Sometimes the things people say and do is nothing short of priceless entertainment, especially if what is said or done is not meant to be amusing.

Everyone from a certain age group and have been involved with computers from the early days will no doubt know of, have heard of, or has experienced, the phenomena known as the OS zealot. You know, those people who consider the brand they like to be similar to how certain other individuals find themselves immersed in various forms of religious fundamentalism.

Back in the day there were the PC zealots, a common creature often found bashing and insulting hardware by manufacturers who believed in proprietary hardware designs. And of course there were the Amiga and Atari fanatics that represented two other groups where certain sections of these different groups were always at each other’s throats about who had the better hardware. And, let’s not forget the Apple zealots. Most of these fundamentalist fanatics died out and faded into the background during the late 80’s and early 90’s as their religious sacraments that came in the form of material objects found their way into obsoleteness (or a museum, in many cases). And who can forget about Linux zealots, though that is a group that is still very much alive and out there, sometimes a bit TOO FAR OUT there.

You might understand my surprise that I recently discovered a real live one. An Apple fundamentalist. You know, Apple, the company that didn’t bring you the Lisa but did give us the Macintosh, the iPod and iPhone, and of course people who prefer to work with computers that do not require a full understanding of everything inside and outside the box. Out of the blue I received this funny e-mail from Terry C Mele. Or, Terry Cillian Mele a.k.a. “ovomac” which said;

Wow, that’s a shame. I don’t see an Apple logo.
Thus, your computer is nothing fascinating.

Not that I ever considered any of my fleet of computers to be fascinating, even though many other do, but of course, because the religious fundamentalists with a preference for any particular hardware or operating system had died out so long ago it could only be either someone with a sense of humor or someone very ignorant. I figured I’d check it out first and responded by saying the only logical thing (well, logical to those who have the power of critical thinking, considering I don’t develop for Apple’s OS) there was to say;

I’m quite pleased there are no Apple logos around here.
I wouldn’t be able to do my job if they did!

The response I got to that really says it all. Though, after a quick check it seems Terry Cillian Mele is not joking about his fanaticism that leads to such subsequent behavior. Especially considering that his response to my obvious remark was this;

Well then your job must not consist of anything very fascinating.
No high-end graphics, no music editing, no video production.

All of that is not possible on your Machine.
Can’t be done correctly. Just get a Mac, and get a brain.
Quit embarrassing yourself. That computer is just a big calculator.
Nothing to be proud of.
It does, however, make a wonderful Solitaire opponent.

It’s amazing to see that so many years after the various zealot groups have faded into the void that you can still run into a real live one. It boggles the mind. Then again, I don’t have any Apples to unboggle it so maybe Terry Mele has a point. It might be very difficult for these misguided fundamentalists to understand that in the normal day to day world, people of different technical backgrounds and product/system preferences get along just fine. Then again, that would be the real world, not the Matrix in which zealots have an alternative perception based on a personal blinding rage of having to feel in some sense superior.

But what’s absolutely fascinating is that the same quick check shows that Terry Mele is just a kid. Now, normally zealots who haven’t shaken their bad behavior and habits are in an age range that is normally twice the age of Terry. Maybe these things have a tendency to “run in the family”, I don’t know. Are there any technological anthropologists out there who studied this? Is this what schools teach kids these days or is this just some random permutation that occurred due to an excessive combination of butterfly effects? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be overly pervasive.

All in all, I think we should all take a moment to remember the zealots of yesteryears, the arguments on Usenet back when it was still a discussion platform, bitnet, relaynet, IRC, and what not. Back when tech savages and scientists went toe to toe. For all those zealots that have faded or discovered that their sense of ideology and behavior was unfitting. Others notice too (see comments).

Then again, seeing in Terry’s own words, “I can often be found at the bar, getting drunk”, I might be led to believe that poor Terry should perhaps not try interacting with others who do not share the same fundamentalist feelings, especially if Terry is intoxicated. I can only hope for Terry Cillian Mele’s sake he too will grow up and realize the foolishness of his embarrassing behavior. Especially since we all know how employers these days search the net to check up on their job applicants.

An Apple a day keeps… well, just what does it keep away?

WhereWeDoWhatWeDo is “a community-built visual database of the spaces in which we spend our days, nights or both doing whatever it is we do”. If you want to see some other home offices and fun spaces, go over to WWDWWD. And while checking out the many images, you may encounter something that looks somewhat familiar.

A few days ago one of the smaller APC backup UPS devices decided it no longer liked me and started yelling at me. Adding insult to injury it then decided to start flashing its little lights at me to express its utter dismay of me having forgotten to replace the battery unit in the system. Then in a final attempt at letting me know about its unhappy state it decided to just completely break down on me (a slight tap on the device being enough to turn the power on or off, definitely not an APC feature!).

Two days later the second of these small APC backup UPC devices, an identical model, decided that the battery needed to be replaced (what, not even 3 years after initially installing them?). Except this UPS decided it wasn’t just unhappy but extremely pissed at me because instead of just sounding the beeping alarm and flashing the error lights it decided to temporarily, for about 5 seconds, pull the power from the server it was providing with current (it wasn’t running on batteries but on pass-through current). Needless to say I’m not amused by devices that misbehave like that and considered it an attempt at intentional sabotage. I consider the act of pulling the current from my server and sending it into a straight reboot without a proper shutdown to be an act of war.

Since I had decided I wanted to start using a different machine as the main server it was a good time to get a completely new, different, and bigger UPS so I ended up ordering the APC SC1500i model (1500VA, 865 Watts) which arrived at my dealer within a few days. At close to 22kg in weight this was not the kind of device you just carry back home. Let that be a lesson to misbehaving devices, misbehave and you’re out! Replaced! Too bad we can’t do that so easily and in a matter of days when it comes to politicians who complain too much about the citizens they’re supposed to be working for.

So right now the battery in the SC1500i is charging and tomorrow I’ll hook it up properly in its temporary new position. Temporary because later this year, around September or October (2008) I’m going to be conducting an overhaul of the Home Office. And yes, I will be uploading new pictures of it but I’m not yet going to tell what the changes are… other than that if you think it’s insane now, wait until I’ve completed the next upgrade cycle. The overhaul that includes a complete replacement of power cables and distribution will also include some changes to the mega multi-monitor configuration. Large changes. Size changes. Number changes. Ergotron changes. Oops, I might be writing too much now! But you’ll just have to check back here when I’m done to see those results.

Sallie said I should write blog posts describing the planned overhaul and what it involves because there’s all sorts of issues to deal with regarding space, metrics, ergonomics, power requirements, power distribution, monitor placement and cabling, etc. but I’m afraid that doing so would possibly fry the minds of some people and I don’t have a legal disclaimer for any physical or mental affliction caused by exposure to the planning details in my mind. I will, however, take pictures during the overhaul process for a little “making of” page in which the details of constructing the whole configuration will be described. For those who dare be exposed to the guts and gore details of utter Home Office Madness.

For a while now I have been using a few dark color schemes for Visual Studio, mostly to just try out whether I would like it or not. Many others like Brad Wilson have also shared their adaptations and thoughts on the use of dark color themes for Visual Studio. Guru Stop and Blowmage have some additional thoughts on dark themes that include John Lam’s Vibrant Link.

I started out with some of Tomas Restrepo’s color schemes and made various alterations to fit my personal preference and style. Because a dark background allows for a better distribution of color, and choices for color, it was worth it to see if I could be pursuaded to join the dark side.

The result is that I am finding it very annoying and painful on the eyes. But not so much the color schemes using a dark background themselves, but rather the practical implications when using it while doing actual work. The dark background allows for better highlighting of code, no doubt about that, but in a practical situation I often have other applications running on the screens which include things like help files, CHM’s and PDF’s with developer documentation and API docs, Outlook, OneNote, Visio, and many other development tools, etc. and almost all of these applications will use a light or white background as a basis.

The eyestrain starts to set in after working for a few hours whereby you read through a CHM, move back to your code on the dark background, and repeatedly move back and forth between the various windows. The extremely frequent and rapid movement and changes between dark and light ends up feeling very bad on the eyes and as a result I feel tired after only a few hours of doing this.

It’s back to my custom color scheme that uses a near white (250,250,250) background instead. It was fun while it lasted, though!

OK, this is not really a restaurant review but it’s a place worth visiting if you’re ever in El Cerrito, California. What do you do for coffee in California? Go to Peets, of course. Unless you don’t care about coffee and how it should taste, in which case, people like that go to Starbucks. However, a rather interesting coffee place in El Cerrito, called Central Perk, is definitely worth a visit. The entire shop is filled with all sorts of toys, fun stuff, decorations, everything including a kitchen sink, basically. And everything you see in the store is for sale. Care to get one of those huge Sully characters from Monsters, Inc., well, at Central Perk you can.

I’ve recently been really getting into PowerShell and investigating its potential as a new automation and scripting platform for the countless command line based processes I’m running all the time. The first thing I did was purchase a copy of PowerShell Analyzer, which I think is one of the most valuable tools for anyone getting serious about digging into PowerShell’s object paradigm. And while you’re checking out PowerShell Analyzer, check out what the Shell Tools guys are working on; PowerShell Plus. Amazing stuff.

A few resources to help you on your way, as they did help me:

• A guided tour of the Microsoft Command Shell by Ryan Paul
• The PowerScripting Podcast by Jonathan Walz
• The Windows PowerShell Team Blog
• The Wikipedia page on PowerShell (with more resources)
• The online PowerShell Owners Manual
• The PowerShell Guy (Marc van Orsouw)

This is hillarious. Someone going around on some web forum and calling himself SniperX has been passing off my home office as his ‘gaming rig’. Check out what he’s been writing. Of course, what SniperX hasn’t realized is the fact that my office is famous enough that a lot of people have seen it and can spot someone representing it as their own. Bruno was kind enough to call out SniperX on his “bull manure” and bust him.

The best part is when SniperX writes about his reason for posting images of my office, in his own words “people did not believe me when i told them my make and model of machine, so i posted it”.

OK, that’s enough entertainment for me today.

What do you mean you’ve never heard of those groundbreaking development methodologies? Well, perhaps you haven’t but I do think you should check them out if you’ve got a minute so Scott Berkun can explain these to you in detail. I would like to add, OOCDD, Out Of Control Driven Development. Unlike most methodologies, it’s an encapsulated methodology that derives from all others. Especially considering how out of control development gets, regardless of methodology.

After trying to figure out what to do with my photography pages and debating whether I should install an album module or write one myself like the quick hack that has been part of my site since I created it I’ve settled on using Flickr. I’ve uploaded a lot of my older shots and will continue to update it with new material as time permits.

Anyone who feels the need to check out what I like to do and see when I’m not working in my home office, feel free to browse my photo collections at Flickr via my pictures page or through the following links: Collections | Sets | Profile | Main Album

Since I now have a blog I’d like to take some time and write about copyrights and infringement, a subject I’ve had to deal with ever since I got into business for myself in 1989 and whereby the works were analog or digital in nature and effectively copyrighted material.

Two days ago a friend of mine alerted me to a video he saw on a web portal of an ISP that had started a video service for its customers that is similar to YouTube and Google Video. One of the videos there, uploaded by a user that goes by the name of “bmhelli” (according to this and his website, Bernard Marius Hellinga a.k.a. Bernard Helli. from a town called Ermelo in The Netherlands) contained two TV commercials that were appended together. One introducing some kind of big hamburger, the other commercial being of a topless woman acting out stereotypical male behavior.

While the commercials were funny, the creator that appended them decided to also append a few pictures at the end with a scrolling text (in Dutch, “Onze Werkplek”) which means “Our Workplace” or “Our Office”. Those images, as you can see here and probably would have guessed since I’m writing about it, were of course not of “their workspace” but rather, mine!

In a way it’s amusing that someone would take some seemingly popular (if I judge it by the numbers of visitors to my site and the e-mails I receive about it) images from the internet and label them as “our workplace”. But it’s also not a very clever thing to do. Photographers usually don’t like their pictures being used by others that would take credit for it and are certainly less amused when the person or company doing so claims or implies that it is theirs or claims to be the author or copyright holder. The latter is also the case with Bernard Hellinga aka “bmhelli” since the upload details he entered were “Autheursrecht: BMH” (that’s “Copyright: BMH”). It is unclear what Bernard M. tried to accomplish with this. Either to pretend that my home office was his workspace or whether he wanted to imply that those commercials preceeding the images were those of the producer of these commercials (which, I certainly am not even though I did produce several TV commercials back in the 80’s and 90’s).

The ISP that owns and runs that video website had recently come up with their own version of “the DMCA” (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which is a system for receiving and handling Take Down and Cease and Desist notices. A system I would strongly encourage for all ISP’s in order to distance themselves from any claims or association with copyright infringement by their customers. Needless to say, that new system deserved a closer look and a bit of a test. Within two days I received notice from the ISP that the user had taken down the infringing content. A good example of how an ISP can deal with these things without having to defend themselves over the actions of a customer. Very nice, and my compliments go out to XS4ALL for being a progressive ISP.

The same goes for Microsoft. When I was notified that Mr. Hellinga had also used the same photographs on his livespaces site/blog a DMCA Take Down C&D (Cease and Desist) went out. It took two days but the photographs were removed. This shows that a proper DMCA complaint will be handled in a proper and timely fashion.

Now the really funny thing is that this was the SECOND time my friend found something that infringed on a copyright that I held. Back in 1996 (it might have been 1997) he came by after picking up a book called “The 3D Studio MAX Design Guide”, published by Coriolis, Inc. Since I used to work on 3ds max I flipped through the book and within seconds my eyes fell on a chapter entitled “Battlemech”. To my surprise the 3D model used for that chapter was a 3D model I had created back in 1993, which was copyrighted (and clearly mentioned in the enclosed text file), and where one of the authors of the chapter claimed they had designed and created the model. On top of that the model itself was provided on the CD-ROM included with the book.

That level of commercial use of course required a slightly different approach and after getting in touch with Coriolis and having my attorney stand by to file a temporary injunction to halt all sales of the book we got to discuss the issue. I’ll save you the long story but in the end Coriolis admitted their “mistake” and we settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Several months later I was contacted by Don Simpson, a cartoonist, who also had his material used in the very same book. In 1997, Ron Every wrote about this situation in the magazine he wrote for. You can find the article here (sorry about the quality, it’s an old PDF).

The bottom line, of course, is, that if you use material from any site on the internet that has copyright notices and details such as “without prior written permission” and “all rights reserved” you should never use the material without permission unless you wish to open yourself up to the less amusing side effects it can result in. If the material is not labeled and just found, stumbled upon, or provided in any random fashion and it is not clear who the author or copyright holder is and you are therefore unable to obtain permission, it is sensible to not use the material because you could end up being liable for using it. Regarding the “Fair Use” clause in copyright laws, claiming copyright without permission is never allowed under the “Fair Use” clause.

People have asked me to write something about some of the typical usage scenarios that I often find myself in at my home office. Since those are generally not easy to explain in a few words and since they could otherwise fill up the FAQ page a lot I’ve decided to just write them as posts in the blog and relink those back from the FAQ page for details.

Screen configuration details:

• Helium: bottom center two monitors, input A.
• Oxygen: bottom center two monitors, input B.
• Halon: top center two monitors, input A.
• Argon: top center two monitors, input B.
• Isis: left-most top monitor.
• Osiris: right top monitor (4th from the left).
• Radon: right-most top monitor, input A.
• Hydrogen: right-most top monitor, input B.
• Others: No monitors, remote access only.

MaxiVista configuration details (typical):

The following configurations are the typical ones that I switch between frequently. The switching is performed by popping up a PowerPro custom menu and selecting with a single click which screen configuration I want. This will trigger commands to be sent to all required systems (via a custom written Windows Service process that runs in the background of all systems and VM’s) which will automate the otherwise manual process of configuration.

• Helium extends three additional monitors on Halon and Osiris in order to provide Helium with a 5 monitor desktop.
• Radon extends three additional monitors on Halon and Osiris in order to provide a 4 monitor desktop.
• Hydrogen extends similar to Radon.
• Argon extends two additional monitors on Helium.

Monitor and general details:

Isis and Osiris are the two main internet gateways and base servers in the network (mail, DNS, monitoring, etc.) and generally contain my Skype, a web monitor, a remote server/web monitor app, Magic Mail (a really lightweight mail checker that checks several of my key accounts for mail, had to adapt it a little by modifying the source to fit my purpose and display style), and are usually used to pop up a web browser in case the other monitors are cluttered with windows. Osiris acts as a video conferencing gateway as well as the primary backup server in case Isis needs some maintenance or a failover on the connections are in effect.

Helium and Halon are the primary systems used for every day work. Both can boot to either 32-bit or 64-bit and provide a bit of redundancy in case either of the dual boot systems gets hosed for some reason. Normally Helium runs 64-bit by default and Halon runs 32-bit, giving me direct access to both flavors without having to reboot anything.

Argon runs most of the core VM’s that extend the network to a full service ‘development center’ while Oxygen and Hydrogen will take over certain of those virtual processes and machines when there’s more specific work to be done. The other systems are used for a variety of things depending on the actual work I’m doing so it varies a lot.

Usage Scenario #1 (General)

Helium will be running the development tools (VS, etc.) and my editor(s) as well as the e-mail client, etc. The development environment and editor along with all associated windows (class views, etc.) and one or more command line windows usually take up at least the two monitors hooked up to Helium and extends to the above described MaxiVista configuration if more space is needed.

Halon will typically run MSDN documentation, other internal API and development related documentation, specs, designs, applications under test, one or two VM’s used in direct development (mostly to run some shielded processes) so that the center four monitors form a complete overview of what I’m doing at the time.

When important e-mail arrives that requires me to temporarily drop what I’m doing to look into a certain issue, problem, or piece of code on a different project I can switch to the other inputs on the monitors and using Synergy directly control any other system where I can start up a development environment for whatever specific details I need to access and look into things. This while not having to abandon the work I was doing prior to getting a message that has me re-prioritize something.

Switching between the dual inputs and systems, and thus switching between tasks that I’m doing means that I lose very little time in closing down one project in order to focus on another. Of course this doesn’t happen a dozen times a day, some days it never does, so the mental switching between projects is usually limited to situations where more than one project finds itself in crunch-time. Digitally speaking this is somewhat similar to having two or three individual offices with individually configured systems and walking in and out in order to perform different tasks.

Starting up the development environment is also a matter of a few clicks on a custom PowerPro pop-up menu which will take care of starting up everything I require, and also to position the windows exactly where I prefer them to be. Various components or parts of projects have their own configuration that will trigger the startup of the tools required for the job. If I startup a debug session it will automatically start up the output logger on one system at a specific location on any of the screens.

I’ve often received comments of people asking me whether I know of the existence of ALT-TAB. Yes, I do. But it’s darned inconvenient to use that when a system is cluttered with 20 or more windows. It ends up being something more like alt-tabtabtabtabtab rubbadubdub. It is far more efficient for me to have all the information for any given task clearly in front of me instead of burried under a flurry of windows.

When I perform a full build run of a large project involving a lot of source code, components, automatic generation and integration of API documentation, resource compilation, etc. it usually spawns two full screens with windows related to my custom tools that run the entire building process from checking out source from the server, running unit tests, right upto building a usable release. Often a build process breaks or fails and being able to catch that in time and when needed debug the process itself takes up twice the screen space I already have. Normally I just continue work on Halon while Helium takes care of the full build management that is spawned and performed by a dozen VM’s running on the network (usually on Argon but not exclusively so).

Because I don’t just write code but also need to take care of architecting and always keeping an eye on the bigger picture of a project it really helps to have a lot of information available at any given time, clearly visible and easy to spot the little things that can easily slip by and be forgotten.

Usage Scenario #2 (Specific)

For a more specific scenario I’ll use the example of something I did a while ago which involved the reverse engineering of a Bentley MX model file binary format.

In order to figure out all the bytes and chunks of data (which were stored in an appended and linked form not unlike how a harddisk stores fragments of files all over it and using pointers to the location of the next fragment) I wrote an application specific to help me with this. The application itself used Docking Windows and Views like Visual Studio and allowed me to “paint” color markers all over the hexadecimal data, decode streams of bytes and entire chunks, and also allowed me to add routines to the application that would assist in automatically decoding entire portions of the data.

This application would be running on Helium, full screen. Next to it on the second screen would be the visual representations of the data files used as targets for decoding, along with notes and documentation that are made throughout this process.

The source code of this specific application which I called “mXposed” (the small screenshot below) would be running on Halon in its full development environment so that I could keep adding to the code, compile and build, and immediately run the updated build on Helium.

In this situation the amount of information really does require 4 screens, or 3 with a much higher resolution, in order to be moderately efficient. Switching windows while looking at code and routines and correlating that back to the visual representation of the data and the data views offered by “mXposed” would have been a royal pain in the beeeeehind.

Any web surfing and e-mail that transpired during various stages of this process, like requesting different sample files with specific content in it, would be running on Osiris on its screen. So a 5 screen configuration was certainly very helpful in doing all this within record breaking time (without the configuration I used and the approach I took it would have easily required 20-30% more time on a process that already took several weeks in itself).

The most valued tool in all this, as always, was Syngery, the network TCP/IP based “KVM switch”. This is the reason why hardware VKM switches have never worked out well for me. I need to be able to seamlessly control several machines at onces without having to perform a manual action that is required with hardware KVM switches, even if it’s just hitting a set of hotkeys to move control over. The “M” in the KVM switch would be of no use at all to me anyway.

Oscar nominated artist Ruairi Robinson has posted the full version of his live action short film, “The Silent City” for all to see. Ruairi wrote, directed, edited, and storyboarded the entire film and has done 95% of the visual effects (which, as usual, are stunning). The film stars Don Wycherley (from Batchelors Walk), Cillian Murphy (28 Days, Later, Sunshine, Batman Begins, Breakfast on Pluto), and Garvan McGrath.

Besides the high definition video, make sure you check out some of the visual effects wizardry performed by Ruairi by checking out the before and after shots. And while you’re at it, check out the humorous FAQ that is featured on his website. A little word of warning… graphic detail not suitable for children and strong language will be found anywhere in the vicinity of anything remotely related to Ruairi. But that’s the way we know and like Ruairi and we hope he never changes that edge.

So, Ruairi, you f*&$#$*#!, I see you *&*^#&^@ still haven’t learned s&^#* at all and you still haven’t adjusted your *&@**#&# and *&@*(%#. Here I thought that you might have drank yourself to death in the past years. Keep up the fun work!

Someone just sent me a link explaining that over in Russia there is a competition going whereby my Home Office is being compared with that of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. Unfortunately I can’t read a single word of Russian so I’ve got no clue what the battle of the offices is about but I thought it was rather hillarious! See for yourself at; http://www.fishki.net/comment.php?id=17527

There are, of course, other people who fell for the Russian joke and actually do think that this is Mr. Ballmer’s office. Unfortunately (for Steve!), he probably wouldn’t feel very much at home in my office… there are computers here that run Linux, you see. That might be too much to handle and cope with.

Another cool site, chipchick.com, a site about technology and gadgets from a girl’s perspective, also points out the difference in office styles. Well, girls, the main difference is that I prefer screens and Steve prefers Windows. That and I have to use my office to work for a living, he doesn’t have to.

Today I noticed, while looking at the web logs, that there has been a tremendous increase in traffic generated by the Home Office and FAQ pages. I knew that for some reason it has been linked to a lot and draws a steady number of visitors but the traffic over the past few days is off the scale. Just over a 24 hour period of Feb 01 to Feb 02 the logs show a total of 19.355MB got served. 19GB of traffic? Wow. Most of the traffic didn’t show its origins so I’m not clear on that. Two weeks ago some 4.5GB was served mostly to visitors from Poland (all the *.pl domains in the log) but as of the past two days traffic is coming from all over the globe. Maybe I should start a reverse tracking page that automatically keeps a list of all the incoming links.

Reviewing restaurants is almost like second nature, reviewing music albums isn’t. But this one deserves a solid plug. Pearl Aday’s solo debut album, Broken Thorny Crown, is a wonderful release that I’m sure I’ll find myself playing over and over again. Today I received the CD, along with a surprise in the form of a signed picture of Pearl, as a present Sallie gave me. In case you’ve never heard of Mother Pearl, Pearl is the daughter of the timeless and bigger-than-life Meatloaf. Whether you agree or not, Meatloaf always works with some of the best female vocalists that can be found in this universe, like Ellen Foley and Patti Russo, and Pearl has been a great background vocalist on Bat out of Hell II and the tour that followed that release. It’s really good to see Pearl get out of the background and take up a well deserved spot, in the spotlight. Go to Pearl’s website and check out some samples of Broken Thorny Crown. Like it? Order it!

And you can take that literally. Over at Fauxto there’s this really nifty example of a web application that allows you to draw directly from your browser. It certainly isn’t a replacement for Adobe Photoshop but as an example it sure is impressive.

I’ve decided to consolidate some of the old content into my new site. Over the years a lot of content has been in various places and it’s rather hard to keep track of it all. Links to the old material should still work as well, though you will get redirected to the new personal site. So far I’ve added;

• The future of 3D is .NET?
• 3ds max to Softimage XSI Transition Tips

Good news. VMware has released the beta of VMware Workstation 6.0 which supports displaying virtual machines on multiple monitors and running virtual machines in a headless mode (in the background without the full blown display yet still accessible by remote desktop). An even more interesting new features is the integrated Virtual Debugger which allows you to deploy and test your code from Visual Studio straight to a target virtual machine. Another wonderful addition is the ability to set a VM to be a VNC server so you can remote control them without having to install your preferred flavor of VNC. You can read more about the new features in the release notes.

Over several months many comments have been made about my home office setup. A lot of these comments reside on the various blogs and forums where people have been posting links to my home office pictures. This blog entry, now that I have a personal site to play with, is a way to allow comments to be left directly on the site itself. If your comments are really funny, silly, or outrageous I’ll consider adding them to the comments archive.

Cafe Maddalena, located in Dunsmuir’s historic district, was a very pleasant surprise while we were staying in Dunsmuir. We arrived early in the evening and went hunting for a place to eat and just by sheer chance ended up in front of where one of the locals passed by us and said the place was “always very good”. Personally I consider that an understatement because it was more than good. It was GREAT! The food was excellent and the staff was extremely kind and helpful. I’m not surprised that some food critics have said that Cafe Maddalena was one of the best restaurants in Northern California. I would definitely agree with that and that’s why they get the #2 spot on my personal favorites list. The presentation of the food had a lot going for it but the deserts were real works of art that tasted even better than they looked and I can tell you, they look amazing! I’m not a big fan of fish but the way that Cafe Maddalena did their grilled swordfish almost turned me into a fish lover, instantly.

This place was a surprising discovery that turned into a very pleasant one. While driving in the city we decided to just look for a place for dinner by doing a spot-check of “hey that looks good, let’s try it”. After driving around and feeling hungry while looking for a place to park we ended up at David’s Kitchen, a hole-in-the-wall place that didn’t have any clear ambiance or characteristics… other than the menu that looked to be interesting. Well, those are famous last words because the food was simply great and the ambiance is created mostly in part by it being a small place with a small kitchen with one cook (David) who works his butt off to create very tasty fresh food. According to David a lot of the locals know of the place and those make up the bulk of his customers and that he has some help from his sister and his mother when things get busy (you will have to be patient but it will be well worth it). I started off with the Half Moon Wraps which were Enoki mushrooms wrapped in thinly sliced beef in a black pepper sauce. Very very tasty!

The Beef Somehow was simple but very tasty (and since I wanted it Medium Well David automatically made sure the beef of the Half Moon Wraps were also done Medium Well). For desert I ordered the Taro Root Cake which were pie slices of Taro Root with coconut milk and vanilla, which came with a salsa that, in combination with the coconut and vanilla flavors, really made me feel very full and happy. I never had anything even remotely like it, nor encountered it anywhere, but I can recommend it to everyone. I think David has a really good thing going in the midst of many other restaurants. I hope the place will continue to thrive… if only so I can return to it again. If David finds this listing online; In the midst of various posh big restaurants on my recommended and favorites list you have made it straight into it… and it isn’t easy to get on my recommended list so whatever you did with the food, keep doing it! You can find Davids Kitchen at 1713 Taraval Street in San Francisco.

By now you may figure out that I like Italian food a lot. And lots of it! Tonno Rosso was this incidental find we ended up for dinner at while being at the Embarcadero because we had planned to go to the Slanted Door (which unfortunately had a 5-week waiting list for reservations!!!). The food was very good and the service was prompt and quick. The place uses waiters and runners so when you ask for a another glass of wine the runner will tell the waiter who then comes over to the table again. This process may work out well, logistically, for the restaurant but does seem a little odd when the restaurant isn’t completely full. The food was good and the service was decent and effective. Not a place I will go out of my way for but definitely a place that should be on my recommended list… and so it is. You can find Tonno Rosso in San Francisco, 155 Steuart St. (Mission St.)

Roy’s is a Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine. A very innovative, surprising, and excellent place to go for food that is quite different. All food comes as a presentation of a work of art where a lot of effort is put into the balance between looks and taste. Lots of good medium priced wines and really interesting and tasty food if you want to try something you may not have had before. The ambiance lacks the romantic feel but the overall feel fits in perfectly with the food.

The Brookdale Lodge, good food but with an even better ambiance. The restaurant (Brookroom) has a real live brook running through it which is lit with colored lights at night and provides an atmosphere that is very good for both casual and romantic dining. The food, as I already said, is good. It’s not spectacular but the fruit salad I had was almost unique and really worked well for me. It may be a bit out of the way but if you ever pass through Brookdale, or come near it, going to the Brookroom would not be a mistake you’d regret.

Well, what can I say about this place that hasn’t already been said. Not much I suspect. “If you haven’t eaten at Fior d’Italia you haven’t been to San Francisco!” is what they say and I can agree with that. The place is up there with the best of all time and while it’s not inexpensive it’s definitely worth it for their authentic cuisine and their excellent wine selection. This place always pops up in the top-100’s that are published and for one I can’t disagree with that. It’s one of those places where it’s good to dress up and make sure you make it worth your time by going the whole route from appetizers to desert (so you can experience the full range).

Fresh preparations with a Californian/Mediterranean touch which you can find on 1373 Solano Ave. at Beauregard’s California Bistro. Excellent fish. Efficient, friendly service with a smile. I am not a big fan of fish unless it’s Swordfish, Salmon, or… SHARK. The shark as provided by Beauregard’s was to die for. And it was the first time I had shark so I was naturally cautious and suspicious. The selection of, mostly, Californian wines of moderate prices seem to provide a good balance with the quality of the food and the overall ambiance of the place (which can be a little noisy but has great lighting at night for that almost-perfect romantic dinner). Good food with good service and a place that I will be returning to, no doubt about that.

Dining out extensively is something I really love to do and I appreciate the better restaurants that one can find on this planet so it may come as a surprise that a BURGER place would be listed this high on my personal recommended list. However, Barney’s burgers aren’t just burgers, they are just the BEST burgers you can ever hope to get in the Bay Area. I return to Barney’s very regularly, sometimes once a week, just because they make the best burgers in town. I usually go for the Barney’s Salad and a Californian Burger of a Maui Waui Burger, or I take a half order of spicy curly fries with their home made ranch dressing instead of the salad. Don’t do the house wines, though… they’re a bit under par. Then again, with burgers like these you should go with beer anyway (unless you don’t drink alcohol in which case they have a huge list of non-alcoholic beverages as well).

As far as Italian food goes, Trattoria La Siciliana is about as good as you will ever get it. Unfortunately the place lacks the ambiance I so like at Frantoio, which is why this place doesn’t rank at my #1 position. However, the food is so good that on food alone this place should be highly recommended. The arrangements are a bit cramped and noisy but that is often the case in a small family-run restaurant like this. Be prepared to wait a while before your food is served because the staff is small and the cook really takes his food seriously and it will require its time to prepare when you want to have it done RIGHT. This place does it RIGHT but not in any hurry. A great selection of Italian wines to go along with the food, as can be expected, is always a huge plus for me. If you are willing to part with a little ambiance and if you can be patient enough then by the food quality alone you will come to love this place (unless you can’t stand Italian food, then this place isn’t for you). You can find Trattoria La Siciliana in Berkeley, 2993 College Ave, 94705-2215.

On 810 B St, in San Rafael, you will find the best Thai restaurant in the Bay Area as far as I’m concerned (compared to the various other Thai places we have done in the past years). The food is really nice (well, needless to say it has to be or you won’t get on my list other than at the bottom of it!) but the peanut sauce is certainly the best I have ever had (and that spans any place on the planet I’ve had Thai food). The staff is kind and friendly and the presentation of the food is great. A week after first having been there I walked past the restaurant again and the waiter, while putting menus on a table, saw me pass by and immediately nodded kindly. Clearly a staff that remembers their customers instead of just serving food to nameless faces.

The best Italian food in Mill Valley. Hell, the best Italian food in the whole Bay Area as far as I’m concerned. Frantoio is my current number one highest scoring restaurant on my personal favorites list. The quality of the food is superb, the selection of wines is excellent. The presentation of the food is always a work of art made by a kitchen that clearly puts its effort into the ‘art’ and the staff is quick, helpful, and very attentive. The restaurant looks and feels upscale and posh but it’s not so exclusive that it would leave you standing outside if you wear the wrong outfit. In fact the dress code is anything you wish, whether you want to dress up or dress down. For me, Frantoio has been my favorite restaurant for the past 3 years and I can recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Mill Valley (though I believe driving to Mill Valley just because of Frantoio would be well worth it as well). This place also has the best Tiramisu in the whole area!

You’ll have seen the top-10, top-20, 25, or top-100’s of restaurants published in various books, magazines, newspapers, etc. but what you haven’t seen yet is my personal list of restaurants which may differ a little bit from the official foodie reviewers that are syndicated or published. Since I eat out a lot and like going to new places as well as revisiting many of my favorites restaurants I figured it was time I present my own list with short reviews. Sallie has been joking that we may just have enough material to publish a real reviews book on it. Most restaurants will be in the Bay Area and the wider California area seeing as that’s where I tend to focus my consumption of good food and fine wines.

The Hydro Grill is a Bar and Grill place that doesn’t fuss and serves good food and decent wine in a simple but efficient location. There isn’t anything particularly memorable about the place but the food is good enough that you’d want to go back there regularly (at least when in the area of Calistoga). Their burgers will easily contend for the “best burgers ever” spot with Barney’s (and THAT is saying something!). For dinner on Sunday’s and Wednesdays they have live music as well to provide a more memorable ambiance. You can find the Hydro Grill at 1403 Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga, CA.

Very inexpensive. Plenty of food. And quite strange if you haven’t had African food (Eritrea/Ethiopian to be more exact) before. Eating with your hands by wrapping parts of your Injera (a pancake like bread) over the food and scooping it up certainly ends up being a strange experience for the first time but after you get the hang of it and after you appreciate the food that they serve you will be coming back to this place regularly if you are in San Francisco. The location in the Haight district makes it a good lunch or dinner place if you are in the area. A great simple place that’s just a little bigger than a hole in the wall but has that hole in the wall type feeling to it. Good food with no fuss (unless you consider the lack of utensils a fuss, that is). You can find Massawa in San Francisco, 1538 Haight St.

This isn’t really a restaurant but rather an espresso bar. The two ladies running the place, however, serve a really mean Breakfast Burrito that has consistently been the best I’ve had anywhere. The place has a really warm and cozy feeling and is setup in a way that invites you to sit down and stay around for a good long time. Various interesting artifacts and devices can be found in this place along with artwork (for sale) on the walls. If you need breakfast in South Lake Tahoe you should definitely consider going to Hot Gossip. You can find Hot Gossip in Lake Tahoe, 1007 Ski Run Blvd., South Lake Tahoe, CA.

This is another place that’s not a big posh restaurant but hey, we’re regulars at Yummy and we happen to really like their food. The staff is always friendly and efficient and will accommodate all your wishes without any fuss. It is also a very inexpensive place, which compared to most other places on my recommended personal list makes it stand out (most are not inexpensive). I love their spring rolls and just about everything else they have though I have to say the portions that are served are always way too much for me (I could have two or three whole dinners out the total volume if I were to save it, which I never do by default). It’s a simple no-fuss place with good food where lots of locals and Chinese folks also go to eat. I sure understand why and I hope the place will continue to thrive. You can find Yummy at 10264 San Pablo Ave, El Cerrito, CA.