A couple of the monthly columns I’ve been doing for the Programmer’s Paradise catalog are now on the web: a review of VMWare and a column on data modeling with ERwin. Coming up: a five minute introduction to user interface design, and a look at my experience using the profiler in CompuWare’s DevPartner Studio to speed up CityDesk.

750 words doesn’t give me much of a chance to really review things in depth, but I do have a policy for writing reviews: I only review products that I actually want to use in my daily work at Fog Creek. Unlike trade magazine reviewers, I still spend about 50% of my time doing software development, and I’m happy to try the latest toys if I think they will help. For example, this week I’m going to try to implement a basic image editor into CityDesk using LeadTools.

In other news, we have signed the lease for our new office space, and the architect came up with a groovy floorplan with parallelogram offices.