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Remembering my Grandmother
Patsy Ruthelma (Dawson) Klau, 1927 – 2011 (My grandmother passed away in January after a brief battle with cancer. She was one week shy of her 84th birthday. Our family gathered in Milwaukee last month to celebrate her life, and each of her four grandchildren spoke at her memorial service. My remarks follow.) I was…
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Google Account security best practices
A family member recently had some questions about how to keep their Google account secure, and I wrote up a bunch of recommendations for how to stay safe… realized after I sent the e-mail that this was probably good stuff to share for people who might not know about all of the options when it…
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The New Google Profile is here!
Last year I announced I’d moved over to the Google Profiles team, and then went all but radio silent as we put our heads down to upgrade the product. Hilariously, last weekend someone not-so-subtly teased me by leaving an anonymous comment on that post: “11 months and counting…” (It’s nice to know people are paying…
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Protip for book publishers
In the nearly three years since I bought my first Kindle, I’ve become an enormous fan. I’ve purchased about 100 books, and have read books on the first gen Kindle (now gifted to my in-laws), second-gen Kindle (a gift to my wife), my iPhone 3GS, my Nexus One, my iPad, and my Nexus S. The…
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Tasker makes Android better
When I got my Nexus S last month, I was excited about a number of things, but particularly the remarkable battery life promised by a number of reviewers. If I had one complaint about the Nexus 1, it was that the battery often gave up the ghost by the end of the day. I got…
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Jacob Eby clock at the de Young museum
Earlier this year, I started researching my family’s history. I knew very little about my ancestors, other than that I was the fifth Richard Klau in the family, and that the first Richard Klau came to the United States from Germany in the 1850s. After pursuing a number of branches of the family tree on…
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The annual Christmas letter
For the last six years, Robin and I have taken a different approach to sending out the annual Christmas card. In the past, we would write out a letter, fold it up and insert it into the card, then mail the combination out to our list. Starting in 2005, we omitted the printed letter, and…
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Always be Cobbling
Thanks to Jake, I watched this Alec Baldwin sketch from SNL this morning: So much to love about this Glengarry Glen Ross-meets-Santa’s Elves sketch: Baldwin confusing his line (yelling “Always be closing!” – the actual line from Glengarry Glen Ross), the many inside references (“I rode here on a talking moose!”, “Second place is a…
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Christmas gift idea – Livescribe Echo Pen
I’ve written about Livescribe before (Livescribe Pulse Pen – Pure Awesome) and if you’re looking for a great gift for the geek in your life, or for a high school or college student, I don’t think you could do much better than the Livescribe Echo, the updated version of the pen I use. What makes…
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Christmas gift idea – Kodak Pulse picture frame
For my birthday, Robin and the kids got me a Kodak Pulse digital picture frame. I adore it. Years ago, we bought my grandmother a Ceiva frame. One of the advantages to the Ceiva is that it doesn’t require Internet access – you just plug the frame into a phone line, and it updates nightly.…