SimonMiddlemiss

FibroAction - A new national UK Charity for Fibromyalgia

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:56:03 GMT

As some of you may know my wife has a chronic condition called Fibromyalgia.? She has had it for about 6 years and spent much of the first 5 of those in serious pain, amongst other symptoms.? Part of the reason she suffered for so long is that there is a distinct lack of awareness of the condition in the UK.? To the point where many GPs do not even believe it exists.

However, she eventually managed to find the information and support needed to get her Fibro under control. And is now in the position of being much improved and being able to work and so has chosen to work to improve conditions so that other people do not need to suffer unnecessarily as she did.

Fibro awareness in the UK desperately needs to be brought into the 21st century and to this end she is now heading a new national charity called FibroAction.? With the help of other Fibro sufferers and carers, including myself, the charity hopes to

[E]ducate people about Fibromyalgia Syndrome (Fibro), including people with Fibro, their family, friends and carers, healthcare professionals and the public at large, as well as providing support to patients.

With a long term vision that

[T]he needs of people with Fibro are universally recognised and met, with fast and accurate diagnoses and easy access to optimal treatment programs available to all people with Fibro.

To most GPs and patients, the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia is the end of the care pathway.? There is a widespread belief that there is no treatment for Fibro and that nothing can be done to help sufferers and that the outlook is bleak.? This is patently false.? Currently there are 2 FDA approved drugs for Fibro, Lyrica (Pregabalin) and Cymbalta (Duloxetine), plus many more that are being used off label, including Mirapexin (Pramipexole) that have had promising results in double-blind trials.?

Fibro has such wide ranging symptoms that it is important to eliminate all co-morbid conditions before starting to treat Fibro pharmacologically and there are also other ways of helping Fibro that form part of a multi-disciplinary approach to treatment.? Myofascial tension can be a major cause of pain in Fibro sufferers that, whilst isn't a direct symptom of Fibro, can be greatly amplified by it.? Seeing a massage therapist or myofascial release specialist can help relieve this pain.? Managing stress is also important - stress isn't good for anyone, especially if you have health issues - and when you have a condition related to changes in the brain and nervous system like Fibro is, stress can quickly worsen symptoms. Problems with anxiety and depression, possibly caused by having such a debilitating condition, can also make dealing with symptoms a lot harder.

Amongst the existing organisations in this country that do deal with Fibromyalgia there is a misconception that there is little research being undertaken.? However this is not true. There is a huge amount of research being undertaken.? In fact at the recent EULAR (European League against Rheumatism) annual European congress there were over 90 abstracts from research papers submitted that dealt with Fibromyalgia Syndrome.

So anyway.? If you have Fibro there is now some hope and an organisation that is out for your best interests.? If you've got any questions we are always ready to answer them so ping us an email.

RSS Management

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:05:26 GMT

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DDD 5 : Call For Speakers

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:52:40 GMT

Developer developer developer is a community driven “un-conference” that is hosted at the Microsoft Campus in Reading. It’s an informal opportunity for developers to learn, share & interact with each other in a relaxed environment. Whilst Microsoft UK provide the venue, logistical support and also lay on lunch, there is a guarantee that no Microsoft speakers will be presenting. This [...]

Expression of Feedback

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:26:27 GMT

Soma Segar announced earlier today that the Web and Blend tools from the Microsoft Expression Suite are going to be included in the Premium MSDN subscription content. This is a bit of a coup for the .NET community who expressed considerable feedback on the subject. I personally know a lot people will be very happy at [...]

? bient?t

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:16:38 GMT

I mentioned in a recent post that I was going to take a break from blogging for a few weeks and that I’d explain why later. Well later has arrived. As of Monday 26th March 2007 I became and FTE (full time employee) at Microsoft UK. I am working as part of Microsoft Consulting Services as [...]

International Women?s Day

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:25:06 GMT

Today is International Women’s Day, so this is one of the few occasions I’ll fill these hallowed pages with non-technical content. If they aren’t already, add the following to your blog roll. FeministeFeministingI Blame The PatriarchyLitbritMajikthisePandagonShakespeare’s Sister And just so I can keep this post vaguely on topic as well, Sarah Blow posted this on Tuesday. An English professor wrote on [...]

Chris Lightfoot, 1978 ? 2007

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:55:32 GMT

It came to my attention this morning that Chris Lightfoot – the person behind ‘writetothem’, ‘no2id‘, ‘pledgebank‘ and others – has died unexpectedly. I knew him only by his projects and others can speak more of him, but I think it appropriate that some remark is made about his contributions to increasing both the transparency [...]

WPF Collections & Threads

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:27:17 GMT

Karl seems to have a couple of good articles (here & here) on dealing with wpf collections from threads other than the UI. Check them out.

Expresion Blend RC1

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:03:35 GMT

The RC1 release of Expression Blend is available here! The download is a lot bigger than before (~25MB rather than ~10MB) which I assume is taken up by ‘Sample Pack 1′ which ships with this release. Checkout these screen shots!

Things are on hold?

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:53:39 GMT

I’ll not be blogging at my usual rate for the next couple of weeks for reasons that I’ll disclose at a later date. I’ll continue to reply to comments and may submit the odd thing as and when I get the chance. Hopefully come April I’ll be able to resume my usual tantilizing commentry. [...]

Premium passport service

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:31:28 GMT

Due to laxness on a grand scale I had the need to avail myself of the Home Office Identity & Passport Service’s premium same-day passport service. Whilst the cost was exorbitant (?108 for the passport, ?40 for the train fare, a day’s holiday etc) it was a surprisingly slick operation. You *do* have to very [...]

Congratulations!

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:35:03 GMT

Catherine and Karl Hulme are celebrating the birth of their first child, Reece William Hulme, who was born at 4.15pm yesterday!!

psiman.wordpress.com

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:04:47 GMT

I have republished most?of my technical posts at my new blog on wordpress.? From now on all of my technical stuff will get published there and all my personal, political and other rubbish will go on this blog.?

Don't forget to update your RSS feeds...

To change blog provider or not?

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:53:46 GMT

I've been getting increasingly frustrated with Windows Live Spaces over the last few months,?but the realisation that in order to comment you have to sign in as a Windows Live user before you can comment is maybe the final straw.

I am weighing up the downsides of Spaces verses the downside of changing blog and having to build up my readership again.

Any comments or suggestions on what to do would be greatly appreciated, including ideas about which blogging service to move to...

3rd party Wi-fi access at TVP...

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:41:33 GMT

I mentioned earlier about Sarah Blow's issues with internet access during her session.? She comments more on her blog saying:

[A]ll in all the organisers from the event did really well and were only really let down by the lack of internet access on Microsoft's part, which could quite easily be resolved by a guest wireless account or a relible [sic] wired network.
I hope that Microsoft will take a serious look into this for next time, especially when web 2.0 technologies and the latest softwares all interlink with the net one way or another. PLEASE sort it out for us next time!!!!! Pretty Please!? It will open up the topic areas for talks no end and demo's can then be done far easier!

I agree that, given enough notice, speakers and organisers should be able to get some sort of internet connection, but during dinner there was also talk about the need for delegates to have wi-fi.? Having thought about this over the last few days, I'm not sure that Microsoft should be expected to provide the infrastructure for a network separate from their corporate one for?the 300+ guests that attend these seminars.? More to the point, why should delegates need internet access, aren't they there for the the talks, discussions, seminars and networking opportunities?

Technorati tags: DDD4, Sarah Blow, Microsoft

Blended...

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:16:55 GMT

I woke up this morning to find the blogosphere teaming with news about the release of 'Microsoft Expression Blend' beta 1, which looks excellent.? 'Blend', which used to be 'Expression Interactive Designer', which used to be 'Sparkle', is a product I have a great affinity for.? In fact if I hadn't had access to it I would never have chosen to develop the Regatta Manager in WPF.

Something that I think is a testament to WPF and it's power is that the 'Blend' UI is completely different to how it was back in September,?and now looks reminiscent of Discreet's Fire, Flame and Combustion video production suite.? With the advent of styles within WPF reskinning a UI is a simple matter of loosing your design team on the application...

Whilst on the?subject Scoble has an interesting post on the genesis of 'Blend', which goes back to early longhorn demonstrations, which turned out to have been made in Macromedia Director.

Also in a similar vein, the December CTP of WPF/E for the Windows and Macintosh platforms have been released along with associated SDKs and Sample Packs.

Technorati tags: WPF, Expression Interactive Designer, EID, Blend, Expression Blend, Microsoft, WPF/E

Reading Geek Dinner

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:16:41 GMT

After DDD4?was the Reading Geek Dinner.??I was sitting with Craig, Oliver and Sarah, plus a guy called Tim Ensor who was rather drunk. I also spent a lot of time talking to Simon Harriyott and Anthony Steele?in Bar Revolutions and as you can see from my naff camera phone photos below, I really need to get me a digital camera...

Thanks Zi it was an excellent evening!

Check out this aggregated feed for all blog entries?and images from the evening.

Technorati tags: DDD4, Geek Dinner, Sarah Blow, Craig Murphy, Oliver Sturm, Tim Ensor, Simon Harriyott, Anthony Steele

DDD4

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 11:30:10 GMT

Saturday was the 4th 'Developer Developer Developer' conference and it was an all round excellent day.??It was?first time I've been to one on my own, which turned out to be a bonus as I actually made the effort to talk to some different people, so much so that I didn't make it to the grok talks?which appeared to go down really well.? The other highlight of the day - for me at least, as it appears this was a repetition of what was said at DDD3 - was Ed Gibson's impromptu?talk on security, the internet and our responsibility as developers to make our code safe and secure.? The stereotypical ex-FBI agent, certainly had a captive audience.

Of the five sessions I attended the ones by Joanna Carter,?Sarah?Blow and Helen Emerson stood out the most.??

I am going to talk about Joanna's session first as I don't want what I say to overshadow the other two speakers who were excellent.??There is no?doubt about?her technical knowledge and industry experience,?but, to put it bluntly, Joanna Carter is possibly the most arrogant speaker I have listened to outside of university.? The only things I can remember from the session?were the large number of references to how great Delphi is and a question from the audience about ASP.NET being dismissed because she only dealt with 'proper technology'.? She ended the session by?extolling?the virtues of wooden cameras over digital ones...

Anyway, enough of the bad points about the day, on to the good ones.? Helen's short and simple walkthrough about 'developing objects in JavaScript' evoked almost as many lightbulb moments as when I read Petzold.? This?session would have put a lot of Atlas developers in good stead, certainly I now have a better understanding of how the object model?in the?Microsoft AJAX library works.

Despite the session being?technically plagued (no Ethernet or wifi access for 3rd parties in a lecture room on the Microsoft Campus?? Go figure!) Sarah remained cool and the talk went very well.? There was a large amount of audience participation and it felt more like an informal discussion group than a lecture but she still managed to get through all of her material in the allotted time which was great.? In general terms I garnered?a great insight into how blogs, podcasts, vlogs and RSS rivers can improve communication in business?and came away with a number of ideas for both myself and for work.

Those that went remember to give your feedback and maybe win an MSDN subscription.

Technorati tags: DDD4

HMV Digital for Windows Media Center

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:10:09 GMT

Please forgive the sales pitch but this project has?been a labour of love for us?and we are very?proud?of it.

HMV Digital's Online Spotlight application is finally live!

From the Media Center main menu, navigate to 'Spotlight' and then from the 'Showcase' tab select HMV Digital or, if you don't have MCE, you can browse the store in IE, but like all MCE applications, outside of Media Center the functionality is limited.? Have a look around,?it may even convince you to go out and purchase a Media Center PC!

This incarnation of HMV Digital supports permanent downloads as well as subscription steaming and subscription downloads and if you do have an HMV Unlimited subscription then you'll find this is excellent for parties, leave the remote lying around and let your friends add anything from the 2 million+ track library to the queue and listen for hours!

If you have an XBox 360 or any Intel Viiv device then even better because this HMV Digital is supported on the Extender.

As always with HMV Digital if you have a Plays For Sure Digital Player?you can sync up your downloads to your device and take them on road...

The service is not yet part of Spotlight for?Windows Vista but you can add it to the 'more programs' menu by?following the instructions below:

Create an xml file called RegisterMCEApp.xml' and paste the following into it

<application
????? title="HMV Digital"
????? id="{B0E0DD28-6C4C-40c4-A8A1-F7B686786940}"
????? CompanyName="HMV">
?? <entrypoint
???????? ?id="{B0E0DD28-6C4C-40c4-A8A1-F7B686786941}"
??????? ? url=http://www.hmvdigital.com/HMV.Digital.MCE.Portal/
?????? ?? title="HMV Digital"
????? ??? description="Digital Jukebox">
????? <category category="More Programs"/>
?? </entrypoint>
</application>

Next create a batch file with the following in it

c:\windows\ehome\RegisterMCEApp.exe /allusers RegisterMCEApp.xml
pause

Run the batch file from the same location as the xml file and you should see "success" displayed in the console.? If you navigate to 'more programs' in Media Center on Windows Vista you should have an icon called "HMV Digital".

Technorati tags: HMV, HMV Digital, MCE, Media Center, Digital Player, MP3, Microsoft, ipod, Apple, Plays For Sure, Viiv, Intel, Vista, xbox, xbox 360, 360

Scoble Dinner

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:41:00 GMT

Not only did I get to meet Robert Scoble and his lovely wife Maryam, but also Sarah Blow of GirlGeekdom and Hugh MacCloud of GapingVoid too.??Andy Jones who I used to work with at Contemi also turned up which was great, so all round great evening!

Update : Amit Koth and Ajit Joaker?were also there.?

Off to meet Scoble

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:20:14 GMT

I am heading into London to meet Robert Scoble of scobleizer.com fame. Should be an interesting evening.

Technorati tags: Robert Scoble, Scobleizer

A Meme Experiment

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:38:50 GMT

Acephalous is conducting an experiment?to track the progress of a meme across the internet.? By asking people to link to his post on the experiement and at the same time getting those that do link to beg their readers to do the same, he hopes to have something of interest to talk about during the Meet the Bloggers panel at MLA 2006.

So, to my limited readership...go blog, oh and chant after me..."By your command" in a really bad 80's sci-fi evil robot type way.

Regatta Manager Videos - Update

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 10:19:45 GMT

It has been pointed out to me that Soapbox is still in limited beta.

So you can view the Regatta Manager video's?on YouTube here?and here.

Links

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:26:26 GMT

Scorbs on WPF and the Internet Sandbox

KarstenJ on Per Frame Animation

Beatriz Costa on CollectionView and CollectionViewSource

Skandia Cowes Week Videos

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:26:19 GMT

As I've mentioned before, Microsoft sent a film crew along to Skandia Cowes Week to see the Regatta Manager in action and?below are the results. There is a technical and business version of the video.? Thanks again to Tim, Heather, Barbara and Ian at Microsoft?who made this happen, and to Bubble Solutions for putting together this great film.? I'll stop now as this is starting to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech...

SiSoft Regatta Manager - Business Edition

SiSoft Regatta Manager - Technical Edition

Skandia Cowes Week, Microsoft, WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation, SiSoft, Regatta Manager, Simon Middlemiss

An Inconvenient Truth

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:19:11 GMT

I recently watched Al Gore, the man who "used to be the next president of the United States" give his documentary.? It's good, it's informative and it's scary as, well, the Earth flooding due to excessive ice melt.? I'm not sure what good it will do though without governments?support, and even if they do, what good it will do without the United States taking a lead.? That's why I hope this documentary and the promotional material and tours that are going with it are a prelude to a 2008 presedential bid.?

Al Gore isn't what I really wanted to talk about though.

Today ITER?received final sign off.? The biggest international science investment since the ISS, ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is a colaboration of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Russia and the US and is possibly the only sustainable way of providing energy needs once we inevitably burn up our remaining hydrocarbon supplies.

It is however an inconvenient truth that?sustaining a nuclear fusion reaction which produces more energy than is required to keep it going has been and still is a long, long way off.? It has been estimated that we are 100 years away from an economic, mass producable fusion reactor capable of completely supporting the energy requirements of this planet.

Building on previous successful projects like the Joint European Torus, the ITER project is designed to replicate the entire lifetime of a commercial fusion reactor plant from construction starting next year through to 2016 when the first plasma is expected to be generted upto 2026 when small scale electricity generation is expected and then a decomissioning phase.

It is definately a long haul project, but the huge?benefits of clean, virtually unlimited fuel are worth the time and money being spent on what will effectively be the most expensive, technologically advanced kettle in the world!

Iter, fusion, an inconvenient truth

Christmas 2006

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:58:23 GMT

02 January

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:50:57 GMT

02 January

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:09:58 GMT

Sarah's leaving party

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:06:12 GMT