You’ve probably heard all about the trends that are “in” this year, but have you heard what’s “out”? This information might be even more vital to have if you’re planning on doing remodeling or renovation, especially if you’re planning on moving in the next year or two. Try to avoid adding these outmoded design features and if you have them, convert them into something else. Replacing them will make your home more modern and more attractive to potential home buyers.

The kitchen “desk”

For many years, I watched my mom clutter up the kitchen table with piles of bills, check books, balancing columns, calculators, etc. when it came time to pay the monthly bills (let’s face it, I think she still does it this way). She would have loved having a kitchen desk for all her paper, her extra cookbooks, her phone book.These days, though, it’s not much more than a counter too shallow for eating or for doing anything else. Bill pay? Calculators? Phone books? You probably have them all on your phone, and you don’t need a whole desk for that when it fits comfortably in your pocket. Use the space instead for more storage. You can never have too much kitchen storage.

Chevron prints

Let’s face it, people did go a little crazy with chevron prints in 2014. They were a fun, fashionable, unique print which added visual interest to whatever space they were added to, but now they’re so “done” no one even notices them. It’s time to go out with the old and in with the new, which Ilyce Glink, a real estate expert, best-selling author, and radio talk show host, says means going with more “solid-colored, textured fabrics or pieced animal hide.”

I'm thinking about hosting a under 25 freelancer meetup in San Francisco, would anyone be interested or know anyone that might be interested?

I want it to be structured so that everyone who attends will be discussing in depth about their freelancing and actually engage in conversations to help eachother and talk about their freelancing experiences.

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I believe that AngelList is going to be a HUGE resource for companies to use for recruiting. So I'm going to start leaving some pro-tips here as I learn & navigate the AngelList system. I'll also invite the AL folks to comment directly on this post.

Today, from what I can tell, there are 16,834 candidates on AngelList Talent:

I expect that number to balloon substantially over the coming 12 months.

Stay tuned for pro tips in the comments below. Also feel free to post your own, as well as questions on how we use AngelList at ShareThis for recruiting.

The new Contour+2 camera is like a fine Italian sports car... built in the 1980's, before they got their quality control process figured out. Awesome and stunning, yet deeply flawed and aggravating.

Here's my initial review from the brief time I've had the camera. I'm not yet sure if I'll be keeping it or returning it. I really want to keep it, but I'm not sure I can deal with its flaws.

This whole saga started because I'm looking for a camera to replace my Kodak Zi8 camera.

The Awesome:

Awhile back, I turned Martin's awesome valuation cap spreadsheet on convertible note valuation cap numbers into a Google doc, and I've since gotten a lot of "edit" access requests for it from entrepreneurs. Here's how to make your very own copy that you can edit privately:

BTW, if you're looking into convertible notes, you might also like this post on optimizing an AngelList profile. I've got a bunch of other entrepreneur-friendly posts as well; just drop me a note in the comments and tell me what you're looking for. A few of my faves:

OK -- Here's how to make your very own copy of the spreadsheet: (and here's why I'm sharing it)

I just had someone whom I originally met in DC come by our office here in SF.  He's out here trying to get a new startup off the ground.  

I told him I'd send a few ideas his way to help him figure out how to take advantage of being in SF.  Instead of sending him a private email, I figure it'd be great to get it going as a public conversation where other entrepreneurs can contribute as well.

So here's the question:  If you were new to SF with a startup idea, what would you do first?

Here's my quick initial list:

My wife and I have recently started doing some angel investing (you can see what startups we've invested in on my AngelList profile). If I sent you to this blog post, it's probably because you thought we might be interested in investing in your startup.

Here's a guide on what we're looking for:

As I wrote in this blog post, we consider angel investing to be just about the riskiest thing one can do with one's capital. So we are very, very careful about how we deploy our cash to invest in startups.

For us to justify an investment in a startup, we have to believe that our cash has a greater potential return (and of not being lost completely) than any other alternative -- and since we're very bullish on ETFs for equity growth, and LendingClub for putting cash to work to get monthly distributions, that's a pretty high bar for us, because the reality is that most startup bets will fail.

Some angel investors mitigate this risk by investing in a large number of startups, and this is an approach we've discussed, and may pursue at one point. If & when we do this, we'll be much more likely to be more aggressive with angel investments.

My wife loves to take macro photos. But the macro lens we would get is $679. So we tried to cheat by getting a $9 Macro Extension Tube Set. But it turns out you can't cheat your way to great photos.

There were several problems. The main one was that the lens that comes with the GX1 is a power lens, but the tubes don't allow for any power to flow to the camera. This means that the camera thinks there's no lens, but more importantly, you can't focus the lens, so it only works at a fixed point.

I could live with that, if it took great macro pics at that point. But it doesn't. The pictures are blurry. Here's the best shot I could get with the tube: