In less than a year my devices have shrunk from the size of my lap to smaller than my hand!

-The big guy in the back is actually one of my desktop monitors. Left it in for comparison.

-The next biggest guy (back right) was my dell 17” laptop. Despite being constantly made fun of for having a large laptop, I loved the giant thing. If the power connector on the motherboard hadn’t been bent I would still probably use it.

-Next in line (back left) is my work laptop. I think this is considered your standard laptop. It gets me through the day.

-My favorite is the Fujitsu Lifebook (front right). Everyday this little guy entertains me on the subway. I read comics, Times Reader, and e-books. I sometimes will even watch the occasional video. I use it to take notes in meetings or jot down random thoughts. It’s touchscreen means I don’t need a stylus but I loose the hover effect which is no biggie. It fits perfectly in my hand. Unfortunately, it technically belongs to a different department at the Times and now that we’ve got an Oqo I’m sure they’re going to want the lifebook back.

-Last, the insanely small Oqo2 (front left). We received this only a few days ago so I haven’t decided what I think. I’m trying to use it like I use the lifebook and there are some definite pros and cons. All in all though it’s a very hip device.

All of these devices are either running XP or Vista and if I’m wondering the city and can’t find an open Access Point they’ll all smoothly connect via my phones (Cingular 3125) bluetooth connection.

So I found myself looking something up on MSDN the other day and I caught myself thinking, “Man, this is really dry stuff.” Now I know if I’m looking for a hair raising good time MSDN is probably the last place I should look, but it got me thinking.

If you’re like me, you can learn a new technology and even successfully use it, but there’s always that last little bit that doesn’t quite click into place. I usually need to get elbow deep into a new technology and really have a go at it before I can get a good visual idea of what I’m working with. I don’t do well until my brain has had a chance to convert technical jargon and syntax into an abstract concept or a “mental image” if you will.

I’m guessing there are at least one or two other people out there who think like I do, so I’ve decided to attempt a series of posts that I would have liked to have had when I was first learning WPF. Something I could turn to AFTER I read the through the immensely large volume of technical information out there. The idea being to help the new WPF developer get to that, “Oooooooohhhhh, now I get it! AWESOME!” moment we all remember experiencing.

These are short little write-ups that have little text and lots of visuals. I tend to keep things pretty abstract, heavy on the metaphors, and the concept to code/xaml ratio is very small. I’m thinking of calling them “Nick’s Twisted Perspectives”, but that’s just because I’m bad at coming up with names.

My first attempt was an super high level explanation of Styles and Templates. I’m still not sure if I’m actually creating a usable and informative resource so feel free to leave your loves and hates in the comments section.

Since these posts will be image heavy and I don’t want to clog up your aggregators I’ll just be providing links to separate pages.

Nick’s Twisted Perspectives on Styles and Templates

Enjoy