Category Archives: Misc

Job Opening: Software Developer (C#) Edinburgh

Submissions are now CLOSED

I just got the following from a friend. His company are looking to hire a software developer. If you are interested and fit the bill then please let him know:

Company: Pilgrim Systems
Job Title: SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
Description: Are you a real programmer looking for a proper development job? If so, read on. As Joel Spolsky says “The most satisfying careers, if you’re a software developer, are at actual software companies, not doing IT for some bank”.

We’re looking for experienced software developers to assist in the design and development of our new suite of software tools for the legal sector.

Due to the ongoing evolution of our legal software you will be at the forefront of developing the next generation of LawSoft software, utilising the technologies such as .Net, C# and XML. In addition, you will be involved in delivering software enhancements to meet specific client needs.

Your main responsibilities will include:-

· Developing & maintenance of code that adheres to the Company coding standards
· Production of high quality software
· Writing specifications and estimating development project timescales and milestones

Candidates must have 3 years work experience in the following:
· C# or VC++
· SQL
· ASP.NET & ASP
· Object-oriented design

The following skills are desirable:
· XML/XSL
· MFC
· Microsoft Office Development

You must have the following:
· Good interpersonal skills
· Educated to degree or similar qualification
· Ability to communicate well both orally and in writing
· Ability and interest in learning new technologies
· A demonstrable interest in a career in software development
· Team player

Closing Date 23rd July 2007

Negotiable salary and benefits package

If you are interested in the above position and would like to be part of a growing company please email your CV to jobs@pilgrimsystems.com quoting the above reference.

About Pilgrim Systems

Pilgrim Systems is an Edinburgh based software house developing complete IT solutions for law firms. Founded in 1978 the company has established a dominant position in the Scottish legal market and has become a leading supplier of legal IT systems in England and Wales.

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IT Community Wiki

Various people in the UK IT Community are putting together a wiki to act as a repository of speakers, user groups, presentations and events. A start was made on it over the weekend and it is beginning, slowly, to take shape. Myself and fellow Scottish Developer John Thomson worked on getting the speaker’s profile right yesterday and today and I think we’ve pretty much got there. We used my profile to work on and experiment with the design. We now just have to create a template based on that and get other speaker profiles filled in and listed in the appropriate indexes.

The profile contains, we hope, all the information a user group would need to find and approach a potential speaker. For example: past work, qualifications, awards, professional affiliations and so on are provided to satisfy someone that the speaker is qualified to speak on a subject.  A section on geographic areas covered and expenses exist so that there is no doubt about what it will cost to book the speaker and whether they would even consider travelling to a certain area. Finally, contact information is given so that the speaker can be contacted.

There are one or two tweaks still to be sorted out, but the substance is there now.

Links: UK Community Wiki,  Speaker Profile for Colin Angus Mackay.

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An interview with Dave McMahon

The day before DDD5 Craig Murphy of Scottish Developers interviews Dave McMahon of NxtGenUG. You can pick up the podcast from Craig’s blog.

One thing I’d really like to pick up on is about in-person events, the user group meetings themselves. These are great places to interact with people who are also software developers. There is a lot of good information that goes back and forward from general banter about the writing software and technologies to full scale discussions on design and architecture. The wealth of information is priceless. It is perfectly possible that you may be starting a project that is very similar to one someone else has just completed – they can give you pointers on what worked for them and what didn’t so you can learn from their experience too.

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How to podcast?

The NxtGenUG have just released an excellent podcast on how to do a podcast. This was recorded at the Microsoft Community Leaders Day last week. If you are interested in doing your own podcast then this contains some excellent information about how to go about it.

Also mentioned is a SQL Server Community Day along the same lines as Developer Day (DDD) that is going to happen on the 6th October at Microsoft’s campus in Reading.

Some of the tips include using audacity for editing, and Kevin MacLeod‘s work for the music.

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RTFM on SQL Server 2008 (Spatial)

As a software developer I obviously have great difficulty in actually reading the fine manual before plundering onwards. It is only when I can’t get things to work or see what I’m supposed to do that I begin to think that perhaps there might be some useful nugget of information hidden away somewhere.

And so it was with the SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) June CTP. I’d heard that there was going to be spatial querying available in the next version of SQL Server, and so there is. It just won’t be available in the June CTP (CTP3). Nor will it be available in the next CTP (4) either. SQL Server 2008 Spatial will hopefully be available after that.

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Installing SQL Server 2008 (Katmai)

I’m just installing SQL Server 2008 (Codenamed Katmai) June 2007 CTP. The installation isn’t without its problems – which is fine for the moment. It is a CTP after all.

The main problem is with the prerequisits. The installer will try an install them for you, but it fails to get as far as installing even the .NET Framework. It would seem that these things have to be installed manually in advance at the moment.

If installing the full thing SQL Server 2008 does require access to IIS. I don’t think I’ll by using any of those features so I’m not going to bother – we’ll see how that works out. It will be interesting to see if it is easy to go back and add features or if it will require a complete reinstall. I’d imagine that most people will install just the minimum they need and go back and install more as they need it. This helps keep the attack surface minimised.

So, other than the installation of the prerequisits being a bit a bit dodgy everything else seems to have gone very smoothly. Hopefully, I’ll be playing with all the new spatial stuff. That’s what I’m really looking forward to.

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Aye! Right!

I just got this email purporting to be from PayPal. I don’t believe the email.

Dear valued PayPal member:

It has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce
the instance of fraud on our website.  If you could please take 5-10 minutes out
of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.


However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before July 06, 2007.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your PayPal records click on the following link:
http://72.189.180.57/updateusersonlinesecurity.html



Thank You.
PayPal UPDATE TEAM

What makes me think it is a fake? The URL does not contain PayPal’s domain name. It is a simple IP address.

So, who owns the IP Address?

OrgName:    Road Runner HoldCo LLC
OrgID:      RRSW
Address:    13241 Woodland Park Road
City:       HerndonState
Prov:       VA
PostalCode: 20171
Country:    US

And what about the real PayPal. Their IP Address is 216.113.188.64.

Also, the email didn’t have my address in the “TO” box (So I’m guessing all the recipients were BCC’d into the list) and the reply address is no-reply@google.com.

I have sent an appropriate email to Road Runner letting them know that someone is using their servers to host phishing sites. Hopefully it can be taken down promptly to prevent any less savvy people falling victim to this really quite amaturish attempt at a phishing scam.

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Useless Error Message

Exception Processing Message 0xc0000013 Parameters 0x75BE023C 0x8343FCBC 0x75BE023C 0x75BE023C

Pointless error message

Well here’s a pointless error message from Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 running on Windows Vista.

What actually happened is that I picked from the list of recently opened files a presentation that was saved to a USB key which is no longer present. While the dialog title bar does give useful information to the user, the main message is filled with useless rubbish as far as a user is concerned.

Pressing cancel doesn’t immediately help – It just repeats the message. You have to click cancel a fair few times before it eventually tells you something useful – Such as it can’t actually find the file with the given path name.

Why wasn’t the user told immediately that it couldn’t locate the file instead of being presented with a bunch of hex?

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