Author: ryanvis

Tom Petty died today, aged 66. I won’t claim to be a huge Tom Petty fan, but I’ve bought an album or two and sang along in the car to one of those songs everyone knows. I’ll  stream a lot of his catalog today to remember the songs I’ve heard once or hundreds of times.…

My work domain (an EDU) recently had Google Inbox enabled so I had a good chance to try it out. My personal email is relatively quiet and, I believe, doesn’t provide a good Inbox experience. Work is more active and requires actual management, something I’ve tossed many a tool at over the years. As part…

Evernote, for better or worse, is the best note-taking service for my needs. It works across all my devices/computers/modes. It’s fairly easy to get stuff into it. Hell, they even have 2-Factor authentication. The Windows app is a little clunky and my girlfriend and I have never been able to get shared notes to work…

In light of yesterday’s abysmal experience with Google Photos, I’ve been examining how much of my digital life is tied to Google. It’s a sobering list: Mail Calendar File storage (mostly taken care of) Blog Chrome Search history URL history Profiles Bookmarks Remote Desktop Identity management on dozens of sites Contacts Chat Map location information…

Note: See the end of this post for an update Posted on 10 Aug Google recently split Photos off of the lumbering, zombied body of Google+ into a pretty slick Service. The iOS app worked great, uploading everything, storage was easy to stay under caps, the algorithms creating some interesting Stories. I was a happy…

Today starts the Ann Arbor Art Fair (technically a collection of 4 art fairs that intersect at various streets and NO ONE but the individual fair staff care AT ALL about that technicality). Also, because Art Fair is essentially a people-watching event for locals, the inevitable scorecard emerged. I haven’t seen a new one in…

It happened. We sold the house, we closed, we moved. Hard to believe it’s been almost a month since we left Chelsea. I don’t miss the house at all. I’m sure someday I’ll have fond memories, but it’s a burden gone for the time being and I’m glad to have it behind me. That said,…

Ok, this page is something other. It’s not the blog, it’s also not my professional work. No one wants to read training materials, business plans, or requirements documents anyway (although, they’re pretty good). This is where I drop stuff—stories, pictures, illustrations… whatever I feel like sharing. Everything will be Creative Commons licensed in one form…

Our house is for sale (call our agent if you’re interested!). This is Day 50 of it being on the market. We thought we had plumbed the depths of ennui before this process began but we were so very, very wrong. To date, we’ve had about 12 showings, 2 open houses, and almost no interaction…

We still miss you, bud.