The Codebreakers – Enigma, Bletchley Park and the Battle of the Atlantic

This just in from the Edinburgh Branch of the BCS:

Wednesday 9th December 2009, 6:30 pm.

Speaker: Dr. Mark Baldwin.

University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB – map (click on Informatics Forum in the list of buildings).

This talk is free of charge. Refreshments available from 6:00 pm.

Synopsis

One of the Second World War’s most fascinating stories is that of the Enigma machine, a portable encryption device widely used by the Germans, whose ciphers they believed to be totally secure. Nevertheless, by mathematical analysis and modern technology (and a certain amount of good luck), the Allies devised techniques for ‘breaking’ Enigma ciphers, and thus read several million German messages, providing a wealth of reliable Intelligence. The attack on Enigma, initiated by the Poles in the 1930s, was later perfected by the British at Bletchley Park, today open to the public as a museum site.

The Intelligence gained was of immense value to the Allies in virtually every theatre of war, but nowhere more so than in the Battle of the Atlantic, that fierce conflict which lasted nearly six years and cost over 60,000 lives. Dr Baldwin uses the Battle of the Atlantic to exemplify the importance of codebreaking in winning the war.

After the presentation, the audience are invited to take part in a hands-on practical demonstration of one of the few surviving Enigma machines. Only about 200 are known to survive worldwide; of these, only about a dozen are in public collections in Britain. As these machines are so rare, Dr Baldwin is providing a unusual opportunity for the audience not just to view, but also to operate, an original 4-rotor Enigma machine (i.e. the more sophisticated model, developed for the U-Boat service in 1942). This is of particular interest, as there is no working machine on permanent public display anywhere in England north of Bletchley Park, and nowhere at all in Wales, Scotland or Ireland.

Stored Procedures for Developers

We’ve just received an email from VBUG telling us about an event they are holding in Scotland:

VBUG has organised a meeting in Scotland (Livingston) on Thursday 10 Dec on ‘Stored Procedures for Developers’ with Ian Logan starting at 6.30pm.

All details are at http://www.vbug.co.uk/events/default.aspx.

Next Scottish Testing Group Event

This just in from the Scottish Testing Group:

The BCS Scottish Testing Group is holding an event from 1:00-5:00 pm on 24th November 2009 in Glasgow. This event is free to attend but you need to book in advance as there are only a limited number of spaces available.

Further details on this event are available at:  http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.9731

An abstract and speaker bios can be downloaded at:  http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/stg-presentation-abstracts-and-speaker-bios.pdf

If you interested in attending this event please contact Shaun Gauld – Email: shaun.b.gauld@jpmchase.com or phone 0141 228 5078 or 07917 581 024.

Further information on the BCS Scottish Testing Group is available at: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.9729

.Net Developer, Competitive Salary, East Kilbride

This just in from NetIDme:

We are looking for a lead C# .Net developer that wants to start working for a cutting edge, dynamic, fast moving company and join our team that develops exciting products in the area of online age and identity verification. 

You must be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience:

• At least 3+ years development experience as a team lead
• C# and ASP.NET
• A strong grasp of object-oriented design
• A strong desire to produce quality code across all layers of an application stack

We work in a lot of exciting areas, so having demonstrable experience in any of the following areas will prove advantageous:

• OpenID Information Cards
• OAuth
• OpenSocial
• ASP.NET MVC
• TDD
• nHibernate
• Castle Project
• Objective-C
• Facebook API

NetIDme provides a suite of online age and identity verification solutions for businesses operating in Remote Gambling, iGaming, eRetail and Online Community markets seeking to establish robust automatic online age and identity verification processes to adhere to current and pending UK, European and USA legislation.

Interested?

Send your CV and cover letter to: recruitment@netidme.com.

Please Note: All prospective employees must undergo a Disclosure Scotland check

NO 3RD PARTY REFERRALS PLEASE

Advanced TDD – An Introduction to Testing Patterns and Behaviour Driven Development

When

Glasgow: Tuesday, 13th October, 2009 @ 18:30

The Talk

There is more to doing TDD well than just Red-Green-Refactor, and creating a maintainable test suite as well as maintainable production software is vital. In this presentation we will look at common testing patterns, techniques and tools that can help make maintaining the test suite easier. From Shared Fixtures to Stubs and Mocks, we will take a look at common patterns that have been proven to work and the tools that help you take advantage of them. We will also take brief look at what Behaviour Driven Development is and the problem it tries to solve.

The Speaker

Chris Canal has worked at a Web Developer for the past 7 years. Starting with procedural languages like ASP and PHP, he quickly moved onto the .NET Platform when first released. A great believer is continual–improvement, Chris is constantly looking for new technologies, tools and methodologies that will help in creating robust and maintainable software applications and has become an active member of the Scottish Alt.Net Community to share his findings and ideas with like-minded developers.

The Venue

We are meeting in Room M402 on the 4th Floor of the George Moore Building at Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA

40% off Microsoft Press Books at Books24x7

At the moment Microsoft Press in conjunction with Books 24×7 have an offer where by you can get 40% off the subscription fee.

Follow these steps to receive a 40% discount to Books 24×7 E-Reference Library for Microsoft Press Titles, a virtual library that contains over 500 technology books that are published by Microsoft Press.

1. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/ereference/default.mspx

   Note: You can also watch a demo of E-Reference Library by clicking the "Watch an E-Reference demo" link on the page.

2. Click the "Subscribe to an E-Reference Library" link at the top of the page.
3. Click the link to the type of library that you would like to purchase. On the next page, you can review a description of the library.
4. Click the Add to Cart..
5. Type the discount code below that corresponds to the library type that you selected, and then click Apply.. The discounted price will be reflected.

   Discount Codes:

   • Desktop Library: EREFDESKB
   • IT Professional Library: EREFPROB
   • Developer Library: EREFDEVB
   • Complete Library: EREFCOMPLETEB
6. Complete the checkout process to purchase the E-Reference Library at the discounted price.

Job Opportunity: Glasgow Graduate/Junior level

Equator are looking for talented graduates/junior-developers to fill two software development positions within their development team. The role itself will be varied and will give you the opportunity to work in new product development and support of existing client projects.

The right candidate will have a passion for quality software development and be able to demonstrate an ability to learn and absorb from more senior members of the team and a willingness to share knowledge with colleagues.

Equator aim to provide you strengthened abilities in the design and development of software systems, the writing of good quality documentation for internal and client consumption. Technologies and practices you will be exposed to in this position include:

• C# 2.0 and 3.0
• .NET Framework 2.0 to 3.5 (esp. ASP.NET)
• Visual Studio 2005 & 2008
• SQL Server 2000 & 2005
• Javascript
• jQuery
• CSS & HTML
• XML & XSLT
• Object Oriented Design/Development
• Test Driven Development
• Agile Methodologies

If you have an interest in any of the above technologies and practices, combined with a good science or engineering degree, then we would like to hear from you.

If you feel you would enjoy a career in a vibrant, forward thinking company, please do get in touch with Robert Graham.

User Experience Book Club

The next meeting of the Glasgow User Experience Book Club will be on Wednesday 6th May.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, May 6th 2009
• Location to be decided. Give us your suggestions!
• The book will be Joshua Porter’s Designing for the Social Web.

If you haven’t read the book don’t sweat it, you can still come along and give your opinions about what we should be reading next.

If you are interested in attending then more details are available here: http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=glasgow