Computer programmers love whiteboards.  We can sketch out our ideas, plans and designs.  We can draw use cases, flowcharts and class diagrams.  When we’re done, all it takes is a swipe with an eraser or shirt sleeve, and the whiteboard is good as new.  A whiteboard gives developers an opportunity to drop the mouse, get up from our chair and stretch our legs.  We also enjoy the innate childhood pleasure of drawing on the walls.

So then why limit our ideas to just a 3×4-foot patch on the wall?  When we’re confined to the space of a typical whiteboard, our movements are constrained, and so our ideas may be limited as well.  If whiteboards are the snowy goodness of developer minds, then perhaps we should have whiteboards everywhere.

IdeaPaint turns virtually anything you can paint into a high-performance dry-erase surface, giving you the space you need to collaborate, interact and fully explore your creativity.  No matter where you use IdeaPaint, big ideas are sure to follow.

IdeaPaint is a flexible, durable and cost-effective dry-erase solution.  It can be applied to any smooth surface, outperforms and outlasts the leading dry-erase options, and works with all brands of dry-erase markers.

It’s holiday time, and what better way to reward your favorite programmer geek than with a T-shirt?  They’re relatively inexpensive, last a long time, and assuming you buy the correct size, the computer geek in your life with love them!

Here is the message on this T-shirt:

Front:  How many Java programmers does it take to change a light bulb?

Back:  You’re still thinking procedurally.  A properly designed light bulb object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class, so all you’d have to do is send a light bulb change message.

Don’t get it?  Believe me, your programmer geek will be laughing!

Programmer T-Shirts

From Esquire Magazine:

In retrospect, I’m wondering if my Christmas wish list this year should have included more sweaters, wood-burning stoves, canning techniques, and other tools for self-preservation in tougher times.  On the other hand, maybe the only way out of our economic sadness is to spend what little money we have left on gadgets that will bring a little joy into our daily mess.  Yeah, that’s the holiday spirit!

And on that note, let me say that it’s amazing how far digital technology — from cameras to flat-screen TVs — has come in the four years since we’ve presented this guide.  So start giving!  At least that’s what I’m telling the wife.

Check out the holiday gift guide by Barry Sonnenfeld, who looks a little like the Santa puppet here, and is a film and TV director and producer, and Esquire’s Digital Man columnist.

20 Best Holiday Gifts for the Digital Man

The LiveScribe Pulse smartpen is a computer within a pen that captures handwriting and simultaneously records audio and synchronizes it to the writing.

You can tap on your notes to replay what was recorded at the moment you wrote the note.  With pre-printed controls at the bottom of the dot paper notebooks, you can fast forward, rewind, jump ahead, pause or even speed up or slow down the audio recordings to easily access information.  You can upload all of this information — including the audio — to your computer to save, search for keywords, or share with friends, colleagues and classmates.

Starts at $149.

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen