and languages are more complex now but with the Internet and great books available there is no real barrier to entry.

What's the most fun you've ever had programming?

Any application that brings a smile to a users face :)

Some 'interesting' moments have been revisiting school-level physics for a pool game and an on-the-fly domain class construction system for an international configurable payroll package.

Who am I calling out?

I’m not sure any of them are reading my blog any more but you never know ;-)

[)amien

5 Comments
21
May

May 2008 checkpoint

By Damien Guard Categories: Fonts and Personal Tags: , , .

I am now settled into my new, albeit temporary, apartment here in Vancouver, BC working for Microsoft!

Joining Microsoft

For those who haven't been following my blog long I took a job at Microsoft Canada Development Centre as a developer on LINQ to SQL. It turns out my H-1B Visa has been approved and I will be moving down to Redmond in October.

Joining a company of Microsoft's size is a daunting experience. The sheer number of people, departments, systems, procedures and intranet sites to navigate and learn plus of course the actual job of jumping into the product and seeing where we go from here. I've also been helping out a little on the forums and internal lists and getting involved in the regular scheduled update meetings.

Of course you also hear all sorts of interesting news just before it becomes public knowledge such as publishing XNA apps to Xbox Live! and Office getting ODF and PDF support.

On the personal front...

A whirlwind couple of weeks full of new employee orientation, relocating, getting lost, filling in forms, exploring, meeting a couple of hundred people and catching up with a few old friends including one from Guernsey all of which lead to a quiet blog.

There have been some personal stories of getting lost, baby sharks and falling in lakes which will be kept to email now - there's no way those 500+ subscribers are here for my personal bits! I'll be sending out an email this week so if you haven't seen something by the weekend and we're friends ping me and I'll forward you on a copy.

Some photos are up on Facebook with a few more to follow.

Envy Code R

Of course what everybody really wants to know (according to my inbox) is where Envy Code R preview #7 is.

It is coming, but every time I think I'm close to a release I find another annoying glitch all related to hinting.

Hinting is the process whereby you tell the rendering system how to shape the characters to better fit into a pixel grid. It consists of a table saying at which sizes to smooth and apply instruction plus a program that adjusts the font as a whole for a given size and then a program per-glyph that tells it how to adjust the points in relation to each other with delta hints providing modifications for specific point sizes.

It's a complicated process if you're doing it at the lowest level with a tool such as Microsoft's Visual TrueType but is made easier with a tool like FontLab Studio 5 which has an autohinter that often gets things wrong but is a lot easier to work with and works with hints at a higher level of abstraction.

Which is why I parted with $999 on FontLab and I'm going to investigate a donate option to try and recoup some of those costs.

The bold variant is the only one now requiring hinting and I'm hoping to have it done in the next 24-48 hours. The regular variant looks just great... as does italics.

[)amien

4 Comments
01
Apr

Joining the LINQ to SQL team at Microsoft

By Damien Guard Categories: Microsoft and Personal Tags: .

I've been quiet on my blog lately largely because I have been preparing to change job and relocate half-way around the world to Vancouver in the beautiful province of British Columbia (where I spent my 2004 summer holiday).

In February I travelled out to Redmond for three days of interviews (one position grew to two, then three). Having read the Microsoft Jobs Blog I was prepared for long hard days but in reality the process was incredibly enjoyable and exciting.

So much so I wanted to find a desk and move in right then.

With some luck I also found myself at Hanselman's geek dinner which involved some great discussions and the chance to meet Scott himself, Brad Wilson and Nikhil Kothari who I knew from .NET on-line community as well as some 35 other developers from both within Microsoft and the outside world. It was one fun evening and my thanks go to Scott for kindly driving me back to my hotel in Redmond town centre.

Many white-boards and a few lunches later (including an unexpected one with Phil Haack, Nikhil and two more guys from ASP.NET team - I wish I could remember all the names of the people I met!) I found myself with the hard task of choosing a position.

I settled on a developer role within the LINQ to SQL team starting mid-May and am counting down the days...

[)amien

14 Comments
02
Jan

Year 2007 personal retrospective

By Damien Guard Categories: Personal Tags: .

What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?

I visited Microsoft's HQ in Redmond.

Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn't make any.

What countries did you visit?

England and US.

What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

The opportunity to work on some great products / solutions.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

My blog has really taken off in 2007, traffic is way up, posts are way up and it's proving to be a useful reference for myself and others :)

What was your biggest failure?

Not shipping any major projects.

What was the best thing someone bought you?

I got so many great things for Christmas - a lovely new giant laptop bag, some great DVD's and books too!

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

My girlfriend Steph for being so understanding about how much time my hobbies take up.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Nothing that strong in my life!

Where did most of your money go?

In the bank!

What song will always remind you of 2007?

I must confess I've not been paying any attention to the music industry for a while. I guess Radiohead's Rainbow will stick in my mind for 2007 not for what it sounds like (I didn't listen to it) but for the attention it got by putting it out direct for consumers to name their price.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

  • Happier or sadder? Same.
  • Thinner or fatter? Same.
  • Richer or poorer? Richer.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Put up more samples on my blog, more adventure in life and more discussion and development of ideas.

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Less idle browsing of the net, less sleep ;-)

How do you plan to spend Christmas?

I spent it with my family including a 24-person lunch which my mother, sisters, step-sister and aunty managed to somehow co-ordinate to great effect.

What was your favourite TV program?

Takeshi's Castle although The Mighty Boosh was also great.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Who has time for that?

What was the best book you read?

Gateway by Frederik Pohl.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

I've been listening to Podcasts more than music.

What did you want and not get?

Career development but I've only myself to blame.

What was your favourite film of this year?

Hot Fuzz.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Spent the evening with Steph and enjoyed a relaxing 33rd.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

More Esprit less skater :D

What political issue stirred you the most?

National ID database in the UK. As if their fiasco with the child database wasn't evidence enough of this ticking time-bomb of an idea.

Who was the best new person you met?

I met some great people out in Redmond including Jonathan, Aaron & James.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007?

Opportunity might come knocking but it still needs chasing down.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Bouncy bouncy, ooh such a good time
Bouncy bouncy, shoes all in a line
Bouncy bouncy, everybody somersault
Somersault, summertime, everybody sing along
Bouncy bouncy, ooh such a good time
Bouncy bouncy, white socks falling down
Bouncy bouncy, stilettos are a no-no
Bouncy bouncy, ooh, bouncy bouncy ooh
Every time I bounce, I feel I touch the sky!

-- The Bouncy Crimp, The Mighty Boosh

[)amien

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