Ted Hardy

"He'll only come out for meals"

If I had to place a wager on the outcome of what a soon to be 13 year old boy would want for his birthday, with the choices being a cell phone or a computer, I would have said cell phone with zero hesitation. That's a sure bet for a

Scaling up Pic4U

Last summer, in a frenzied evening of writing, I outlined my thoughts for a better type of social network, which I named Pic4U. If you missed that post, you should consider reading that post before digging in to this one, as today, I'll be talking about how I would take

Posting a Pic4U

We've gone well past cliche when it comes to documenting and complaining about the toxicity of social media sites. Researchers have studied the negative outcomes associated with too much time spent down the toxic hell-stews that suck up our personal data, aggregating it and using it to sell advertisements back

Apple's Project Titan Explored

For a hot minute, I considered titling this post Apple's Project Titan(ic), but beyond that being far too click-baity of a headline, its also entirely unfair to any project, especially one of which we know so little. You can't go a week in the tech blogosphere without hearing of

15 years post-Lexmark

When I began my first adult job, I thought there was a good chance I'd retire from there. Three years later, while I was actively looking elsewhere, my boss offered me the opportunity to represent the department on a special project, getting me out of tech support and off the

Appreciation of the simple things

On a recent episode of The Talk Show with John Gruber, his guest was Craig Mod, a person with whom I was not familiar. The entire episode is worth listening to, but the one thing that stood out to me the most was the discussion around pizza toast. If you're

Good Grief

Responding poorly to someone suffering from loss is easy; responding well is significantly more difficult. Many of us, myself included, default to attempting to make the other person feel better. It pains us to see those we love in pain, so our first attempt is to do something, to offer

Remembering Dad

On Wednesday, February 10, 2021, around 4:25pm ET, we lost dad. Sam Hardy's passing was both slow, as his health had been declining steadily for many months, and yet fast, as he went from able to have a conversation to death in a matter of days. At just a

No is an act of culture

No. But not just no, absolutely not. Positively, unequivocally no. That, is an act of culture. So many places where I have been employed have talked about their culture in forms of positivity and acceptance, how they are cultures that enable and empower, yet at the same time not only

Making a Product Symphony

I have no memory of the first time I stepped on stage, but given I was a preschooler, that probably shouldn't be surprising. What followed during the first 20 or so years of my life was a regular occurence, of practice, both vocal and instrumental, and performance. The first half

My Worst-kept Secret

It's true; I've converted. Despite my upgringing, I've decided to leave it all behind. No longer will I be held back by my upbringing. I have thrown off the shackles and embraced a new way of living. That's right; I've gone electric. Forget combusting the remains of long-dead dinosaurs, my

Experience the Sun

Wake up, check email, brew some hot tea, hit the bathroom and sit down to listen to today's episode my favorite podcast. Its a holiday, but only half the family is here, so I get to spend that listening time in the quiet of the house's reading room and not,

meditation

Music as Meditation

From my earliest memories, music has flowed through my ears, my mouth and my mind. It was omnipresent, wherever I went. If I wasn't performing, I was listening to it through a stereo or at the least, its notes flowed through my mind. Not only did I listen for simple

Liquid Calories

About 5.5 years ago, ArsTechnica gave me the best belated birthday present I think I have ever received... a review of Soylent. I had been hearing about the drink for a while before this, and had wanted to try it, but hadn't built up the gag-reflex to actually spend

No, there is too much. Let me sum up...

I'm in charge of software development, but I don't develop software. This often surprises people who don't understand how technology roles diverge as you chose a management track. We become experts on projects and technology direction, while the detail of those technologies often become less and less known to us.

A deeper look at an iPad workflow

Apps are great, but they're not everything. How you decide to use those apps is as much about being effective in doing your work on an iPad. Thinking back to iOS 3, when the iPad was originally released, its amazing at how far the system has come, to make it

It’s an App-world Afterall

Its iOS; its all about the apps. That's the frame of reference you have to keep in mind, if you're considering switching over to use an iPad for your primary computing device. The apps you'll use on an iPad for work are likely different than the ones you use on

The least-popular iPad... ever

The Mac has been officially retired... but why would I pick the least popular iPad, at least in terms of sales, as my replacement device? If no one typically buys this, isn't that a sign that its a bad device? You can look around in public spaces and see lots

The new mobile office

We all have workflows that we like to keep, as interruptions to them tend to make us less productive. Changing how we work, when well planned, is likely to ultimately increase our productivity, yet in the short term, the time needed to design and implement that new workflow will actually

Action Castle (Castle, Castle, Castle) #tinychallenges

One of the best parts of our trip to Ireland was visiting the ruins of castles. That might not seem like an obvious high point, to visiting the crumbling remains of once majestic buildings, but hang with me because it was pretty great. Ancient castles that have been restored are

Pouring my own pint #tinychallenges

Ireland was a fantastic vacation. 8 days and change of touring around the entire island cannot be beat, unless its even more time in the emerald isles. When my wife was planning out the trip, she wanted to know what it was I wanted to do during our time there.

Got my hand on the wheel #tinychallenges

I was told the easiest way to get to my hotel, was to call a phone # and ask for a pick-up. Its not as crazy as it sounds. What was crazy was how bad the connection was on that call. She was barely intelligible in her directions from the airport.

Visiting the mother ship #tinychallenges

There are some events in life where you can't believe you're getting paid to do something. Visiting Apple's campus in 2012 was one of those events for me. My first Apple product was a IIe in the early 80s. Since the mid-90s, I had been a PC guy, but one

A Very Flushing Christmas

There are many different ways to celebrate Christmas, but dropping $5,000 on a new sewer line isn't one of them. Our house was 50+ years old and building standards had come a long way during that time. We had updated the HVAC, windows and insulation. We had installed a

Pig Heads #tinychallenges

December brought two yearly events at my maternal grandparents. The first, and probably obvious, was the Christmas Day celebration, where my mother, her brother and their families gathered to exchange gifts and eat way too much food. The house was small, so we packed out the old farm house. The