After the success of the local geek dinner in early February, I intended to organise another one in late March but I became a little overwhelmed at home and work and completely forgot to organise it. My apologies to those who had been looking forward to it.

However, I am now officially organising another dinner for Saturday May 17th. Instead of the usual location (where customer satisfaction has taken a turn for me) I will be relocating the dinner to another restaurant. I will strive to choose a replacement that is still located centrally, has good parking and public transport access, and affordable, enjoyable food with the option to split the bill.

At this point I'm considering Caffe Amore on the corner of Pulteney and Pirie Streets in the CBD, about 400m from the previous venue. I enjoyed dinner there with friends a few weeks ago and was quite pleased with their food and service. Assuming I can book a table there for all the guests and no one suggests a better alternative, this will probably be the new venue.

I will be sending an email invitation to all the previous dinner guests but if you don't receive yours before May or haven't attended before and would like to join us, please don't hesitate to contact me as soon as possible so I can give the restaurant an accurate number of guests to expect.

I hope to see a few people who made it to Code Camp Oz this year. I was unfortunately double-booked and unable to attend and would like to hear all about it.

In my last post about the Adelaide Geek Dinner, I intended to schedule the coming dinner for January. Unfortunately, if I scheduled it for the last weekend in January, that would coincide with the Australia Day long weekend and I imagine several people already have plans.

Therefore, the next dinner will instead be Saturday 2nd February, but once again at Cafe Buongiorno, Rundle Street, starting at 6:30pm. I have sent invitations via email to all the people who attended last time and also to those who couldn't make it.

If you didn't receive an invitation and would like to attend, contact me and I'll arrange it. Please RSVP by Thursday 24th January so I can ensure enough seats will be reserved at the restaurant.

I look forward to discussing all the interesting things that have been happening since the November dinner.

My first attempt to organise a dinner for developers in Adelaide exceeded my expectations. Everyone seemed to have a good time and expressed an interest to do it again... we tentatively agreed on January.

This time, I'd like to re-invite some of the guests who were unable to attend in November, and try to schedule an available time for everyone. I'd also like to get feedback on the choice of venue.

Last time I chose Cafe Buongiorno because it is located centrally in the CBD, offers separate accounts to avoid table-banking, and has convenient parking and public transport. Most people like pizza and pasta too. I don't want to bore people with the same restaurant every time so I'd like to hear suggestions for alternatives, but if you all like the cafe it can stay.

Also, I chose a Saturday evening last time so people didn't have to rush from work to get to the dinner but if Sunday or a weekday would be better, or perhaps a lunch-time event interests you, pass on your comments.

Finally, if you know any other developers who may be interested in attending, put them in touch with me and I'll ensure they get invited.

Back in July, after watching my good friend Lewis enjoy the benefits of in-car satellite navigation for a some time, I decided to buy a TomTom One XL for myself.

Since then, Lewis and I have had our fair share of both good and bad experiences with our chosen GPS devices and their respective feature support in Australia. While the devices sold locally are much the same, if not identical, to those sold worldwide, the quality of the maps and the availability of real-time data suffers in our sparsely populated nation.

In order to bring together the GPS users of Australia to share our experiences, our combined knowledge, and a form a central voice to the organisations responsible for improving our overall sat-nav situation, Lewis has started a new website just for us.

AusGPS.com is live now and currently consists of a forum and a review of the popular current-model TomTom ONE v3. As the community grows the website will offer regular GPS-relevant news updates, more reviews on other devices and services available to Australians, and even a central download location for popular GPS accessories.

If you currently own a navigation device, or are thinking of purchasing one, check out Lewis' new site, register on the forum and say hello.

Tonight saw the first (to my knowledge) of hopefully many more evenings with some of Adelaide's top .NET software developers.

While others were invited but were unfortunately unable to attend, a very friendly and interesting eight people ultimately arrived. In no particular order:

• Keith Zerna
• James Chapman-Smith
• David Gardiner
• Paul Stovell
• Darren Neimke
• Steve Burger
• Jim Burger
• and myself.

The evening started at 6:30pm (for most of us ;) and eventually came to a close at around 10:30pm after everyone was quite full from a delicious dinner and meaty conversation. I've uploaded a couple of photos to my Flickr account here.

I was originally uncertain about trying to organise such an event especially as I had only briefly met some of the guys before and some not at all. I am very glad I did though because I learned a lot, had some good laughs, and made some new friends too.

The response was so good that I plan to arrange another dinner, with a few more people who couldn't make it this time (eg Candy ;). An evening in January 2008 is my goal but this time I'll invite suggestions for venue, date, and anything else that you think might be a good idea.

Watch this blog for more information on the next dinner as it becomes available and if you'd like to be invited, just send me an email or leave a comment here on the blog.

I announced earlier that I was planning a dinner get-together for developers in Adelaide. I have since finalised the time and venue and have established an initial guest list.

The dinner will be held on Saturday November 17th starting 6:30pm at Cafe Buongiorno in the city. The cafe is at 187 Rundle Street, near the corner of Pulteney Street and the entrance to U-Park (for convenient parking). They serve familiar Italian meals - pizza and pasta starting at around $15.

I have found and contacted several local developer-bloggers and asked them to attend, some have committed, some have tentatively accepted but the response has been positive. If you are, or know, a local developer-blogger who hasn't been personally invited, send me an email and I'll add you to the guest list and ensure I book a large enough table at the cafe.

I look forward to seeing you there.

I am organising a dinner get-together for local developers to meet, socialise, and learn from each other. I am still finalising details of the time and venue (which will depend on the numbers of guests) but I am currently thinking it will be an evening in the middle of November at a restaurant in the Adelaide CBD.

Also, to avoid being overwhelmed by numbers and to ensure the concept will work here before scaling up, I am going to start by only inviting .NET developers who also publish a blog. I already know a few such people in South Australia and have found a few more on Google and will ensure they receive an invitation but I'm sure I've missed some.

So, if you are, or know someone who is, a .NET developer and a blogger and will be in Adelaide in November, send me an email or post a comment here, and I will make sure you receive an invitation when the details have been settled.

If you are a .NET developer but not a blogger and would really like to attend, just grab a free Blogger or Live Spaces account and post one article about your .NET experiences then let me know.

If the evening is a success then we can plan to have these dinners on a regular basis and open the guest list to a larger range of people. Looking forward to meeting you...

Frustrated by the lack of up-to-date data for my TomTom, I started poking around the web for various sorts of local information. I discovered that the Department for Transport has a page listing current roadwork sites. Unfortunately, it is only available in HTML form.

Upon inspecting the source however, I discovered patterns in the data suggesting it is automatically driven from by internal database. I asked myself, what is the quickest, easiest, most hackish way I can suck this information into a map? The answer was Google Mapplets.

The result, is an XML Google Gadget that is hosted on my website but runs in the context of the Google Maps site and screen scrapes the DTEI's HTML using JavaScript. Worse Than Failure would be proud.

If you'd like to try it yourself, the gadget xml file is here. You should be able to open Google Maps, click the My Maps tab and choose Add Content where you will be taken to the directory. Choose the Add By URL and paste the link to my xml file.

I might tidy up the abomination that is my JavaScript code if anyone cares enough and submit the gadget to the public Google directory. I am also considering implementing the gadget in Popfly but I am waiting on being able to sign-in to that site.

Last week, after coveting my friend's GPS Pocket PC for some time, I purchased the new TomTom One XL car navigation unit. I had used my friend's GPS Pocket PC a few times and liked the Tom Tom software it had and the large screen of the One XL closed the deal.

I was very pleased to find that the One XL is self-installable with an elegant windscreen mount and separate car 12v power adaptor. The TomTom Home PC software installed and functioned surprisingly trouble free on my non-admin Vista x64 PC and connected to the One XL over USB just as easily.

Over the past week of use, I have only managed to crash the device twice (pretty good from my experience with iPods and mobile phones) and there is very little about the TomTom hardware and software combination that I can take issue with. It even connected to my "unlisted" Samsung mobile over Bluetooth to download updates.

My biggest problem with the One XL, which I presume will extend to most GPS devices sold in Australia, is the poor data. TomTom offer subscription services on top the initial purchase of the GPS device. Services like live traffic jam and road work updates, safety (ie speed/red light) camera locations, new Points Of Interest, and TomTom Buddies (a system for locating your TomTom using friends on the map). None of these "PLUS" services are offered in Australia.

Either the local organisations responsible for geographic data in Australia are useless at providing updated information or they try to resell this information at such an expensive price that TomTom can't justify the costs to the smaller Australia customer base. Neither situation would surprise me.

The Bakewell bridge and Glover Avenue have been out of service since October 2006 but are still valid routes in the One XL. Portrush Road, one of few Adelaide roads to have speed limits in the TomTom, still has 25km/h zones that have not existed since the major road upgrades finished over two years ago. The McDonald's and Pizza Hut near my home, that have existed for much longer than two years aren't in the standard POI set while other McDonalds's and Pizza Hut outlets are.

There are the minor afore mentioned issues with the Tom Tom itself too. Automatic time synchronisation assumes Eastern Standard Time instead of Adelaide's Central Standard Time (you'd think a GPS would know I was in South Australia). A planned route recently suggested I perform a U-Turn in the middle of an intersection: a maneuver legal in Queensland but not in South Australia.

Also, as part of the live traffic updates, the TomTom Home software allows the user to enter their own problem traffic areas they want to avoid, however just because Australia can't receive feeds from TomTom, the software won't allow the user to add their own either.

Ultimately though, while there are many issues to consider, the unit really helps with finding parking or getting somewhere new at night when street names are hard to read. I feel much more confident taking long drives to the middle of nowhere too knowing I can easily find my way back or give someone my longitude and latitude coordinates. I have no regrets about the purchase but I am reminded once again that online/data services in Australia still suck.

The new 2007/2008 financial year has begun and as promised the Australian Taxation Office released the latest version of their e-tax software on July 1st. As I have for the past several years, I downloaded and installed the software and have started entering my income and deductions for the last 12 months.

When the official paperwork arrives, I'll confirm all my figures and submit my tax return electronically and receive my rebate usually within a week, deposited directly to my bank account. Considering the complexity of the income tax system, the software is excellent for non-accountant-types to complete their own tax return.

Unfortunately, e-tax 2007 is still stuck in the obsolete Windows administrator user world. Installation defaults to "c:\etax2007\". It has been over twelve years since Windows 95 was released and the standard was set for software to install into Program Files.

A single e-tax installation on a PC allows multiple people to fill in and submit their tax return, saving their work in progress locally until it is ready to send. However, the software assumes the user is an administrator and writes the *.tax progress file to the installation folder instead of Documents & Settings.

At several stages throughout the questionnaire, summaries and important details are presented to the user with a recommendation to print the information. However, the software always uses the default printer with the default settings, offering no dialogs, and only picking up changes to the default printer after restarting the software.

One of the biggest reasons why e-tax is so great is because the questions are presented in easy to understand language. Whenever more detail is required there are always hyperlinked keywords or a help button leading to a more extension definition with examples. Sadly, it's all useless under Vista because they've stayed with the deprecated WinHelp format for the documentation.

Lastly, for users of Apple computers (and presumably other OSes), the official solution is to use virtualization. I wonder if the purchase price of VMWare or Parallels and a Windows licence can be claimed as a cost of preparing the tax return.

By all appearances e-tax is a full Win32 application, probably written in C++ at first glance, and is expected to continue in that style for the majority of users next financial year too. Perhaps by 2009, they will have moved to a web-based client, which will open the system to non-Windows users but probably introduce other problems along the way.

I was privileged to attend Code Camp Oz 2007 in Wagga Wagga this year and I highly recommend it to anyone working with .NET. Unfortunately not everyone can find the time to drive twelve hours across the country for a weekend.

However, anyone living in South Australia will have an opportunity to attend the upcoming Code Camp SA, a free event sponsored by the University of South Australia, the Adelaide .NET Users Group, and the Australian Computer Society.

It will be held at the UniSA City East West campus for both days of the July 7th and 8th weekend. Specific details and registration can be found on the ACS web site for Saturday and Sunday. When available, the scheduled program will be published on the ADNUG news page.

If the content and quality of Code Camp Oz is anything to go by, this is an event that shouldn't be missed. See you there.