Chris Tomkins’ Blog

Nowadays I hardly ever buy something without seeing if I can get it cheaper elsewhere or find a discount voucher online. A few days ago, I got even more evidence of why its pays to shop around. Shelley and I were looking at buying a fridge/freezer (one of these big American style ones) and locally could only find the one we liked in Currys (there doesn’t seem to be a great selection of shops that sell fridge/freezers now adays) for £599.99 plus £49.95 delivery - a grand total of £649.94. Thinking this seemed a bit steep, we decided to come back and shop for the same thing online.

First we tried the shopping comparison web sites - Kelkoo, Dealtime and Shopping.com which gave us a better price of £569.99 from Dixons with free delivery (already a saving of about £80). Then we scoured the web for free vouchers which gave us another £20 off the Dixons price, so now a saving of £100. Next I went to the cashback site I tend to use, Freefivers (let me know if you want to join and I’ll refer you), which gave me 1.25% cashback with Dixons, about another £7. So far, I’d saved £107 off the price in the shop but then I thought - lets buy it using my American Express Platinum card which gave me a further 5% cashback, ~£35.

So, all in all - shopping around saved me over £140! Not bad for 10 minutes work online, particularly when you compare it to the time getting to and wandering round the shop.

Bargain!

When I travel on business I tend to take internet access in the hotel for granted nowadays - it doesn’t have to be wireless but it seems to be becoming the norm. But how much should it cost? I guess it depends on the class of hotel, but the £15 for 24 hours I’ve just been charged by the Holiday Inn Ipswich Orwell seems excessive - especially as my home broadband costs less than that for an entire month! The alternative was £6 for an hour or £75 for a week - not exactly a great choice. Most of the hotels I’ve stayed in recently have had free wireless (even some of the B&Bs I’ve stayed in have free wireless) so £15 for 24hrs is definitely a bit steep.

What do you think?

Just discovered that you can now choose to receive your TV license via email - so if you want to cut down on the paper you receive (yeah I know its only one piece a year in this case) then just go to the TV Licensing website and change your preferences so that you receive your TV license and any other communications via email rather than post.

I’ve already switched to online statements for my bank and online bills for my mobile phone, broadband/home phone, gas and credit card but still seem to be inundated with paperwork at home - roll on the day when I can access all my bills online from one place, see summaries of my expenditure and be advised of when I should switch to an alternate provider/package - I’ll keep dreaming

One of the first tasks of a new parent, is to register the birth of your child which is what I did last week when I went to the Southampton Register Office to register the birth of our daughter Beatrix. We could have done this at the Princess Anne Hospital where she was born but forgot until we were leaving and were then carrying far too much to make the necessary detour on the way out! Luckily you have 42 days to register the birth so we had plenty of time.

In this day and age where fraud is so prevalent, I was amazed to discover that when you register a birth you need absolutely no official form of identification - in fact only one parent needs to attend and you don’t even need to take the baby!

The only information you need, in addition to the chosen name of course, is the following:

- The date of birth of the baby

- The gender

- The surname of the mother

- The hospital at which the birth took place

This is then used to look up the baby’s birth (yes, the NHS and the Register Office have an integrated computer system - what a surprise!). In addition, you provide the following information for both parents which is recorded but not placed on the birth certificate:

- Full name (including maiden name)

- Date of birth

- Place of birth

- Occupation

Then, once this has all been registered, you get given (for a small fee) 2 birth certificates - a short version (as shown in the photo) which shows the basic information and is usually sufficient as a form of identification, and a full version which is required to obtain a first passport.

Note: You’ll need the birth certificate to be able to claim child benefit and the £250 child trust fund voucher you and your child are entitled to.

Before our daughter Beatrix was born, we decided we would attempt to breastfeed her rather than bottle feed her to give her the best start in life. So far, one week in, things are going really well. However, the main problem for me, as the dad, is breastfeeding is not exactly something I can do (no cheeky comments about my figure now!). As I’ve begun to realise though, this doesn’t mean there is nothing for me to do while Shelley is breastfeeding. So far my list of jobs have included:

• Fetching extra pillows to prop her up
• Rearranging the current set of pillows to make her more comfortable
• Fetching a stool for her to put her feet on
• Fetching her drinks - breastfeeding is thirsty work
• Stripping Beatrix before the feed to ensure she is not so cosy she falls asleep while feeding
• Keeping Beatrix awake by tickling her feet or playing with her hands
• Holding Beatrix in position
• Answering the door or phone while Shelley is breastfeeding
• Fetching muslins to wipe up any spillages
• Getting the changing mat, top and tail bowl, cotton wool, nappy and clean clothes ready for a change afterwards if required
• And most importantly - chatting to Shelley and keeping her company

I’m sure there are some things I have forgotten - but hopefully you now understand, breastfeeding is something both parents take part in - not just the mother.

Early yesterday morning my wife Shelley gave birth to our lovely baby daughter Beatrix Rose at the Princess Anne hospital in Southampton. After a real panic when her heart rate dropped significantly at the hospital she was deliver by cesarean section at 4.18am. For those of you who like to know these things she weighed 7lbs 6 (well the first time they weighed her she was 6lbs 5 but after a midwife said she looked bigger she was weighed again and the original scales were found to be faulty!). Both mother and baby (and dad ) are doing well.

Check out some more photos in my Flickr set.

Last Wednesday saw me start my new job as a Senior Systems Engineer at BEA in High Wycombe and so far things are going really well. Day 1 involved getting a brief introduction to BEA (where I finally learnt what the acronymn stands for - Bill, Ed and Alfred - the first names of the company founders), an explanation of the various HR processes (benefits, vacation, conduct guidelines, etc.) and most importantly getting some new toys - a new laptop and a BlackBerry. Everything was very organised and by lunchtime I was able to check mail on both my laptop and BlackBerry - very impressive.

After this I found a free desk (since my new team spend quite a bit of time working in different locations no one has their own permanent desk) and then met a number of people in the team - all of whom welcomed me and made me feel at home really quickly.

On Thursday I went up to the London office to sit in on a number of presentations on various topics including what’s coming in future versions of the products. The office is located in the city, near Monument tube station - a short tube ride from Waterloo to Bank along the Waterloo and City Line and then a 5 minute walk.  Again the people here were really welcoming and I quickly felt like part of the team and had a really enjoyable day.

Since then I have been getting my hands on the products I am going to be working with. AquaLogic Service Bus (based on WebLogic Server) seemed like a good place to start with my experience of WebSphere ESB and so far I have installed the product and run through a number of examples and tutorials - both Service Bus level and WebLogic Server level - which has given me a great introduction to the products and helped me understand how to do a number of the things I could do with the IBM equivalent products.

Over the next week or so I am going to continue to run through the rest of these and start to build some of my own solutions based on common customer scenarios I have seen in the past. During this week I am also going to listen in to a number of the sessions from the BEA World conference (happening this week in Barcelona) which many of my new team and a large number of customers are attending. This should give me a good insight into my new role and hopefully next year I will be an attendee myself!

So far so good!

For your information, from now on I will no longer be posting, or commenting, on IBM products on either this blog or the SOA Tips ‘n’ Tricks blog for obvious reasons. However, expect to see posts in the future on either this blog or a work related blog on BEA products, when I understand them well enough

Today has been my last day at IBM Hursley (although I am officially still an IBM employee until 25th September) as I have chosen to take up a new job as a Senior Systems Engineer at BEA Systems in High Wycombe. After 8 years, plus a year as a placement student before that, this is not a decision I have taken lightly but I feel the time is right and the opportunity so good I would be a fool not to take it.

During my time at IBM I have learnt a considerable amount about a whole range of technologies including Java and J2EE, Linux, web services, messaging, SOA… and worked on a whole range of products including the IBM Java Development Kit, Learning Village, WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere ESB. I have also become a RedHat Certified Technician, an ISEB Test Practitioner and a Certified Solution Developer on WebSphere Integration Developer as well as completing a part-time MSc in Software Engineering at Oxford.

Highlights for me have definitely been my time working on the first Extreme Programming project at Hursley, my service role in the Java Technology Centre on my placement year which convinced me to come back to IBM full-time, and my role in the WebSphere ESB team, most recently the Customer SWAT Team which has involved me working on customer engagements in Norway and Denmark, attending a conference in Salzburg and becoming a lab advocate for a large UK customer.

But the best thing about working at IBM is all the fantastic people I have met and worked with (before some of you say it, and drunk tea and eaten bacon sandwiches with) and this is what I am going to miss most. Not only my colleagues in Hursley, but IBMers from all over the world, particularly in the US and Toronto, business partners and customers. The responses to my email telling people that I was going to leave have been touching and has made me realise how highly I was thought of. I look forward to keeping in touch with many of these people and I’m sure in the case of some of them our paths will cross again.

So what next? Well after 4 weeks of so called gardening leave (I do have quite a bit of gardening to do) I start my new job at BEA, commuting initially but with the intention of moving somewhere closer sometime next year once the baby has born (new job, first baby and moving house - corr do I like to make it difficult for myself!). I will leave discussing the actual job and what I will be doing to a later post as a) I still need to find out all the details myself and b) I’d better check BEA’s policy on blogging before doing so.

Before I finish I’d just like to say a big thank you to IBM and everyone I have worked with at Hursley and a big hello to my new colleagues at BEA - I can’t wait to get started - I’ve got a lot to learn!

OK - some of you know this already as we’ve known a few weeks but the time has come to let everyone know that in January 2008 (some time around the 23rd) my wife Shelley and I are set to become parents for the first time (well, the first time it’s been a human baby and not an animal)! We are both really looking forward to it but as most first time parents are a bit nervous about the whole situation and have a lot to learn (and buy!) between now and the baby being born. Any tips are most welcome!