Coin: Leave Home Without It.
Coin debuted in November 2013, promising a single credit-card that can replace all of your credit and store cards (well, up to eight). 350,000 people backed the original crowdfunding campaign but it was plagued with delay, after delay, after delay. In April 2015, 16 months after it was announced, mass production began. My Coin arrived… Read more »
Friday, May 1st, 2015.

Photos: Scotland
The bulk of our trip was in Scotland. We packed in a lot over two weeks so it was great to relax and hang-out with friends. Before I left, I debated bringing my camera but I wanted to challenge myself to see I could capture the trip via iPhone. I believe I succeeded. Check out… Read more »
Friday, April 10th, 2015.

Photos: Dublin
Following Berlin, we spent a few days in Dublin. We stayed a cool little cottage we found on Airbnb that was a short 10 minute walk from the city center. Highlights included seeing Idlewild at the Academy (a band I realized I first saw 17 years ago), Guinness at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle (I saw Travis… Read more »
Thursday, April 9th, 2015.

Photos: Germany. Berlin. Oasis. Gallagher.
We kicked the trip off with a few days in Berlin. Everywhere around town we saw Apple billboards promoting their iPhone 6 gallery so this blog is rather fitting. On our first night, we saw Noel Gallagher. There was a guy wearing the same denim jacket as me. But then he turned around and in… Read more »
Friday, March 20th, 2015.

Photos: Traveling With An iPhone
Following my recent tips about using an iPhone (or any other phone) to it’s photographic potential, I decided to put it to the test — on my trip home — by traveling sans-DSLR. I wanted the challenge but I’m also going to traveling on a few budget airlines where baggage fees are outrageous and I couldn’t justify… Read more »
Thursday, March 19th, 2015.

Meerkat: For The Social Animal In Us
Paul McCartney somewhere down there at Target Field – summer 2014 Meerkats are small, social animals that live in large underground networks and travel in clans. Sound familiar? Meerkat — the app — lets you tweet live video and blends the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spontaneity of Snapchat with a Facebook-esque newsfeed. It’s my favorite new app. When… Read more »
Wednesday, March 11th, 2015.

The Macbook is the Future of Computing
My mockup: Is this what using the new Macbook will look like? Following Apple’s “Spring Forward” event, the biggest stand out for me was the introduction of the new Macbook. It truly represents the next generation in computing. It reminded me of the Macbook Air introduction in 2008. Back then, I really wanted the innovative Air… Read more »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015.

The Smart Switch Switcheroo
Thanks to SmartThings, pretty much every room in my house is smart: if the living room is too cold, Nest turns on. When my car arrives home, the garage door opens automatically. When the washing machine finishes, my phone notifies me. Most significantly though, the majority of my lightbulbs are smart. If a smart bulb is connected to a regular… Read more »
Monday, March 9th, 2015.

Double Dribbble
For years, I’ve resisted blogging. For a while, I photoblogged religiously and I started accompanying blogs with stories attached to the photos because that’s what my contemporaries were doing. I realized quickly I suck at discussing my life: I got up. Went to work. Took photos of some Minneapolis punk kids (with fabulous hair). Processed photos. Went… Read more »
Thursday, March 5th, 2015.

The Internet of Hubs
When I moved into my house, I had a goal — beyond successfully failing at small-talk with my neighbors — to automate my home. Two years in and I have control over most rooms in my house, however, the Internet of Things feels more like the Internet of Hubs. One unfortunate consequence of home automation is… Read more »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2015.

6 Ways To Take Better iPhone 6 Photos
Apple just posted a glorious page highlighting the power of the iPhone 6 camera. The carefully curated gallery is a wonderful example of what such a small camera do. However, it unfortunately promotes every photographer’s annoyance that it’s the camera that takes really great pictures. As much praise as I can give the tech, the… Read more »
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015.

Broke Shrugs-N-Harmony
21 years ago, I received a “smart” watch for Christmas: the Casio CMD-40. A bulky watch with fiddly buttons that could control your audio and video equipment from your wrist. I often dreamt of messing with the TVs at school to confuse the hell out of my teachers and be a playground hero. I never had… Read more »
Saturday, February 28th, 2015.

Is There An Echo In Here?
IMAGE: Amazon When Amazon gave me the opportunity to purchase their new voice command-activated device, Echo, I very impulsively hit the “buy” button. Three months after I ordered it (I’ve read others were given shipping dates of June or July), it arrived in a nondescript, matte black box, about the size to contain a single shoe.… Read more »
Wednesday, February 25th, 2015.

Automatic For The Prius
I purchased Automatic over a year ago. It’s a little gizmo that plugs into the OBD port in your car and connects to your phone via Bluetooth. It gathers data that can warn you about issues with your vehicle (like telling you what’s really up when your check engine light comes on) and can improve your… Read more »
Thursday, February 19th, 2015.
New Look
You know that feeling when you wake up on a Sunday morning and you’re like, “I’m gonna redesign my website today”? That was me 3 days ago. The previous site was focused on photography but I’m getting old and I’ve been spending less times at divey bars on Tuesday nights. Don’t despair! I still love music (check out the… Read more »
Wednesday, February 18th, 2015.
Let It Snow
I’ve spent the past few weeks developing a pretty cool game for The Shinebox holiday celebrations. It combines the power of SmartThings, a Dropcam and some hastily written PHP and jQuery to produce a live, interactive, virtual snowball slinging extravaganza. Read more about it on our blog. Oh, and the good folks at SmartThings were cool… Read more »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2014.
DisKinected
The decision to drop Kinect is an admission of failure. When it was first announced in 2013, Kinect 2.0 showed a lot of promise including some pretty neat voice features. The voice commands, however, have been totally hit or miss. Kinect 2.0 was supposed to learn your voice patterns and evolve. I’ve owned the Xbox One… Read more »
Friday, November 28th, 2014.
Cheers!
I just got back from the Liferay Symposium in Boston and I’m delighted to announce that we picked up Website of the Year and Best Mobile Experience for a gigantic, enterprise-level product we’ve been working on for the past 18 months. I wrote more about it over at The Shinebox. I can’t believe they let me get away… Read more »
Thursday, November 13th, 2014.
New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about… Poptoberfest. If you’re free on the 24th, stop by The Shinebox for one of our regularly scheduled happy hours. I designed the poster and if you want one, there will be some available. My buddy Jake Rudh will be spinning tunes all night. Clearly The Sex Pistols heavily influenced the chosen color… Read more »