At this point, I’m not sure who is actually the dark empire: Microsoft or Apple. Neither seems to be in the role of the “Rebel Forces” and neither seems to be as vast of an empire to warrant being called the Empire. I’d give the Rebels designation to the Linux camp.

Anyway, I’ve never been an Apple fan boy and I didn’t like how proprietary their hardware used to be. Despite how their UI was touted from the get-go, I’ve always thought all the ones pre-OSX were pretty crappy in how they “dumbed down” the interface for the users. It wasn’t until OSX was released that I even had a vague interest in a Mac and that interest was the result of Apple switching to a FreeBSD kernel as the underlying OS. To have a full UNIX system with all the tools AND a nice UI is nothing to sneeze at. Still, it wasn’t enough to get me to want a Mac.

When Apple announced that they were going to switch to an Intel processor, that’s when I started to take greater notice. Sure enough, not long afterwards, the ability to run Windows on Mac hardware became reality. Having the ability to run Windows on top of OSX with a UNIX base is the best of all three worlds and made the Mac an compelling development environment. To have this all on a notebook… well, that’s enough to turn the heads of even the toughest critics of Apple.

So, was this enough to get me to give up my familiar tool set that I’ve accumulated over the years on Linux and Windows and to learn a new environment? Not really. The cost of switching is still too high for me from both hardware and software perspectives. However, if work gives me the opportunity to work with this platform then I have no objects.

Yep, you guessed it. I got a Macbook Pro from work which I’m now working to get my data transfered over from my Windows notebook. I’m learning the “Mac” way which is different experience from either Windows or Linux. We’ll see how it goes.

One of the things I did when I joined Yahoo was that I put all my Java books into boxes and took them out to the garage. Java wasn’t my favorite language, but I didn’t dislike it either. I can appreciate some of the advantages that it brought to the table and how it simplified some of the grunt work that is required when using another language.

Thus, it’s been a few years since I really did anything serious with Java and I decided it’s about time to refresh myself as well as finding out what all has been changed. The newer things I’ve been hearing are Spring and Hibernate while a lot of the things I was using before like Tomcat are still around.

I picked up the book, “Beginning Pojos” by Brian Sam-Bodden to give me an introduction on some of these topics. It’s been a decent read so far. I think the next thing I study more on is GWT.

My last trip taught me that what I’m missing in collection of lenses is a more general traveling lens. Carrying all those different lenses around was just too bulky and I ended up pretty much keeping the EF 28-105mm on all the time. However, because of the type of shots I was taking, the 105mm didn’t have the range that I really wanted. This X-mas I finally decided to go for my first L-series lens to address the short coming of my collection.

I decided to go with the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens for a number of reasons. The reviews (and here) on the quality of this lens is superb and even though it doesn’t have the f/2.8 of its renowned older sibling this is a much less bulky lens and 1/3 the price. I think the trade-off is worth it for amateur photographer like myself especially since I want to be able to carry this lens around when I’m on vacation.

I decided to go with the IS version even though it’s a hefty premium over the non-IS version but I’d much rather invest in a lens then get photos that causes me to kick myself later. With this lens, I figure that my travel collection would be 1 prime (either the 28mm or the 50mm) and/or the 28-105mm and this one. Most likely I will try to stay with just 2 lens to keep the weight down.

I haven’t had a chance to put it through its paces, but maybe the upcoming holiday will give me that chance!

I went to my first NFL game when the Chicago Bears came to play against the Oakland Raiders. I’ve seen the Bulls, Cubs, White Sox and even the Chicago Fire play but the one team I never saw live was the Bears, so I was pretty excited. Hearing the stories about Raider Nation and Raider fans, I wasn’t sure if I should wear my Bears gear, but once at the stadium there was a surprising number of Bears jerseys. I guess because there isn’t much of a rivalry between the Raiders and the Bears there aren’t as much animosity for the visiting team.

It was a fun experience. The weather was great, the seats were much better then I expected (I could make out all the players on the field) and with only a few minutes remaining, the Bears staged a come-from-behind victory.

If the Bears play the Raiders again, I’d definitely want to try to see them play again.

The year is coming to a close and like every year at this time, it is good to reflect on the past year and look forward to the new year. 2006 was a significant year for me both professionally and personally that concluded with me becoming a father, an event that was like winning the Super Bowl (Chicago, you tease me so…). I didn’t expect 2007 to be like 2006 and as I look back I would say that this past year was an year of adjustments to all the changes that happened in 2006. As the year is ending, I feel that things are falling in place and that makes me excited for 2008.

Microsoft paid $240 million to invest in Facebook. This is a pretty small amount for Microsoft, but since it’s for less then a 2% stake in Facebook it puts a perceived value of Facebook at $15 billion. While this might make the people at Facebook feel pretty good about themselves, I wonder if this really helps them as much as it helps Microsoft. Effectively Microsoft was able to pay $240 million to prevent any other company from buying Facebook since very few company will want to spend that much money on a social networking site. This is as good as MS buying Facebook for chump change.

Yahoo! Mash just completed its first month of existence outside of Yahoo! I have to say that one of the most eye-opening experiences for me has been the comments from the Y! 360 community and how passionate and loyal they are to 360.

I’m not exactly sure how the rumor started or why people assume that Mash is a replacement for 360, but the comments on the various boards are filled with how Mash is not 360 and they are absolutely right. Mash is NOT 360. A key feature of 360 is blogging and Mash doesn’t currently offer any blogging functionality. I appreciate the comments by the 360 community because as developers we’re happy to know that people use and like what we build, but before people get too hung up on whether 360 is being shut down please first just consider how different the two products are.

What the two does share is the idea that users are connected to each other in some way, aka the “social graph”, and it’s probably this element that causes people to link 360 to Mash. It’s probably the same reason that people accuse Mash of trying to copy MySpace and Facebook. In reality, there are hundreds of “social networking” sites out there that it’s almost becoming a standard type of application like word processors or audio players. Within this class of applications, there are basic functionalities that is expected such as a friends list. Not having a friends list in any “social network site” is like a word processor that doesn’t let you enter text or open a file. At the same time just because two applications can both open files doesn’t mean they are trying to copy each other.

In the end, I hope that the 360 community continue to vocal about what they want to see happen with 360 and at the same time let Mash, a different product, develop into something useful.

Today, I fired up the web browser and typed in ‘http://www.apress.com‘ to check out what new computer titles has come out and I realized that I used to go to O’Reilley instead. In fact, it’s been awhile since I’ve gone to O’Reilley other then to read some of their tech articles. O’Reilley used to be THE publisher of practical technical computer books related to development, UNIX and open source. They published the Perl book among other must have references that were on the desks of every programmer I know.

Now, though, their titles seems to cater to a more mass-market crowd and publish a lot of quick-reference guide. If I want to learn about something, I no longer think about O’Reilley. My last few purchases ( Building and Extending GAIM, The Definitive Guide to GCC, Foundations of GTK+ Development, Bginning PHP and PostgreSQL 8 ) have been from Apress who seems to have replaced O’Reilley in the area that O’Reilley used to dominate. I still have my old O’Reilley books which I reference frequently (Programming Perl, Essential System Administration, UNIX Power Tools, etc.), but now I have to do some research on a new O’Reilley title before I purchase one.

Over the past few years, social networks has been all the rage. Sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook has garnered a lot of media attention and the term has moved into the mainstream. I don’t have a problem with the term “social network”, but it does tickle my funny bone when I hear people talk about how social networks are new and pioneered by the likes of sites like MySpace or Facebook. Social networks has been in existence since… well, when Man crawled out of the ocean and saw that other naked person crawling out next to him. Humans are , by nature, social creatures and we tend to like interacting with others.

What bloggers and the media really mean when they talk about “social networks” is the technical application for communication on the web. I bring this up only because it annoys me when they make sound like social networks are some brand new thing (like Web 2.0? ^^) pioneered by the likes of MySpace or Facebook and any new site is just “yet another social network.” Yes, any new site is just another social network, but so is MySpace and Facebook. Pick up the phone book and there is a social network application that your great grandparent probably was already using and that is probably thousands of years removed from the first social network. Ultimately it boils down to how useful each of the site fulfill their purpose which often is for improving communication.

One common criticism of MySpace profiles is that they can be so hideously ugly or impossible to read. Y! Mash wants to be able to give users the flexibility to customize their profiles too but also protect the eyes of the unsuspecting viewer so if you run across a profile that just hurts your eyes and brains, try clicking on the “fugly” link and it’ll take away the crazy CSS and let you see the contents in a very basic format.