Mac Expo!

Well, I didn't get the Macbook Pro but I will be getting it. On the other hand I've gotten several things, possibly of more worth and both were free! First order of the day was to wake up at 0630, then again at 0730 when phoned by my dad (I'd somehow snoozed off!). I washed and ate (not at the same time) and walked/ran for my train. I got there 5-10 seconds too late, it pulled out just as I got there and I could have touched it (it wasn't even going very fast). So, one half hour wait later and I got on the next train. Thankfully my ticket inspector was a nice guy and didn't mind the ticket being slightly incorrect. I got to London Waterloo and met my Dad and Brecon (youngest Brother for those not familiar with my family). We got some trains and met up with Coel, then went to the Mac Expo. The Mac Expo is basically a Mac Convention/sales location. All the companies that make mac related stuff show it off here and often offer special Expo-only deals. I walked around a little with Coel then on my own. Martin (friend of my Dad) arrived late and I didn't see him much. I talked to some stands about work placement. One of them was really positive about it "We don't normally do it but I think that's just because nobody has come up with the idea as opposed to someone actually saying no to it", they took my email address down and will hopefully contact me. I later went to the Filemaker stand where they were giving a demonstration of how to use their software (along with the chance to win a free copy of it). Filemaker is a database creation package, with it you create a database then an application that will manipulate the database, it's pretty snazzy and the Advanced Pro version is worth £250 ($471). The guy showed us what we'd be making, a Rock, Paper and Scissors game (I learnt how to correctly spell Scissors today, because of this). He led us through what to do, I've never used Filemaker before and managed to spot mistakes the guy was making with his Syntax (The guy is really young and likely hasn't spoken to groups like this before, I doubt he usually makes such simple errors). Better yet, the syntax was not too dissimilar to several programming languages so I was way ahead of the rest of the group. At the end of it they gave out a Standard Pro and Advanced Pro version to the people who made the best program (which didn't actually use a Database at all, it's quite clever). I unsurprisingly won the Advanced version (the guy to my right kept trying to copy what I was doing, sadly I typed faster than even the guy telling us what to do so the guy to my right had no chance at keeping up with me). Better yet, I talked to the guys at the end and have their contact details, they're interested in where I do my placement year. Coel won a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 2 or something, it's worth £750 ($1415) and he thinks he won the free stuff competition. It all depends on where I do my placement, if I do it at one of the companies I met here then I count it as being worth more. I got home safe and sound, went over to Lorna's because she wanted to talk to me about the CU website, apparently some people have complained about the pictures and seeing as I left her name there, they complained to her :D I walked back home, my lightbulb blew as soon as I turned it on (yay, now I have to get a new one), I blogged, WoAed, emailed some people from the MacExpo and went to bed.