This weekend at my local farmers market, I strolled along as I always do, pushing my daughter in the stroller, trying to avoid the smell of patchouli, when I finally found something that really spoke to me. In between folks selling artisanal cheese and high-end dog treats, I found this: You’re looking at a poster made from wood-cut type and two single colors blended in a single run on a Vandercook proof press.…

I like the title of this infographic poster: “29 Ways to Stay Creative”. It implies that you’re already creative and you just need to keep that imagination going. As programmers, we often let our “left brain” dictate what’s going on too much and that can stifle creativity. But we really are just a different type of “creative”. Your code is an artwork, your typing is the brush work. I think a 30th item would be “drink a beer”.…

Billy Hollis as John Keating Day one of TechEd was a bit light for the developers in the crowd. One of the stalwarts of TechEd speaking is Billy Hollis and he’s here in 2012 with two sessions. I went to his first #Creating User Experiences: Unlocking the Invisible Cage#. Billy was an inspiration to me last year at TechEd 2011 and convinced me to get off my chair and start thinking about design myself, instead of waiting for someone else to do it.…

I’d like to officially take the wraps off the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango app that I’ve been working on for the past couple months and introduce you to thePomodoro Timer for Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. For those who don’t know, a pomodoro timer is the basis of a time management system introduced by Francesco Cirillo back in the 1980s. You can read more about it www.pomodorotechnique.com. The general idea is that you set a timer for 25 minutes and focus on one task only for those 25 minutes.…