Go to the Lab Notes
The future of the operating system
In my current work, I am exploring new and renewed ideas for how personal computing can better support people’s lives, expanding opportunity, agency, curiosity, and creativity.
This work is primarily shaped by exploring the “operating system of the future,” and creating an experimental new environment for personal computing.
Lab Notes
While exploring the OS of the future, I publish Lab Notes that document my progress, experiments, and concepts to intentionally “work with the lab door open,” inviting others’ thoughts along the way.
The Potential Merits of an Itemized Operating System
Article · 34 min. read · Publ. June 6, 2021
Projects
These projects experiment with the concepts from my research on the future of the OS.
WonderOS
Research project
Tag Navigator
Plugin for Obsidian
Reimagining email
My career began with reimagining email and finding ways to build that vision on top of the existing email protocols.
Mail Pilot is an email client that introduced new perspectives and useful features to email in 2012, including reminders (later adopted by other apps as “snooze”). After a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, it went on to become the #1 paid app in the Mac App Store at launch. It is available today as a native app for macOS and iOS.
Throttle is a service that introduced sender-specific addresses in 2015 to give email receivers fine-grained oversight and control over the transactional and bulk email headed their way, and is often turned to as a home away from the inbox for less urgent email.
Products
These products have come from of my research and experimentation in email.
Mail Pilot
Reimagined email client
Throttle
Email throttling service
Membership
My work is independent research — more on that here.
It is graciously supported by the community. Supporting members get access to my Member Magazine, member-exclusive demos, and other perks.
Consider becoming a member — you'll receive all the member exclusives, and help make more of this work happen, most of which is published for members and non-members alike.
If you’d like to make a bigger contribution to support my work, you can become a sponsor of WonderOS, my current research project.
Interviews & more
Some selected podcast interviews and others’ articles.
October 29, 2021
The Stack Overflow Podcast
December 16, 2020
Computer Science at Virginia Tech 50th anniversary profile
March 19, 2020
Nylon: AIM is Back to Get You Through Quarantine
February 25, 2015
Slate: “Email overload: Building my own email app to reach Inbox Zero.”
The Weekly
Updates published most weeks.
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New ideas for interfaces in the itemized OS · Interface ideas for the OS of the future · What are the fundamentals with which personal computing is done? · The future of personal computing software · The future of personal computing hardware · Taking itemized systems online · What might the internet look like when we introduce items? · All archives »