Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

Back in the contractor lab at Microsoft we used to joke about a room made entirely out of whiteboard material.  A friend of mine told me you could get entire sheets of the stuff for cheap at Lowes or Home Depot, but I never could find the right material.  The other day I decided to take a look and sure enough, 2x4 foot sheets of whiteboard material are only $5.  A 4x6 whiteboard can cost you nearly $100 at a place like Staples, so there is definitely some savings in buying the raw material.

I only bought about 4 sheets, so the entire room being covered is a ways off.  However, I found better uses for the material than just covering your walls.  You can cut 1' square sections and use it for just about any software design you could think of.  A single sheet cuts out 8 and you can draw something, plastic wrap over the top of it, and store it for later or simply wipe it off and use it again.  Being as I'm working on my latest book, having a small portable drawing device (don't even start talking about Tablet PC's, they hold no water compared to a good old whiteboard and some markers) is coming in really handy.  I pounded out an entire chapters worth of figures in only a few hours this weekend, something that would have taken me a couple of days in Visio.  If I steady my hand a bit, I could even use the drawings inside of the chapters rather than later transferring them to Visio (I'm always quick at laying out something I've already designed, but designing something in Visio is a real pain compared to drawing it by hand).

Well, we'll see what my publisher thinks about the quality of the sketches and go from there I guess.  If nothing else, I'm happy with my $20 purchase of a nearly limitless area for mathematical equations, software design, and grocery lists (oops, how'd that get in there).

Published Monday, May 03, 2004 4:27 PM by Justin Rogers
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Comments

Monday, May 03, 2004 8:38 PM by darrenford

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

Have you ever heard of paper? They sell it at Wal-Mart.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004 2:37 AM by Justin Rogers

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

I went the paper route for a while. I bought 50 notebooks at 10 cents a piece from Target during a going back to school sale or some other similar event. I figured I'd scope each concept in it's own notebook and/or group similar concepts into the same book. Drawing on paper isn't easy. You either use pen (and it shows up well and becomes unchangeable) or you use pencil (which shows up like butt, makes the paper dirty and still doesn't erase very easily).

You could say just throw it out if it isn't good enough and start over. I'd rather not take ten pages to spec something out that I could do on one with the ability to use multiple colors, easily erase and restart portions, the abilities of whiteboard are endless.

You tend to get a small high from working in close proximity with the markers for a long period of time. Some people get headaches, I just feel a bit better and keep on writing ;-)
Tuesday, May 04, 2004 12:18 PM by Marty

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

My office has a whole wall (14' X 8') filled with the stuff from Home Depot. I am like you there is nothing like being able to draw and draw without having to crumple up paper and restart.

I then use my digital camera to take a picture of what I want to keep before erasing.

Wednesday, May 05, 2004 4:15 PM by darrenford

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

Are you using the 1/8" hardboard with the smooth white coating that they also sell in 4X8 sheets ?
Wednesday, May 05, 2004 11:19 PM by Justin Rogers

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

It might come in larger sheets at other Home Depot's, since I think I might have seen it before in Bellevue in larger sheets. But yes, 1/8" HB MB.
Thursday, May 06, 2004 1:29 PM by darrenford

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

When you get to the point of covering your wall, how do you plan to handle the seams? I wish I had asked back when Marty was watching since it sounds like he already has dealt with that.
Friday, September 07, 2007 12:05 AM by Gian Trotta

# re: Software Design and Home Depot, who would have thought they went together so well.

sometimes you get lucky and a place will give away a whiteboard, as in this ad on Craigslist:

newyork.craigslist.org/.../415055733.html

IT's from the onion, of all people.

But we're in an old legal office where some beautiful chestnut office shelves are full of rarely accessed books...i'lltry to work out a way to cover and seam them with 4x8 sheets -- that's a great tip!

best,

GT

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