We Wish You A VR-y Christmas

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So, the gift that keeps on giving at my house this holiday season is the Viewmaster Virtual Reality Starter Pack. It's basically Google Cardboard for kids. It works with any Cardboard-compatible smartphone and was easy to get up and running, then the payoffs just kept coming. I've been involved with VR since the mid 90's when I was coding "4D poems" in VRML. It seemed like … [Read more...]

Algolia: Super-powered Search In The Cloud Made Simple

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The other day, a colleague alerted me to an article on techcrunch about a new cloud-based search service, Algolia. Algolia will index your site and then provide an API to integrate search into your site with millisecond response times. The promised effect is not unlike OS X's Spotlight, including thumbnails and categorized results. I decided to check it out on this blog. I … [Read more...]

Crystal Knows (Me, Apparently)

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So, I was alerted to Crystal (https://www.crystalknows.com/) by a coworker. I'm always interested in where machine learning is headed. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical at first and the app kind of makes me sound like a jerk, but the more I read it, the more I think it's pretty accurate. The value that Crystal promises is insight into an individual's communication style … [Read more...]

Magic Just Means You’re Not Seeing The Source Code

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Warning: This post gets pretty detailed and bit-twiddly. So, if your eyes glaze over at the site of code, you may want to read my post about good things going on in comics, instead.  Spoiler Alert: My Kids Are Nerds There used to be a place called Magiquest at the local mall here in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. It was, basically, a LARP for kids - think Harry Potter meets … [Read more...]

Geektool And Wunderlist: Parsing JSON For The Desktop

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I am a big fan of GeekTool. For those not familiar, GeekTool is an OS X application that allows you to place "Geeklets" on your desktop. Geeklets come in 3 flavors: a file plugin to track the contents of a file, a shell plugin to run shell scripts and get the output, and an image plugin to load images. Each plugin has customization and layout options to allow you to create a … [Read more...]

The Coolest Stuff In Comics Right Now

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  I thought I'd take a break from the norm here and spend some time talking about another passion of mine: comics. If you like comics (or even if you don't, if you're into great story telling), there are a few runs going on right now that are some of the best I've ever encountered. Saga Brian K. Vaughan authored another great comic, "Y: The Last Man" a while back. I'd … [Read more...]

What Does Digital Commerce Mean?

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Commerce is changing at its core In fact, there's a fundamental shift in the very nature of what a product is. Products are in the process of transforming from artifacts to experiences. Golf clubs are no longer weighted sticks with which to hit a ball; they have embedded chips that integrate with software to help you analyze and adjust your swing. The club has gone from tool … [Read more...]

Thar’s Opportunities In Them Thar Challenges!

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I'm afraid this post is going to read like enterprise-grade Chicken Soup for the Soul, but I'm going to write it anyway, because I'm hoping to capture what has been a really great lesson from my current work. I am currently leading a proof-of-concept to test the delivery of some new capabilities in the firm. Everyone involved (from vendor to stakeholder) is very excited … [Read more...]