A few months ago I was looking for a good way to put together some simple screen shots to show a few ideas on a web site I was looking to build.  My timeline was tight, and I really didn’t want to spend the time or effort to put together a working prototype.  The problem I have with prototypes is the prototype often gets viewed as the what the final version will look like or work like.  If something ugly is on the prototype, then people will often focus on that instead of the real goal of the prototype. 

I remembered hearing somebody at a development conference mention a tool called Balsamiq Mockups as a way to help in building a prototype.  They spoke pretty highly of it.  So, I figured I would check it out.

I browsed around the samples and demo on Balsamiq’s web site for a while.  There was a lot of good information there that helped me get a better idea of what Balsamiq Mockups could do.  So, I gave it a shot for the project I was working on.  I was able to quickly and easily build several mockups to show my ideas for several web pages.  Adding elements such as common input elements (textboxes, date pickers, etc.), hyperlinks, images,and grids were all very easy to add to my mockup.  Linking my mockups together via the hyperlinks was very easy too.  By linking together my mockups, I was able to view and interact with my mockups in a full-screen mode – very cool!!  In my first attempt, I had about 3 page mockups put together in about an hour.  I thought that was pretty good.  A lot of that time was spent playing around with the many controls available.

Once I was done with a few more page mockups, I showed another developer on my team the mockups.  He seemed pretty impressed, and he started building mockups to complement mine.  We were able to build out a good portion of the site rather quickly with Balsamiq Mockups.  This proved to be really valuable to us.  As we were building the mockups, we were able to bounce ideas of each other and figure out what we wanted the site to look like, and how we wanted the site to flow.  By the time we were ready to show off the mockup, we had a much better looking site (granted, a mockup/prototype) than I think we would have had before.  The time and ease of putting the mockup together was very valuable.

The more people I show Balsamiq Mockups too, the more positive reaction I receive.  It seems to be a valuable tool that not a whole lot of people now about yet for some reason.  But, it seems to be gaining some momentum.  I know I’ll be telling people about it.  Balsamiq Mockups is even on Scott Hansleman’s 2009 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows.  So, I’m sure it’ll continue to get more and more popular.  I showed a few buddies that were building an iPhone app, and since Balsamiq Mockups has controls for the iPhone, they were pretty impressed.  I think they’ll be using it to help flush out some ideas for the iPhone app they’re building.

I should mention that Microsoft is adding what I think will be a pretty heavy competitor in Microsoft Expression Studio 3 and Sketchflow.  Sketchflow looks to be taking a direct shot at Balsamiq Mockups.  Sketchflow has the same “back of a napkin” drawing looking for the UI mockup.  That rough look for the mockups is one of the really nice aspects of a tool like Balsamiq Mockups.  Sketchflow has a few other nice features though that Balsamiq Mockups doesn’t have yet – ability to export directly to Microsoft Word (very nice feature, in my opinion), show a chart with all the navigation links, and the ability to turn your sketch into a somewhat working WPF app.  While these are certainly nice features, I’m not sure it totally steals the show from Balsamiq Mockups just yet.  Balsamiq’s product is still pretty cheap, and it does pretty much everything I want it to do.  Plus, Balsamiq Mockups has a community of people developing new UI controls that can be added to the product.

In summary, I would encourage you to take a look at Balsamiq Mockups if you want to put together a mockup or prototype for a web site, desktop application, or even an iPhone application.  Being able to quickly see your idea on “paper” will surely help you flush out your ideas.  Plus, since the UI created doesn’t look pretty (by design), people looking at your mockup will likely stay more focused on the data and overall layout, rather than a pretty spinning wheel.

Today wraps up day 0 of CodeMash 2009.  This was the “Precompilier” day, and was a little less structured than the regular CodeMash days.  Today essentially consisted of two long sessions, each about 4 hours in length.  These allowed you to get a little more in depth on a topic if so desired.  Or, you could be a butterfly and flutter around to see a bunch of things.  I liked this format as we were able to get a little more interactive.

For my first session, I decided to spend my morning learning about iPhone development.  I thought this was a really neat session.  I hadn’t seen anything before about writing an iPhone app.  I thought it might be cool to write one of my own, but didn’t really want to buy a Mac to do so.  This session gave me a chance to see first hand how I could write one (if I ever decided to get a Mac).  Developing an iPhone app didn’t seem terribly hard, but it sure seemed like a big switch from my comfortable .NET world.  The procedural and objective-C language used to develop on the iPhone seems kind of funky to me.  The development tools Apple has really are different than Visual Studio.  It’s just a way different way to do things.  I think it would be a huge learning curve for me (not that it would be a bad thing).  Kind of neat though.  But, in a way, that goes with my general view of Apple – way different and somewhat uncomfortable for me, but at the same time pretty neat.

For my second session, I decided to learn more about Windows Azure.  I was hoping to learn some more details about Azure, and to be able to write and load an app into the Azure cloud.  But, due to a few technical problems, I didn’t get to write that Azure app.  But, Windows Azure Technical Evangelist David Aiken had a really good presentation on what Azure is and isn’t and how it all fits in the ever evolving Azure Services Platform.  He cleared up some of my confusion on Azure.  I left his presentation really geeked up about Azure.  I think what Microsoft is doing is going to be really interesting.  For me, I’m looking forward to using the features Azure provides.  It’s going to be fun to see how Windows Azure develops and evolves in 2009.  I can’t wait to write my first cloud app!  The Azure team is supposed to have some labs set up that will allow CodeMash attendees to write apps for Azure.  Those labs weren’t up today, but hopefully they’ll all be running on Thursday.  I did learn that the Windows Azure SDK and related Visual Studio tools require Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista – they do not run on Windows XP!  I was shocked at this.  I can’t think of a good reason why the Azure SDK would require Vista.  I’m hoping to get a chance on Thursday to talk to some of the guys from Microsoft to ask them why Windows XP isn’t supported.

To wrap up, the CodeMash 2009 Precompilier was a big hit in my book.  I learned a lot and really was psyched up about some of the things I saw and heard.  I attended Microsoft TechEd in 2008 and was really geeked up after that.  I’m getting that same feeling again.  I’m surrounded by so many smart people and great technology.  Attending conferences like TechEd and CodeMash just seem to reenergize me.

I've been spending some time recently debating with myself over the purpose of this blog.  I'm debating if this blog should be technology/software focused, focused on me, or a mixture of both.

So far, this blog has been a mixture of technology/software items and stuff about me.  With that approach, there has been no clear direction for the blog.  I basically post a hodgepodge of information.  I wonder if I would be better off focusing on one subject area.  Would I get more readers?  Would it be better for me personally and/or professionally?  I've been wanting to get more involved in the .NET community - would a more focused blog help with that effort?

Would I be better focusing on technology/software with one blog, and personal life items with another blog?

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

Well, the first day of CodeMash 2008 is in the books.  It was really a great day.  I've already mentioned some of the highlights from the first part of the day in my previous post.  The second half of the day was even better!

After lunch we were treated to a very, very entertaining and informative keynote by Microsoft's Scott Hanselman.  He started off with about 5 minutes of very funny slides about him, his past, and what he's doing now.  It was a great way to get the crowd energized after a pretty good lunch.  Scott's main presentation was on some of the kick-ass features of IIS7.  I really hope I get to use IIS7 on a future project.  Some of the features that IIS7 now provide would have saved me tons of time on past projects.  If you're not using IIS7 now, you should really consider moving in that direction.  Take a look - I'm sure you'll be impressed too!  One of the cooler tidbits from the presentation is that PHP scripts run about 3x faster under IIS7 than previous versions.  That speed improvement is due to the new FastCGI module available with IIS7.

The third breakout session I attended was headed-up by Brian Prince, and entitled "Applied Service-Oriented Architecture".  It was a pretty good session.  I certainly picked up a few tips I'm eager to apply, and some best practices I'm eager to use (especially with some of my moronic colleagues).  :)

The final session of the day for me was "Putting the Fun into Functional with F#".  I'm not sure what to think about F#.  During the presentation I went from thinking F# was very cool, to that it is totally crazy, back and forth a few times, and finally at it probably isn't for me yet.  Granted, F# is still a project at Microsoft Research.  I think F# is more tailored at people who do a lot of mathematical applications.  That is not the type of software engineering I generally tend to work on.

Both Guitar Hero and Rock Band were set up on a few Xbox 360's.  These were pretty popular.

I'm looking forward to seeing what great things the second and final (snif, snif) day of CodeMash will bring!

Well, I'm half way through the first half of day 1 of CodeMash 2008.  I've attended the morning keynote speech by Neal Ford, a Silverlight presentation by Jeff Blankenburg, and a very entertaining presentation on Windows Sharepoint Services 3 and MOSS 2007 by Leon Gersing.  I'm having a lot of fun so far, and learning a few things along the way!

Neal Ford's speech was really pretty good.  He was funny and informative - always a plus for a speaker in my book.  He took some nice shots at Java and C#, and a few other languages.  One of my favorite shots of his at Java was when he pointed out how Java implements generics.  He quoted Venkat S. in "Generics shows that Java is retarded".  Funny!

Another topic in Neal Ford's speech was comparing software engineering to traditional engineering disciplines (i.e. civil engineering).  He pointed out that the code software engineers produce relates to the documentation produced by other engineering disciplines, and that compilation and deployment relates to the manufacturing phase. He also mentioned that testing is the engineering rigor of software engineering.  I thought that was a pretty interesting statement.  So often testing is forgotten or disregarded for some stupid business case (time, money, blah, blah, blah).

The MOSS 2007 presentation by Leon Gersing was very, very entertaining and informative.  He related working with various programing languages and tools to dating and life with women.  He did a very good job with that comparison.  I hadn't thought of it like that before, but he was soooo right.  Darn funny!!

My programmer personality is:
PHTB

You're a Planner.
You may be slow, but you'll usually find the best solution. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.

You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it's parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.

You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We're not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

Determine your programmer personality at at http://www.doolwind.com/index.php?page=11

"We're an IT shop, not a software company."  That statement seems to be one of the favorite excuses people use as a reason why they can't do something in software development.  There are lots of excuses for why things can't or aren't done.  Another favorite is "Well, that's the process we have."  I just keep thinking so what?

Just because a company doesn't sell software as a primary source of income is not a good excuse for creating poor software.  Creating good, quality software applications should be the prime directive of any IT shop and software company.  An IT shop creates good software to supplement the business to generate revenue.  A software company sells software to generate revenue.  Both have an impact on revenue.  If the software sucks, then the company doesn't make money.  It is the same thing!!!  Heck, I would guess that creating poor software costs a company more money than taking the time to create good software does.  

Furthermore, knowing that you have a terrible process in place, and continuing to repeat that process, is just insane!  Improve the process!!  Solve the problem!!  After a while of living with the problem, people - and companies - can become numb to the problem.  They realize that there is a problem, but since that is the way it has always been, they don't know any other way.  Why continue to repeat the same mistakes?  I found a quote from Albert Einstein that I think says it pretty well, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

It's easier to come up with excuses as to why something can't be done than it is to actually do the hard things necessary to solve the problem.  I think that applies to most things in life.  Personally, I hate getting up early in the morning - especially to go to the gym.  But, I do it because I know it benefits me in other areas.  I hate sucking at golf.  But, I continue to play golf and practice because I want to get better.  Like the late, great Woody Hayes once said, "Anything easy aint worth a damn".

Last week Google launched Google Code Search.  Google is using their search engine technology to search the code of open-source projects and web pages.  While I haven't tried it yet, I think it has the potential to be very cool.  I can definitely see myself using this to find out how to do something that I know has been done elsewhere.

If you use it and like it, or not, let me know.