Blog
Composing products with capabilities, features, and outcomes
Saturday, 20 March 2021 - 1,515 words (6 minutes)
When we think about products, we often think about capabilities and features. We think about the technologies and functionality a product has that a customer would want to pay for. I think of this as "inside out" thinking. Instead, I want to show you how to think about user outcomes first and how to compose them from smaller atomic ideas.
Maintaining a Product Manager Project Portfolio
Thursday, 11 February 2021 - 872 words (4 minutes)
As a product manager, I need a way to keep track of my various projects and investments. More importantly, I want to maintain the proper blend of projects for exploring new ideas and exploiting existing ones. I will show you a simple tool I'm using to keep track.
Redesigning a static website with Gatsby.js
Monday, 8 February 2021 - 2,040 words (10 minutes)
An overview of my most recent site redesign. Without abandoning the best parts of building and managing a statically-generated website, I'll show you how using modern web technologies like Gatsby.js, React, GitHub actions, and AWS S3 has made this process even easier.
Migrating my AWS S3 Website to HTTPS
Monday, 30 July 2018 - 1,721 words (9 minutes)
A quick overview, guide, and checklist for moving a static site hosted on AWS S3 from HTTP to HTTPS with AWS Cloudfront. I also discuss why you should consider securing your site, even if it is a simple static one like mine.
Thinking About Your Next Job
Monday, 11 June 2018 - 3,124 words (13 minutes)
A guide and framework for job seekers and hiring managers to evaluate alignment in job opportunities in a career context. This comes from a background of a career in software engineering, but should be useful for anyone.
A Birthday Post - Turning 31
Thursday, 7 June 2018 - 2,216 words (9 minutes)
Reflections from riding around the sun 31 times. Insights drawn from things like children and parenting, autism, ethnicity and racism, community orientation and global citizenship, and understanding my privilege in a changing world.
Local Domain NAP Audits
Tuesday, 5 June 2018 - 3,361 words (21 minutes)
An explanation and guide through NAP audits across a domain for local SEO using command-line tools like curl, jq, pup, and csvkit.
Hello Again
Monday, 28 May 2018 - 1,256 words (5 minutes)
This is what happens when you decided to implement your own blog generator, change the OS on your laptop, get a new job, and move.
Experiments with Startup Weekend Meetups
Wednesday, 13 August 2014 - 461 words (2 minutes)
Let's hack the standard Startup Weekend experience. Meetups and workshops have potential to amplify the experience for veterans and brand new entrepreneurs. In this post, I talk about what we have tried in Seattle.
The Empathetic Playground
Wednesday, 6 August 2014 - 802 words (4 minutes)
The browser can feel like a playground to a passionate web developer as he or she moves HTML around on the page. As builders of the web, we must have a sense of empathy as we construct the playground.
In this post, I explore some HTML tricks I've picked up, and why they didn't make good interfaces.
On GEB - The Beginnings
Tuesday, 20 March 2012 - 384 words (2 minutes)
Some opening thoughts as I begin on a book cherished among engineers, thinkers, and philosophers alike.
Announcing - link-keeper
Monday, 19 March 2012 - 868 words (4 minutes)
Small, concise programs that do one thing well are a hallmark of the UNIX philosopy. With modern technologies, we are able to build new tools to solve new problems. This post covers using README-driven development and CoffeeScript to build a small command-line link storage tool called link-keeper.
Clean Design
Wednesday, 14 March 2012 - 37 words (1 minutes)
A quick link to a post about a design philosophy I like.
Designgeneering Diaries - Part 2
Saturday, 10 March 2012 - 1,136 words (5 minutes)
Blending more design thinking into my development process. This is an installment in a multi-post series of exploring a better relationship between the disciplines of product design and software engineering.
Designgeneering Diaries - Part 1
Monday, 5 March 2012 - 635 words (3 minutes)
Blending more design thinking into my development process. This is an installment in a multi-post series of exploring a better relationship between the disciplines of product design and software engineering.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Ruby
Monday, 29 August 2011 - 710 words (3 minutes)
Blending problem-solving, a rediscovery of Ruby, and basic software engineering to solve problems in childcare.
Real-Time What's For Dinner
Sunday, 10 July 2011 - 342 words (1 minutes)
Leveraging software in What's for Dinner to help couples plan their meals together simultaneously without having to be in the same room.
Possible Enhancement to What's For Dinner
Wednesday, 6 July 2011 - 136 words (1 minutes)
An update on my What's For Dinner project, in this post I discuss some possible directions as I consider how the project might grow.
Code isn't the only thing I cook up
Tuesday, 5 July 2011 - 559 words (2 minutes)
My adventure in Colombian cooking! I share my attempt at frying plantains and think about other connections I'd like to make to my heritage through cooking.
Side Projects - A blessing and a distraction
Tuesday, 5 July 2011 - 633 words (3 minutes)
A run-down through my various side-projects. Read through what I've been working on and check out links to code, demos, and lessons learned.
What's For Dinner - Week 2 Update
Monday, 20 June 2011 - 332 words (1 minutes)
A brief update on my What's For Dinner project where I share some tools I made to make the meal planning tool a little easier to use.
What's For Dinner - Week 1 Update
Sunday, 12 June 2011 - 343 words (2 minutes)
A brief update on my What's For Dinner project. I talk about some UX improvements I've made and
What's For Dinner?
Monday, 6 June 2011 - 884 words (4 minutes)
Here are some things we all have in common - 1) we all must eat, 2) we all spend money on food, 3) we all could benefit from a better approach to meal planning. This post begins my story as I set out to build a web application to help my wife and I plan meals together.