Matthew Hart's Blog

It started as a small dilemma, but has grown into a bit of an existential crisis. That probably sounds like a bit of hyperbole, and that's fair. But seriously, I ask you: which business card should I give you?

I have a really cool, challenging, and engaging position during the day. It even has a cool title that I'm pretty proud of-- Vice President. When its not a club that you invent with our kids, being a Vice President is a nice distinction. And it says it right on this little 2X3 piece of...

I wanted to go all-tablet. that's how this started.

I've written about my adventures in Android-land. My on again, off again affair with the cult of Apple. But this itch was... something different.

I have traveled extensively around the world for work, dragging with me, at all times, my trusty laptop. Right now, its a real beaut ofa 3 lbs, 15 inch retina display MacBook.

But. But.

You can'tput it in the pocket in front of you on a plane.

And I still have to switch to a virtual machine to run...

I've been working hard to get book 2 of my first fiction series, The Last Iteration, out the door. The novel was roughed in already, but when I returned to it after getting Book 1 out the door, I realized something:

It was total rubbish.

Okay, that's the harsh internal critic in me. But the truth sunk it: I needed to hack it to pieces. So I did, and I sent it over to my publisher so she can decide if its actually any good.

The whole process got me to thinking about editing.

Books are better w...

There's been plenty of coverage around the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, banning all telecommuting. Lots of people began speaking out on the subject, including my CEO. Lest you believe I have no opinion on this, fear not! For I do.

But it's not s a simple "she's making a mistake" opinion. From previous posts here, you will remember that I have worked from home for over a decade. I've been an individual contributor, I've been customer-facing, and I've run huge multi-national software groups. Al...

So, news on Last Iteration is beginning to, um, trickle in. First off, check out the press release as seen here at Times Union. I worked with Capscovil Books on the PR, which is sort of like a blurb, only also sort of even more information. If the blurb is a moody teenager who barely tells you anything, then a Press release is when you make that teenager put on a tie and make eye contact with strangers.

Also, reviews! Check out this one from a bonified stranger (and Internet of Things consort...

I've been asked a few times now what my novel, The Last Iteration of Dexter Maxwell, is really about. Sure, there's the blurb on the back of the book which you can read out on Amazonand BN.com. But as I explained on this blog a few weeks ago, blurbs are their own form of literature, laden with all kinds of crazy pressure to load in tight. Their like early versions twitter: how much can you pack into so few words?

But a blog by definition is a little bit more long form. And instead of telling...

So I'm three months into my non-iOS device lifestyle, and I'm here to tell you, I'm still living the dream.

Oh, wait. When a dream has a bunch of bad stuff in it, they call it a nightmare, don't they?

Let's start with my first Nexus 7: I came to discover the amazing feature called 'phantom touching.' This is when the device goes all haywire because it thinks your touching the surface when you are not, in fact, doing anything of the sort. The customer service asked me to reset my Nexus. Having...

I had an interesting experiment play out over the holidays. This was caused by the fact that I took some time off from work, but didn't go anywhere, and my kids had time off, and didn't go anywhere. And it got cold out-- real cold. So, me being the magnanimous father that I am, I took the usual restrictions off 'screen time' for the day. (Around my house, this is called "Junk-Out Day," which my kids understandably love.)

With unlimited, unrestricted access to screens, the question became, wha...

There's the blurb on the back of my novel, which you can read on Amazon here.

Then there's the blurb we wrote for folks in the Internet of Things group, which you can findhere, but I'm also including below. It's growing on me. It's made me realize that blurbs are like movie trailers: you can play up different parts to appeal to different interests.

Enjoy.

Any person's relationship with technology is, by definition, rather personal.

No, scratch that.

I should start with my organization challenges. I'm always trying to get too much done in too little time.

No, that's not right either. Hmm.

Okay, so here's the problem. Even trying to describe my relationship with Evernote is as baffling as trying to figure out what Evernote is actually for: I always feel like I'm starting in the middle.

You can check out Evernotehere, or if you have any version o...