A job, some sun, the HTC Desire and lots of revision

James McMinn — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:28:21 +0000

It’s been a while since my last update, several months in fact. The title is a no-nonsense summary of the things that have happened since then.

I’ll start with what I consider the most important. I’ve managed to get myself a job for the summer. It’s a 2 month placement in the University of Glasgow Physics department. It’s not full time at 3 days per week and, since I’ll be mostly working on my own, the hours are extremely flexible. I’m essentially redesigning the labs and coursework for the Linux part of the Physics 2T course (C Programming Under Linux) which I took in the first semester of this year (and I should add, despite missing half of the lecturers due to a timetable conflict, got an A1). I can’t wait to get started in June – it’s exactly the sort of job I’ve been looking for as it gives me a chance to do something I LOVE, earn some money and still leaves me with a few days a week to enjoy the fantastic, warm summer that I’m predicting (and let’s be honest, I’m probably about as reliable as the MET office when it comes to long-term predictions). On another note, and after what seems like forever, I finally got round to biting the ever-moving bullet that is the latest and greatest smartphone. I’ve signed myself up to a 24 month contract with T-Mobile for a HTC Desire. I can say without a doubt, I made the right decision. The Desire, hardware wise, is easily the most powerful phone available at the moment. Some of its best features are:

1GHz Snapdragon processor

576 MB RAM

3.7-inch 480×800 AMOLED touchscreen

5 MP Camera with LED Flash

GPS

FM Radio

Flash 10.1

the list goes on…and on…and on…

It’s essentially a Nexus One, the hardware is almost identical in every way apart from the lack of a second, noise canceling microphone and the replacement of touch buttons with physical ones (which I greatly prefer). I got a great deal on it too, £130 upfront for the phone and £15 per month for 24 months which gives me 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 3GB of data. I’m a very happy T-Mobile customer at the moment and I could go on for hours about the HTC Desire (just ask my girlfriend, my flatmate, my parents or my friends…) but I’ll give it 10 out of 10 and stop there. Exams are about to start and revision mode is in full swing (which is exactly why I’m making this post, procrastination is an extremely productive tool). I’ve got an Electronic Engineering exam on Monday, Algorithmic Foundations on Tuesday and then Java Programming on Thursday. Next week is going to be fun! At least I get a whole week to revise for my Object Orientated Software Engineering and Algorithms and Data Structures exams.

Solway Optical

James McMinn — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:06:51 +0000

I’ve been working on a website for a Dumfries opticians, I think it’s coming along quite nicely.

James McMinn » Work

A job, some sun, the HTC Desire and lots of revision

Solway Optical