Visual Studio Vs. Eclipse.
Here is how this starts, two strong coffee’s and two nerds/geeks that have opposing technology backgrounds: .Net and Java.
 
.Net Guy: I programmed Java a while ago, but Eclipse (shakes head while talking to Java Guy).
 
Java Guy: What about Eclipse, it’s had refactoring practically from day 1. How long did it take Visual Studio? [This is a loaded/poking question because it took a hot minute for Visual Studio to get refactoring]
 
.Net Guy: Refactoring, heh and do you need to use that quite a bit? [Ohhh burn is what the .Net guy is thinking in his head, the rest of the world however is thinking: dear god, really, am I listening to this?]. I’m going to say one word “intellisence.” Let that sink in for a bit.
 
Java Guy: How much was Visual Studio Professional again [dramatic pause]? Eclipse “Professional” is free. Oh did I mention Eclipse “Premium Edition” is faaa-reeeee. One more thing Eclipse “Ultimate” is…. [Java guy makes a circle with his index finger and thumb and says wazang as he raises his hand] free as in if yo’ Daddy was Visual Studio yo’ Mama could download Eclipse and have an affair for free.
 
.Net Guy: [Laughs] WTF are you talking about? [Laughs some more] This is why we get along so much, because we can joke about this with each other. We probably should get back.

On the way back to the desk:
.Net Guy: Eclipse really is pretty darn nice these days, and I can’t believe that it’s free.
 
Java Guy: I would like to have an affair with LINQ.
 
[Both Laugh]
 
Here is what I came up with world. This is an astronomically dumb conversation because there really is no winner. It’s an apples to oranges kind of conversation. Further, if you think about it on any level, nobody is ever going to do Java programming in Visual Studio and on the other side nobody is ever going to do .Net programming in Eclipse, therefore it’s a trivial argument, but with the right buddies it sure can be a funny one.

When I was a kid, I liked to work my math problems from left to right on a page and not from top to bottom. Whenever I would ask my Dad for help he would say he would only help me if I worked my math problems from the top of the page down and I would always reply, "Would you tell Jimi Hendrix to flip that guitar right side up and play with his right hand?"

Fast forward to me graduating with my undergrad degree in computer science. I think to myself, psshh what does my Dad know, I just graduated with a degree that is quite nearly a degree in math, I bet I could run circles around him now...then I have a come to Jesus moment. When this happened my Dad, a psychology major, and I were sitting at the kitchen table and he was a few strong beers in (we are talking 11% folks), somehow a division problem was tossed out from my Mother and my Dad strait up answered it before the numbers even began to tickle my brain, he then follows the answer with a "I thought you were good at math," in a slightly mocking tone. Now anybody that understands a father-son relationship knows this is code for, GAME ON. "Come on Pops, you know division is my weak area," I say. He replies with, "Let's do some multiplication then." 4 problems later I'm beginning to realize I might be out gunned. "Pops let's do some basic addition, the foundation of all math", I say heavily slightly mockingly, "And I'll show you how one generation of evolution changes everything." My Dad calmly says, "No problem," gets up from the kitchen table walks to the fridge and gets another beer. My mom throws out one last problem, it's addition. As my Dad is opening his beer he simultaneously speaks the correct answer, and throws the cap in the sink halfway across the kitchen. My face goes white and I'm left sitting there trying to comprehend everything that just happened. Somehow the only thought that keeps going through my head is W.T.F. As my dad walks by the kitchen table holding his newly opened beer he takes a quick swig and delivers a line, which felt, he had waited 2 decades to deliver, "Maybe you and Jimi should go practice your left to right method again." What else could I do at this very moment but laugh and reply to his statement with, "What kind of beers are those anyway?"

Now imagine an entire book of moments like this with an explicitly speaking father and you have 150 pages of laugh out loud reading. It's cheap reading, I know it, but right now I'm deep into Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, which is a good read so far, but I needed something less serious to enjoy on my Christmas break. If you love shoot from the hip, anecdotal, witty statements only "that father" or "that uncle" can deliver, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Mockups, save you time (see: money) and unquestionably help establish expectations on what an application will generically offer and what the general layout will be. 
I believe I have found the tool that does this as quickly as humanly possible: Balsamiq.

There is not much to say about this topic so I'll give you the 15 second sell.
1. Fast
2. Generic enough so the business owner doesn't get caught up on aesthetics but understands exactly how the user will accomplish their task
3. Very easy to use. The first time I used this product I was cranking out mockups in minutes! Think about that.

--This isn't like Visio, (caveat: I have my own personal demons with Visio), but in short, you won't be making mock-ups in minutes. Sure Visio is good for architectural stuff, but the insight architectural diagrams offer are generally high level and I would argue, quite fiercely, pen, paper, and cell phone camera, would be a better/faster/cool in a hip start-up kind of way, solution to Visio...I digress...but seriously Visio is terrible.

4. Balsamiq supports many different types of mock ups: mobile, web, core platform applications (Windows and Mac)
5. Export to PDF
6. FAST. Did I say this already? It's worth mentioning again. Fast means many things here, fast to create, fast to change the design for clients, and fast in helping you get to development quicker.

(This is the living room, the bedroom has a view of the new World Trade Center building.)


Turkey Day kids. Getting right to it. I'm in NYC on the 52nd floor in TriBeCa. See that picture, it's the view from my living room. I'm staying at my brother in law's Boss's place (follow that?). He is off skiing in the Swiss Alps...I know, right, some guys just get it.

But his killer and, oddly enough, strangely routine vaca is also spectacul-wesome for us. I mean this place is like the stuff you see on TV, honestly, the stuff you hear Jay-Z himself rapping about. Many thanks to Adam S.

Let me get to my point. As all of you three regular readers might be wondering why no nerdy posts. Quickly, new job, new baby lost my way a bit, but I'm actively working on shuffling the schedule and getting my nerd back in full gear. My interest are still primarly iPhone, but ASP.NET MVC is really catching my eye along with wanting to join the hack kinect community and do something fun there. Until then I thought I would do one of those pseudo informative posts about things I'm into right now and hope it may have at minimum a mediocre impact on some aspect of your life.

1. Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.  I personally feel Ray is more of a true innovator than our famous boy Steve Jobs. See the thing about old SJ everyone forgets is the real innovator in the CO-Ownership of the now famous Apple was Steve Wozniak. Yeah S Dub's did all the inventing and SJ did all the selling. 'Nuff about that. Ray has some radically awesome and contemporary ideas that he backs up strongly about how humans will become so biologically integrated with technology (think fake heart, eyes, lungs and parts of brain),  there will be a point when we can't tell our biological selves from our machine selves and he calls this the singularity. He discusses the implications of this, which of course freak out the religious fundies something fierce because once this happens it all but destroys their beliefs on religion...how is there a heaven (or whatever sect's version of this is) on a human that at the end of it's life may be 100% machine and not biological, this being, is now a man creation and not a "divine" creation. Moving further, he discusses all the social implications the singularity will have and how people who truly understand this now know the profound changes and impacts it will have. Ray is full of very provocative visions, which all signs point to him being correct at this point. He gives an extreme amount of information and I'll try to cover just a smudge when I do my review on the book here on the blog.

2. My trip to NYC: It's funny how a little trip can cause such a vast amount of inspiration. NYC also brings up thoughts of another company I have my eye on ZocDoc.com (based in NYC). It's a site that allows you to book an appointment to a Doctor Online. There is way more to the site than that statement, but, at the core, this is what the site is about. I spoke with my boy Scott Hanselman (not sure if he would agree on me saying this) to do a Hanselminutes on ZocDoc. You can hear it here. Scott is his usual awesome self and Nick Ganju, CIO and Co-founder helps show how ZocDoc is quickly becoming a top notch .Net shop and product.

Well that's it have a great Turkey Day I know I'm having one of my best...did you see that freaking view.

Did you know you could play worms while waiting for your youtube.com video to buffer? I didn't. Thought I would share.

Here is how you start the game: When the video is buffering simply hit the up arrow on your keyboard and the game kicks off.