Categories
Cousins meta technology

A Central Family Website

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Photo by James MacDonald

Starting  right after my dad’s funeral in May I have had multiple conversations with multiple cousins and siblings wondering about creating something online where members of the various families could share news together to help us all stay connected. One suggested solution was to create a Facebook page but seeing as the common theme seems to be having a place exclusively for family news and considering that not everybody uses Facebook (despite what it sometimes seems like) the feeling has been that Facebook has two drawbacks: it leaves the news mixed in with anything shared by the many other friends any of us may have on Facebook and it completely locks out anyone who isn’t on Facebook.

While I haven’t started any of the conversations on this topic that I have participated in I have the advantage of having conceptually designed just the kind of collaborative family website that would allow family members to easily share their news to a central location. I began designing the concept a few years ago in anticipation of my own family growing up and becoming geographically dispersed. The two key features I wanted to ensure were easy content creation and easy content consumption.

Categories
life thoughts

My Top Books for a Personal Library

Book corner
Photo by: Islxndis

JP and Bryce did a podcast on building a man’s library (almost 5 months ago – and I just finished listening to it). In the podcast they had top-5 lists from four people plus two more books from a fifth person and they invited listeners to compile their own top-5 lists.

Before I share my top-5 list I’d like to say that I really liked how their focus wasn’t about promoting some definitive list but on talking about how and why to develop a library of books based on your own values and interests. Considering that core message I want to share my thoughts on the lists they shared (as a point of reference) and how I chose my list (especially considering that I had the benefit of listening to the podcast and hearing the lists that were already shared there).