Knowing .NET

• Applying for data-centric jobs. I think of myself as an algorithm / performance guy, so it’s weird to write cover letters with DBA stuff… #
• USA vs CAN hockey game was epic. Hope it helps NHL. Togue-wearing syrup-suckers: health-care AND gold? #
• Skinput from CMU and MSR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCgY_RIvDyE Possible apps: “Ouch! Quit it!” and “Stop poking me!” #
• eWeek Labs is looking for a Senior Analyst (software/hardware reviewer). Man, if I were in SF, I’d be on that job like a roomba on a rug. #
• #FiveMinuteEnergy should rewrite my .HOSTS file so that all IP addresses redirect to my dev server #
• Proved jQuery is adequate for a project thought to only be possible with Flash/Silverlight, but how much time to be lost to browser tweaks? #
• “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” is all sets and props. Wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDk9jjdiXJQ #
• Got my first CC statement with “If you only pay the min amt, it will take you…” statement. Happy that carrying $0 is my #1 rule… #
• Serenity Now!!!!!!! #
• Has Roger Ebert given you $4.99 worth of value in your life? http://bit.ly/aEfuZQ #
• Ballmer practically choked saying “The AppStore, where Apple did a great job…” #
• Bing Maps with Photosynth integration available at http://www.bing.com/maps/explore #
• Schadenfreude, my old friend http://bit.ly/cNmQhk #
• LINQ to Mongo! http://blog.wekeroad.com/2010/03/04/using-mongo-with-linq #
• If they have this, you KNOW they’re about to unveil Iron Man: http://bit.ly/cEYvlv #
• I just got the Mac Heist bundle. 7 fantastic apps worth $260+ for only $20 and got 3 great bonus apps free! http://bit.ly/heist-it #
• “CoverScout” from the MacHeist bundle fills in your missing album art. Didn’t think it would be that big a deal, but it’s a blast to use. #

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Twitter’s buzzing with technolust based on an Engadget article picturing a Microsoft concept-computer.

Looks lovely, but the photo is misleading. It shows lines of cursive writing that are fraction of a size of the reader’s fingernail. Take a look at this blowup:

Based on my fingernail, that cursive writing is about 3mm tall. You might be able to read 8 point cursive handwriting on a high-resolution dispay, but there’s no way under Heaven that you can write anywhere near that size, especially not using a stylus on a glass screen.

In fact, using a stylus on a Tablet PC, you write about 33-50% larger than you do on a piece of paper because your cursive writing is based on the muscle memory of pushing a pen or pencil over paper, which is more resistant. Personally, my experience is that on the 12″ diagonal screen of my Tablet PC, it “feels” like a writing area close to a 4″ x 6″ index card.

Don’t get me wrong — the Microsoft Courier looks like a great form-factor. But the user experience implied by that photo is not realistic. It’s perfectly possible to imagine that what’s shown is a zoomed-out page and that when you’re writing and sketching you’re zoomed in to a much smaller viewport. But the user experience that everyone dreams of — the user experience of a digital Moleskine notebook — requires innovation in either the screen surface or the stylus tip. As far as the iPad and the idea that dragging your great big finger across a piece of glass is going to be an acceptable way to write or draw, the sooner you give up on that hope, the better.

O’Reilly and Microsoft Press have recently switched to using eBooks as the preferred media for distributing review copies. Like all book reviewers, I receive more books than I actually review. However, since I live in Hawaii, the physical and energy waste of a book that goes unread and for which its difficult to find a home (no colleges on my side of the island) is apparent.

I hope other publishers follow in their footsteps and switch to eBooks (preferably not non-reflowable PDF!) as the default format for reviewers.

My article on the 10 most influential software development books of the past 10 years only appeared in the 2/15 print edition of SD Times.

If you’re interested, here are Amazon affiliate links to the books:

• Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit
• Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World (Pragmatic Programmers)
• Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
• Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think (Theory in Practice (O’Reilly))
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
• Programming Ruby 1.9: The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide (Facets of Ruby)
• Effective Java (2nd Edition)
• Concurrent Programming on Windows
• Java Concurrency in Practice
• Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project
• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

Photo by Wayne Levin. All rights reserved.

Remote Pair Programming is the subject of my latest column for SD Times

and in the spirit of pair programming, my colleague Carlos Lima shares his perspective as well.

(For what it’s worth, I think the tone of my column may be a little more negative that I intended. I tried to be balanced pro and con, but perhaps I over-emphasized the problems.)

Cleaning out my “Write blog post commenting upon…” folder…

Consulting / Business Topics

Flickr as a Business Simulator

Once You Announce A Date, You’re Already Late

How Hard Should Your Startup’s Technology Be?

AppFund Offers VC Money for iPad Apps

The Listening Engine

Performance

Commonly Confused Tidbits re. .NET Garbage Collector

The Cambrian Period of Concurrency

Tasks & Asynchronous Control Flow

Lifting T Out of Task With Dynamic Dispatch

Axum - A Domain-Specific Concurrent Programming Language

Prefer Futures to Baked-In “Async APIs”

Data

“M” Language Type Definitions for 280+ Data Models

Questionnaire DSL With Microsoft “Oslo” Overview

Focusing on Data

Implementing a LINQ version of SQL’s LIKE operator

Using LINQ and Reflection to Find Matching Properties of Objects

Why Normalization Failed To Become The Ultimate Guide For Database Designers?

Web Dev

Multibrowser or CrossBrowser Testing

A Brief Introduction To The Reactive Extensions for .NET, Rx

First Encounters with Reactive Extensions

LINQ to RX: Second Impressions

• Google Earth Car spotted on Queen K at North/South Kona border… #
• Hope new credit card law means that I get MORE incomprehensible pamphlets with important updates about my agreement. Fingers crossed. #
• Haven’t even dl’ed the demo, but suspect the next time I’m doing hard JavaScript code, I’ll use JetBrains WebIDE http://bit.ly/hyE5q #
• (Assuming that d/l counter, while fake, is calibrated to Apple’s expectations…) #
• We “have to keep healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that people purchase insurance.” Yep. http://nyti.ms/c24iGj #
• Good article on Flash UI assumptions (mouseover, hover) vs. slate form-factor: http://bit.ly/bII5sk Applicable to iPad / Tablet PC #
• I wonder what correlation there is between readers of this article http://bit.ly/bsJbtV and “enjoys scatter graphs and regression analysis”? #
• Photosynth to 3D Conversion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuHJUS2olyc I’d love to do that with a reef… #
• Silverlighttoys.com just crashed my Firefox. Oopsie! #
• Happy Birthday SD Times http://www.sdtimes.com/ZEICHICK_S_TAKE_HAPPY_BIRTHDAY_/By_Alan_Zeichick/34143 #
• Dude, Where’s My Cdr? #filmsaboutsoftware #
• I’d love to think that Prolog is going to have another day in the sun. LINQ and RX promote central idea of “query as control structure” #
• Problem with Prolog is that it’s depth-first search. Oz allows choice of search strategy. #
• 17-year-old killed by drunk driver in Hawaii last night. Ugh. http://bit.ly/b1KwBZ #
• Just discovered that desired level of precision allows about 1KLoC (including multiday perf pass) to be factored away. #bittersweet #
• Blog about a woman in technology or science you admire on Ada Lovelace Day, 24 Mar 2010, details at http://findingada.com (@findingada) #
• Orca kills trainer http://bit.ly/cNybe5 No surprise this would eventually happen. (Must. Resist. Neko Case Reference…) #
• Lingerie model runs one of world’s largest drug gangs http://bit.ly/cmzdP7 In other news, 1000000 would-be screenwriters started new scripts #
• HD makes such a difference for watching hockey… <2 minutes left in US vs. SUI #
• USA vs SUI was good hockey game. I prefer Olympic-sized rink, though. I think hockey benefits from more room relative to player sizes… #
• A Johnny Cash song was the 10,000,000,000th song sold on iTunes. Nice. #
• I just coded “System.Console.WriteLine(”#{t},#{pt}”); Sadly, it #
• Sadly, it’s a C# program, not Ruby. #
• It will be interesting to see how the news covers the health care summit. Wait. Not “Interesting.” What’s the word? Utterly predictable. #
• AWWW! Baby elephant! http://bit.ly/7f7CXV #
• New Quicken Essentials for Mac doesn’t export to Turbo Tax. #fail #
• 3.9 ms? Thank heavens I profiled that code before optimizing… #
• Pacific Tsunami Center has NOT issued a tsunami warning as of 9:44 AM Hawaiian (2044Z). http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/?region=0 #hawaii #
• Woke to tsunami sirens. We are very high and safe. #
• Hawaii County Civil Defense: All in evacuation zones are ordered to evacuate no later than 10:00 AM. #
• Spam rationing @ Safeway: http://t.ourtown808.com/fht0 #
• Lots of fishing boats leaving Honokohau Harbor #histunami #
• Just heard KOA airport is operating normally? WTF? It’s right on the shore. #
• Marquesa tsunami smaller than initial forecast. Good news for #hitsunami #
• MacSpeech Scribe not scriptable, making workflow automation difficult / impossible. Bummer. Impressive product otherwise. #
• Appreciating scientists, tsunami warning center, civil defense prep. #
• Water receding in Hilo Bay — Tivo clearly shows receding pulse. #
• Surge beginning to fill in Hilo Bay. Wow. #
• Now it’s beginning to recede in Hilo again. Fuh-reaky. #
• Honokohau Harbor (Kona Side) looks normal from a distance. Can’t tell if there’s small-scale disturbance yet. #
• Tsunami scientist saying “2m at Kahului” and “may get worse in Hilo” #
• Tsunami scientist refers to Hilo and Kahului as “resonant harbors” that can amplify tsunami action. #
• So far tsunami has been awe-inspiring but non-damaging. Fingers crossed for more of the same… #
• West Hawaii Police reporting water receding 4.5ft Kona / Honokohau #hitsunami #
• Water now beginning to surge in Kona. #
• That’s the way all #hitsunami s should be. Thoughts turning to victims in Chile… #
• Police scanner reports surge covered Kailua Kona pier #hitsunami #
• My dramatic tsunami video: http://bit.ly/bPi3gX #
• Tsunami watch lifted on Big Island. #

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