Making.
Tools, hacks, side projects, this site
- Half, not half-assed
My favorite book on product development and startups is Getting Real, published in 2006 by the folks at 37signals (now Basecamp). If you haven’t read it (it’s freely available online), it’s essentially a precursor to The Lean Startup (2011). Back when I was leading a team and running product and Op...
- Pebble: first impressions
Last week, having been inspired by (of all things) this awesome and awful samsung gear commercial, i ordered a Pebble smartwatch. I can’t remember the last time I wore a watch — maybe it was 20 years ago in high school. My standard line for the past 10 years has been “why do I need… Continue readin...
- Wanted: Partychat for Google Hangouts
I’ve been a remote or semi-remote worker for a long time now. Which has a boatload of pros (flexibility) as well as cons (distance from “the watercooler”). Over time, I’ve tried lots of things to help forge a stronger connection among my distributed or semi-distributed teams. As you would expect, ...
- My Top 5 Personal Productivity Hacks
I can’t claim to be the most disciplined or organized person, but I’m working on both. I have, however, done a lot to smooth out my moment-to-moment work process, to help me do things more quickly & easily, and to help me avoid distractions where I can. I can only hope that I win more… Continue rea...
- Chromecast: First Impressions
When we got home from vacation last night, my new Chromecast was sitting waiting for me. I’ve been really psyched to try it out. The out-of-the-box experience was clear and simple. My favorite thing about Chromecast is how small it is — it’s barely there; just a tiny little add-on to web-enable yo...
- Riding on Services
I’ve been working on an internal web app for the past few weeks. I’m not a “real” programmer, so as usual I just figure things out as I go along and make lots of mistakes, but I always learn new stuff. This is how I learned programming in the first place, got my first gigs… Continue reading
- The Indie Web, Continued
I wrote last week about the Indie Web: the way that the web has the ability to help us grow and connect as individuals in awesome new ways. Here’s my latest entry in that story: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved doing everything by bike. As a kid, the bike was my favorite… Continue reading
- Wanted: A Dashboard for Internet Citizenship
One thing I’ve wanted for a long time now is a dashboard that helps me track the wide array of tech policy issues I follow. One place where I could check, every morning, to get a sense of what issues are trending & developing, what longer-term issues are brewing, what specific milestones are approac...
- Still looking for a smarter inbox
I am bad at email. Maybe everyone is. But I feel like I’m worse than most; or at least worse than I want to be. I feel like my inbox should do a better job helping me find emails that are important. I use Gmail and Priority Inbox, so I don’t mean “important” in that… Continue reading
- Hacking todos: daily review for Wunderlist
I have had a hard time finding the perfect to-do list system. I am a light implementer of GTD — I haven’t read the whole book, but I get the basic idea — capture; focus; do. Stop working from the top of your inbox. Amen. A few years ago, I started using Things for Mac, which… Continue reading
- Defragging your Brain, The Slow Hunch, and Open Commonplace Books
Alex Hillman has a nice post on his response to Steven Johnson’s Where do Good Ideas Come From, thinking about how we continually process and re-process our information. It mentions one specific method, which Steven calls “the spark file“. The idea being that you keep a simple log of “sparks” — th...
- Making the Switch to Android
A few things happened recently, which are causing an unexpected and totally interesting change in my digital life. 1) On the last day of our vacation, Theo dropped our iPad on a brick patio, smashing it to bits. 2) I realized that I could save over $100/mo by consolidating my wireless accounts, and ...
- Reinventing the Home Row
I have been intrigued recently by apps that give a new spin on what have previously been stock features of the phone. Apps that a) improve upon in minor ways or b) really try and re-invent some of the basic things we do every day. Above is a snapshot of my new “home row”. Sort… Continue reading
- Smoke Detectors, or, it’s not the Backup; it’s the Restore
This week we are out in Cape Cod with Frannie’s family, hanging out at the beach in Truro (where, incidentally, there was a shark attack a few weeks ago). This week, we’re renting a different house than normal — it’s an old run-down house next door to the cottages where Fran’s family has vacationed...
- Why Sliderocket Could Be So Awesome, and Why It Isn’t
I wrote the other day about wanting a better way to share slide presentations. I think there is a huge opportunity here, and I don’t think anyone has nailed it yet. I consider this to be an open letter to Sliderocket, which is so close to capturing this opportunity but has (in my humble opinion)… C...
- When Paper is Better
Last week, I spent some time shopping for a new health insurance plan for our family. Two takeaways: 1) The new Massachusetts Health Connector is really great — the health connector is a state-run exchange that helps you find, choose, and purchase a health plan, either a state-run plan or a private ...
- Highrise Chrome Extension
Last week, I wrote about wanting a Chrome extension for Highrise. This week, I built a first pass: https://github.com/nickgrossman/highrise-chrome-extension Here’s a quick video demo of how it works: Continue reading
- Open source and open knowledge
I spent part of the train ride home today working on a coding project (the Highrise bookmarklet I blogged about wanting on Monday). It’s almost done and I’m excited to start using it. I am not a great programmer, but I like it a lot. I only took one CS course in college. I really… Continue reading