I teach Data Programming in Python at the University of Iowa - a core course for Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) students and an elective for MBAs. This spring, I’m collaborating with course owner Michael Redmond from Tippie College of Business to redesign the curriculum and teach something new: how to learn and code with AI assistance. The irony? I’m using AI to help me do it. ...
Email is broken. Not the technology - the experience. I have 18 email accounts across work, teaching, personal, and various project contexts. Every morning starts with the same ritual: open each inbox, scan for urgent items, delete the noise, maybe respond to a few. Repeat. I built an AI agent to fix this. The Architecture The system has three layers: Outlook MCP Server - A Model Context Protocol server that exposes Outlook operations as AI-callable tools Outlook Skill - A Claude Code skill with workflows for common email tasks Email Organizer Agent - Higher-level automation for inbox cleanup and organization Why Outlook COM API? I chose Outlook’s COM API over cloud APIs (Graph, Gmail) for several reasons: ...
I’ve been building what I call Personal AI Infrastructure (PAI) for a few months now. This blog is where I’ll document the journey. The Problem AI tools are everywhere. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot - they’re useful, but they don’t know me. Every conversation starts from scratch. Context gets lost. Work gets repeated. I wanted something different. An AI system that: Remembers past conversations and decisions Understands my projects, preferences, and constraints Runs locally when I need it to Integrates with my actual workflow The Approach I’m building on Claude Code as the foundation. Not because it’s perfect, but because: ...