I’ve been trying to be more minimalist lately. I deleted the vast majority of blogs I follow in my RSS feed (I only follow 5 now). One of the blogs I still follow is Far Beyond the Stars by Everett Bogue. Everett is a guy who lives his live with a ridiculously small number of [...]
I’m looking for a product that makes it easy for users of Brazen Careerist to set up and broadcast webcasts to other members of our site. The idea is that we want in our UI for a user to schedule a webcast that they want to host. At the time of the event they go [...]
Here’s an exercise I just came up with as a method to expand and pivot my passions. Start out with something that excites you, something that you’re really passionate about. Visualize that this activity or idea is just a lake that’s part of a big network of lakes, rivers, streams and oceans of passion. An [...]
Recently I privately declared RSS bankruptcy. I had managed to tame my feeds in such a way that I could usually get through everything and some days I’d just clear out my low value feeds in order to keep up. Then on June 30th as part of The Dojo I attended an online webinar “Escaping [...]
When I was out in California I was somewhat involved with the group of people starting Hacker Dojo. I’ve been interested in creating a similar type of space in Madison. I started looking around at spaces when I was telecommuting for PBwiki but the issue is always how to fund it. It’s a chicken and [...]
I read an article today on Silicon Alley Insider Amazon Tells Small Publishers It Will Stop Selling Their Books If They Join Apple which if that was the case would clearly be big news. However I read the quote and I’m left scratching my head. It actually doesn’t seem from what they print in the [...]
I’ve never been very good at managing my finances. There was a period of time back in college when I lived off my credit cards. Fortunately over the last few years I’ve gotten better at living within my means and have been gradually paying off my debt. Despite this I’m not exactly what you would [...]
I previously talked about reordering my Google reader in order to make my life less overwhelming. A little over a month has gone by and I thought I’d post an update about how it’s worked. Things have been a tremendous success. By simply re-categorizing my feeds into Low Volume, High Value and Low Value I [...]
I’m someone that likes to think of himself as pretty driven and goal oriented. I think this is why it’s bothered me so much that lately I’ve been floundering without any great direction. Some of it is probably the “Quarterlife Crisis” but it could also be that I’ve been getting lazy. I firmly believe in [...]
Today I logged into Google Reader and saw that I had 230 unread items. This is not unusual, nor it is particularly difficult to get through. However, that is what’s in my “inbox” between when I checked it last night and when I woke up this morning. I’m not sure how many items I get [...]
I'm Andrew Shell. I'm a PHP developer in Madison, WI. Currently I'm working for Brazen Careerist and occasionally I do freelance work.
Since I don't post too frequently you might want to subscribe to my site so you'll get updates when there is something new.