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Last month I was extremely surprised and honoured to receive an invite to a UK Technology Reception with The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace on Monday 9th June 2014.  The reception was hosted by The Duke of York and I was among 350 guests from all over the UK Technology industry invited to this fantastic occasion.  I received my invite for the work I’ve done in the community with user groups such as NEBytes and events such as DDD North and Imagine Cup North East, which is very humbling as I love the work I do … Continue reading An Invite to the Palace!

This afternoon I received an email from Microsoft to tell me that I’d been awarded the 2014 Microsoft MVP Award for ASP.Net/IIS!  This is my seventh MVP Award, I am extremely humble and privileged to be associated with a great group of less than 5000 technical people around the globe.  I’ll be aiming to continue my efforts to help the community and deliver as much content as I can to aid and spread knowledge through events, blogging and social media among other avenues. 

On Thursday night I was having an email conversation with Takeshi Eto from DiscountASP.Net about the hosting of my blog.  I’ve been hosting my blog with DiscountASP.Net for nearly five years and have been very, very happy with their service – always up to date often offering services faster than other hosters and very quick turn around of support tickets if ever I’ve had any issues – they also host the NEBytes site. Well on Thursday I was asking about migrating my site onto IIS 8.0 hosting and enquiring when it would be available.  Well during the same conversation Takeshi … Continue reading Blog Now Hosted on IIS 8.0–DiscountASP.Net

We as professionals in the Computer Science industry have a responsibility to aid and assist our individual education systems in educating and encourage the next generations of Computing Professionals, be they Developers, IT Professionals, Testers etc. Change is Coming! Michael Gove announced recently that the current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) curriculum in England is to be replaced in September 2012. This was all announced at the BETT show and the current curriculum was described as demotivating and dull. I have long been concerned about the quality and delivery of the ICT curriculum in schools with the curriculum being insipid … Continue reading Computer Science Curriculum is Changing and You Can Help!

Towards the end of last year I started to think more and more about how I make use of digital television services, telephone (land line) and broadband. I considered my usage vs cost and was keen to work out whether I was getting value for money. This led me to decide to cut the cord and save money! For the past 5 or so years I’ve had all of my services from one supplier, Sky. I had unlimited broadband (ADSL at approx 10 mb/s download), telephone (free evening and weekend calls) and Satellite television, I had all the channels available … Continue reading Cut The Cord, Save Money and Go Faster

My name is Andrew Westgarth and Software Development is my passion! Is the role you’re in just a job to you or is it your Passion /Vocation and Career? Do you enjoy what you do and are you fulfilled in what you do? I think one of the biggest requirements for a good developer is a passion for what they are doing, in order to be a good developer you need to have a thirst for learning and a desire to improve. I’ve been thinking about writing a blog post about this topic for a few weeks but not had … Continue reading Software Development – Job or Career, Passion, Vocation

Just a small post to issue my personal tribute on Battle of Britain Day in it’s 70th Anniversary Year. The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. Winston Churchill. House of Commons, August 20th 1940. … Continue reading Never Was So Much Owed By So Many To So Few