September 2011
1 post
November 2010
1 post
Just Got Engaged!
I am the happiest person in the world right now! The love of my life — Amy Lynn Fox — just agreed to marry me! After dinner I took her to Cupid’s Span by the water in San Francisco. I dropped to a knee to take her photo and told her it would be more “artistic” if she turned away. I took the shot and when she looked back at me, I’d replaced the camera with a...
May 2010
4 posts
5 tags
2010 New Years Resolutions
I know… the year is already 1/3 over. I actually wrote these resolutions on a scrap of paper in India back in January, but only just got around to posting them. Climb at a V5 / 5.12 level Post to this blog at least once every two weeks Find a sustainable source of income Spend some time with all my immediate family Somehow fulfill my entrepreneurial spirit Do something (a book?) with the...
2 tags
I Should Have Started Twitter...
In a random quest to determine when I joined Facebook, I came across an email I sent to suggest@facebook.com back in September of 2005: The trend right now with computer savvy people is blogging, and I don’t necessarily think that facebook should become a blog. But maybe a part of one’s profile could be something like a short blog entry. There’s just no good place for people to say something...
4 tags
DIY Anything
About three weeks ago this dreaded “you need new brake pads” light came on in my car. I went into a local brake shop only learn that my car needed new front brake pads and rotors (cost: ~$400). Wondering if it had to be so expensive, I did a little research. Just minutes later I found a step-by-step YouTube tutorial on the exact job I had to do on my exact car. I watched the 10 minute...
4 tags
My Ignite SF Presentation
For anyone who doesn’t know, Ignite is a night of presentations on a variety of topics, with a twist. Each presentation is 5 minutes long and has 20 slides that automatically advance after 15 seconds. My first encounter with Ignite was at Ignite Boulder 2 in 2008 and from that day forward I knew that I wanted to give a presentation. I finally had that opportunity last week at Ignite SF at...
September 2009
1 post
Going Around the World
If you’ve found this site, there’s a good chance you already know this, but I’ve already left for SXSW. I’ll be traveling around the world with my girlfriend Amy Fox and won’t stop until I get to Austin for SXSW 2010 in March. Check out our tentative travel plan below, or just follow us on our travel blog at: http://withoutaguide.com
March 2009
2 posts
8 tags
Dave McClure: How to Pitch a VC
Last weekend I attended PresentationCamp in San Francisco. It was my first non-LaidOffCamp “camp”, and I was surprised (and flattered) that some people turned to me for guidance about how to run a camp. I personally tried my best to deflect questions to Dale Larson who I knew had much more “camp” experience than me. Anyways, I only managed to catch one of the presentations...
3 tags
LaidOffCamp SF was a Major Success
I’m in the midst of a much longer post on LaidOffCamp, but I wanted to share a few highlights of last weeks inaugural LaidOffCamp in San Francisco: Over 400 people showed up 35 Sessions were held by over 50 different presenters / facilitators Over 30 sponsors made the event possible Here are some of my favorite posts / articles / videos about the event: Great article from Michael Calore...
February 2009
1 post
9 tags
2009 Life Update
Note: This was intended to be released a few weeks ago, but do to some unforseen circumstances it is a few weeks late. So it’s finally 2009… As you may or may not know, 2008 was definitely a year of many changes for me. This time last year I was just getting settled with my girlfriend, Amy Fox in New York City. Now we’ve both moved across the country together and are living in...
January 2009
8 posts
2 tags
It's Official: LaidOffCamp is Coming to SF
For the last month, I’ve been planning an event called LaidOffCamp. It’s gone through a ton of iterations, but it’s finally at a point where I’m ready to announce it to the world. Please check out the site for details! ”LaidOffCamp is an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed & self-employed people (including entrepreneurs and startups) who want to share and interact...
4 tags
How to make your tab key work like it should on a...
If you’re a Mac user, then you probably get frustrated by the way the tab key functions (or should I say DOESN’T function). When navigating forms, instead of tabbing to drop down boxes or buttons like it would on a PC, the tab key will skip to the next text box or list (see example to the right). Fortunately, there is a simple solution built into OS X. Step 1: Open up your system...
6 tags
Getting Laid Off - Turning a Negative into a...
On December 3rd, at 8:45pm, I received an email requesting that I come to an “urgent, important meeting” the following afternoon with a partner I’d never met before. Given that almost every day I read about another company laying off some of its workforce, I immediately began “preparing for the worst”. The next morning I heard that someone in our New York office...
3 tags
To Auto-Follow or Not: Managing Your Twitter...
Just like most of the people reading this post, I use Twitter quite a bit (@hutchins). In the last few weeks I’ve noticed that the number of followers I have on Twitter has starting to pick up quite a bit (see why here). Anyways, it has left me in the middle of a major Twitter decision: does one follow everyone that follows them (auto-follow) or not. As I often do with most decisions I...
4 tags
2009 New Year's Resolutions
My resolutions for 2009… please hold me to them! Attend SXSW for the first time Get beyond the brainstorming phase for at least one startup Find some possible co-founders (hopefully some developers and designers) Travel somewhere new / exciting with my girlfriend Amy (Any suggestions? did Europe in ‘05, Asia in ‘07) Find a second client for my consulting work (so I...
8 tags
How to backup your Mac to Dreamhost with rsync
All Dreamhost hosting accounts now come with 50gb of free personal backup.I’ve been searching for a while on a good tutorial for this and couldn’t find one, so I thought I would make my own. 1. Setup passwordless login for rsync (can be skipped if you don’t mind typing your password each time you want to sync) Open terminal and type the following (press return after each line)...
2 tags
Random Twitter Phenomena
Over the past weeks I’ve noticed a few Twitter “Phenomenona” that I felt were worth sharing: After Kevin Rose said “ask me any question, and I will @ reply you back (for the next 20 mins, then getting dinner)”, over 1,200 people @replied him within those 20 minutes. I was sitting on the couch with @brianshaler and we were both amazed that so many people were so...
5 tags
iPhone vs. BlackBerry
Being the tech-geek I am, one of the first things I did at my “corporate job” was ask how I could set up email on my iPhone. Unfortunately, I was told that Monitor uses Lotus Notes (I knew that Lotus Notes existed, but I didn’t actually think anyone used it). Long story short, I had to get a BlackBerry. Now, almost 9 months later, I’ve switched back to my iPhone, but have...