I have had a couple tough interviews…

For the record, he is referring to to a gun.

Continue reading "A Tough Interview"

I am a big fan of MongoDB.

There is a good C# driver called, MongoDB-CSharp. Unfortunately, because of the strongly typed nature of C#, the default implementation requires you to work with your data as a dictionary. This has an unfortunate side effect of some ugly code and a quite a bit of casting.

Given a choice of working with a dictionary vs SQL I would choice a dictionary everyday. However, with C# 4.0’s dynamics, we can make this much easier to work with.

Continue reading "MongoDB and C# Dynamics"

Chad Fowler’s, "Passionate Programmer"[1] is a definite must read for any developer who gives a damn about his or her career.

Continue reading "Passionate Programmer - Review"

I had the opportunity this year to attend CodeMash 2010.

For those of you unfamiliar with CodeMash:

"CodeMash is all about jumping into new domains. Getting out of your comfort zone. Learning new things from new people."

CodeMash 2010 was without a doubt the best developer event I have ever attended.

Continue reading "CodeMash 2010"

In Seth Godin’s Tribes, one particular section really struck a cord with me and I have been thinking about it just about every day for a couple of weeks now.

Continue reading "The Obligation"

Don and I are going to host a Pragmatic Beer night tomorrow November 24 at 6:30 PM. If you are in the area, please stop by and have a drink/dinner/etc.

Continue reading "Pragmatic Beer – Thanksgiving Edition"

I have tried a variety of tools for reading my Google Reader feeds on my iPhone.

• Google’s mobile browser – works well, but requires a constant connection and little third party tool integration
• Feeds – likely the most disappointing app I have ever purchased
• Byline – pretty good overall experience. A little rough around the edges.
• Newsstand – relatively new. My first day with it was good, but it was downhill after that.

However, with the recent update of the NetNewsWire iPhone app, all the applications listed above are dead to me. NewNewsWire for the iPhone may be the best application I have used on my iPhone.

Continue reading "Google Reader on an iPhone"

A very interesting announcement by the folks at MySpace:

Today, we are open-sourcing Qizmt, an internally developed framework for distributed computation created by the Data Mining team here at MySpace. Qizmt can be used for many operations that require processing large amounts of data such as collaborative filtering for recommendations and analytics.

Continue reading "Qizmt – MapReduce On Windows"

I may have my Mac fanboy status revoked because of this post. It wasn’t until last week that I learned the “Think Different” commercial that aired in 1997 was actual the Apple Manifesto.

Continue reading "Thinking Different"

I have been slumming it this week in Hawaii working with a Telligent Community customer.

This morning, a new (to me?) feature of Windows 7 caught my eye.

Continue reading "Windows 7 Hotel Room Notification"