Six Ways to Improve Your Listening Skills & Become a Great Consultant

If there’s one critical consulting skill that’s often overlooked, it’s listening. I’m talking about real active listening — hearing what the client is saying. Many consultants focus on impressing clients with the depth of their knowledge. They get so engrossed with their own knowledge, they don’t even realize that all they hear is their own […]

Changing Constraints: Thoughts on Postponing a Wedding

On March 11, 2020, Atomic Object made the decision to have employees work from home due to the coronavirus. That was about two months from my upcoming wedding, planned for May 16. Our plan was to invite around 175 friends and family for a beautiful ceremony, followed by a night of barbecue, toasts, and dancing. […]

A Blog Post Writer’s Toolbox

I recently read Stephen King’s On Writing, a cross between a memoir and a writing guide. Even though King is a fiction writer, I was surprised to find that there’s a good deal of writing advice that applies to the writing I do as a consultant, explaining complex concepts to clients. I’ve also been working […]

Six Ways to Handle Context Switching when Learning Several Things at Once

When you need to learn a bunch of new things at once, constantly context switching between them can be very counterproductive. Concepts can get jumbled together in your head, and it can become impossible to remember which information applies to which topic. Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to help you […]

Self-Hosting Your Own Cloud – Part 7: Building a Personal Private Network with WireGuard

About a year ago, I wrote about how to use OpenVPN to provide secure remote access to your home network and its resources to start building your own private cloud. I have been incrementally adding network services since. Recently, I’ve started using WireGuard instead of OpenVPN. I’ve found that the configuration is far simpler, while […]

How to Use an Old iPhone as a Webcam for Your Mac

So we’re all working remotely right now and participating in a lot of video chats. Unfortunately, laptop webcams are generally terrible.

Using SQL to Look Through All of Your iMessage Text Messages

iMessage is one of my favorite things about having an iPhone and a Mac. It’s also one of my least favorite things. I love being able to send messages from my computer, and the integration between the two devices is seamless. What frustrates me is the inability to efficiently search through old messages. iOS 13 […]

Four Tips for Surviving Full-Time Remote Work with a Toddler

When the work-from-home directive came out, my first thought was to set up shop in our guest room. But spending all day, every day locked in a sparsely-decorated room, alone, was too much for someone who thrives in Atomic’s active and social open office environment. If I wanted to see the faces of other living […]

How to Host a Zoom Concert with High-Quality Audio

At Atomic, we’ve been staying connected with “Quarantunes” — mini live concerts given by employees and streamed to the entire company over Zoom. These concerts are a fun little pick-me-up during the week that help many of us get through the emotional roller coaster brought about by current events. Zoom is a great platform for […]

Coronavirus, Running, and How I Learned to Let Competitiveness Go

Like so many others dealing with the current pandemic, I’ve been trying to find ways to stay healthy and active. I normally get most of my physical activity through team sports. I love being able to compete alongside others; it makes exercise easy and enjoyable and helps me relieve stress. Unfortunately, with most of America […]

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