Team: Roland Glew

I've recently upgraded to my first Windows Mobile device. My previous phone was very basic, but I'm now using a Windows Mobile SmartPhone, the iMate SP3i. It's not quite cutting edge - Windows Mobile 2003SE, a 176x220 screen - but the extra features that it has given me have been incredibly useful!

I always said that all I needed from a phone was to make calls, texts and possibly stretch to an alarm. I've worked with smartphones for the last 5 years, off and on, and I've never been particularly tempted by the extra features. A camera seems nice, a calendar could be helpful, the interface seems okay...but nothing that would really make the change worth while, so, having tried this new phone for a little over a week now, I'm surprised to say that I can never see myself turning back. Little features like Photo Caller ID have kept me interested, but it's actually the extra ability to store useful information that has really impressed me. Calendar and Contacts have both been used a lot, although it will take me a while to get it all as I want it!

Needless to say, one of the first things I did was put some of our games on it. I've got a small collection on there now, with Seven Seas being probably my most played - giving me my daily dose of pirate adventure! Hidden Expedition Titanic and Cubis have also been firm favourites, with their bold graphics a real bonus on the small screen.

I'm really enjoying seeing our games and the devices from another perspective, and I'm looking forward to learning more about Windows Mobile®, as a user rather than as a tester.

Yesterday evening, WikiMonkey ventured off to the capital. He was there attending a London Girl Geek Dinner as Alison's guest - and I got taken along to look after him this time. Since he's currently busy with more travel plans, he's sent me to tell you about his evening.

We had a long drive down and then settled down with the guys from Fancyapint.com to listen to two speakers about Wikis - a subject close to WikiMonkey's heart! But no sooner had WikiMonkey got his badge and sat down than he was being interviewed by Angela Saini for the BBC! Alison was ready with her camera to record the moment and also snapped him posing with the London Girl Geek Dinners' founder, Sarah Blow. Sarah was so impressed, she insisted he give a bit of an impromptu chat about himself and his work after the other speakers.

We all had an interesting time, hearing about Wiki Wednesdays (a chance to share experiences with Wikis) from David Terrar and about Wikia (a more specialist development of Wikipedia) from Angela Beesley. It was nice to see the interest that Wikis are attracting from all sorts of people.

Unfortunately, WikiMonkey was struck down with a bit of Laryngitis and couldn't speak - so I had to fill in for him! I gave a short talk on how we use the Wiki here at Astraware, what it is like to run a Wiki in a company and answered a couple of questions about our experiences.

It was a good evening and I'm sure that we'll see Astraware Staff attending more London Girl Geek Dinner events in the future.

The British Summer is firmly on its way now, which means the Astraware office will be getting rather warm for a few months. It's a very pleasant temperature outside at the moment, but when the sun is shining into our room full of computers, the temperature in the office starts to soar.

It gets a bit too much for most of us, so we go all out to try and keep the office cool. One of the best ways we have of doing that is Howard's ingenious scheme to block out the sun! Myself and Paul from the QA team get the lucky job of putting up the shielding, which is a shiny silver insulating material. We cut it into strips and fasten it to the windows, shiny side facing out, and we reflect lots of the sunshine away from the office.

We had a practice run last summer, so we've become quite nifty at putting the shielding up now. However, some of the developers still look a little bit worried when we start climbing over their desks.