Things I Like

Lately, I’ve been struggling to figure out the best way to have expanding email groups. I’ve tried all the obvious stuff and nothing is satisfying to me. Historically, I’ve just used Google Groups. That’s great for things like the Foundry Group CEO list, where we control the list, but then we have to host it at a @foundrygroup.com domain. For the Colorado CEO Jobs list, we were using Yahoo Groups for a while. Even with the new upgrade last year I find the UX to be terrible so I recently moved it over the Google+. Now I’m hearing complaints about not getting the emails which usually results from notifications being turned off, but you wouldn’t know that unless you were paying attention. And, if you don’t have a Google+ account, you can’t be on the list. ...

Every entrepreneur has a mom. Take a look at a few of the Techstars moms and, as a special bonus, some childhood pictures of me and my brother Daniel. My mom – Cecelia Feld – has had an enormous influence on me in so many different ways. She’s an artist, so from a very young age I was exposed to an endless stream of creative activities. She is serious and disciplined about her art, so when I was in school, I knew she was unavailable between 9am and 5pm because she was working in her studio. While it would have been easy for her to call it quits early to hang out with her kids, her focus on her craft was a notion she planted deep in my mind early and carries through my belief system, impacting how I approach my craft. ...

Tomorrow, I’m trying out Pubble’s product – a Q&A widget that leverages the standard social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) but lives where ever you want it to live. I’ll be answering questions live tomorrow (4/24) at 1:00pm MT. Tweet with #askbfeld to ask me a question. Check it out below. // <![CDATA[ var lpQA = lpQA({ appID:“2809”, identifier: “2809” }); // ]]>

My meditation experience continues. I’m currently meditating almost every morning immediately after I wake up and sitting for 20 minutes with GetSomeHeadspace.com . I’ve internalized the idea of “practice”mode – I’m not trying to get a good grade, do it well, or excel at it. I’m just practicing. I slept late yesterday and when I woke up I didn’t feel like meditating. I felt odd about it for a few seconds, acknowledged the thought (“I wonder why I don’t what to meditate today” – ok, that’s a thought: odd), and then let it go. ...

Now for something completely different. Amy and I are deep into Season 4 of The Wire. It’s up there with the best TV I’ve ever seen, in the same category of awesomeness as BSG. In addition to the story, the acting is incredible. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this short scene with Bunk and McNulty. Easily the best fuck scene on TV. Makes one long for more Big Lebowski.

A month ago, I decided to switch from my iOS devices to Android devices for a month and see how it went. I turned off my iPhone and iPad and turned on a Nexus 5 and Nexus 7. I enjoyed the Nexus / Android a lot. But I couldn’t decide if I liked it better than the iOS experience. It was different in some ways and the same in others. ...

On April 16, 2013 I wrote a post about the horrific tragedy at the 2013 Boston Marathon . Here’s how it started: At 3:55pm yesterday I cried. I was getting ready for a Google Hangout back to my office with my partners and I noticed something about an explosion at the Boston Marathon on twitter. I did a quick scan of Twitter, clicked through to a few links, and realized a bomb had gone off near the finish line. ...

My Nexus 5 / Nexus 7 experience has been a winner so far. I’m 14 days into “Android instead of iOS” and I’m enjoying it a lot. Almost all of the apps I use on iOS are on Android. Most are just as good / some are better. And some of them are awesome. I’ve discovered Cover and I love it. It’s one of those things that just does what you want it to do. Another is Agent which has helped with battery life but also made it simple for me to keep my Nexus 7 in the bedroom since I just tell it to “sleep” from 9pm to 8am and as a result all the notification activity goes away and I don’t have to think about anything. Finally, the Nexus Wireless Charger is awesome. ...

I’ve had continual performance problems with Feld Thoughts over the past few years. Yesterday, we moved the site to Lagrange Systems in an effort to meaningfully improve things. How’s it doing? And, more importantly, what’s your favorite high performance, high availability WordPress configuration?

I’m going to spend January using an Android phone and tablet instead of my iPhone and iPad. My Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 are charged up and ready to go – all I need is a SIM card. I’ve been an iPhone user since I ditched my HTC Dash running some version of Windows Mobile 6 oh so many years ago. I’ve struggled with battery life, broken screens, water damage, and this insatiable urge to upgrade to the latest iPhone the day it comes out. When I travel overseas, I’ve gone completely off the rails trying to figure out how to get a SIM that works even in an unlocked iPhone 4. But, overall the iPhone has been good to me and the companies I invest in. ...