Paul McCartney’s fourteenth solo album was called “Memory Almost Full”. When I heard about it, I instantly recognized the creativity coming from a musician of Sir Paul’s age. He was at the magical age of 64 at the time. You think of all the songs, lyrics, chords, and instruments he’d written, played, and mastered by…
Category: Personal
25 years with my own domain
It was 25 years ago… January 1997… that I bought this domain. chuckstar.com was the first domain I ever bought. Although variations of my full name (which I still own) were available, I went with chuckstar. This was a nickname my dad, some teachers, and couches called me by. I thought it was cool, short,…
For love of music, it’s time to Play
My family loves music. I bet yours does too. If you’re like us, you’re listening all the time, at work, at school, the car and especially at home. Listening to music has been a fixture in my life since I was born. There’s an 8mm film of me dancing in my crib while my parents…
Advancing platform success and my new role at Mashery
Platforms have an ability to reveal new value and opportunity. I spent several years creating platforms, making data and services available to various communities of developers. I once likened opening up a new API to unlocking a treasure box of functionality for a developer. As part of Mashery’s Strategy services group, for the past year,…
Be open to learn in 2013, a work approach inspired by my 5-year-old
A conversation last night with my 5-year-old at bedtime was a revelation. This one happened on New Year’s Eve and should likely set the tone for how I approach my year professionally. Me: I hope you’ve had a great vacation. One more day until you go back to school. 5yo: And one more day until…
Building on my love of platforms as I join Mashery
There’s something I’ve always loved about working with platforms; It’s a special thing being able to add value and unlock so much potential for a company and a possible infinite number of apps — at the same time. While I’ve had to explain ‘what I do’ dozens of times to so many people, family and…
My blog turned 5 years old this month
With no fanfare or media coverage, my blog “Excerpts from the mind” quietly turned 5 years old this month. Having owned the domain chuckstar.com since 1997, I used it for portfolio, business and hosting projects until September 2005. My first post, which got lost in an early wordpress upgrade, talked about a car I was…
Fenway dreams come true, courtesy of litl
Ever since I became a Red Sox fan during the season of 1987, when baseball cards had wooden borders, I dreamed of running on to the field at Fenway while my name was being announced. As I got older and started going to more and more games, that dream grew to one day sitting in…
Lightroom 3 is awesome. So much fun enhancing photos.
My work-to-fun ratio with software reached about 50 to 1 many years ago. I stopped playing PC games and have spent almost all of my time using software for coding (admittedly fun – sometimes) and for work and personal productivity. The timing was good to see this tweet last week just days after I off…
My litl business cards
I’ve had a lot of business cards in my career, but none have been as expressive as what I’ll be giving out as Chief Channel Evangelist from litl. So far, I have been very impressed with our internal design team. Not only did they apply incredible ingenuity to the hardware design of our device, but…