We interrupt the discussion of Notifications to notify you of this special guest post by LeAnn Boucher, Ranch Public Relations.

Alex, Alex, here’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can!

We are proud to honor Alex Silverman as the July Big Nerd of the Month. Alex was a fresh-faced 19-year-old physics student at Georgia Tech when his English teacher referred him to Aaron.

He was very inspired by his early Ranch experience, but decided to put his degree in physics to work and become a high school physics teacher upon graduation. Eventually (okay, okay, just after the school year ended) he came to his senses and accepted his true Nerd calling and joined Big Nerd Ranch.

The rest, as they say, is history.

**BNR Blog:** How long have you worked at Big Nerd Ranch?

AlexS: 3.5 years. Aaron first hired me during the summer of my freshman year at Georgia Tech, and I was in charge of setting up the classroom at the Ranch for him. It was the best college job ever.

He’d overpay me to eat a free lunch and setup computers.

BNR Blog: You follow legendary Big Nerds of the Month. What is your favorite thing about last month’s honoree, the esteemed blog editor, programming wiz and all-round nice guy Mark Dalrymple?

AlexS: Umm, other than the fact that he is a programming god? His hair. (ed note – it’s naturally this way)

BNR Blog: How did you make the leap from high school physics teacher to programming Nerd?

AlexS: When the first iPhone came out I immediately started programming for it in the evenings. It’s just what I wanted to do.

BNR Blog: Did that experience help you develop eClicker?

AlexS: Yes. I wanted to buy a set of the expensive hardware clickers, but my school couldn’t afford it. I started programming the first version of eClicker before I joined Big Nerd Ranch as a full-time developer.

BNR Blog: What app do you find most useful to your job?

AlexS: I’m a minimalist when it comes to my development toolkit. I really use very little beyond Xcode and a source code manager.

BNR Blog: You’ve brought many high-caliber Nerds to the Ranch. How did you meet Brian Harper, one of your referrals?

AlexS: Brian and I first met in our 8th grade English class. We collaborated on a big project for that class and have been hanging out together ever since.

BNR Blog: Superman vs. Batman vs. Iron Man vs. Ash from Evil Dead?

AlexS: I’m Batman! Already bought my tickets to see The Dark Knight Rises.

Holy Nerds Batman! Think Alex will pen a Dark Knight review for us? Until next month friends, “Shop Smart….Shop S-Mart.”