atxgeek 


just one more geek in a sea of austin techies

July 31, 2012

Revisited: JSON bigger than XML???

A little over a year ago I stumbled across a Google code sample comparing JSON and XML that caught my eye for a reason completely unrelated to Google's intended subject:  the sample JSON-encoded data was larger than its XML equivalent!  This represented an unlikely exception to the generally-accepted view that JSON is the leaner data format.  Still, I was recently wondering if others have made any serious efforts to point out the fact that XML can be leaner than JSON...

July 21, 2012

OpenSpan Certified (and there was much rejoicing)

I'm now certified in a nifty software automation product called OpenSpan.  The initial in-person teaser demo I saw back in 2011 was quite interesting.  Later, hands-on use of the product itself quickly highlighted a number of limitations. That said, I do believe it to be a worthy automation solution for the right type of problems...

July 4, 2012

Forget the Numbers...Tablets Aren't PCs (yet) #AnalystGeek

New projections by NPD DisplaySearch (a display chain consulting firm) indicate that more tablet PCs will be sold by 2016 than notebook PCs.  This announcement was immediately picked up by eWeek, PC Magazine, VentureBeat and others.  Increasing sales of tablets is good news for mobile computing fans.  The underlying premise of the "tablet vs. notebook" sales comparison is faulty, however:  tablets as we know them are not on par with notebooks (so please stop suggesting that they should be compared apples-to-apples...)

July 1, 2012

Excellent food, decent prices and no wait #EatAustin

With small kids in the mix my wife and I don't get to try new restaurants as often as we used to.  This weekend was different: we managed to sample some new spots (kids included) and still stay finances-friendly.  In all I added three new food vendors to my growing list of preferred Austin eateries.  In this post I'll share our experience with a new "kids eat free breakfast" find and, true to the atxgeek blog theme, manage to clumsily tie-in and rant about something technical in the process...