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# tig.log

Geeky Leadership Rants by Tig Kindel

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://blog.kindel.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Customer, Business, Technology, Organization (CBTO)](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/21/customer-business-technology-organization-cbto/) - CBTO is a mental model for driving clarity of thought in business. It asserts there are four perspectives (Customer, Business, Technology, and Organization).
- [You are Thinking of Your Career Trajectory Wrong](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/08/you-are-thinking-of-your-career-trajectory-wrong/) - Most people think about their career trajectory as being like a bell-curve or that of a cannon ball fired from a cannon. Something like this: For 99% of all successful people, this is completely the wrong way to think about it. For that other 1% (the Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerbergs of the world) it
- [Attention is the Currency of Leadership](https://blog.kindel.com/2015/01/24/attention-is-the-currency-of-leadership/) - Great leaders optimize how they spend their attention. They are skilled at turning up the heat to get others to focus their attention on the right things at the right times. Attention is the currency of leadership, and each person has a fixed amount of attention to spend. “Leaders have a fixed amount of attention
- [Tools to Achieve Clarity of Thought](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/07/08/tools-to-achieve-clarity-of-thought/) - This post is an inventory of tools I use to drive clear thinking. I update it regularly as I learn new tools, or gain new insights about existing tools as I use them. I am available to do 1:1 or group coaching on all of these topics. See Advising, Coaching, and Consulting | Kindel Tig's
- [One-Way and Two-Way Doors](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/06/27/one-way-and-two-way-doors/) - Effective decision-making starts with understanding; in the long-term, very, very few things actually matter. The vast majority of the decisions made day-to-day are either minutia or easily reversible and can be made quickly. However, a small number of things (about 1 in 10) matter a lot (in the long term) and are worthy of serious pondering, discussion, investigation,
- [Taxonomy and Lexicon](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/07/03/taxonomy-and-lexicon/) - Creating, explaining, and re-enforcing a strong Taxonomy and Lexicon is a critical skill for all leaders.
- [How to be a Secret Agent (of Change)](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/02/03/how-to-be-a-secret-agent-of-change/) - Great leaders don’t let changes happen to them. Instead, they become skilled at driving change. Leaders effective in driving change are known as agents of change or change agents. This post documents a tool called D x V x F > R that will enable you to become a great agent of change.
- [Ownership](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/05/27/ownership/) - Organizations thrive when leaders think like owners—not just of their teams, but of the whole company and its customers. Yet, many mistake ownership for simply crushing their individual goals. How can you encourage true ownership culture without fostering silos? Amazon's definition tries to make this tension apparent by explicitly stating ownership is broader than themselves
- [People Management Is Not a Hobby](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/04/10/people-management-is-not-a-hobby/) - There are three states a leader can be in relative to people management: 🔧 The Builder This is the Individual Contributor (IC) track. Builders go deep on the T, C, and B parts of Customer, Business, Technology, Organization: they write code, close deals, publish policy, and drive execution. Their leadership shows up through ownership, influence,
- [Everyone's a Leader](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/04/26/everyones-a-leader/) - The word leader is not a synonym of manager.
- [Biases and Fallacies Lead to Smol Thinking](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/06/02/biases-and-fallacies-lead-to-smol-thinking/) - All human beings are prone to cognitive biases and fallacies that influence our thinking and decision-making processes. These biases and fallacies can be sneaky and hard to detect, but it's important that we are aware of them and try to minimize their impact on our lives. By being mindful of our biases, we can expand
- [The 5Ps: Achieving Focus in Any Endeavor](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/14/the-5-ps-achieving-focus-in-any-endeavor/) - Always have a plan. Always. A great, simple, framework for any plan is the 5Ps: Purpose, Principles, Priorities, People, and Plan. This framework applies to software development projects, job searches, building a garden, or a phase in your life. I have personally found the 5Ps a useful tool for small projects (e.g. prepping for a
- [Work Backwards From The Customer](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/02/04/work-backwards-from-the-customer/) - At the 1996 Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) I stood up in front of 8,000 customers and announced what I’d been working on for the previous two years: the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). On stage, in front of all those people, we wrote and demoed code running on one Windows 95 PC talking over the network to
- [Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/03/13/have-backbone-disagree-and-commit/) - This Leadership Principle actually combines two principles that go hand-in-hand. First, there’s the “Have Backbone” part and then the part about disagreeing but committing anyway.
- [cek.log -> tig.log (Charlie -> Tigger)](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/06/09/cek-log-tig-log-charlie-tigger/) - When I was a baby my favorite eldest sister nicknamed me “Tigger” because I was bouncy and acting "Tiggerish". Friends and family have called me “Tigger” or “Tig” ever since. When I started my professional career I figured the goofy nickname wasn’t appropriate, so decided on Charlie. After 30+ years of not loving being called
- [Engineer the Sh*t out of Errors - Everywhere](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/05/30/engineer-the-sht-out-of-errors-everywhere/) - Engineer the Sh*it out of Errors. By everywhere, I mean in all functions of a company, not just product or operations.
- [Make the Routine, Routine - Blow up Dunbar's Number](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/04/02/make-the-routine-routine-blow-up-dunbars-number/) - As fast-growing organizations approach Dumbar's number, they either become forever mediocre or they adapt and become excellent at scaling (in addition to being excellent at delivering customer value). The key differentiator is making the routine, routine by implementing cadence-based mechanisms, which I call Routines.
- [After 21 Years: Goodbye Microsoft](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/08/08/after-21-years-goodbye-microsoft/) - Today I announced that after 21 years I am leaving Microsoft to build a new company. I’m not yet ready to disclose details about the new venture but I can say I will be staying in the Seattle area to build it. It has to do with sports, advertising, mobile, social-networking, and, of course, the
- [Friday was my last day at Amazon](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/30/friday-was-my-last-day-at-amazon/) - The goodbye mail to the Alexa Smart Home team explains it all pretty well: Date: Apr 27, 2018 3:03 PM Subject: Smart Home Org Update Team, With mixed emotions I share the news that Charlie Kindel has decided to leave Amazon. Charlie has accomplished many things in his time here, not the least of which
- [I'm Breaking into Space](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/01/26/im-breaking-into-space/) - I exited my last role recently and have been drafting my next chapter. I have decided to make my new mission Space; specifically getting humanity off Earth. Over the past months, I’ve focused on learning about the space industry’s state and meeting people working on cool stuff. I’m convinced there must be initiatives where someone
- [From Servers, Phones, and Voice Assistants to Space...](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/02/23/from-servers-phones-and-voice-assistants-to-space/) - In this episode, we dive into Charlie Kindel’s approach to product ideation and design, principled organization, and his most recent adventure around space.
- [I'm Advising Carv Because It Improves My Skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/03/08/im-advising-carv-because-it-improves-my-skiing/) - Last Christmas (2019) my daughter gifted me Carv. I fell so in love with the product that I stalked the CEO and begged him to talk to me to see if I could help. I've been working with the company since December and last week he asked me to join Carv as a Strategic Advisor.Initially,
- [Advising Rebel Space Technologies](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/04/08/advising-rebel-space-technologies/) - I'm honored to announce that Rebel Space Technologies has asked me to join them as a Strategic and Technical Advisor. Satellites need to reliably and efficiently communicate with each other and ground stations in the face of severe spectrum congestion, celestial dynamics (these things and the Earth are always moving relative to each other), and
- [Why Mars? For the Dogs!](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/01/04/why-mars-for-the-dogs/) - Mars has long captivated the human imagination as a potential destination for exploration and settlement. With its rugged terrain and extreme conditions, Mars presents a unique challenge and an exciting opportunity for humanity. There are several reasons why we should colonize Mars. First and foremost, it would allow us to extend our reach beyond Earth
- [Kindel's 2nd Law](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/07/30/kindels-2nd-law/) - All companies where the primary business model is subscription-based eventually predominantly behave in ways inherently hostile to that company's customers.
- [Torpedo Fuses: The Bane of Classic German Automobiles](https://blog.kindel.com/2022/06/21/torpedo-fuses-the-bane-of-classic-german-automobiles/) - Torpedo fuses in BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche cars from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s have not stood the test of time. Here's why...
- [Don't Make Your Team Say No To You](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/01/09/dont-make-your-team-say-no-to-you/) - Leaders are often visionary “idea people”. The difference between success and failure is how good these leaders are at training their teams to say No. Idea People often forget they are disrupting their own teams by voicing their ideas. If leaders don't learn and practice skills for controlling the flow of ideas, their teams will
- [Dive Deep != Micromanaging](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/03/28/dive-deep-micromanaging/) - You’ve said it. You’ve heard others say it. You are not quite sure how you feel about it. “So-and-so is a micro-manager. He/she’s always in my shorts and doesn’t let me just do my job.” This week’s Amazon Leadership Principle tip may help you navigate this common meme more effectively. The following has been my
- [How Meeting/Not-Meeting Goals relates to Earn Trust and Insist on Highest Standards](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/04/12/how-meeting-not-meeting-goals-relates-to-earn-trust-and-insist-on-highest-standards/) - This week’s Leadership Principle tip is about how setting goals, and holding yourself accountable, relates to Earn Trust and Insist on Highest Standards.
- [Lead Without Authority](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/06/11/lead-without-authority/) - There are two forms of influence in the world: Influence by authorityInfluence without authority When a ‘boss’ (a manager or someone with a big title) attempts to influence change or drive action using only their authority, it is rarely successful in the short term, and never in the long term. “Because, I told you so”
- [Have a Plan](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/03/02/have-a-plan/) - Yesterday someone asked me to share my thoughts on the secret to building excellent things. I summarized what I know as: "Put the customer first, have a plan, create a shared mission, get early victories, remove process, and make it fun." – me, yesterday. This was the formula my cohorts that built the Windows Phone
- [Be A Volunteer](https://blog.kindel.com/2022/04/24/be-a-volunteer/) - Once you get to the point in your career where you realize a) you’ll be just fine financially (because your resume kicks ass), b) your company doesn’t give a sh*t about you, and c) you know what the Right Thing to do is, act like a volunteer.
- [R.I.P. Nancy M. Kindel 1928-2012](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/04/r-i-p-nancy-m-kindel-1928-2012/) - February 3, 2012 - Ft. Collins, CO. Nancy Kindel, born May 22, 1928, died peacefully with her children at her side. Nancy and her late husband, Charles E. “Ted” Kindel were Vail, Colorado and Forest Highlands, Arizona pioneers. Incredibly resilient and positive, Nancy had an ongoing love affair with the outdoors and a powerful athleticism.
- [Charles E “Ted” Kindel 1925-1990](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/06/charles-e-ted-kindel-1925-1990/) - I was communicating with another branch of the “Kindel Family” as a result of the post I made about the Kindel Furniture Factory fire several weeks ago. As a result I looked through some old files and found a copy of the article that was written about my father’s death in 1990. Since tomorrow (June
- ["Write Once..." is Anti-Customer](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/02/21/james-gosling-screwed-us-write-once-is-anti-customer/) - Just as in the '90s, there's a bunch of hype these days around solving the cross-platform development problem. Mobile platform fragmentation is killing developers, and if only every device supported some common language or technology engine we could all Write Once and Run Anywhere. If only. WORA was, is, and always will be, a fallacy.
- [I've Joined STOKE Space Technologies as an Advisor](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/05/19/ive-joined-stoke-space-technologies-as-an-advisor/) - In November 2020, I declared I was going to break into the space industry for my next professional chapter. My hypothesis was my experience rapidly scaling organizations that deliver results, coupled with my expertise in software would be helpful to space companies. The fact that I basically knew nothing about space wouldn't matter. With the
- [Posting Wrenching Videos](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/04/18/posting-wrenching-videos/) - Every decade I try my hand at being a videographer. My foot surgery led me to giving Premiere Pro a try (I still hate Adobe UIs). A test project: Should I do more garage/wrenching videos?
- [Virtuous Cycles, Platforms, Flywheels, Snowballs, and Tidal Waves](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/03/30/virtuous-cycles-platforms-flywheels-snowballs-and-tidal-waves/) - I'm working on writing down my thoughts on space. I've learned a ton since deciding space would be my next mission. Some pretty clear thoughts are forming, and whenever that happens, I've trained myself to write, write, and write to really solidify things.Space is big. In fact, it is, literally, the largest domain. Given the
- [Just Right Porridge and Leadership Principles](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/03/21/just-right-porridge-and-leadership-principles/) - This week the topic is about how to get the balance right when living Leadership Principles.
- [Find the Crux by Debating Excellence](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/02/21/find-the-crux-by-debating-excellence/) - No, don't debate excellence; become excellent at debating. "It is better to debate a decision without settling it than settling a decision without debating it." - Joseph Joubert Vigorous debate is critical to clear thinking in an organization. Debates garner the full intelligence of an organization. For decisions of great import, rigorous debate depersonalizes the
- [Clear Narratives Show Instead of Tell](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/29/clear-narratives-show-instead-of-tell/) - This is yet-another-post on the topic of Amazon-style “six-page memos,” aka Narratives. This post focuses on the mantra: “Great narratives show, they don’t tell.” When writing things you believe to be facts, ask yourself: How do I know? How can I qualify it? Then, qualify it in your words. Tell (Bad): The BMW E28 M5
- [Have Strong Opinions, Weakly Held](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/05/02/have-strong-opinions-weakly-held/) - A great mnemonic for remembering how to get better living Are right, a lot Leadership Principle is: Have strong opinions, weakly held.
- [The Tension is Intentional](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/05/16/the-tension-is-intentional/) - It is no accident many of the Amazon Leadership Principles seemingly contradict each other: they were carefully selected and crafted to encourage leaders to be thoughtful about the gray area. Bias for Action vs. Think Big represent favorite example of this tension. Bias for Action – Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are
- [Focusing on users is not Customer Obsession](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/05/30/focusing-on-users-is-not-customer-obsession/) - Let’s talk Customer Obsession and how it is different than user obsession. My definitions: Customer: An individual (or entity) that pays you, directly or indirectly, for value you provide.User: An individual that is forced to use something you provide. Users fall into three buckets 1) people unhealthily addicted to something (heroin), 2) employees forced to use something
- [Someone created a Wikipedia article for Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/12/someone-created-a-wikipedia-article-for-windows-home-server/) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Home_Server I made a few edits correcting some inaccuracies... Whoever did it got most of it right. Nice job.
- [Be as Excellent at Saying No as Saying Yes](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/12/03/be-as-excellent-at-saying-no-as-saying-yes/) - While in Amman Jordan last month, I had the opportunity to speak at Amman Tech Tuesdays, a local startup event held every month there. I was asked to talk about what I’ve learned in my career to an audience of about 500 geeks and entrepreneurs. I decided to talk about focus, a topic dear to
- [90% of the Decisions You Make Don't Matter](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/08/06/90-of-the-decisions-you-make-dont-matter/) - In my post The 5 Ps: Achieving Focus in Any Endeavor, I noted that “90% of the decisions you make don’t matter; real success comes in being able to identify the 10% that do and focus on those.” The best, most effective leaders can free their teams up to get stuff done by making lots
- [Keeping Tracks of Books I Read](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/26/keeping-tracks-of-books-i-read/) - Each January I post a list of books I read during the previous year (one of my favorites this year is @Scalzi’s Redshirts). Even though almost all books I read are via Amazon and Kindle, it is still a total pain in the butt to create those blog posts. http://ceklog.kindel.com/category/passions/books/ This has me thinking about
- [Look Back Quotient (LBQ)](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/08/28/look-back-quotient-lbq/) - Look Back Quotient (LBQ) is a measure of how attractive a car is to the car's owner. A car with a high LBQ will increase the car owner's propensity to look back at their car after parking it. Examples of cars with high LBQ: Examples of cars with low LBQ:
- [Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/12/26/windows-phone-is-superior-why-hasnt-it-taken-off/) - Posted Dec 26, 2011 – Updated April 17, 2012 People ask me all the time why, if I think Windows Phone is such an excellent product, sales appear so lackluster. My belief is Microsoft's “end-user first” approach with WP7 has a impedance mismatch with the carriers & device manufacturers while Google’s approach reduces friction with
- [Windows Phone's Canary in the Coal Mine](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/01/windows-phones-canary-in-the-coal-mine/) - Few believe Nokia will survive as a company if Windows Phone 8 isn’t successful. How can we tell if Windows Phone and Nokia will live or die? Coal miners used to take canaries down into the mines to detect deadly gasses. If the canary suddenly dropped dead it was a warning to the miners they
- [Retail Pricing, Markup, and Margins](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/08/30/retail-pricing-markup-and-margins/) - Tom’s Hardware is generally really solid. But they should stay focused on technology because this post is seriously absurd: “More than two years after the introduction of the iPad, Samsung appears to be very confident in the tablet market and is shooting for margins that exceed Apple's iPad levels.” - Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Has
- [STOP 0xC2 aka BAD_POOL_CALLER Blue Screen and bad memory](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/05/26/stop-0xc2-aka-bad-pool-caller-blue-screen-and-bad-memory/) - My computer bluescreened with a STOP 0xC2, BAD_POOL_CALLER fault. I discovered the reason was some memory chips had failed. This post describes what happened and how you can figure out if this is why you are getting this error. See the details below, but the summary is: In almost all cases the STOP 0xC2, BAD_BOOL_CALLER
- [I sincerely tried, but I still hate Linux](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/21/i-sincerely-tried-but-i-still-hate-linux/) - Before you read further, go read this post by David Gewirtz: Why I’ve finally had it with my Linux server and I’m moving back to Windows I guess I'm an idiot too. About 6 months ago I made the decision to leave Microsoft after 21 years. I knew I was going to build a startup,
- [Why Nobody Can Copy Apple](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/02/19/why-nobody-can-copy-apple/) - Horace Dediu has written another brilliant piece titled “Why doesn’t anybody copy Apple?”. As he points out, Apple is fairly unique in its command of vertical integration and many people point to that as the “why”. However, Horace also admits this can’t be the sole reason and he is unable to explain what that reason
- [Interview with Authority Mag: Homes Of The Future](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/10/06/interview-with-authority-mag-homes-of-the-future/) - Jason Hartman recently interviewed me for Authority Magazine. Check it out. Homes Of The Future: “The Future Of Smart Homes” With Charlie Kindel of SnapAV Some quotes: One of the things that really motivates and drives me professionally and personally, is the idea of how technology can improve people’s lives in their homes... I realized
- [Do Your Job - Don't Use Placeholder Text](https://blog.kindel.com/2021/01/20/do-your-job-dont-use-placeholder-text/) - If you are a UX designer, Software Developer, or Product Manager, and you use placeholder text anywhere but where it's impossible to know what the content will be (user supplied) then you are doing it wrong. And you are not doing your job. I learned this from @joebelfiore:Using placeholder text defers decision making. It's a
- [Find Work That Does Not Feel Like Work](https://blog.kindel.com/2014/03/24/find-work-that-does-not-feel-like-work/) - The first thing I ask people who are looking for a new job is “What work do you want to do in your ideal job?” It is interesting how few people answer this question. Almost everybody wants to answer different questions like “What do you want to work on?” or “What kind of work environment
- [Apps are Dead. Long Live Experiences.](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/11/26/apps-are-dead-long-live-experiences-powered-by-buddy/) - I like to get people’s attention by asserting “apps are dead”. I do this because it causes people to pause and think about what “apps” really are. After Apple started the app explosion in 2008 most apps were primarily client-side code. Today, however, it is almost impossible to find an app that does not rely
- [Wanna Compete with Apple? Focus on Experiences.](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/06/07/wanna-compete-with-apple-focus-on-experiences/) - TL;DR Apple’s insane profitability has the other big guys jealous and freaked out. None are stupid enough to try to compete with Apple on Apple’s terms. The way to beat Apple is to redefine the game by making apps irrelevant and by making mobile just a piece of the equation. The “Experience = Stuff /
- [Tig's Toolbox for Product Management](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/08/13/tigs-toolbox-for-product-management/) - People ask me which of my posts to read if they want to get better at product management. I never had a good answer, because I did not write them as a curriculum. I wrote them because something was on fire.
- [Send in the Wolfes: Why Hard Problems Need Fixers, Not Just Leaders](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/03/27/send-in-the-wolfes-why-hard-problems-need-fixers-not-just-leaders/) - When an organization hits a wall (be it a product failing in the field, a critical project slipping off the rails, or a big customer walking away) the knee-jerk reaction is often to lean on the leaders already in place. After all, they’re the ones with the titles, the experience, and the authority, right? Wrong.
- [Hiring First. Everything Else Second.](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/08/12/hiring-first-everything-else-second/) - Excellence in organizations starts and ends with hiring. Most leaders agree in principle. Very few behave as though they believe it.
- [Principal Engineer Tenets](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/25/principal-engineer-tenets-unless-you-know-better-ones/) - These are the tenets for Principal Engineers that define the engineering culture at Amazon. They are just about as perfect as a set of rules that define senior engineers' behaviors as you'll find. Ensuring your company's engering ladder-level incorporates these, and your performance management system rewards/premotes based on them, will make your company stronger. And,
- [Load-Bearing Terms](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/29/load-bearing-words/) - Effective leaders master the skill of choosing memorable terms, defining them precisely, and using them with unreasonable consistency. I call these load-bearing terms: words and phrases that hold up part of the structure. Remove one and something falls down.
- [Tenets](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/02/10/tenets/) - Tenets are a few carefully articulated guiding principles for any endeavor. They act as a guide to align on a vision and simplify decision-making. Tenets are the written-down rules that distinguish good behavior from behavior that is not welcome. Tenets simplify and help with being right more often; they can be used as tiebreakers when
- [You Are Behind in Using AI. Here’s How to Catch Up](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/03/12/you-are-behind-in-using-ai-heres-how-to-catch-up/) - Updated July 2026. The original March version of this post is below, revised. The biggest changes: my credentials for giving this advice got stronger (I stopped reading the code entirely; see No-Look Coding and the Five Stages of Grief), the March tool comparisons aged out in exactly the way section 2 predicted, and the skill frontier
- [Be Gruntled. I Am](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/25/be-gruntled-i-am/) - In 1938, P.G. Wodehouse wrote this in The Code of the Woosters: He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. That joke put a word into the dictionary. It turns out gruntled is a word: gruntled (adjective): pleased, satisfied,
- [How AI Will Keep Us Honest](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/11/16/how-ai-will-keep-us-honest/) - I was a guest on the "Are We There Yet?" podcast. We dove deep into several topics close to my heart: The future of life on Earth, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, leadership, and more. Have a listen and let me know your reaction! Legendary technologist, product visionary, and leadership coach Tigger (Charlie) Kindel winds through
- [Prompt to Metal](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/22/prompt-to-metal/) - Software engineers stopped opening IDEs. Hardware engineers are about to stop opening KiCad. I define Prompt to Metal, explain why the prompt-box startups have no moat, and share five weakly held opinions about where this all goes.
- [No-Look Coding and the Five Stages of Grief](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/24/no-look-coding-and-the-five-stages-of-grief/) - This week the argument found a name. Uncle Bob Martin, who started coding in the late 60s and wrote the book on clean code, posted that his current strategy is to not read any of the code his agents write; he surrounds them with extreme constraints instead. Someone asked Hacker News whether looking at the
- [The Most Dangerous Lie In Project Plans: “We’ll Hire”](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/11/the-most-dangerous-lie-in-project-plans-well-hire/) - Years ago I sat through a project review that looked perfectly reasonable. The milestones were sensible, the dependencies were documented, and the dates looked aggressive but achievable. The presenters had clearly spent serious time building the plan, and the deck was polished enough that most people nodded along. Then someone mentioned several key deliverables depended
- [MCEC 3.0: Eyes and Hands for Agents on Windows](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/07/10/mcec-3-0-eyes-and-hands-for-agents-on-windows/) - The Model Context Environment Controller is eyes, hands, and a safe front door for agents on Windows; and the same battle-tested remote control for smart-home systems.
- [Terminal.Gui: My Beautiful Absurdist Adventure](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/06/03/terminal-gui-my-beautiful-absurdist-adventure/) - Terminal.Gui is a .NET UI framework for cross-platform terminal apps. It started life as gui.cs, created by Miguel de Icaza. Miguel, being Miguel, casually dropped a complete cross-platform console UI stack into the world, made it just great enough to be dangerous, and moved on. I was submitting fixes to, and poking around in gui.cs,
- [Terminal.Gui: Still Absurd, Now Beta!](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/03/05/terminal-gui-still-absurd-now-beta/) - For the past few months we've been architecting, refactoring, and refining. 146 commits. Dozens of PRs. One PR touched 493 files. The long-awaited Beta isn't just about revolutionary features. It's about getting the architecture right and ensuring the API is stable for the future. Terminal.Gui v2 is the ultimate framework for building cross-platform Terminal UI
- [Building For The Robots](https://blog.kindel.com/2026/05/26/building-for-the-robots/) - Five Terminal.Gui projects built for humans and agents at the same time. Plus what Copilot did to 86 files last week.
- [Program: You Keep Using that Word, I Don't Think You Know What it Means](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/11/07/program-you-keep-using-that-word-i-dont-think-you-know-what-it-means/) - I’ve heard “program” used to mean everything from a team to a project plan to a portfolio to lines of code. At some point, someone has to stop and say: you keep using that word—I don’t think it means what you think it means. A shared Taxonomy and Lexicon essential for focus and execution. Without
- [Mechanisms In Action: How Tech Giants Scale “Good Intentions”](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/11/03/mechanisms-in-action-how-tech-giants-scale-good-intentions/) - Mechanisms are complete processes—owned by a leader, built around a tool or ritual, broadly adopted, and continually inspected and improved—that make the right behavior the default. Rather than hoping people do the right thing, great leaders engineer processes that guarantee it.
- [Leading by Fitness Functions](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/11/01/leading-by-fitness-function/) - You don’t scale excellence by inspecting outcomes—you scale it by designing systems that send the right signals. These are called Fitness Functions.
- [How We Scaled Alexa: One Problem, One Leader](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/04/14/how-we-scaled-alexa-one-problem-one-leader/) - The Single-Threaded Leader (STL) model was born inside Amazon and became foundational to how we scaled and delivered customer-obsessed innovation—especially in the early years of Alexa. I wrote the original doc that helped crystalize the model, and it’s been gratifying to see how the idea has since echoed through other orgs, blog posts, and companies
- [Experience = Stuff / Time](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/02/experience-stuff-time/) - The real value in creating new businesses is in delivering customer experiences. The ubiquitous nature of the web, devices, and social networks means successful companies in the future will understand this. The question is “what do people mean when they say ‘experience’”? This post provides an answer. Over the years, I’ve developed a mental model
- [The Job Decision Matrix](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/26/the-job-decision-matrix/) - A Job Decision Matrix will help identify what is actually important to you in your career (and life). Gaining clarity on what is important to you, right now, will help you identify new job opportunities, avoid wasting time on job opportunities that are not right for you, and make a job decision with conviction. This
- [Merit Badges - A Mental Model for Success](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/01/merit-badges/) - The Merit Badge mental model can provide clarity and peace of mind when navigating big career decisions.
- [Mental Models](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/06/22/mental-models/) - A secret to clear thinking and decision-making is to learn, invent, and adopt mental models. You’ve probably noticed effective leaders can frame complex ideas simply. They’ll lead conversations like this: “Well, I think there are three things we should focus on and they are…” “Folks, I think there’s another way of looking at this problem.
- [The Secret to Giving Feedback Without Triggering Defensiveness](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/10/21/the-secret-to-giving-feedback-without-triggering-defensiveness/) - The right kind of feedback can transform teams, while the wrong kind erodes trust and performance. SBI, which stands for Situation–Behavior–Impact, is a structured way to give feedback that’s clear, non-defensive, and actionable.
- [Exorcise the Ghost of Mediocrity](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/04/14/exorcise-the-ghost-of-mediocrity/) - Every great org starts the same way: a handful of people with conviction, urgency, and the energy of a shared mission. The best ones are driven by clarity of purpose, crisp principles, and a team that believes in building something that matters. But then… something changes. Not all at once. Slowly. Subtly. A mood creeps
- [Open Office Hours with Tig](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/12/22/open-office-hours/) - Last month I offered "office hours" to anyone who wanted to chat with me. It was an experiment to see a) if interesting people would reach out, b) if I could be useful to these people, and c) if I'd be exposed to domains where I could spend more of my time in the future.
- [Your Leadership Priorities Are Probably Backwards (And How to Fix Them)](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/05/08/your-leadership-priorities-are-probably-backwards-and-how-to-fix-them/) - Here's a simple yet powerful exercise, the CBTO Stack Rank, designed to force you into uncomfortable clarity about where you really stand as a leader.
- [Your Org Is Sinking in Silo Gravity. Build a Damn Rocket](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/05/01/your-org-is-sinking-in-silo-gravity-build-a-damn-rocket/) - Organizational Silos Are Like Gravity. You Don’t Hope Them Away. You can’t culture-doc them into nonexistence. You Engineer Around Them.
- [The First Rule of Skills](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/04/08/the-first-rule-of-skills/) - When you’re intentional about skills, you grow faster. You get better at execution. And you help others do the same.
- [Path To Green](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/02/16/path-to-green/) - A Path To Green (PTG) is a clear, crisp, and complete statement describing a team's plan for how to get a project from yellow/red status to green.
- [Mechanisms](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/03/06/mechanisms/) - Mechanisms are complete processes built around a tool, owned by a leader that gets adopted broadly and regularly inspected and improved to ensure things get done, not because everyone has good intentions, but because the mechanism's elements structurally force the desired behavior. “Good intentions never work, you need good mechanisms to make anything happen.” — Jeff Bezos I've written previously about how Good Intentions
- [No Starving Children? The Shocking Truth About Prioritization.](https://blog.kindel.com/2024/06/06/no-starving-children-the-shocking-truth-about-prioritization/) - Prioritization means making decisions that focus energy and resources on a few things that are at the top of the list, and starving things that are lower in the list. The most important aspect of prioritization is the concept of starvation. In the context of prioritization, starvation refers to the lack of attention or resources given
- [Stop Answering the Wrong Question: Unlock Your True Work Happiness](https://blog.kindel.com/2025/02/05/stop-answering-the-wrong-question-unlock-your-true-work-happiness/) - Let’s start with a simple question: What kind of work do you like doing? Go ahead, answer it in your head. I’ll wait. … Did you just describe what you like working on? Or who you like working with? Or maybe you veered into what you like accomplishing or who you like working for? If so, you’re not alone. Nine out of 10
- [Announcing Kindel Leadership Development](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/07/21/announcing-kindel-leadership-development/) - In 2020 started hosting my Free and Open Office Hours as a way to give back and meet more people in the space industry. As I became useful to those in the space industry and gained expertise in the space domain I discovered how fulfilling helping multiple companies with leadership and operational excellence was. To
- [How To: Write a Working Backwards Doc](https://blog.kindel.com/2024/07/23/how-to-write-a-working-backwards-doc/) - This post introduces the concept of Working Backward (WB) narratives and formalizes the mechanism through which a company can drive product development. The WB mechanism is a complete process designed to create a “virtuous cycle” that re-enforces and improves itself as the team participates in it. “Put the customer first, have a plan, create a
- [Kindel's Law](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/12/21/kindels-law/) - Kindel's Law - Every payment system eventually becomes an anti-fraud system. -Tig Kindel, 2013 I'm not sure how this law thing works. But I'm jealous of folks like Moore, Atwood, and Shannon. I think everyone should have a law named after them. In 2013, when I was tasked with build Amazon's equivalent of ApplePay I
- [Kindel's 3rd Law](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/03/30/kindels-3rd-law/) - Kindel's 3rd Law - Amazon will enter every existing business, channel, and market. If said business, channel, or market doesn't already exist, Amazon will try to invent it. Tig Kindel - 2019 See also: Kindel's Law - Every payment system eventually becomes an anti-fraud system. Kindel's 2nd Law - Companies with a subscriptions-based business model
- [Don't Sell Ideas - Debate Them](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/12/17/dont-sell-ideas-debate-them/) - Don't try to sell your ideas. Instead, drive people to debate your ideas. The result will be a more engaged, innovative, and effective team.
- [The Secret to Delivering Outsized Results](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/10/24/the-secret-to-delivering-outsized-results/) - So what's the secret? Principles. Principled leaders have a set of strongly held beliefs in the how (vs the what, why, when, or who) and strive to live those principles. Even better, organizations that have a written-down set of rules for the how, combined with mechanisms that reinforce the living of those principles, the org sings.
- [Good Intentions are Never Enough](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/05/09/good-intentions-are-never-enough/) - Everyone has good intentions... Everyone WANTS to do the right thing. But good intentions are never enough. Stuff doesn't get done based solely on people’s good intentions. Change can't happen based only on good intentions. What is needed is a way to mechanize people's good intentions. "Mechanisms" are the way. A Mechanism is a complete process that ensures things get done.
- [Heros](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/25/heros/) - Speaking of heros... This got me thinking about who my heros are. I actually have quite a few, and I think I can categorize them: Real Life My father. Duh. Geeks Jim Gray Ray Ozzie Anders Hieldberg Chris Guzak Leadership Bob Muglia Ronald Regan Abrhahm Lincoln
- [Change the world or go home](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/25/change-the-world-or-go-home/) - I've been working at Microsoft a long time. Almost 17 years. My family and I have made huge sacrifices in our personal lives for Microsoft. For the most part, I've been financially rewarded for those sacrifices. Financially, it's been a good deal. However, when people ask me “Why? Why do you still work at Microsoft?” the answer
- [What it Means to Be Great Product Manager](https://blog.kindel.com/2015/06/18/what-it-means-to-be-great-product-manager/) - A Tweetstorm of mine from earlier in the week: https://twitter.com/natbro/timelines/611337333711843330 Piling on a comment @natbro made about PMs: Besides customers, there are two groups of people involved in building tech products: Engineers and everyone else. Only the engineers actually produce anything for the customer. The job of everyone else, especially PMs is to generate clarity
- [Breaking Down Innovation & Invention](https://blog.kindel.com/2023/01/08/breaking-down-innovation-invention/) - A friend recently asked me if I had a Lexicon & Taxonomy for Innovation and Invention. While I do, I realized I've never written it down. Here's my first stab; using the Customer, Business, Organization, and Technology (CBTO) mental model. What do you think? Lexicon: Innovation - The introduction of something new or novel that
- [Let Word Work For You](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/06/04/let-word-work-for-you/) - One of my biggest pet peeves is when I have to edit a document someone else has written and they’ve manually messed with the formatting. Microsoft Word has an incredibly flexible style system that makes creating docs that look great easy. It also makes easy for others editing the doc can keep things consistent. This
- [Details Matter in Presenting Narratives](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/18/details-matter-in-presenting-narratives/) - Narratives are written documents used to present clear thinking. Narratives enable readers to quickly understand the author’s ideas in order to drive robust conversations and decisive decision making. Details matter when it comes to printing narratives for others to read. Sloppy presentation of the written word detracts from content and shows the author lacks obsession
- [Amazon.com: Shockingly Great Customer Service](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/04/20/amazon-com-shockingly-great-customer-service/) - It’s no secret that I love pretty much everything Amazon.com does. You may think that this is just because they named their Kindle book reader after me, but it’s really because they do such a damn good job of focusing on the customer. Case in point: A month ago, as soon as the new Portal
- [A FAQ About Frequently Asked Questions](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/11/18/a-faq-on-frequently-asked-questions/) - A list of questions with answers written in English are a great way to drive clear thinking on all the stuff that surround the central idea presented in a narrative. This ‘stuff’ includes things like strategy, execution, technology, business, and resources.
- [Be a Great Reader](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/04/24/be-a-great-reader/) - When an organization has a culture where the written word is valued, being a great reader is just as important as being a great writer. Over time, I’ve tried to have a very high-bar for my own writing. I wrote a little about this in my post Details Matter. I’ve also learned the importance of
- [MCE Controller V2 Released](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/10/08/mce-controller-v2-released/) - I spent some time the last few weekends hacking on a product I first developed in 2004: MCE Controller. MCE Controller lets you control a Windows Home Theater PC (or any PC) over the network. It runs in the background listening on the network (or serial port) for commands. It then translates those commands into actions
- [Debate Tenets](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/05/23/debate-tenets/) - I’ve long thought having a set of guiding principles for any project is important (see my blog post “the 5Ps”; Purpose, Principles, Priorities, People, Plan). At Amazon I learned there was a synonym to the word principle: Tenet. I’ve heard Jeff Bezos say repeatedly “A team can never spend too much time debating their tenets.” Why is
- [Once I was Afraid](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/10/27/once-i-was-afraid/) - Once I was afraid to ride a bike. Then I did it. Once I was afraid to program in BASIC. Then I did it. Once I was afraid of getting married. Then I married Julie. Once I was afraid of assembly language. Then I did it. Once I was afraid of printer drivers. Then I
- [kindel.com is no longer at home](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/09/12/kindel-com-is-no-longer-at-home/) - kindel.com has been hosted on my home network since 1996. Today, I finally moved it to a modern web platform. This includes migrating an OG Active Server Pages (pre .NET) & SQL Server app I wrote in 1997 for decoding Porsche option codes By doing this I finally got to turn port 80/443 off on
- [Broken Windows – Right Idea, Bad Analogy](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/07/10/broken-windows-right-idea-bad-analogy/) - It is well understood that no product is perfect and small issues will always exist. Without an ongoing mechanism to fix those issues, not only do they not get fixed, they pile up. Having a clear Lexicon and Taxonomy is critical to getting large numbers of people moving forward towards a vision. Having the lexicon
- [Smart Home + PC = Better Working from Home](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/03/25/smart-home-pc-better-working-from-home/) - Since the dawn of time I've considered the PC (and related devices like Macs, printers, etc...) to be part of my smart home. For some reason, most traditional smart home offerings have treated PCs et.al. as somehow disconnected. Sometime after the dawn of time (2004), I built MCE Controller (mcec) as a way of ensuring
- [winprint 2.0](https://blog.kindel.com/2020/02/21/winprint-2-0/) - Ever since I started programming on an Apple ][+ in 1981, I’ve had a thing for printing. My earliest apps focused on printing and my first money-making endeavor was “Tapes”, which printed casette tape ‘J-cards’ for all the mix-tapes of great ’80s music we made for the girls. Whenever I learned a new programming language
- [HP MediaSmart pic](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/hp-mediasmart-pic/) - DSCN0235 Originally uploaded by ckindel. Here's a pic I took this morning in the Microsoft booth at CES of the Windows Home Server powered HP MediaSmart device.I put my latte next to it so you might be able to appreciate the diminutive size of the device...it's much smaller than it looks in most pictures. Roughly
- [Stop Digital Amnesia SWAG](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/stop-digital-amnesia-swag/) - Stop Digital Amnesia SWAG Originally uploaded by ckindel. Have you checked out www.stopdigitalamnesia.com yet? I know in my first post I had a typo in the URL (thanks Mark for fixing it remotely for me!).My marketing team (and the vendors who helped them) have a great sense of humor. The Dr. is very well cast,
- [10 years ago I had hair. I and I loved COM.](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/11/27/10-years-ago-i-had-hair-i-and-i-loved-com/) - Somewhere Henk de Koning unearthed a video of me taken 10 years ago yesterday touting The Component Object model. Back then I was "the COM guy" and I had hair. Egads. "Don blogged about a video of Gudge explaining COM. This reminded me of an old video I found while cleaning up my office. I
- [In 50 words or less: What the 2nd Amendment Means to you](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/08/08/in-50-words-or-less-what-the-2nd-amendment-means-to-you/) - Gun Digest ran an essay contest in 1964: In 50 words or less write what the Right to Bear Arms means to you. The winner would get an all expense paid hunting safari to Africa. I had known my father (Charles E. “Ted” Kindel) had won this contest when I was a kid but didn’t
- [Seattle Angel Conference #2](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/08/17/seattle-angel-conference-2/) - On May 30, 2012 we held the first ever Seattle Angel Conference. It was a smashing success. Bolstered by the success of the first event, we’re doing it again on December 13. The primary mission of those of us helping to drive Seattle Angel Conferences is: “To grow the angel community in greater Seattle by
- [Kindl. Kindel. Kindle.](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/12/10/kindl-kindel-kindle/) - Back before the invention of the printing press my great, great, great grandfather came to the United States from Bavaria. His name was August Kindl. At Ellis Island the immigration officials added the 'e'...hence my family's name. We pronounce it Kindl. Not Kind-el. Kindl translates to "child" in Bavarian. Those who know me well will
- [Iconic: Photos of Every Apple Product](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/10/06/iconic-photos-of-every-apple-product/) - Last year Jonathan Zufi reached out to me asking if he could use a quote from my “Why Nobody Can Copy Apple” blog post in a book on Apple he was working on. I said sure, why not? I’m glad I did. Jonathan has released the book, Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation, and
- [MCE Controller v1.0.1 Released!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/23/mce-controller-v1-0-1-released/) - Today I released the first public version of MCE Controller. MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) to be integrated into an advanced AV control system by enabling programmatic control of the user interface via a TCP/IP connection. To put it simply, MCE Controller, allows you to simulate a
- [New MCE Controller Version](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/24/new-mce-controller-version/) - Tonight I posted version 1.0.2 of MCE Controller. Basically one new feature: The ability to shutdown, restart, standby, or hibernate the system. See the V1.0.2 readme at http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller/1.0.2/Readme.htm. The product page is at http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller. Looking for feedback!
- [MCE Controller 1.0.3 Released](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/27/mce-controller-1-0-3-released/) - No code changes. Just added an installer using the very cool NullSoft Scriptable Install System. Wow, that was easy! Download and install from http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller/
- [Distributed File System (DFS)](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/21/distributed-file-system-dfs/) - If you have a network with lots of storage that includes a Windows 2000 or W2K3 Server the Distributed File System (DFS) is your friend. This very cool technology makes it easy to move around where you store stuff physically while retaining a consistent namespace for your clients. For example, on my network at home
- [New MCE Controller sample available](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/29/new-mce-controller-sample-available/) - Multiple people have asked me for a sample that illustrates how to talk to MCE Controller from Crestron using SIMPL Windows.Ask no more: On the MCE Controller site, I've added a SIMPL Windows sample program that illustrates using MCE Controller with a Crestron processor. This sample illustrates using MCE Controller in client mode with a
- [MCE Controller doc ommission](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/10/mce-controller-doc-ommission/) - I forgot to mention a key (pun intended) command that MCE Controller supports in the 1.0.3 documentation. The "key:" command allows you to simulate any alphanumeric keyboard key press. For example "key:3" is the same thing as pressing the 3 key on the keyboard. This command is implemented internally in MCE Controller rather than via
- [mini-ITX Windows Server 2003 Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/03/mini-itx-windows-server-2003-home-server/) - I recently built a really small and quiet home server that ran Windows Server 2003 based on a mini-ITX motherboard. It turns out you can build a great system in a very small package. The only down-side is that the really nice cases are pretty expensive compared to larger cases driving the total cost up. The system
- [Windows Server is listening...](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/04/windows-server-is-listening/) - Billie Jo Murray, who runs the Windows Server Customer Experience Group, is now blogging. If you have feedback about Windows Server's documentation and customer programs head over to her blog and let her know.
- [Helmet Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/05/helmet-home-server/) - news.com reports on a new PC form factor: Helmet PC aims to score with football fans. This thing would make a fantastic home server (see my mini-ITX post)...as long as you used a Seattle Seahawks helmet and not a nasty Raiders helmet.
- [Time to RAID PVRs, says Silicon Image](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/05/time-to-raid-pvrs-says-silicon-image/) - In Time to RAID PVRs, says Silicon Image The Register reports that Silicon Image has a new RAID chip that they think they can sell to PVR vendors. Not sure how this differs from their existing SATA/IDE RAID chips. But they seem to agree with me that those hard drives are fragile and redundancy schemes are
- [Dilbert's Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/05/dilberts-home-server/) - According to the press release, "...Dilbert's Ultimate House"(DUH). DUH is a virtual web-based home that the famous icon of the workplace Dilbert, his fans, tech geeks, the environmentally conscious, and those who just plain love the comfort of a good sofa, will covet."He's got a pretty clean looking wiring closet, but what kind of home server
- [In depth MCE 2005 article on AnandTech](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/13/in-depth-mce-2005-article-on-anandtech/) - AnandTech has a very deep article on Windows Media Center Edition 2005. They didn't think much of the earlier versions of MCE. Some quotes:"Media Center Edition continues to be the coolest looking highest performance PVR/DVR (with a fast enough system) out there on the market today. The interface continues to be clearly ahead of the competition...""In
- [New Windows PC Form Factors](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/03/new-windows-pc-form-factors/) - It's going to be very interesting over the next few years as OEMs begin to finally produce truly innovative new PC form factors focused on specific user scenarios. Neowin.net points out that a British OEM, Scan Computers, has launched the "Project PC", a PC specifically targeted at project managers who make heavy use of Microsoft
- [A File Server...in Your Living Room?](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/15/a-file-server-in-your-living-room/) - Via BusinessWeek a good article on home servers:That's right, with most homes nowadays having multiple computers and lots of files to share, these new low-cost devices can do wonders Want to watch movies, control your stereo's music, and back up your computer files from any PC in the house? A cheap server computer, a scaled-down version
- [Killer home server deal](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/18/killer-home-server-deal/) - Slickdeals.com is showing that you can now get a DELL PowerEdge SC420 P4-2.8GHz, 80GB system for $289+tax w/free shipping. These SC series machines from DELL make great home servers. They are plenty powerful, expandable, and amazingly very quiet.
- [Crazy expensive home server](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/18/crazy-expensive-home-server/) - Sheesh. I thought Linux devices were supposed to be cheaper...Engadget writes about the Niveus A/V Storage Server which is basically just a Linux based NAS box with 1TB of RAID 5 storage in it. I can't even tell if it actually supports SMB or not. Sure it's pretty and fanless but why does it cost
- [My team](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/20/my-team/) - Chris Gray on my team is playing with IIS at home. He's got a little moblog app that automatically takes pics from his PocketPC phone and uploads them. This pic was taken right before we had an executive review for our project. Charlie, Chris, Sergey, Todd, Lee...
- [Bluetooth GPS, Smartphone, Channel9, Oh My!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/12/13/bluetooth-gps-smartphone-channel9-oh-my/) - Channel9 has posted a wicked-cool video of Alex Kipman demoning using Visual Studio to write slick SmartPhone app that talks to both the GPS and MapPoint via a web-service. Who says Microsoft can't innovate? What other platform provides anywhere near the richness and integration across devices?!?! I purchased my Pharos GPS reciever as part of
- [Blobservations: Windows Server, Home Edition](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/01/24/blobservations-windows-server-home-edition/) - Rick Hallihan presents a really nice vision of what a Windows based home server would look like in Blobservations: Windows Server, Home Edition. At my house I use Windows Server 2003 to manage all of my client PCs. For example I can easily change all machine's IE security settings (and prevent my kids from changing
- [Great Windows Media Center videos](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/24/great-windows-media-center-videos/) - Check out these great Channel9 videos on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). If you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss over MCE is watch John Canning and Charlie Owen expose it all. Media Center exposed, Part I Media Center exposed, Part II There’s about an hour of video here, but if you really want
- [Chris Gray - Building your own home server](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/24/chris-gray-building-your-own-home-server/) - Chris talks about his home server on Channel9. “Let’s go to my white board…here’s a diagram of my home network…” He’s actually a pretty good artist. And I thought he was just a great developer. Chris’ office is basically across the hall from me. Let’s just say it’s rarely quiet.
- [Steve coins a new phrase: DVR Clog](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/24/steve-coins-a-new-phrase-dvr-clog/) - In The Furrygoat Experience: DVR Clog Steve coins a new term that I like: “DVR Clog”. I love it! DVR Clog. The state of affairs when your digital video recorder is full of shows you want to watch, but don’t have the time.
- [MCE Controller 1.0.4 Released](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/27/mce-controller-1-0-4-released/) - I’ve released an update to MCE Controller that fixes a bug where it would prevent Windows logoff and shutdown. Head over to http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller to download it. MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) to be integrated into an advanced control system by enabling programmatic control of the user interface
- [Do you have a NAS at home?](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/05/04/do-you-have-a-nas-at-home/) - A bunch of us were sitting around arguing about why people are buying these inexpensive NAS (Network Attached Storage) boxes. Then we started arguing about who was buying them. I’ve poured over all the market research I can find and neither of these two questions are answered: Who is buying them (home users, tech enthusiasts, small
- [MCE Controller v1.1 Released - and now open source](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/05/12/mce-controller-v1-1-released-and-now-open-source/) - I built MCE Controller as something that would be useful for my own home. I had minor aspirations of making it do more than it does, but the reality is that I don’t really have the time nor the inclination (it works beautifully for me as is). Until today I have resisted making it open
- [Furrygoat discovers the RAID rebuild](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/07/05/furrygoat-discovers-the-raid-rebuild/) - Poor Steve (Mr. Furrygoat). Like many geeks out there he bought a RAID5 system thinking it was a silver bullet providing massive reliable storage for all his precious data (precious to him, due to the time it took to back up all his DVDs, not necessarily because the content iteself is precious). A drive failed
- [Stop Digital Amnesia?](https://blog.kindel.com/2006/12/24/stop-digital-amnesia/) - Noticed a banner ad on cnet.com that clicked through to this site www.stopdigitalamnesia.com (Stop Digital Amnesia). Hmmm... Yet another Microsoft viral-teaser site. Something big will be announced on 1/7 at CES... Reminds me of Furry Goat's post about 2 years ago that I commented on.
- [Devs on my team must know INTERCAL](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/03/devs-on-my-team-must-know-intercal/) - Jim Lyon co-authored the INTERCAL programming language. He's a dev on my team. We decided that all devs must know this language in order to write code on my project. You should learn it too.
- [Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/windows-home-server/) - Windows Home Server prototype Originally uploaded by ckindel. I am writing this from the Windows Home Server blogger's lounge in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Bill Gates just finished up his CES 2007 keynote where the product I have been slaving over for the last 3 years was finally formally announced to the world!I
- [Amazing Response](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/amazing-response/) - My inbox is overflowing with messages from people congratualating my team, asking questionsm, and pointng me at all the great press we've been getting. I awoke this morning over a hundred emails directly to me and my RSS reader overflowing with feeds. I'll be collecting the most common questions I get and will try to address
- [Channel9 video interview on Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/channel9-video-interview-on-windows-home-server/) - My Channel 9 interview video just went live. Please don't tease me about how often I say “um”. http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=270965
- [HP MediaSmart home server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/10/hp-mediasmart-home-server/) - HP's offical page on their Windows Home Server powered box. My team has a great relationship with the MediaSmart server team at HP. HP has done an outstanding job on their industrial design, mechanicals, and electronics (we have early engineering prototypes in our labs).
- [We've been /. ed](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/11/weve-been-ed/) - http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/11/1711237 It’s quite gratifying to see the number of fans of WHS we have on this slashdot thread. There was an earlier /. thread that pointed to an article that was ostensibly about Windows Home Server, but was really about Apple. The discussions in the thread were thus not about our product. This
- [A great quote](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/12/a-great-quote/) - Someone just forwarded me the following quote. This really resonates with me. I have been working on trying to get a home server product built at Microsoft for over 8 years... "At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done. Then they begin to hope it can be done. Then
- [My Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/13/my-windows-home-server/) - My Windows Home Server Originally uploaded by ckindel. This is my WHS box at home. It started out in a different case (an Antec), but I retired my wife's old computer and it used this Lian Lai case (which I've always liked). So I used this as an opportunity to put in a bigger power
- [Android Dreams](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/17/android-dreams/) - I recently finished John Scalzi's Andoid's Dream. I've said it before, but I've always been a huge fan of Robert Heinlein and John's writing reminds me of his. This book is John's 3rd sci-fi novel and his maturity over time as a writer is obvious. I think Old Man's War is my favorite Scalzi book so far
- [Home Server Flickr Group](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/20/home-server-flickr-group/) - Windows Home Server prototype Originally uploaded by ckindel. I've created a Flickr group for collecting pictures of people's home servers and other related imageshttp://www.flickr.com/groups/homeservers Inspired by the Media Center group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/mediacenter
- [Matt Pietrek & Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/26/matt-pietrek-amp-windows-home-server/) - I just noticed that Matt Pietrek has been blogging about his experience playing with Windows Home Server. Matt is one of the many MS employees who have been Dogfooding the product for a while.
- [Visual Studio Express and Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/26/visual-studio-express-and-windows-home-server/) - Dan Fernandez is the lead product manager for Visual Studio Express. He just blogged about developing tools and applications for Windows Home Server using Visual Studio. + As I mentioned in my Channel9 video I'm super excited that WHS is going to enable geeks, makers, hobbyists, or whatever you want to call them to build
- [Windows Home Server team blog](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/01/windows-home-server-team-blog/) - My team (the Windows Home Server team) now has a blog. Here's the abstract for this new blog. This blog is managed by the Windows Home Server team at Microsoft. Our goal with the blog is to educate and inform families with multiple PCs about how Windows Home Server will help them easily store, protect and
- [Book Review: River of Gods](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/05/book-review-river-of-gods/) - Whew! I finally finished River of Gods by Ian McDonald this weekend. I categorize River of Gods as a “Great story but a PITA to read book”. Here's the deal: I shouldn't have to work to read a science fiction novel. To me “a great read” just flows...I start reading the first chapter and 17
- [Building your Windows Home Server box](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/11/building-your-windows-home-server-box/) - Until OEMs ship Windows Home Server hardware the only way to run Windows Home Server is on a machine you provide. The hardware requirements are pretty meager: An x86 CPU with roughly the same horsepower as a 1GHz Pentium III. It will actually run on less (I had it running on an old 550MHz Pentium
- [A great runthrough of Windows Home Server setup](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/15/a-great-runthrough-of-windows-home-server-setup/) - Terry over at We Got Served posted a nice run through of what the setup for Windows Home Server beta 2 is like. He took pictures along the way and if you are curious to see what it looks like before you get your beta kit take a gander. We Got Served Note this is probably
- [Fake product screenshots](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/01/fake-product-screenshots/) - Fake Windows Home Server screen. This is weird. I can understand people who have too much time on their hands creating fake product images of products that are not available yet. For example all of the mocked up images of Apple's products that show up on Engadget regularly.I get that.I also sorta get the fact that
- [ComputerWorld Review of Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/02/computerworld-review-of-windows-home-server/) - ComputerWorld has a comprehesive review of Windows Home Server. “I found Home Server to be intuitive to use and very effective at backing up data as well as monitoring my home network's health. Its simplicity and automation will make it a winner with many home users. More technically savvy users, however, may find its limitations frustrating.
- [Using WHS Computer Backup to upgrade a PC](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/17/using-whs-computer-backup-to-upgrade-a-pc/) - This morning I used Windows Home Server's Compter Backup capability to “upgrade” my main workstation's HDD. Here's how I did it... My main PC at home has a 60GB WD Raptor 10k RPM drive in it. For some reason that escapes me, long ago I had configured it such that I was only using one
- [Stop Digital Amnesia](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/18/stop-digital-amnesia-2/) - Stop Digital Amnesia SWAG Originally uploaded by ckindel. Have you checked out www.stopdigitalamnesia.com yet? We put this website together as a teaser for our announcement of Windows Home Server at CES. It is funny and informational!This photo is of some of the SWAG we gave out at CES to go along with the marketing campaign.Oh,
- [Windows Home Server SDK](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/04/05/windows-home-server-sdk/) - See my post over on the Windows Home Server team blog announcing the availabilty of the Windows Home Server SDK!
- [PhotoSync for Windows Home Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/08/05/photosync-for-windows-home-server/) - 09-22-02 107.jpg Originally uploaded by ckindel I just updated my Windows Home Server with Ed Halloway's PhotoSync Beta 2. This Add-in for Windows Home Server automatically ensures that all photos stored in a particular folder on your home server are automatically published to your Flickr account. I have a shared folder on my home server
- [Book Review: Queen of Candesce: Book Two of Virga](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/10/29/book-review-queen-of-candesce-book-two-of-virga/) - Late last year I "discovered" Karl Schroeder when I read Sun of Suns: Book One of Virga. Recently he released the 2nd book of this series titled Queen of Candesce: Book Two of Virga and I finished it this weekend. Like the first book I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like the first book, I found a
- [Windows Home Server is actually useful!](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/12/01/windows-home-server-is-actually-useful/) - Today, instead of being the GM for Windows Home Server, I was simply a user... For the last two weeks my wife has been giving me the gears because the voicemail attachements from Vonage refused to play in Outlook on her computer. It was one of those weird software problems that defied logic. All other
- [The Wicked Witch Is Dead!](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/07/21/the-wicked-witch-is-dead/) - From the Windows Home Server Team Blog: The team is pleased to announce that Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and is now available on the Microsoft Download Center! This update fixes the data corruption bug that was found in Windows Home Server in December (and has great new
- [Windows Home Server makes for a happy family](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/06/17/windows-home-server-makes-for-a-happy-family/) - Once again the most amazing consumer product Microsoft has ever created, Windows Home Server, has saved my family [disclaimer]. Today I was in a meeting and I got a text message from my 15 year old daughter. It read (spelling and txt errors verbatim): "daddddd o my god. i think i just deleated all my
- [MCE Controller supports the Windows key](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/05/mce-controller-supports-the-windows-key/) - MCE Controller, allows you to simulate a press of any button on the Windows Media Center IR remote control by sending a text command to a TCP/IP port on your Media Center computer. For example if MCE Controller receives the string “mypictures” it will tell Media Center to go to the “My Pictures” page. I
- [Control Your HTPC Via The Network](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/03/control-your-pc-via-the-network/) - [UPDATED: Feb 11, 2012 – Version 1.4.0 Released] MCE Controller enables the remote control of a Windows PC over the network. It runs in the background on a Windows PC listening on the network for commands. It then translates those commands into actions such as keystrokes, text input, and the starting of programs. I wrote
- [MCE Controller 1.5.0 Released–Send Unicode chars](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/03/27/mce-controller-1-5-0-releasedsend-unicode-chars/) - MCE Controller allows you to remotely control another Windows PC on your network. For example it allows you to simulate a press of any button on the Windows Media Center IR remote control from another computer; if MCE Controller receives the string “mypictures” it will tell Media Center to go to the “My Pictures” page.
- [MCE Controller 1.7 Released - Now Supports RS-232](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/12/19/mce-controller-1-7-released-now-supports-rs-232/) - By popular demand (shocking, I know), MCE Controller now supports RS-232 in addition to TCP/IP connections. This means that you can now control any Windows PC via the serial port. MCE Controller is an open source application I built for my home control system. It makes it easy to integrate Windows PCs with other devices
- [Goodbye GitHub: MCE Controller now on CodePlex](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/01/01/goodbye-github-mce-controller-now-on-codeplex/) - I love git. I love GitHub. But GitHub doesn’t seem to appreciate open source projects that require hosting more than source code. MCE Controller is an open source Windows app intended to be used by non-developers. This means it has an installer, online documentation, and requires a discussion forum for support for end users. GitHub
- [MCE Controller](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/11/mce-controller/) - In my post on XMLSerialization I mentioned that I was working on an app to enable control of MCE remotely over a TCP socket. I call this app MCE Controller and it's basically done. Here's what it does: Runs as a taskbar icon and allows you to view a log of what it's doing by
- [The Green Button](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/10/the-green-button/) - Wow. I'm impressed. It was just a week or so ago that The Green Button had issues with the hoster and now they have the site up and running on a new host. New look & feel. Most content appears to have moved over. Great work folks! The Green Button is a community website for
- [Thin Media Clients and Home Servers](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/16/thin-media-clients-and-home-servers/) - Ravi posted an article on www.hageeks.com on the topic of “thin media clients vs. thick media clients“. He's got the right general idea but fails to talk about the other end of the equation: The thing that is providing the content to these clients. The server. He says thin client is used to gain access
- [Windows Media Center Extenders](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/05/windows-media-center-extenders/) - Buy.com is now taking pre-orders for the Linksys WMCE54AG "Wireless A/G Media Center Extender"...aka Bobsled. I am so incredibly proud of this device. Way back in 2000 I sat down with Don Gray and Bob Atkinson to brainstorm the concept of using RDP to remote UI and AV from a media server. This concept has
- [Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 - gamepc.com review](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/07/windows-xp-media-center-edition-2005-gamepc-com-review/) - GamePC - Symphony Arrives : Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005GamePC.com reviews MCE 2005 and loves it."...MCE is still (in our opinion) the best home theater product currently on the market by a very large margin."Another "version 3 success" by Microsoft? I certainly think so, but then I'm highly biased.
- [Media Center SDK on MSDN](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/13/media-center-sdk-on-msdn/) - Via Ethan Zoller, the Media Center 2005 SDK is now on MSDN. http://msdn.microsoft.com/mce.Via this I also discoved Michael Creasy's blog which focuses on MCE. Cool.
- [Quick Review of Linksys EFG120 Network Attached Storage/Print server](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/12/quick-review-of-linksys-efg120-network-attached-storageprint-server/) - I purchased a Linksys EFG120 Network Attached Storage/Print server device to play with. You can buy these online for $675 or so (e.g. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=56-124-001&depa=1). The Linksys page describing the product is at: http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=35&prid=555. Summary: The EFG120 is a expandable 120GB NAS device with a built-in print server. It includes drive bays for 2 removable IDE
- [I need a new printer](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/17/i-need-a-new-printer/) - My trusty old Epson Stylus Ex printer has died. Looks like the black print head died and I'm skeptical getting it serviced would be worth while given its 5 or 6 years old… Actually sounds like a great excuse to buy a new gadget! Our other printer is an HP G85xi mutli-function. Does a fine job
- [Quenching your printer's exotic thirst](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/17/quenching-your-printers-exotic-thirst/) - This news.com/NYT article sure hit home. I didn’t say so in my post last night about needing a new printer, but the whole reason I discovered my printer wasn’t working was my daughter had an emergency with her science fair project. Her display board required a few items printed out on tabloid sized (17x11”) paper and
- [My contributions to the evolution of mascara in Windows UI](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/29/my-contributions-to-the-evolution-of-mascara-in-windows-ui/) - Raymond has a fun story about "The evolution of mascara in Windows UI". Reminded me of my early days of Windows programming. Before I was at Microsoft (and for a bit after) I developed a few (mildly successful) shareware applications for Windows. I think I was one of the very first people to apply 3D
- [First Darth Vader and now Simon](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/07/01/first-darth-vader-and-now-simon/) - I Am A Cheeseburger (http://mfdh.ca/) is an immensly talented author who has been publishing some very creative things on various “Blogs”. I first discovered his Darth Vader's Blog this spring and now am thoroughly enjoying Simon of Space, a science fiction adventure published as a blog. Really great stuff. Read it.
- [Seriously, read Simon of Space](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/07/16/seriously-read-simon-of-space/) - I wrote about it before, but it warrants more attention: The online SciFi novel being presented as a blog titled Simon of Space is simply fantastic. Start reading it today at http://simonofspace.blogspot.com. Every day I look forward to a new installment, and each one is as good or better than the previous. I can’t wait
- [Simon of Space is compete!](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/09/22/simon-of-space-is-compete/) - Simon of Space is complete. The last chapter has been posted. I’m shocked that the major outlets (/., BoingBoing, etc…) have not picked up on this phenomenon. http://simonofspace.blogspot.com You can now order a printed book version: http://mfdh.ca/simon_of_space/ Read this book; it is that good.
- [Book: Sun of Suns: Virga](https://blog.kindel.com/2006/12/24/book-sun-of-suns-virga/) - Found this book via Boing Boing and ordered it along with several others for reading over Christmas in Colorado. With the power outage, I had the chance to get through it last week. All in all it's a pretty good read. The idea of an “inside out” world where the Sun(s) and the people live
- [Hacking the Kindle](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/06/17/hacking-the-kindle/) - When I left my Amazon Kindle on the airplane after I arrived from Taipei last week I realized that someone finding it would have no way of knowing it was mine. Fortunately Northwest Airlines knew I was sitting in seat 5B and let me know it was in the lost & found. I did some
- [King5 BillG Interview/Story](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/13/king5-billg-interviewstory/) - Dennis Bounds of King5 News (Seattle) interviewed BillG in the CES booth over the week. I posted a still I took during the interview on Monday. I finally got a chance to watch the interview (it is posted on the King5 website). We loaded the demo home server boxes in the booth up with personal
- [Questions Answered](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/16/questions-answered/) - Over on the discussion thread for my Channel9 video I just posted answers to some of the questions people have been asking about Windows Home Server...
- [One Man (keeps) Shouting](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/08/one-man-keeps-shouting/) - Rick has posted several more parts of his ongoing series on Windows Home Server based on his discussions with me. He's up to “Part 4“ as of today: Part 1 - Security of Data, User Privacy Part 2 - User Management Part 3 - Business/Marketing Part 4 - Technology Enjoy...
- [Scoble says the buzz has died?](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/05/scoble-says-the-buzz-has-died/) - First, I think the idea of having a conversation via blogs is funny. In his post today Robert says “I hope to interview Charlie Kindel (he runs the Home Server group) when I visit Seattle later this month...“ Since he didn't send me email with a request to meet, I guess I'm suppposed to reply
- [Cheesburger Brown...rediscovered](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/18/cheesburger-brown-rediscovered/) - Those of you paying attention will remember Cheesburger Brown. He's an insanely talented sci-fi author and artist who, two years ago, penned Simon of Space as well as Darth Vader's blog. Simon of Space was originaly written in the form of a daily serial where each chapter was posted as blog entry every day. When
- [A Transparent Buzz](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/30/a-transparent-buzz/) - Man there's been a buzz around transparency lately... I honestly don't have any insight into some grand plan at Microsoft about blogging and transparency. I can only point to my own personal experieces, and I have a timely example: Last week a member of my team posted to the Windows Home Server Team blog a
- [The connections are eerie](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/09/25/the-connections-are-eerie/) - Via my regular browsing of blog searches for Windows Home Server related stuff I came across this poor guy's extremely sad story of data loss. http://adams-allegory.blogspot.com/2007/09/weve-lost-everything.html First connection: He should have had a Windows Home Server. Second connection: As if to make himself feel better he adds a funny video from YouTube to his post.
- [Book Review: Spook Country](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/09/07/book-review-spook-country/) - Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome. All phenomenal stories. Some of my favorite reads. The Difference Engine & Pattern Recognition: I never finished them. They just didn't resonate with me. But I still will buy anything William Gibson writes and give it a go. I just finished his latest novel, Spook Country and here
- [Book Review: Halting State](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/12/10/book-review-halting-state/) - This was my first Kindle book. That's right Charlie Kindel bought a Kindle. I have to say it's getting annoying having everyone saying my name... Here's my quick review of Halting State by Charles Stross... The big idea is an interesting one: the future world where MMORPG gaming becomes so ubiquitous that the following happens
- [Great car photos by Sandro](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/07/17/great-car-photos-by-sandro/) - E-Type Jaguar Originally uploaded by smenzel An old co-worker of mine, Sandro Menzel, has been doing an amazing job capturing fine automobiles and then doing really great digital touchup. Check out his Flickr collection here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smenzel/
- [Mini Book Review – Use of Weapons (Kindle Edition)](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/03/03/mini-book-review-use-of-weapons-kindle-edition/) - I just finished Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons on my Amazon Kindle 2. First book I read (actually I started it on my original Kindle and finished it on the Kindle 2). I don’t think I’ve read a Banks book before so I’m not sure where all the context around the characters is, but
- [Book: The Dead Hand – The Untold Story of the Cold War…](https://blog.kindel.com/2010/02/06/book-the-dead-hand-the-untold-story-of-the-cold-war/) - I haven’t posted a book review in a while. Not because I haven’t been reading, just because I’ve been lazy. My most recent book was The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David Hoffman. I had heard about this book in a mention on a
- [Book Review of a Book You Can’t Find](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/18/book-review-of-a-book-you-cant-find/) - My wife was loaned Narrow is the Way – Why I Defected from Russia by Sergei Sazonov via her book club. She said I’d enjoy it. I read it. I loved it. I went online to find it to recommend it to others. And found nothing other than a Library of Congress citation. The book
- [Coping with the OSS command line on Windows](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/01/coping-with-the-oss-command-line-on-windows/) - Long time (23 years?) Windows user here. I’m not leaving Windows anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. But I do have a Macbook Air. Parallels lets me run the best apps, whether they are Mac apps or Windows apps, on one desktop. For example I’m writing this blog post using Windows Live Writer, the
- [Update: Coping with the OSS command line on Windows](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/03/25/update-coping-with-the-oss-command-line-on-windows/) - A few weeks ago I wrote about Coping with the OSS command line on Windows. In that post, I argued that the Mac is far better for dealing with the current crop of OSS development technologies that rely on the command line, such as Git, Node.js, Ruby/Padrino, and so forth. My argument is based around
- [Doing git Dev on Two Machines](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/18/doing-git-dev-on-two-machines/) - I prefer coding on my workstation (30” + 24” LCDs, fast, great chair, etc…). But sometimes want to hack on my laptop (an MBA) when I’m out and about. Here’s my workflow. I am posting this for two reasons: It’s complex enough that regularly forget how to do it. I rely on random Bing searches
- [You Want to Buy my '78 Toyota FJ40](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/21/you-want-to-buy-my-78-toyota-fj40/) - UPDATE (1/15/2013): SOLD! 1978 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser 'Uglina' One of the nicest, original Land Cruisers you will find on the planet. Rust free. Almost all mechanical components replaced or refurbished. Head to http://www.uglina.com for details.
- [Car Blogs](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/12/03/car-blogs/) - I'm a car nut. For the last 7 years my passion has been about my '88 Porsche 911 Carrera coupe and my '95 BMW 540 M-Sport 6-Speed. It's high time I started posting the occasional blog entires about my cars. You'll find these posts under the Car category...While reading posts on the M-Sport mailing list
- [Extreme auto paint care](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/07/16/extreme-auto-paint-care/) - In 1997 I had "Stongard", a clear 3M film applied to the lower 12" of the hood and other leading edges of my 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera to protect the paint. After 11 years the film started to yellow and corners were coming up in spots so I had it professionally removed (to avoid risking
- [Porsche 911 Gauge Removal](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/07/10/porsche-911-gauge-removal/) - My 1998 Porsche 911 Carrera has several unique factory options including sunroof-delete and 15” Fuchs (most ‘88s were ordered with 16” Fuchs). When I purchased it in 1997 I needed to replace the tires and because I was autocrossing I appreciated the slightly lower gearing provided by the 205/55R15 (F) and 225/50R15 (R) that were
- [BendPak: Shockingly Great Customer Service](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/04/15/bendpak-shockingly-great-customer-service/) - A while ago I posted about how much I love Amazon.com’s customer service and I frequently tweet about great service I receive when out and about. Great customer service should be the norm, but sadly that does not seem to be the case. So when I encounter Shockingly Great Customer Service I want to scream
- [Griot’s 3” Orbital Polishers Compared](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/13/griots-3-orbital-polishers-compared/) - I recently decided I needed a 3” orbital polisher to compliment my Flex 3401 6” Random Orbital polisher that I’ve used for years when polishing the finish on cars. I couldn’t decide whether to get the Griot’s 3” Random Orbital (which is electric) or the Griot’s 3” Pneumatic Orbital (which is air powered). So I
- [How to install a 2 port USB power adapter in an ‘87 BMW](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/04/21/how-to-install-a-2-port-usb-power-adapter-in-an-87-bmw/) - For some reason BMW forgot to put USB power sockets in my '87 535is. In addition, while the JVC stereo the previous owner installed has a USB port, I use it for a memory card for music. Lastly, the cig lighter socket in these cars is "always on". For these reasons I decided to do
- [Powder Skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/25/powder-skiing/) - This week I'm in Canada on my annual Cat Powder skiing trip. My buddy Erik and I have been doing this (along with a bucnh of other guys) for 6 years. We go to this place called Cat Powder Skiing (www.catpowder.com/indexcatsi.htm) in Revelstoke, BC. It takes us about 8 hours to drive directly from Seattle
- [Cat Skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/04/cat-skiing/) - Wow. My cat skiing trip was amazing. This was the 6th year I've done it and while the conditions were not as good as they had been in the past, the experience was still unbelievable. Now I have the task of updating my Revelstoke web site with all of the pictures (145+) and movies (45+
- [Heli-Skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/03/15/heli-skiing/) - I’m currently near Valdez Alaska, heli-skiing in the Chugach mountain range. All I can say is Wow. Two pictures to illustrate. My buddy Kevin took both of these.
- [Sigh. Ski season is over.](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/03/29/sigh-ski-season-is-over/) - I had planned on this being an epic ski season. I hurt my back in the fall (burst disk S1–L5, bulge in L4–L5) and thankfully avoided surgery. I vowed to get my core in shape so I’d have a great ski season. I busted my butt at the Pro Club…I even did a bunch of
- [First Ski Day of 2007](https://blog.kindel.com/2006/12/24/first-ski-day-of-2007/) - Family went skiing for the first time this year tonight at Steven's Pass. I burst my S1/L5 disc in my back a few months ago and I just had another cortezone epidural injection yesterday. I was feeling close to 100% so I decided a little mellow night skiing with the fam would be a good
- [Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT)](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/08/muscle-activation-techniques-mat/) - God did a great job engineering our bodies. But I think he put the B-team on the design of the spine and the knees. I, knock on wood, have not had serious problems with my knees, but my back is another thing altogether. Like many of you I have a bad back. Both the discs
- [Back from Heli-Skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/03/21/back-from-heli-skiing/) - What a great trip. We went with www.valdezheliskiguides.com. There were some technical difficulties (we were grounded for 3 days due to an “incident” having to do with a rotor blade striking a sign), but in the end I got a ton of amazing, very steep, powder skiing in with my good buddy Kevin and saw
- [The BEST Pacific Northwest Snow Report Website](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/12/07/the-best-pacific-northwest-snow-report-website/) - http://carismata.com/snowreportsA great summary of Crystal, Stevens, Mt Baker, Whistler, and Alpental. Works very well from Windows Powered Smartphones and Pocket PCs.I've been using this since early last season and it's just great.Below is a live pic of Steven's Pass. When I posted this it was snowing...what's it doing now?
- [Live Security Camera Feeds with Windows Media Services 9](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/27/live-security-camera-feeds-with-windows-media-services-9/) - When I built my house a few years ago I installed several video cameras for security monitoring. Until recently I was only capturing still images from these. I archived the still images and published the most recent via a URL on my website allowing me to see “the latest” while away from home. I've been
- [Great article on Personal Storage](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/09/29/great-article-on-personal-storage/) - ExtremeTech has a great new article titled New Strategies for Personal Mass Storage. I've been working on a longish post/article on personal storage that I hope to have done in a week or so. This ExtremeTech article is great background material.While you're waiting for me to post my diatribe on storage consider this:Some time after
- [Storage at Home - How to store that precious data - Part 2](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/03/storage-at-home-how-to-store-that-precious-data-part-2/) - Use High Quality Drives“Enterprise” class drives, typically with SCSI or Fibre channel interfaces, are tested more thoroughly at the factory (and have longer warranties to prove it). The problem is these drives are significantly more expensive than consumer drives, use interfaces most home users don't have (SCSI or FC), and typically have much lower capacities
- [Storage at Home - How to store that precious data - Part 1](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/03/storage-at-home-how-to-store-that-precious-data-part-1/) - Many, many enthusiast/geeks like myself have huge storage needs. I currently have the following data on my home network:200GB of WMA 9 Lossless music (“backups“ of my CD collection). 30GB of WMA 9 128kpbs music (re-encoded of above for access by my portable players). 1TB of home video captured from Hi8 tape to DV format
- [Wireless Woes](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/06/10/wireless-woes/) - My 802.11b wireless network drives me nuts. I bought a new Linksys G AP because I was experiencing drop-outs with my 4 (that's right 4) other APs. I set the new AP up (in B mode only) is less than 10’ from my notebook, with no other access points or wireless devices enabled (except my neighbor who gives me a
- [Page 23](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/21/page-23/) - From Larry Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 23. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. "Right," I said. "And in Star Wars, no one was from Earth, so everyone, technically, was an alien." This is from Agent to The Stars by
- [Source Control](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/23/source-control/) - Tonight I moved my source code out from the under the control of Visual Source Safe to Source Gear Vault. Even though I'm a single developer I really like having all my source stored in a source control system. It allows me to have “undo”, to be able to go back and build/update old versions
- [Spring](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/22/spring/) - It's the time of year again for the sun to start showing here again. That means fun yard projects! Man, do I have a list of things to do this year: Get the sprinkler system up and running again. I started this today. I fired it up (my in-lake pump got bumped around during a
- [Technology Complexity](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/02/technology-complexity/) - Mostly when I read Don Box's blog I say to myself “Hmmm, interesting. I didn't know that. I wonder how long his hair is these days?” What he's working on (Indigo) is interesting to me (it was my former life), but it's not where my passion currently lies. Today Don posted a piece as a response
- [Premise and .NET](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/16/premise-and-net/) - Premise Systems has been sold (to an unannounced, but apparently BIG, buyer) and they have released preview versions of both thier Hardware and Services Development Kit (HSDK) and MiniBroker that are .NET based. I've spent some time playing with both the new HSDK.NET and Minibroker.NET and the productivity difference is stunning. It took me weeks
- [Ray Ozzie on WinFS & Longhorn](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/25/ray-ozzie-on-winfs-amp-longhorn/) - One of my favorite industry visionaries, Ray Ozzie, has written a great note in his blog on WinFS titled "640KB ought to be enough for everyone". Interesting read. He references Jim Gray (another of my geek heros) and points to an old but topical presentation on the trends in storage. Jim gets it.
- [Check constraints in SQL Server](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/25/check-constraints-in-sql-server/) - This goes in the "here's something I learned today" bucket. I was working on my ASP.NET based photo gallery sample/experiment and realized that I needed to ensure that the names of images I stored in the database couldn't contain illegal filename characters. This is because I allow the user to specify a path like http://imgsample/P51.jpg
- [Web based photo gallery using SQL](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/03/10/web-based-photo-gallery-using-sql/) - In an entry last November I noted that I was enjoying ADO.NET and ASP.NET so much that I'd have another go at writing a web based photo gallery app that stored the images in SQL. I had most of it working by the end of the year, but my cat ski trip to Canada gave
- [My Home Control System Overview](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/07/my-home-control-system-overview/) - This post describes the systems in the house we completed in August 2002. I get quite a few people asking me about what I did in the house, and instead of re-typing it yet another time, I’ve decided to write it down completely. [Updated October 5, 2011 with some new details.] The first thing I
- [My Premise to Crestron Bridge is now ready for beta testing!](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/10/my-premise-to-crestron-bridge-is-now-ready-for-beta-testing/) - Head on over to http://www.kindel.com/Default.aspx?tabid=31 for details. The driver is now called the Kindel Systems Premise External Control Processor Bridge. I renamed it because it is actually completely generic and not specific to Crestron at all. It can be made to work with other external RS-232 attached home control processors that support a text based protocol and
- [Interfacing Premise with Crestron](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/07/interfacing-premise-with-crestron/) - I've developed a solution for integrating Lantronix' Premise Home Control Software with Crestron. I did this for my own home and am now considering what to do next with the code. I'd be interested in hearing from people who have thoughts on this... Basically my Premise driver (written in C++ using the Premise HSDK) implements what
- [CodeView: Another Blast from the Past](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/12/codeview-another-blast-from-the-past/) - A post on the Windows Off Topic mailing list today on multi-monitor reminded me of the fun we had debugging Windows 3.0 applications. In the early DOS and Windows days (I did this with Windows/386 and up) you could have both a EGA, CGA, or VGA adapter and a Hercules monochrome adapter in your system. The
- [The Bomb In My Garden](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/17/the-bomb-in-my-garden/) - It is a small world and I always get a kick out of discovering connections between seemingly unrelated people and events. A few weeks ago I received a mailing from my high-school alma-mater, The Webb Schools of California, that was the typical “send us money” thing. It contained an article on Kurt Pitzer who
- [Old Man's War](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/05/03/old-man-s-war/) - I wish I could read more books. I love reading. That’s the problem. I start a book, and if it’s any good, I read it cover to cover in one sitting. Even if it takes me 2 days. Instead of fixing this by being more discliplined about putting books down, I’ve taken the stance of
- [Bourne](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/08/05/bourne/) - I've always been a huge fan of Robert Ludlum. I started reading his books when I was in middle school. I don't think the Bourne trilogy are his best works. I think The Osterman Weekend was my favorite. But with the Bourne Ultimatum coming out as a movie this week I felt I needed to go
- [Book Review: Scorpion Down](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/10/29/book-review-scorpion-down/) - In 1987 I was an intern at IBM Federal Systems Division in Manassas, VA. I was working on testing the software for the AN/BQQ-5D bow-mounted spherical array sonar system for the SSN 688 Class (Los Angeles) fast attack nuclear submarines. This was shortly after Tom Clancy had written The Hunt for Red October, one of
- [Kindle update](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/06/07/kindle-update/) - Wow, has it really been since December that I last blogged? I guess I've been busy... Those of you paying attention (not that I actually believe there are very many of you) will probably understand what I've been so busy with. It's probably been the hardest 6 months of my career. But hard work pays
- [Best Free Sci-Fi...Ever!](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/08/11/best-free-sci-fi-ever/) - I don't understand. I keep blogging about Cheesburger Brown and his amazing sci-fi books but he remains un-discovered. You would have thought this blog, which is read by billionsdozens of people, would have elevated him to Asimov status by now. Oh, well, I'll just keep trying. Seriously, his stuff is really good and almost all
- [You Can Buy the Amazon Kindle 2 Now!](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/02/07/you-can-buy-the-amazon-kindle-2-now/) - It looks like Amazon is very close to announcing and making available a 2nd generation Kindel electronic book device. Did you know you can pre-order it now!?! As you know, I love my Kindle. Besides my phone and laptop it is, by far the electronic gadget I use the most an is easily my favorite.
- [Amazon Kindle for the iPhone Review](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/03/06/amazon-kindle-for-the-iphone-review/) - Amazon is brilliant. They released a version of their Kindle reader for the iPhone the other day and it’s just brilliant. Wow. I have an iPhone (that I currently don’t use as a phone; my job requires that I play with other phones) and I immediately downloaded it to check out. It is very cool.
- [Kindle DX Review](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/06/13/kindle-dx-review/) - Yesterday my new Amazon Kindle DX arrived and here are my initial impressions. I’ve owned a Kindle since November 2007 when they were first released. We currently own 4 of them: CJ has an original, Julie has a Kindle 2, and I now have both a Kindle 2 and the new DX. The moment Amazon
- [Peter F. Hamilton](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/06/13/peter-f-hamilton/) - Last year I discovered sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton and have now read the following books by him on my Amazon Kindle 2: The Night’s Dawn Trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction The Neutronium Alchemist The Naked God Pandora’s Star Judas Unchained The Void Trilology The Dreaming Void The Temporal Void It’s taken me a while to
- [Books I read in 2009](https://blog.kindel.com/2010/02/06/books-i-read-in-2009/) - Mostly writing this for my own (future) benefit… These are the books I read in 2009 with ratings/categorization: Most were read on my Amazon Kindle (some on the DX, which I review here, others on my Kindle 2). ***** means loved it. * means I hated it. Science Fiction - By Iain M. Banks (Blog
- [Books I read in 2010](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/03/19/books-i-read-in-2010/) - Lame that I have not posted anything since last year’s post on the books I read in 2009. But whatever… Below are the books I read in 2010. I’m posting this mostly for my own documentary benefit. Maybe you’ll find it useful and find some gems to read. Title Author My Rating Comments Consider Phlebas
- [Some of my Favorite Quotes](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/20/some-of-my-favorite-quotes/) - "A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.” - Hans Selye "Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it." - Alan Perlis "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making
- [What to do With Your Old Kindle](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/09/28/what-to-do-with-your-old-kindle/) - We now have quite the collection of various generation Amazon Kindle Book Readers in our household. I purchased the original the day Amazon announced it and have purchased at least one of every subsequent model. Today I ordered one of each of the new Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, and Kindle Fire. I’m sure my
- [Books I read in 2011](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/26/books-i-read-in-2011/) - Mostly for my own documentary benefit every year I recap the books I read. Below is the 2011 edition. You can find previous editions here: 2009, 2010. If you are like me, I bet you’ll appreciate being exposed to stuff to read. Five stars means YOU MUST READ. One star means do not waste your
- [The Five Big Guys](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/15/the-five-big-guys/) - I’m working on writing up my thesis on the future of the consumer technology business and have convinced myself that there are 5 companies that stand to dominate. I call them The Five Big Guys. This post lays the ground work for that thesis by discussing these 5 companies. In 1989 I read the tea-leaves
- [Facebook is like a Brick](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/06/facebook-is-like-a-brick/) - At my Future of Mobile talk at Thinkspace last week, someone asked me what I thought of Facebook’s future. I came up with an analogy for explaining my perspective, and have since developed it further. “All the big guys have potential energy. They are objects with mass at altitude. Apple, Microsoft, and Google’s altitude comes
- [Businesses Buy Differently](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/02/28/businesses-buy-differently/) - My post on Why Nobody Can Copy Apple has become one of the most read posts I’ve ever written (thanks @gruber). Commenters are asking me “Can you describe more what the behaviors are that are different when building for business vs. consumers?” There are many, but central is the sales motion: the approach and process
- [1929 Jennings ‘Dutch Boy’ Quarter Play Slot Machine](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/01/21/1929-jennings-dutch-boy-quarter-play-slot-machine/) - In the '50s my father & grandfather came across about a dozen slot machines that had been unearthed from a building excavation in Chicago. Out of the pile, they were able to restore a couple of them. I remember my grandfather's at their house in Grand Rapids. It was a nickel based unit and he
- [I'm Betting on Control4](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/08/02/im-betting-on-control4/) - Previously I blogged about revamping the home control and entertainment system in my home. I decided to go with Control4. I mean REALLY go with Control4. First, I’ve been having a professional premium smart home installer (Wipliance) completely revamp my home with Control4 products. Second, I’ve decided to join Control4 as Senior Vice President of
- [Have Specific Conversations, not General Conversations](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/08/09/have-specific-conversations-not-general-conversations/) - If you are discussing a topic with colleagues, it’s almost always better to have a specific conversation instead of a general conversation. General ConversationSpecific Conversation“We need to figure out how to scrub all open bugs.” Followed by a lot of non-specific debate...“There are 42 open bugs. 42 bugs fit on one screen in Excel. Lets
- [Have a Plan (With Dates)](https://blog.kindel.com/2019/04/18/have-a-plan-with-dates/) - By putting in just a *little* more effort & being planful (with dates) leads to better delivery of results and earns trust.
- [A revolution is underway](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/05/19/a-revolution-is-underway/) - Soma's post announcing Popfly got me thinking. He uses the word "evolution". I say it's a revolution. Over 25 years ago I was part of a movement in the computer industry and didn't even realize it. I was just a kid doing things on my Apple ][ I didn't realize I had no business doing. I
- [Be Either an App or a Platform, Not Both](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/08/24/be-either-an-app-or-a-platform-not-both/) - If you think the thing you are building is both an “app” and a “platform” you will fail. Oh, and if you think it’s going to be a just a platform, you will fail too. (Update: April 6, 2012 – I updated this post with some typo fixes and minor tweaks). A recent story on
- [My Best Hiring Stunt To Date](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/27/my-best-hiring-stunt-to-date/) - I’ll be doing some serious recruiting soon. I will only hire the best, and attracting the best requires them noticing jobs are available. This got me thinking about “best-practices” for driving recruiting. Watching others lead, and as a manager myself, I’ve seen that no one way is “the right way.” As a manager, it depends
- [Brand is a Critical Part of the End-to-End Experience](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/01/brand-is-a-critical-part-of-the-end-to-end-experience/) - A commenter on another of my posts asked me to explain further why I think "brand is as much a part of the end-to-end experience as the user interface, device, OS, apps, and services." I took it as a challenge to actually get my thoughts on the subject down in writing. So here we go… I
- [Don't Build APIs...](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/18/dont-build-apis/) - My first job at Microsoft was providing developer support for the early Windows SDKs. To do my job well, I spent hours studying the Windows SDK documentation, the Windows source code, and writing sample applications. I then spent hours poring over customers’ (such as Lotus, WordPerfect, and Computer Associates) code helping them figure out what
- [Apps Must Be Cross Platform](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/07/24/apps-must-be-cross-platform/) - This is a copy of a guest post I wrote for GeekWire. View the original here. Maybe there are a few Robert Scobles out there who still believe that a significant number of successful apps in the future will be unique to any one client platform. Connected experiences across all devices is where the growth
- [A Mouse and Keyboard Don't Make a Hardware Company](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-dont-make-a-hardware-company/) - Microsoft is not, and never will be, a hardware company. Please don't go off saying "what about Xbox or mice & keyboards?" Microsoft does not really want to build & sell hardware. Surface is akin to Google's Nexus; a 'north star' product intended to lead OEMs in the right direction. "With Surface we wanted to
- [Paying Developers is A Bad Idea](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/26/paying-developers-is-a-bad-idea/) - The companies that make the most profit are those who build virtuous platform cycles. There are no proof points in history of virtuous platform cycles being created when the platform provider incents developers to target the platform by paying them. Paying developers to target your platform is a sign of desperation. It means developers have
- [MileLogr is already worth $1674 – Applying Lean Startup](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/17/milelogr-is-already-worth-1674-applying-lean-startup/) - Last Fall while driving to a meeting I was struck with this idea for a service that would help self-employed people and small businesses track automobile mileage in order to get a tax deduction. As I was leaving the Borg I found myself driving all over hell and back meeting with business partners, startups I
- [Concierge Home Technology](https://blog.kindel.com/2018/05/24/concierge-home-technology/) - I had written the following in my blog post announcing my departure from Amazon: I am hiring a CEDIA-level installer to completely refit my home automation system and I will project manage that. A few weeks ago someone at Control4 tweeted the following, which I replied to with a tweetstorm. This post expands on the
- [My Apple ][ Tribute](https://blog.kindel.com/2017/04/17/my-apple-tribute/) - It’s safe to say that the Apple ][ personal computer had a great an impact on my life as any other factor, short of the fact that I was born. This is my tribute to the Apple ][ on it’s 40th birthday. In 1978 I spent a day at my cousin’s factory in Grand Rapids,
- [Be Excellent At Saying No](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/09/11/be-excellent-at-saying-no/) - Steven Sinofski has written another great post on his “Learning by Shipping” blog. In this one, titled “8 steps for engineering leaders to keep the peace” he focuses on things an engineering leader can do when his or her ‘manager’ asks for too much. Solid advice, but it only addresses half the problem (the engineering
- [Bubbly Time: MileLogr has its first, real, paying customers!](https://blog.kindel.com/2013/02/19/bubbly-time-milelogr-has-its-first-real-paying-customers/) - When we launched MileLogr (www.milelogr.com) yesterday we didn't know how long it would be before the first real customer actually paid us for a report. It happened today! We have monies! It is time for a serious glass of champagne! We got some great press on the launch too. Todd Bishop of Geekwire wrote: The
- [Fragmentation Is Not The End of Android](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/14/fragmentation-is-not-the-end-of-android/) - The fragmentation of Android is very real and very problematic for end users, developers, mobile operators, device manufacturers, and Google. However fragmentation does not mean Android is going to “die” or “fail” as some seem to think. On the contrary I think we can count on Android playing a significant role in our world for
- [Eye-Fi: Shockingly Great Customer Service](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/18/eye-fi-shockingly-great-customer-service/) - I try to write blog post whenever I encounter truly great customer service. I think it’s important to call out companies who clearly get it; those who provide Shockingly Great Customer Service. I have owned Eye-Fi cards since they came out. Last year I highlighted them in my annual gadget gift guide. Wi-Fi should be
- [Four Things I Learned in Jordan](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/12/03/four-things-i-learned-in-jordan/) - I wrote a guest post for the Huffington Post on Dec 7, 2012. You can read the full post here, but here’s the TL;DR: If the Middle East can stay relatively stable for just 10-15 more years, entrepreneurship will have a major long-term positive impact on the social-economic future of the region. As the Middle
- [Word as a Blog Writer? Finally?](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/11/04/word-as-a-blog-writer-finally/) - I have fallen in love with Windows Live Writer as a blogging tool. I love how it reads & writes to my blog seamlessly, how it renders my posts within the editor as they'll be posted, and how it handles images and other uploads easily. So I've been pretty disappointed that there is no version
- [Mobile is Mobile](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/18/mobile-is-mobile/) - In the past, I’ve instinctively associated “mobile” with “phone”, as in something that has cellular voice as a primary function. But most of the world has, apparently, decided to include tablets (but, curiously, not laptops) in this definition. I did an informal poll on Twitter. I asked: HiveMind Poll: Answer Yes/No: When someone says "mobile"
- [Computer Vision Explosion](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/11/04/computer-vision-explosion/) - We are about to see an explosion in the use of computer vision systems. If you thought Kinect was cool or you think Creepy Cameraman is scary, the technology right around the corner, and its impact on our lives will blow you away. We’ve all dreamt of the day when natural user interface (NUI) systems
- [Why Win8 Picture Password is Not Secure](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/11/02/why-win8-picture-password-is-not-secure/) - Windows 8 includes a slick feature intended to make it easier to log in: Picture Password. You select a photo that will be displayed on the login screen and then setup a simple gesture that you “draw” on the image to login. It makes quickly logging in easy, especially if you use strong passwords and
- [Has MS Finally Gotten Through To DELL?](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/11/01/has-ms-finally-gotten-through-to-dell/) - I complained on Twitter to @MichaelDell that I could not buy a DELL XPS One 27 with “Microsoft Signature”. Today I got tweet from @MaryFadAtDell that read: @ckindel We have committed not to install bloatware on our XPS systems with Win8. I'll email you details on what's pre-installed.— Mary Fad (@MaryFadAtDell) November 1, 2012 The
- [If This Looks like This in 3 Weeks, We’ll Know The Answer](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/31/if-this-looks-like-this-in-2-weeks-well-know-the-answer/) - This is the VerizonWireless Smartphone device page as of today. This is the “Featured” view, which means Verizon decides what devices appear at the top of the page. In about three weeks, if there aren’t a few Live Tiles a the top of the page then the canary is dead.
- [All of these Operating Systems are Fundamentally the Same](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/26/all-of-these-operating-systems-are-fundamentally-the-same/) - Another video interview I did for GLG Research at CES (another one here). In this one I babble about mobile device OSs and voice a few of my opinions about the current mobile operating system battles. Near the end (3:15) I talk about the point I care about the most: Users will start to care
- [Wanting To Be The Other Guy](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/17/wanting-to-be-the-other-guy/) - Below is a segment from a video interview I did for GLG Research at CES. In it I discuss the friction that exists between OEMs, carriers, and OS providers in the mobile ecosystem, complimenting my previous post “Fragmentation Is Not The End of Android” as well as the one where I explain the challenges Microsoft’s
- [LockerGnome Guest Post on Mobile Fragmentation](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/22/lockergnome-guest-post-on-mobile-fragmentation/) - Today LockerGnome ran a guest post by yours truly titled “The Fragmentation of Mobile Fragmentation”. This is a follow-on post to my post focused on Android in January, intended to express my opinions on the broader mobile ecosystem. (Note, as of right now, the post on LockerGnome does not have my byline. They are working
- [Revisiting the Mullet: Why Surface is not a MS Business](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/21/revisiting-the-mullet-why-surface-is-not-a-ms-business/) - A few weeks ago a bunch of people (who should know better) were running around like chickens with their heads cut off yelping “Surface will be $199!” Exasperated, I wrote a post1 describing just how idiotic a concept that would be. I showed that even if Microsoft was serious about Surface being a real business,
- [I Want A Surface Keyboard for My iPad](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/21/i-want-a-surface-keyboard-for-my-ipad/) - I had two hilarious encounters with the new Microsoft Surface advertising this weekend. One is just funny. The other is telling. Here’s the ad: Microsoft’s first real TV spot for the Surface Funny item #1: Multiple people asked me if, at 13 seconds in, I had a little cameo: No, that’s not me. I know
- [The Market Sides of the Mobile Ecosystem](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/18/the-market-sides-of-the-mobile-ecosystem/) - I’ve been using a taxonomy to describe the market-sides of the mobile ecosystem that looks like this: Up until now, my writing on the mobile ecosystem has been focused on smartphones, because their adoption and sales dominated. Given the season of the tablet has started, I need to make some points about how tablets
- [MileLogr now Supports Outlook.com!](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/06/milelogr-now-supports-outlook-com/) - On September 10, Stefan & I launched the beta of MileLogr. We got some great feedback and have just launched a major update. MileLogr is a Calendar App that Creates Mileage Logs. MileLogr integrates with your calendar and creates mileage logs for taxes, expense reports, and timesheets. Automagically. For Free! The new update incorporates the
- [Motorola is a Sunk Cost (and a sinking Titanic)](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/05/motorola-is-a-sunk-cost/) - M.G. Slieger wrote, regarding the horrific “deal” Google got in buying Motorola: Google bought the Titanic. And they bought it when it was already underwater. – @parislemon This is cute (and true), not the right analogy because it makes people think Google bought Motorola for Motorola’s business. They did not. Google paid $12.5B to become
- [The Conversation Amongst MSFT, NOK, VZW, & ATT](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/10/04/the-conversation-amongst-msft-nok-vzw-att/) - NOK to MSFT: We really need to get all major carriers at WP8 launch. MSFT to NOK: Agree! Let’s make it happen. NOK to VZW: Do the 920 for launch! VZW to NOK: Well, ok. Maybe. MSFT to VZW: Do WP8! VZW to MSFT: One word: Kin. MSFT to NOK: Hey, Elop, beg them please!
- [Why Sr. People Leave MSFT in September](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/28/why-sr-people-leave-msft-in-september/) - It's September. No surprise that my FB stream is full of Sr. Microsoft people announcing they are leaving the company. — Charlie Kindel (@ckindel) September 28, 2012 I tweeted about a bunch of senior MS people announcing their departures from Microsoft on Facebook and got a bunch of questions from my followers about why this
- [What Kindle Means for Android](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/09/27/what-kindle-means-for-android/) - [This is a copy of a guest post I wrote for GeekList. Find the original here.] I still think Amazon would be stupid to build a phone. But I no longer believe they won’t do it. Within the next 6 months Amazon will go big with their own Android based smartphone. And when they do,
- [The Future of Mobile](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/08/26/the-future-of-mobile/) - Video & Slides from this talk are here: http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/08/28/my-the-future-of-mobile-talk-videoslides/ I will be presenting my thoughts on the future of mobile this Tuesday, August 28, 2012, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm at Thinkspace in Redmond. If you’ve read my blog you know I have some pretty strong thoughts about how the mobile industry actually works. My
- [A $199 Surface? I Will Wear a Mullet](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/08/29/a-199-surface-i-will-wear-a-mullet/) - A few weeks ago I jokingly tweeted “If MSRP on Surface is really $199, I will shave my head.” It was a joke, because as you’ve probably already figured out I’m pretty much bald. But I was completely serious that I think the idea of Microsoft selling the 10” Surface with a MSRP of $199
- [My "The Future of Mobile" Talk (Video/Slides)](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/08/28/my-the-future-of-mobile-talk-videoslides/) - I just wrapped up my “The Future of Mobile” talk at www.thinkspace.com. I had a great time giving the talk and the event was sold out. Thanks to all that attended. While I’ve written about the content and I talk about the topic with consulting clients regularly, this was the first time I had given
- [Congrats to the Seattle Angel Conference and Illumagear!](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/06/01/congrats-to-the-seattle-angel-conference-and-illumagear/) - Yesterday we held the first ever Seattle Angel Conference. At the event, Illumagear, a scrappy Seattle startup with a vision for radically improving construction worker safety took home a check for $100K. By all measures the conference, as Bob Crimmins told me after the event, goes in the “Win Column”. We had a terrific turnout,
- [Use of Multiple Calendars in Google Calendar](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/05/25/use-of-multiple-calendars-in-google-calendar/) - I don’t personally use Google Calendar but for building MileLogr, I needed some information on how others do. I decided to run a quick online survey to see if I could get some data. Tweeting this survey to my ~8500 followers on Twitter (I had to beg a few times) resulted in 120 responses over
- [Seattle Angel Conference](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/05/16/seattle-angel-conference/) - The Seattle Angel Conference event will be May 31st. Over the last two months, the investors and the applying companies have been in a due diligence and filtering process. We would like to ask for your help to spread the word about this project and invite you to the event. As I’ve written previously, a
- [Get Off Your Butt and Start Startuping](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/03/21/get-off-your-butt-and-start-startuping/) - This message is for those of you who are either “Stuck” in a great paying job at BigCo in the Seattle area (Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, etc…) Living near Seattle & trying to figure out what to do with your life after “calling in rich”. In either case, I’m guessing, you are: Smart. Love technology.
- [Formally Advising The Buddy Platform](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/24/formally-advising-the-buddy-platform/) - I love startups. I love developers. I love Seattle. Given that my own startup will be based in the Seattle area (news on that coming soon!) it is important to me that the Seattle startup scene thrives. I’ve thrown myself out to the community and have been blown away by all the great people and
- [I Won a Samsung Galaxy S II - My Review](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/12/09/i-won-a-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-my-review/) - At the Xconomy Mobile Madness event on Tuesday I won a Samsung Galaxy S II in a raffle. Irony much? The last time I used an Android device “for real” was in early 2009. At the time I was just getting going on building the Windows Phone 7 app platform and I wanted to make
- [Learn Angel Investing in Seattle](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/07/learn-angel-investing-in-seattle/) - It wasn’t long ago that I couldn’t even spell “Angel Investing”. I knew I wanted to get involved in startups. I wanted to put some of my money to work in a way where I could be ‘close to the action’. But I had not idea where to start. And then I was doing angel
- [When the Technology We Create Is Meaningful](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/04/when-the-technology-we-create-is-meaningful/) - My mom passed away yesterday. She was 83 and it was her time. We’ve been expecting this to happen for a while and we are grateful she went calmly and peacefully. We’re writing an obituary and I’ll post it here when it’s ready. I have 4 wonderful sisters. All of them, except Susie, were able
- [Looking for a Software Developer Intern](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/11/22/looking-for-a-software-developer-intern/) - I am working on a whacky startup idea (unrelated to any of the startups I’m advising or my yet to be announced ‘real’ startup). It’s highly speculative at this point and while I’m willing to put time into it, I'm not willing to spend much money. Someone suggested I try to get a CS student
- [Seattle Startup Internship Opportunities](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/02/01/seattle-startup-internship-opportunities/) - When I was in college I did an internship with a big company (IBM; working on submarine sonar systems) and learned amazing things (including that I didn’t want to work for IBM ). I also did a short internship for a professor writing Fast Fourier Transforms in FORTRAN. In addition to running my own little
- [Prevent another SOPA](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/20/prevent-another-sopa/) - Yay. “We” beat SOPA. It snuck up on us but we activated and used our superpowers to defeat it (yes, I contacted my reps & I blacked out cek.log on the 18th). But ask yourself this: How in the frak are these idiots in office at all? The only way to prevent another SOPA is
- [WP Engine: Techmeme’d proof WordPress hosting](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/17/wp-engine-techmemed-proof-wordpress-hosting/) - I’ve moved this blog from blogging platform to blogging platform over the years. Each time my primary motivation for moving was to learn a new technology. Last year I moved from Community Server, hosted on my own Windows Server box in my home to WordPress running on a Linux VM hosted on Amazon AWS. I
- [Use the 520 Bridge Toll to MAKE money](https://blog.kindel.com/2012/01/03/use-the-520-bridge-toll-to-make-money/) - If you are self-employed or travel for business (not commuting) the IRS will allow you to deduct 55.5 cents a mile. The only trick is you need to track the business miles you drive and be able to produce a detailed log for your return. I have a whacky product idea that will make it
- [John Cleese Promotes Computer Backup](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/26/john-cleese-promotes-computer-backup/) - From adrants.com: “While it's about five minutes longer than it needs to be, this video, created in January to promote LiveVault disk data back up, thankfully, features John Cleese who can make anything amusing. In the video, Cleese, taking on the persona of Institute for Backup Trauma Director Dr. Harold Twain Weck (ha, ha, get
- [365 Days of Photos](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/12/31/365-days-of-photos/) - On January 1, 2011 I started a project of posting a photo to Flickr, Facebook and Twitter every day. Today I concluded this project with the photo below: I did this #photo365 project mostly as an experiment: to see if I could actually find enough interesting photos in my collection to last an entire year.
- [Charlie’s Gadgets Worth Getting Guide 2011](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/12/13/charlies-gadgets-worth-getting-guide-2011/) - My personal tagline is “If it makes noises or moves electrons I dig it.” To that end I’m going to start a yearly tradition of writing up a set of Christmas gift recommendations. Here’s the inaugural edition. Amazon Kindle I purchased my first Kindle the day Amazon announced them in 2007. Since then the various
- [Wanna Invest in the Seattle Startup Community?](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/11/05/wanna-invest-in-the-seattle-startup-community/) - Do you love the idea of startups? Do you want the Seattle Startup scene to thrive? Do you want to invest in early stage startups but don’t know how to get started? I’m committed to helping make Seattle a world leader for creating new technology businesses. I’ve jumped in by doing my own angel investing,
- [How Often Do Startups Join Together?](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/05/how-often-do-startups-join-together/) - In talking to and mentoring dozens of startups I’ve noticed that many of them are in similar spaces; working on the same general problem, yet not quite competitors. Almost complimentary. This raised a question for me: In the history of the modern startup universe, how common is it for really early stage (say 2-5 people
- [When programs just work](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/12/when-programs-just-work/) - I don't get to write much code anymore. When I do I get an amazing amount of joy out of it. Tonight I realized that my MCE Controller, which I hacked up to enable me to control my Windows Media Center machine via Ethernet from my Crestron system has simply "just worked" since I released
- [Filtering My Angel Investments](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/10/03/filtering-my-angel-investments/) - I love early stage startups. So much so, that I will sometimes invest my own money when the startup is not much more than a few bright people with an idea. This is called angel investing. I have the following currencies I can offer early stage companies: Money Time I decided long ago that I
- [Crowd Sourced Design Works](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/09/26/crowd-sourced-design-works/) - I have updated the look and feel of the Kindel Systems, LLC website and this blog using a crowd source design. And I like how it turned out. Now that I am no longer working for a big corporate giant I have a bunch of endeavors I am working on (including my yet-to-be-announced new company).
- [Divorceable Offense](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/divorceable-offense/) - Todd Headrick is the product planner for Windows Home Server. He was the first person I hired onto the team way back... Here's Todd doing a great demo of Windows Home Server at CES. Near the end you'll hear him utter the phrase “Divorcable Offense”. I coined this term to help make the point about
- [Interesting Flickr Effect](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/11/interesting-flickr-effect/) - I post photos to my blog via Flickr. It is super easy to do and automatically takes care of scaling the images and providing a link to hi-res versions on Flickr. At CES I took a phone cam pic of the “hockey puck” Windows Home Server prototype and posted it via my blog (this
- [Who I'm watching](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/13/who-im-watching/) - After keeping the secret for so long, I'm probaby over doing it by constantly searching live.com (and google, sigh) for “windows home server” and seeing what people are saying. However, I keep finding jewels. Here are some of my recent favorites that I'm now watching: http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/category/windows/server/home-server/ http://www.blogpulse.com/rss?query=%22home+server%22 http://www.techmeme.com/070108/p30#a070108p30
- [Hello from the Serengeti](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/18/hello-from-the-serengeti/) - Day 1 - Arusha to Serena 162 Originally uploaded by ckindel. The "tent camp" we are staying at here in the Sergengeti has a PC with satellite "broadband" access. I was able to sequester it long enough to upload this image and type this post. So far, the sights have been pretty unbelievable. Lions, giraffes,
- [ǝɯ ʍolloɟ](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/07/14/ollo/) - Every few months I make a renewed effort to do the "social networking" thing. I download the latest tools, poke around, post status updates, read other people's stuff, and basically try to "live it". I've been pretty consistent with using Facebook regularly. Last week I jumped in again and discovered that the tools and the
- [Stop using Google!](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/08/11/stop-using-google/) - [Update June 15, 2009 – Updated with Bing info] Use Bing! Bing is sooo much better. Yes, I know "Google" has become a verb but the reality is Bing’s search results are (finally) better. Live's mapping (http://maps.bing.com) is far superior. Better directions, better satellite imaging, better local information, better looking, and easier to use. The
- [Windows Live Photo Gallery rocks](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/03/08/windows-live-photo-gallery-rocks/) - Lacrosse 2009-03-07 203 Stitch Originally uploaded by ckindel I love digital photography but not so much that I feel like I need to become an Adobe Lightroom whore. I just like really simple tools that just work. I've found Windows Live Photo Gallery simply Just Works for 100% of what I do with digital photos
- [Behind the Code](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/04/12/behind-the-code/) - The Microsoft Channel 9 Behind the Code series is managed by the Technical Community Network group within Microsoft and is intended to capture the stories of Microsoft’s most influential technical employees. Last fall I was honored to be invited to do an interview for Behind the Code and that interview was recently published. I think
- [Make your own parts](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/16/make-your-own-parts/) - From the this is just plain cool department: eMachineShop allows you to design any physical "part" you want using a CAD program you download and then submit the plans to them. They will machine the part using any number of processes and ship it to you. You can do quantity one or 1000s. You can use
- [RSS Aggravation](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/11/rss-aggravation/) - So far I think they all suck. What am I talking about? RSS Aggrigators. I've been bouncing back and forth between RSS Bandit, Google Reader, Outlook 2007, and several others for the last few months and none of them make me happy. A critical requirement for me is to be able to access my feedlist,
- [More photos from Africa](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/03/17/more-photos-from-africa/) - Air Originally uploaded by ckindel. I'm now about 1/3 of the way through organizing and filtering the over 4000 photos we took in Africa. I still haven't geo tagged any, but I appreicate the pointers I have gotten from people on good tools to use. Click here to see my Flickr set containing a sampling
- [From the Archives: STOP 0xC2 aka BAD_POOL_CALLER Blue Screen and bad memory](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/19/from-the-archives-stop-0xc2-aka-bad_pool_caller-blue-screen-and-bad-memory/) - In 2004 one of my computers had a bluescreen with a STOP 0xC2, BAD_POOL_CALLER fault. It turns out it was a bad memory chip. I wrote a blog post about it here: STOP 0xC2 aka BAD_POOL_CALLER Blue Screen and bad memory It is amazing to me that after all this time, my blog post remains
- [June 22, 1991](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/06/22/june-22-1991/) - On this day 20 years ago I married my lovely bride Julie in Golden, CO. It’s been an amazing ride so far and I am excited for what the next 20 years bring. I love you Julie!
- [The House Kindel Built Burns Down](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/05/10/the-house-kindel-built-burns-down/) - My great grandfather, Charles J. “CJ” Kindel, founded the Denver Bedding Company in 1900. He sold that company and founded the CJ Kindel Bedding Company in St. Louis in 1904. In 1912 ground breaking began on a new factory focused on wood working in Grand Rapids, MI. My grandfather (Charles M. “CM” Kindel) and great-uncle
- [Now using Wordpress](https://blog.kindel.com/2011/05/07/now-using-wordpress/) - This blog is now running on Wordpress. I’ve been meaning to move from Community Server (hosted on a server in my house) to something more modern & flexible (and hosted in the cloud) for ages. The desire to dig into the latest in Linux and cloud hosting finally drove me to actually do it. I
- [Back on Twitter](https://blog.kindel.com/2010/01/18/back-on-twitter/) - On April 4, 2007 I got on twitter to check it out. I didn’t see the value and bailed. Then in June of 2008 I gave it another try. At that time I was using @ckindel and I bounced between it being private and public. My use of twitter finally settled into one where I
- [Longer battery life for the Kindle 2](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/11/24/longer-battery-life-for-the-kindle-2/) - Today Amazon announced that they have released a firmware update for the Kindle 2 that dramatically increases battery life (from a perfectly fine 4 days to 7 days, even with wireless turned on). They also added native PDF support to the Kindle 2 (this was only previously available on the Kindle DX). I continue to
- [Kindle Tips & Tricks](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/06/15/kindle-tips-amp-tricks/) - Here’s a list of tips, tricks, and hacks for the Amazon Kindle that I’ve uncovered. Some of these are valid for the original Kindle and some are valid for the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. Keyboard Shortcuts Alt+Shift+M – Start a game of Minesweeper. While in the game you can press G for a version
- [Kindle Support](https://blog.kindel.com/2009/06/04/kindle-support/) - Amazon continues to impress me. This time it is their customer service. This week CJ somehow (he claims he has no idea how it happened…Really!?!?) broke the screen on the original Kindle I had handed-down to him. It was completely toast. At the same time I realized that my Kindle 2 was not working right
- [I Love Amazon.com](https://blog.kindel.com/2008/08/11/i-love-amazon-com/) - I'm pretty vocal about products, services, and stores that I love. I'm just as vocal about those that frustrate me. I've had an iPhone 3G since last Thursday and, frankly, I'm frustrated by it. So frustrated that I'm composing a pissy review in my head that I plan on posting here soon. But I want
- [I want more life!](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/08/13/i-want-more-life/) - I like to like things somewhat off the beaten path. But when asked what my favorite movie of all time is, like almost everyone else I know who has even a smidgen of taste, I say "Blade Runner". No need for me to wax poetic about how great it is. I mean it has been
- [Am I a twit?](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/04/04/am-i-a-twit/) - I'm getting old and I think some of this newfangled technology stuff is beyond me. But that doesn't stop me from trying to understand (and use it). I learn by doing. I can't learn by reading. So I started blogging mostly to learn how blogs and blogging really worked. I run 6 servers in my
- [Back from Africa](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/25/back-from-africa/) - Day 1 - Arusha to Serena 162 Originally uploaded by ckindel. We're finally back from our amazing trip to East Africa. I thought I'd be able to jack in during our lay over at the Amsterdam airport and start to catch up on mail and start organizing photos. Almost 4000 of them. But it didn't
- [Jetman: A human jet airplane](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/02/14/jetman-a-human-jet-airplane/) - There are few things cooler than this. Ever. I want one of these. Wow. http://jet-man.com/playervideo.swf?video=jetman2007.flv
- [He bit him!](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/16/he-bit-him/) - I have not watched the 3rd and 4th hours of 24 that were on last night. Just didn't have the time. But I did watch the first two hours on Sunday nght. All day yesterday the vampire scene kept popping into my head. Each time I burst out laughing. He bit him! He killed him
- [Alec Saunders taught me craps](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/09/alec-saunders-taught-me-craps/) - Heh, heh. I just noticed Alec Saunder's post linking back here. I am not a big gambler and I really only get to Las Vegas once a year...for CES, but my gambling history is deeply rooted in an amazing experience I had in 1999 or 2000 (I don't remember which) when Alec taught me how
- [Bill in the booth](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/bill-in-the-booth/) - DSCN0242 Originally uploaded by ckindel. Here's BillG doing an interview in the Windows Home Server booth at CES.
- [Bill's Keynote and the "missing segment"](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/08/bills-keynote-and-the-quotmissing-segmentquot/) - I didn't realize that the feed of Bill's CES keynote where he announced Windows Home Server had a section “blanked out”. I've gotten a lot of quesitons from people about what was in that section. Well, the "blocked" portion of the keynote was a video commercial staring Bill Gates that was in the theme of
- [screen clipping](https://blog.kindel.com/2007/01/04/screen-clipping/) - screen clipping Originally uploaded by ckindel. Kenny Kerr has developed a great screen clipping tool that works great on Vista. I find myself doing a lot of screen clips lately; epecially when submitting bugs.I've used OneNote's screen clip capability and it works pretty well, and the new Vista snip tool is OK, but I find Ken's
- [Flickr](https://blog.kindel.com/2006/04/06/flickr/) - This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.
- [Online purchase to my door in 13 hours! ](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/10/28/online-purchase-to-my-door-in-13-hours/) - On Weds. evening I decided we needed to replace our old printer with a new one. My daughter was frustrated with the problems we were having with the existing one and it was hindering her homework activities. So I sat down at the PC, went to hpshopping.com and purchased a Photosmart 3310 all-in-one specifying next-day
- [The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/10/17/the-rough-guide-to-sci-fi-movies/) - Via BoingBoing I find out that John Scalzi (author of some great Sci-Fi and a former classmate) has released The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies. Sounds cool.
- [Blogging from Flickr](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/07/31/blogging-from-flickr/) - Classic Kona Look Originally uploaded by ckindel. Playing with Flickr tonight... I just discovered that Flickr lets you post blog entries from Flickr to just about any blog engine, including .Text. So this is a test to see if it really works... This is Kona, our Black Lab.
- [CATCHPA is Hip](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/06/09/catchpa-is-hip/) - Comment spam has been driving me nuts. I implemented a blacklist based fliter a while back which stopped a bunch of it, but ever week 100's of bogus comments got through because the blacklist was not updated fast enough. So as of last night I have implmented a CATCHPA solution on the comment posting form. CATCHPA
- [Darth Vader's Blog](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/29/darth-vaders-blog/) - http://darthside.blogspot.com/ Definately on my blog roll.
- [6mbps for less $](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/26/6mbps-for-less/) - I’ve been having some issues with Comcast lately. First my bill seemed high and second they kept declining pay-per-views. Of course we were trying to watch pay-per-view movies on our family movie night (Saturday) and when I would call Comcast (based on the on-screen message) they’d say “you have some billing problem, we can’t access
- [Visual INTERCAL?](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/16/visual-intercal/) - I’ve been a programmer for 20+ years now, so you can imagine how dumb I felt today when I first read about the INTERCAL programming language. INTERCAL was invented in 1973 by Jim Lyon and Don Woods. I learned about INTERCAL today because I just hired Jim Lyon to my group and he wrote about
- [If you overclock don't blame us for your crashes](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/04/12/if-you-overclock-dont-blame-us-for-your-crashes/) - Raymond has a interesting blog post today about the number of crashes we’re seeing from the online crash analysis we do on the dump files that are submitted when you say “Send Error Report” in Windows. The net-net of it is: If you overclock your machine don’t blame software companies when the software you are running
- [My flickr.com photos](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/03/24/my-flickr-com-photos/) - Given all the photos we took in Alaska last week (488 between Kevin & I) I decided to actually try out a few of the latest online photo sites. I tried both smugmug.com and flickr.com. Besides allowing you to store your photos online, these sites encourage community around photos by supporting simple metadata tags on
- [I want my 'Road kill' ](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/25/i-want-my-road-kill/) - An MSNBC article says animal lovers are all up in arms over this stuff. I think it’s just about the funniest thing I’ve seen recently and I want some! "It sends the wrong message to children, that it's OK to harm animals. And that's the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft," said
- [Dell 24" LCD for $1,199](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/17/dell-24quot-lcd-for-1199/) - Ohhhh… check out the new Dell 2405FPW Wide screen LCD that ExtremeTech just reviewed. I am such a sucker for big, high-resolution displays. I was one of the first on the block to have an NEC 6FG back in the day; I still have the hulking monster too! Right now I have a Dell 20”
- [MindManager feature request](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/17/mindmanager-feature-request/) - Here’s a feature request for the team at MindJet responsible for the fantastic MindManager X5 product I wrote about last week; presented as a mind map of course!
- [Bluetake BT500 Bluetooth mouse and Windows XP SP2](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/16/bluetake-bt500-bluetooth-mouse-and-windows-xp-sp2/) - I have a Dell Insipron 8600 laptop with built-in Bluetooth support. The touchpad is not bad, but when I'm doing heavy work in MindManager I am moving the cursor around a lot. I wanted a mouse I could take with me to meetings and the road... For a while I carried around a tiny USB mouse someone had given
- [Mapping your mind with MindManager X5](https://blog.kindel.com/2005/02/09/mapping-your-mind-with-mindmanager-x5/) - A few months ago a I happened to glance over at a co-worker’s laptop during a meeting. He had some app running that was showing a wild looking spider like diagram that I had never seen before. I asked him what the app was and he said “MindManager. I use it for keeping track of
- [Shadow copies - a peek under the hood](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/12/15/shadow-copies-a-peek-under-the-hood/) - Adi Oltean talks about one of my favorite Windows technologies: VSS in Shadow copies - a peek under the hood. Amazingly powerful stuff. He also talks about the command line interface for VSS and bunches of other really good Windows internals stuff on his blog. Such good stuff that I've added him to my blog roll.
- [Best optical illusion yet?](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/12/06/best-optical-illusion-yet/) - Mike Hall posted probably the best optical illusion I've ever seen. Wow.In the same spirit of ridiculous humor he says I used to be one of his heros (although I think he was being serious).
- [My motherboard died](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/23/my-motherboard-died/) - Nothing's free. Ain't it true. A while back I wrote that I had received a free Epox 8KDA3+ mobo and Athlon 3700+ CPU and that I was building a new workstation at home around it. Well I built it, and it was working fine. Mostly. I had a few weird crashes that I thought I
- [Community Server Beta One](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/18/community-server-beta-one/) - Community Server (formerly .Text) Beta One has finally been released. I'm downloading and installing it now at work to use as an internal team blog. I love .Text and can't wait to see how Scott has improved things in this new version.
- [How Many Gadgets Do You Carry?](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/15/how-many-gadgets-do-you-carry/) - Furrygoat asks how many gadgets people carry. Seems like his model is similar to mine. I carry a SmartPhone (I have the new Audiovox SMT 5600 which I just love), a 16MB USB keychain (hooked to my Microsoft card key), and when at work I carry my Acer C110TCi Tablet PC to and from meetings.In my
- [Polar Bears win it all!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/15/polar-bears-win-it-all/) - The girls did it! We won the LWYSA Girls U-11 championship today, beating the Cougars 2-1. We also beat the Cougars yesterday 3-1 (the Cougars then won the bottom bracket by beating the Shooting Stars this morning).In fine fashion the girls had prepared a jug of water and let me have it after the game. What
- [Polar Bears win the Sportsmanship Award!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/10/polar-bears-win-the-sportsmanship-award/) - The Polar Bears won the sportsmanship award for U-11 Girls Division 1 Soccer!!!!We came out on top, BY A LARGE MARGIN.But the summary is the Polar Bears got 206 points and the next team got 174 (the Illusion). As a reward, LWYSA pays for a party at Illusionz. Even if we don't win the Tournament,
- [Polar Bears are one game away](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/09/polar-bears-are-one-game-away/) - I coach my daughter's soccer team (11 year olds) in the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association (LWYSA). The team name is the Polar Bears and these girls are amazing! I am blessed to have such a great bunch of girls on the team. They all have great attitudes, work hard, and more importantly play hard.
- [Visual Studio 2005 + PUM == danger](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/11/06/visual-studio-2005-pum-danger/) - We're busy doing a bunch of prototyping on my double-super-secret project at work and I decide I need to chip in and help. I haven't used Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) yet, so I figure I'd build a little app we need using it.I sat down Wednesday night and started hammering away...Not a complex app, basically
- [Lunar Eclipse - Wow!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/28/lunar-eclipse-wow/) - I was driving the kids home tonight and we saw the Lunar Ecilpse. When we first saw it the Earth had cast a shadow across about 75% of the moon. We raced home so we could get out the binoculars and take a closer look before it was completely "red". We got home in plenty
- [How to Build a PC for the future](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/20/how-to-build-a-pc-for-the-future/) - ExtremeTech has a great article full of advice on bulding a PC today that can be upgraded in the future. Their general advice is "don't build yesterday's PC but instead bet on the new standards like PCI Express". Matches my opinion exactly. Of course, when I built the PC I'm typing this on about a month ago
- [Mount St. Helens Photos](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/12/mount-st-helens-photos/) - Via Furrygoat, I found a great USGS website with tons of really good pictures of Mount St. Helens. Definitely worth checking out.When I see these photos I'm reminded of two things: How gawd-awful the pictures of the 1980 eruption were and this amazing Earth that God created.
- [Doing the Multimon](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/12/doing-the-multimon/) - ExtremeTech discusses "Doing the Multimon". Great article. Too bad they don't talk about the very cool Ultramon, which gives you great fine grained control over your multi-monitor setup including different desktop images, screen savers, and more.Even more agregious is the fact they don't talk about MaxiVista which allows you to turn any other PC (particularly
- [Sony Vaio type X](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/07/sony-vaio-type-x/) - Engadget moans thatthe price of the ultra-cool Sony Vaio type X is too expensive. Sure it is expensive today but soon this level of sophistication in PC hardware will be broadly available at much move competitive prices.
- [Iain Blogs about Version 1.0 products](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/07/iain-blogs-about-version-1-0-products/) - Iain (who as moved to http://blogs.msdn.com/iainmcdonald) has a great post based on an old doc written in '95. The topic of the post is how to avoid the pitfalls of a Version 1.0 product. Good stuff.
- [Ichiro's 262 Hits](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/10/04/ichiros-262-hits/) - When I was in Japan in June I had a free day and decided to do some sightseeing. I decided to take a train somewhere that would have tourist attractions outside of Tokyo. The concierge at my hotel suggested Hase and Kamakura.So off I went. I love trains, and I love train stations, but I
- [Tipping cows](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/09/29/tipping-cows/) - I heard a silly discussion on the radio (Ken Schram...sigh) this morning about a bunch of poeple in the blogsphere up in arms about tipping baristas at Starbucks. Inane.While I was listening to this I was buying my latte at Jitters (I hate Starbucks; their coffee is too boring; they are the McDonalds of coffee) I
- [Is your Exchange 2003 server generating spam?](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/20/is-your-exchange-2003-server-generating-spam/) - Ouch. I was up until 3:30am last night because I noticed my Exchange 2003 server was sending a ton of messages. I noticed this because I was trying to diagnose another, unrelated, problem and happened to look in the outbound Queue in Exchange System Manager. My SMTP connector showed several hundred queued outgoing messages. Given
- [SBS 2003 Rocks!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/12/sbs-2003-rocks/) - Yankee Group says 86% of midsize and smaller companies use Small Business Server.Microsoft's Small Business Server is a remarkable hit, said a research firm Monday as it released the results of a survey that claimed an astounding 86% of small and midsize businesses either use the server bundle or are planning to deploy it. "Who
- [Stargazing: Astronomy software is just amazing](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/11/stargazing-astronomy-software-is-just-amazing/) - When I married my wife Julie I inherited some close family friends of hers: the Bisque family. A big family with so many names that I'll just focus on the 4 brothers who I have deep respect for: Steve, Tom, Dan, and Matt.In 1991 when I first met the guys at Software Bisque, they had two
- [Building a new desktop](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/08/11/building-a-new-desktop/) - Like many enthusiasts, I tend to build my own PCs rather than purchase them from OEMs. A few times in the past I've gone the other way and bought a DELL, HP, or other brand-name PC, but in the end I always regretted it. Invariably I would crack open the case right away anyway to
- [Blogging pictures](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/14/blogging-pictures/) - I typically just use .Text's standard edit form for creating my posts, but it does not deal with images well (see my posts from Asia and you'll know what I mean. I've tried both BlogJet (in fact I'm typing this in BlogJet) and w.Bloggar, but they don't do what I want either.What I want is
- [Enthusiast Geeks](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/07/14/enthusiast-geeks/) - I've been thinking a lot about technical enthusaists lately. And I'm really struggling with it. The problem is I'm a super-hard-core technical enthusiast. Probably close to as hard core as you can get. And I know many, many people just like me. This makes me biased. Add to that the fact that I work for
- [Tokyo!](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/06/26/tokyo/) - I arrived at the Narita Airport about 2 hours ago after a 2 hour flight from Shanghai. We then took a train (the “Narita Express”) to downtown Tokyo, about 1 mile from the hotel. The train took about 90 minutes. However, the REAL train story happened yesterday! In Shanghai they have the world’s only
- [Peking Duck](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/06/22/peking-duck/) - Last night our hosts took us out to dinner at a Peking Duck restraunt here in Beijing where we had some amazing Chinese fare, including Peking duck. I sampled duck tongue (yuk), duck liver pâté (yum), an amazing orange peel cod dish, and more. The first picture is the disgusting duck tongue. Makes me ill
- [In Beijing](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/06/20/in-beijing/) - Last night at about 10pm local time I arrived in Beijing China. We flew from Seattle to Narita/Tokyo and then to Beijing. This morning I woke up at about 6am, walked 3 mintues out the front door of my hotel (the Kerry Centre) and got a triple-grande-latte from Starbucks. Tastes just like home! I'll be
- [Geeks](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/30/geeks/) - First, it should be obvious that I consider myself a geek. I think I'm a pretty big geek. My sister Laurie is constantly calling me a geek; the funny thing is she thinks she's insulting me! But I don't hold a candle to Phillip Torrone who runs www.flashenabled.com. Wow. This is now one of my
- [Regex](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/22/regex/) - I'm still an absolute n00b when it comes to regex. Even after reading Mastering Regular Expressions. But man, is it powerful. Tonight my wife asked me to help her create name badge labels for an org she's in. All she had was an email that had a list of names like this: DI- PAID IN
- [Domain DFS from a non-domain joined client](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/21/domain-dfs-from-a-non-domain-joined-client/) - As I mentioned before I use DFS on my home network to help manage my storage resources. Almost all of my machines at home are domain joined. You get a lot of management benefits from doing this. You can make Windows Software Update Services (SUS) automatically apply patches to all machines, you can apply Group
- [I love Strong Bad](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/04/09/i-love-strong-bad/) - http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html Strong Bad is my hero.
- [Why do I do this to myself?](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/12/why-do-i-do-this-to-myself/) - I had my Crestron system talking to Media Center just fine. I had written an MD5 implementation required by the Girder iserver component, and although the solution was a bit of a hack, it worked. And well. But noooo. I have to make it work right. So I set about writing my own app that
- [I'm a hardware geek](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/12/im-a-hardware-geek/) - Well, actually, I'm just a geek in general. If it makes noise, has to do with moving lots of electrons around, or involves code I'm into it. And even though I'm mostly a software guy in terms of the things I create, I love learning and knowing about all kinds of hardware. There are a
- [Quick Reivew Creative Labs “SoundBlaster Wireless Music” ](https://blog.kindel.com/2004/02/12/quick-reivew-creative-labs-“soundblaster-wireless-music”/) - I purchased a Creative Labs “SoundBlaster Wireless Music” (the product name is in quotes!) to play with. $249 from Creative’s website. Creative’s website on this is here: http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=119&subcategory=121&product=9192 Summary: The SoundBlaster Wireless Music (which I will refer to as SBWM below) is an 802.11b (only) “digital audio receiver” or DAR that includes a bi-directional RF (not
- [Polar Bears Rock](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/16/polar-bears-rock/) - My daughter's 10 year-old soccer team (the Polar Bears) is playing for the championship tomorrow! Three weeks ago they started the tournament loosing their second game and going into the bottom bracket of 16 teams (it's a double-elimination tourney). For the past three weeks they have played incredibly hard and after winning two games today
- [Lego robot solves rubics cube](https://blog.kindel.com/2003/11/11/lego-robot-solves-rubics-cube/) - Way cool: http://jpbrown.i8.com/cubesolver.html

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- [work](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/work/)
- [happy](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/happy/)
- [happiness](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/happiness/)
- [success](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/success/)
- [attention units](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/attention-units/)
- [attention](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/attention/)
- [focus](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/focus/)
- [leaders](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leaders/)
- [leader](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leader/)
- [leadership](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leadership/)
- [leading](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leading/)
- [leading with purpose](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leading-with-purpose/)
- [merit badge](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/merit-badge/)
- [growth](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/growth/)
- [career growth](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/career-growth/)
- [bxt](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/bxt/)
- [customer business technology organization](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/customer-business-technology-organization/)
- [mental model](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mental-model/)
- [writing](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/writing/)
- [narratives](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/narratives/)
- [6-pagers](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/6-pagers/)
- [prfaq](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/prfaq/)
- [style](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/style/)
- [word](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/word/)
- [document](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/document/)
- [documents](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/documents/)
- [high standards](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/high-standards/)
- [planning](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/planning/)
- [cbto](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/cbto/)
- [reading](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/reading/)
- [mechanisms](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mechanisms/)
- [faq](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/faq/)
- [faqs](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/faqs/)
- [ownership](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ownership/)
- [leadership principles](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/leadership-principles/)
- [smart home](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/smart-home/)
- [diy](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/diy/)
- [cedia](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/cedia/)
- [control4](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/control4/)
- [savant](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/savant/)
- [crestron](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/crestron/)
- [lutron](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/lutron/)
- [snapav](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/snapav/)
- [owner](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/owner/)
- ["clarity of thought"](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/clarity-of-thought/)
- ["dive deep"](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/dive-deep/)
- [working-backwards](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/working-backwards/)
- [law](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/law/)
- [payments](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/payments/)
- [deliver results](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/deliver-results/)
- [earn trust](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/earn-trust/)
- [Amazon Leadership Principles](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/amazon-leadership-principles/)
- [Think Big](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/think-big/)
- [customer obession](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/customer-obession/)
- [mental models](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mental-models/)
- [mcec](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mcec/)
- [open source](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/open-source/)
- [code](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/code/)
- [home server](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/home-server/)
- [intercal](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/intercal/)
- [printing](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/printing/)
- [winprint](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/winprint/)
- [wmc](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/wmc/)
- [mce](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mce/)
- [windows media center](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/windows-media-center/)
- [windows home server](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/windows-home-server/)
- [whs](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/whs/)
- [quattro](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/quattro/)
- [subscriptions](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/subscriptions/)
- [firearms](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/firearms/)
- [tenets](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/tenets/)
- [project-management](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/project-management/)
- [pgm](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/pgm/)
- [ptg](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ptg/)
- [path to green](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/path-to-green/)
- [fonts](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/fonts/)
- [shareware](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/shareware/)
- [good intentions](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/good-intentions/)
- [broken windows](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/broken-windows/)
- [technical debt](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/technical-debt/)
- [cars](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/cars/)
- [interview](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/interview/)
- [debate](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/debate/)
- [ipsum lorem](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ipsum-lorem/)
- [ux](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ux/)
- [placeholder](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/placeholder/)
- [change](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/change/)
- [agent of change](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/agent-of-change/)
- [change agent](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/change-agent/)
- [D x V x F > R](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/d-x-v-x-f-r/)
- [crux](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/crux/)
- [podcast](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/podcast/)
- [carv](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/carv/)
- [skiing](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/skiing/)
- [flywheel](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/flywheel/)
- [virtuous cycle](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/virtuous-cycle/)
- [tidal wave](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/tidal-wave/)
- [ecosystem](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ecosystem/)
- [space](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/space/)
- [software defined radio](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/software-defined-radio/)
- [radio](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/radio/)
- [rf](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/rf/)
- [machine learning](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/machine-learning/)
- [ai](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ai/)
- [iot](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/iot/)
- [video](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/video/)
- [iwalk](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/iwalk/)
- [garage](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/garage/)
- [volunteer](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/volunteer/)
- [bold](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/bold/)
- [bmw](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/bmw/)
- [e28](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/e28/)
- [blade fuse](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/blade-fuse/)
- [torpedo fuse](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/torpedo-fuse/)
- [fusebox](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/fusebox/)
- [torpedo fuses](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/torpedo-fuses/)
- [spacefaring](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/spacefaring/)
- [multiplanetary](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/multiplanetary/)
- [earth](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/earth/)
- [life](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/life/)
- [dogs](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/dogs/)
- [mars](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/mars/)
- [taxonomy & lexicon](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/taxonomy-lexicon/)
- [taxonomy](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/taxonomy/)
- [lexicon](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/lexicon/)
- [innovation](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/innovation/)
- [invention](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/invention/)
- [coe](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/coe/)
- [correction of errors](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/correction-of-errors/)
- [biases](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/biases/)
- [fallacies](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/fallacies/)
- [bias and fallacies](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/bias-and-fallacies/)
- [toolkit](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/toolkit/)
- [ideas](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/ideas/)
- [working backwards](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/working-backwards-2/)
- [sbi](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/sbi/)
- [feedback](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/feedback/)
- [accountability](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/accountability/)
- [excellence](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/excellence/)
- [getting better every day](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/getting-better-every-day/)
- [program management](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/program-management/)
- [product management](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/product-management/)
- [project management](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/project-management-2/)
- [tpm](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/tpm/)
- [agents](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/agents/)
- [tui](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/tui/)
- [terminal.gui](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/terminal-gui/)
- [onboarding](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/onboarding/)
- [organization](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/organization/)
- [people management](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/people-management/)
- [plans](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/plans/)
- [hardware](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/hardware/)
- [words](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/words/)
- [toolbox](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/toolbox/)
- [clarity](https://blog.kindel.com/tag/clarity/)