Right Intentions

Categories life
  Aloha from Hawaii. I'm on vacation, so I've just got a quick post to file this week. I'm lucky enough to be staying in Kannapali beach in Maui this week, and spending the day yesterday trekking on the road to hana.  For the uninitiated, the road to hana is a treacherous stretch of highway in the northeast of the island of Maui, famous for being both very windy and very scenic.  We Read the article >>

Situational Awareness

Categories leadership, mind, startups
Software development is a somewhat abstract process and, often, estimating the path from feature ideation to completion is an exercise in guesswork.  An unfortunate fact of life as a web engineer is that building blocks involved are often undocumented, unsupported, incomplete, and/or convoluted.  If, like me, you work in a distributed environment, your different team members surely have different Read the article >>

A Visual History of Microsoft Windows

Categories art, design, tools
This post is a visual history of Microsoft Windows.  For more from our Visual History Series: Mac OS X Microsoft Windows Linux/Ubuntu (coming soon) iPod (coming soon) iPhone (coming soon) Android (coming soon) Netscape/Firefox (coming soon) Safari (coming soon) IE (coming soon) Super Mario (coming soon) Legend Of Zelda (coming soon) Sonic The Hedgehog (coming soon) Bomberman (coming Read the article >>

A Visual History of Mac OS

Categories art, tools
Visual History Series Mac OS X Microsoft Windows Ubuntu (coming soon) iPod (coming soon) iPhone (coming soon) Android (coming soon) Netscape/Firefox (coming soon) Safari (coming soon) IE (coming soon) Super Mario (coming soon) Legend Of Zelda (coming soon) Sonic The Hedgehog (coming soon) Bomberman (coming soon) Pac Man (coming soon) Metroid (coming soon) Do Read the article >>

The default state is failure

Categories leadership, startups
After 4 years of building, fixing, and managing software, I've come to realize that the default state of everything is failure. Chances are that your fancy feature doesn't work when you first ship.  That new process probably has plenty of holes in it.   Everything is a work in progress, and your world is in perpetual beta. In startup life, there are TWO worlds you live in.  One that celebrates Read the article >>

Google Glass App Mockups

Categories software
I think the Google Glass project is so exciting.  For the uninitiated, Glass is a wearable computer, a pair of eyeglasses.  Think of it like a smartphone, on your face. How cool would it be to have a 'wearable computer'?  Think of all the things you could do: You could record every moment of your day.  You could be presented contextual information about everyone around you.  You could Read the article >>

Gumption

Categories software, startups
As an aspiring guitarist, I've noticed that music, like other forms of creative art, painting, drawing, or design, require high amounts of passion, enthusiasm, and resolve.   More and more, I've found the same about development -- developers do their best work when they are working on something that they are personally passionate about.  Software engineering is a fundamentally creative practice -- Read the article >>

5 Minutes to a Productive Gmail Inbox

Categories protips, technology
If you're anything like me, you get a knot in your stomach in the morning when you check your inbox. Emails are imposing.  Sometimes, they come with an expectation of response.  Often, there is a task to be completed before I can give that response.  To add insult to injury, my inbox is a bottomless jumbled mess of action items that are different priorities.  It represents a footrace towards Read the article >>

Dialogue

Categories leadership
I'm a classically trained programmer.  That means that in school, they taught me C++, Java, Lisp, and a handful of other techie stuff.  There was a class which included 'the lifecycle of applications', but, beyond that, I've never been really trained in any of the softer skills associated with software engineering. One of the things that I've learned in the past year is the importance of dialogue Read the article >>

Information Addiction

Categories essays, technology
A few days ago, I was taking a break from hacking to get some coffee downstairs.  StepOut's offices are on the 4th floor, so I press the 'down' button, enter the elevator, and take out my iPhone.  One tweet, 25 seconds later, and I'm downstairs.  Cross the street.  Light's red.  Take out phone, scroll more tweets.  There's a line at Starbucks.  Check Email.  Still waiting in line -- Better Read the article >>