Rant
If you have seen the Windows Phone commercial where the father is in the grocery store with the shopping list in OneNote you have gotten you first taste of the flexibility that can be had with OneNote. I like most consultants have a lot of fires going and once and I am finding that the templates in OneNote are helping me to get a handle on the different projects and tasks I need to track. I started using OneNote to do simply what its name suggests: take and organize notes. Lately though I am finding...
Posted On Friday, February 03, 2012 3:15 PM | Feedback (0)
Ok, so maybe this is really why I need UX designers. While I have always had an interest in photography and can appreciate a well designed user interface putting one together is an entirely different endeavor. Being color blind doesn’t help, but coming up with ideas is probably the biggest portion of the issue. I can spot things that just don’t look like they work right, but what will? UX designers is an area that most companies do not spend much if any resources. As they say, you only get one chance...
Posted On Monday, November 14, 2011 9:40 PM | Feedback (0)
As the song says “War! What is it good for?”. Well, maybe not absolutely nothing, but it is definitely a distraction. Whether we are talking about Apple vs. Microsoft, C++ vs. Java vs. .NET, Lotus Notes vs. Microsoft Exchange, Nikon vs. Canon, Cubs vs. White Sox or Bears vs. Packers our world is filled with fan boys ready to go to battle. Just cheering for your favorite isn’t a problem. It is when you have a driving need to put the other guy down and prove that you are behind the winner. Let’s take...
Posted On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 8:42 AM | Feedback (1)
First let me say that this is a “what I like” post and not a comparison of platforms. The Windows Phone is the first smart phone that I have owned (no, I’m not 100 or 15 years old). Now that I have done the full disclosure I did want to talk about the features of the Windows Phone that I really enjoy. I have had the Samsung Focus since shortly after it came out. I have found it extremely capable and enjoy the performance of the device. It is light, durable and bright. My wife has the LG Quantum that...
Posted On Monday, October 10, 2011 9:57 AM | Feedback (1)
A number of people returned from the recent Dreamforce conference. One told me that this is now the largest IT conference. This information was followed up with the statement that Microsoft is missing the boat and will soon go the way of Novell. This got me to thinking. Does this statement hold any water? Any large company definitely has the possibility getting tunnel vision. Microsoft is not immune to these issues. But is it possible that their culture might could as an anti-virus. There is one...
Posted On Wednesday, September 21, 2011 1:32 AM | Feedback (1)
This Developers Life is a podcast put out by Scott Hanselman and Rob Conery. In the most recent episode there were a couple of things that really struck me. The fist was on motivation. Why is it that we keep spending every free hour keeping up with the latest technologies and techniques? Personally, I have always enjoyed the satisfaction of solving problems with technology. Hey, if you aren’t one to join sports then you need some sort of challenge. Of course getting to play with new toys like Windows...
Posted On Tuesday, November 30, 2010 4:27 PM | Feedback (0)
The last couple of weeks I have been working through some proof of concepts for Windows Phone 7. While working through one exercise I had a flashback. The book I was reading mentioned how you needed to code your application to have the smallest possible memory and and processing speed footprint. Suddenly I was back in high school with my Tandy hand-held computer which had a single line of text screen and a whopping 1K of memory. Talk about limitations. So what else can you learn from developing in...
Posted On Friday, November 19, 2010 2:29 AM | Feedback (1)
The new WLW 2011 has been a shock to the system. I am used to having my history/drafts and and plug-ins at the ready down the right side of the window. Plug-ins are now under the insert tag on the ribbon. The history and drafts are now under a drop-down file menu in the ribbon. I’ll have to see if this configuration works for me. There doesn’t seem to be an option for a “classic” setup so I may end up looking for a new blog editor that is more efficient for me. I realize to some people these may...
Posted On Thursday, November 18, 2010 1:16 AM | Feedback (3)
A few months back I sat down on a conference call with Dave Bost and Clark Sell to record an episode of Thirsty Developer. I had suggested that we could talk about Office Open XML and how it can be used to automate the generation of documents. Now for a number of reasons this episode will never see the light of day (at least not as we originally recorded it). But the reason that sticks in my mind is that the story wasn’t there. As technologists we spend a lot of time learning tools, languages and...
Posted On Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:35 AM | Feedback (0)
Lately I have had some run-ins with structural architects who have warned me that calling myself or our user group Architects is against the law in Illinois. I still need to sort out if this is actually the case or not, but it makes me ask a number of questions. Clearly the law was not intended to protect the word Architect. It was meant to protect the profession and protect the public from people who were practicing architecture without proper training. We wouldn’t want buildings and bridges falling...
Posted On Wednesday, March 03, 2010 2:50 AM | Feedback (1)
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