Matthew Lang

It was a hard pick this week, but this bike from Hispania won out.

Curtis McHale as an excellent follow up to my Limiting Yourself post.

When you dive in to a project or communication make sure you choose the right medium. Don’t just stick with email because you don’t want to get on the phone.

— Get your time back with the proper communication medium by Curtis McHale

It's a horrible thing to admit, but I've been coasting since the start of the year. While I've had the chance to just get on with work, it's not good for my long term goals.

I started the year with the best intentions. I wanted to do so much this year, but six months on and I've nothing to show for my intentions. There's lots of reasons why my plans fell apart over the last six months. Loss of interest and motivation, doing just enough and simply punching in and out of my work day. It might keep my stress levels down by simply doing the work that I need to do, but in the long term this isn't going to keep me getting paid as a software developer in the future.

Coasting along isn't going to pay the bills in the future. Rather than simply doing the work, I need to keep learning on the job, writing about those experiences and re-using them in the future to deliver value in my work.

Costing along isn't going to build a successful freelance business with great clients. I have a handful of clients now that keep me busy, but I need to keep those clients by continually delivering good service and value.

Coasting along isn't going to make me spend more time reading and writing. Yes, I'm reading alot, but on the flip side my writing has tailed off in the last six months. Writing is not only something I enjoy but a possible revenue stream in the future if I decide to publish.

Coasting along is bad thing to do. You end up cheating yourself of new learning experiences, opportunities, a good career and more importantly, the life that you want. Coasting is a short term fix if things get hectic but in the long term it's not going to get you back on track. Eventually you're going to end up in the wilderness wondering what the hell happened.

For me it's time to get back on track.

Last night I took my oldest son to his coaching at the golf club. He had a great time. Chatting with his new friend, hitting some balls on the practice ground and getting some tips from the club's new professional. I sat and watched him from the clubhouse, just making sure that he was keeping his focus for most of the session. At the end I met him on the practice ground, grabbed his bag and shoes and we headed home to catch the opening game of the World Cup. The conversation in the car comprised of who was playing in the football, the plans for a golf compeition on Sunday and the many epic shots that my son said he hit. A good night.

This week hasn't always been this good though. I now understand why my parents frequently referred to themselves as being 'broken down record players'. I finally get it. It's just taken me to having a kid of my own to understand. Every day this week, my son has got himself into trouble for the stupidest of things. It's been a frustrating week. It's at the stage where you continually repeat yourself. My son does listen. I know he does, but in between him thinking about golf, football, food, gaming and getting outside, there's only a small window of opportunity for the message to get through. I feel like I'm on repeat. I shouldn't be too hard on him though. I was reminded yesterday thay I'm fortunate that I see him every day.

Last night I read about the sad news of Eric Meyer's daughter, Rebecca. For those that don't know Eric, he's a noted expert in HTML and CSS. Eric is a respected member of the web community and many developers and designers are familiar with his work and contributions since the early days of the Internet.

Eric's daughter passed away last week after a long fight against cancer. Yesterday was her funeral service. Eric has been writing about Rebecca's progress on his blog. Reading his 'Never' post was especially difficult and put things into perspective. They are beautiful words for tragic circumstances. That's the only way I can describe it. If you've got a few minutes I suggest you go and read it.

I started to think about my own kids. Their future is a mix of maybes, possibilities, and definites. A lot can happen, more to the point a lot will happen. For the many times that they get into trouble, do the wrong thing or play up, they're still healthy kids and they have the rest of their lives ahead of them. As parents with kids or even as guardians to the kids in your life, we might not appreciate seeing these them grow up and the experiences they will go through.

That's all been taken from Rebecca's family. The chance to see her grow and all the experiences that she would have gone through in her life. I sincerely hope that the Meyer's find some peace in the future. I can't begin to imagine what they are going through but it's something that no parent should experience. We take it for granted that our time will come before our kids, but that's not alway the case though. Next time I get frustrated about repeating myself to them, I should remember that they're still there in front of me, even if they are continually getting into trouble.

via FGGT

Every week it seems there's another new service or product online that aims to solve the problem of information overload. Why can't we solve this problem on our own?

Toastio announced their new service today. It touts itself as Twitter for email. It limits the length of emails you receive to 350 words. Anything longer than is bounced back to the sender asking them to send a shorter message. I don't see any benefit in this, but I could be wrong.

One problem I immediately see with this is that it's another inbox that I need to manage. I don't want another inbox. I have enough of them already. Everyday we interact with different inboxes that feed us with streams of information that we view at intervals. Some of us spend hours in these inboxes while the more efficient among us might just check these inboxes once or twice a day spending just a few minutes of our precious time.

There is a couple of solutions to this problem.

1. The All-In-One Inbox

If you're still wanting to get all the relevant information you need then the all-in-one inbox is the solution. A smart inbox that pulls content from any publishing stream and orders everything in order of interest. It regularly updates and orders the stream each day, determining what type of content it should display based on your current location and status.

Sounds like a rather far fetched idea doesn't it? Well it is. There's two problems with this idea. The first is that building a single inbox that handles a variety of data from different sources is a big challenge. The second is that not all data sources are easy to subscribe to for updates. I think it's fair to say that the all-in-one inbox isn't something that we are going to see anytime soon.

2. Limit Yourself

Don't despair, the second solution is within easier reach. Limit yourself. Limit the number of inboxes you have, limit the amount of data coming into those inboxes and then limit how often you check those inboxes. Do this regularly enough and you'll spend less time in your inbox and more time working, creating or doing whatever it is that you do.

There's one thing about Toastio that I do like. The 350 word limit on emails. I've seen this in a number of different forms over the years but perhaps the one I remember the most is five.sentenc.es. The idea here is that your adhere to a five sentence limit on your outgoing email. While this isn't feasible for all your outgoing email, the idea of limiting the length of an email is one that we can all do with.

Why don't we do it though?

Well, aside from the fact that most people would give up on it faster than a New Year resolution, it would force people to re-think the email they're sending. For some people that's just too much like hard work. Rather than pausing for a moment to think about what to write, they would rather put their every thought and opinion in a email spanning 500 words when only 150 would have done it. So even asking people to write less and think more isn't going to make your inbox go down. No reasons why you can't make it your own persoal limit when sending emails though.

And that's the last thing about limiting yourself. Limit your outgoing data. Limit your email length, limit your social network time, limit your time aimlessly surfing the net. Limiting yourself in this way gives you more time to get stuff done. The important stuff.

... from the trenches.

... by Curtis McHale.

With the release of the new Swift language for Mac developers, I am now interested in trying out app development for iOS and OS X. With thousands of apps out there though, is there room for new apps?

The App Store is five years old this year. Since it started its life as a platform for the distribution of apps to iOS devices, we've seen a few big hits in terms of well executed apps over the years. I don't think there is one true killer app that has made the App Store what it is, but over time there has definitely been a number of niche apps that have been popular with a particular group of people.

People talk about the simple ideas that took the App Store by storm like Angry Birds, Flight Control and others. Yes, they seem simple ideas, but there is still a fair amount of work involved in building and shipping an app. I'm not expecting to publish a game changing app right away, but I do want to start building my experience in the world of app development.

At the start of the week Apple unveiled a new programming language for developers who want to build apps for iOS devices or Macs. It's called Swift. As someone who has made a number of false starts on iOS development over the last couple of years, I welcome the new language. In the past I have looked at Objective-C which was the only true language to use to build iOS apps. When I seen its syntax I was always turned off by it. With time I could learn about the language, but just as I was starting out I always ended up trashing the idea. With the new Swift programming language though I think I'm ready now to start building apps for iOS and the Mac.

Now the tricky part. An idea. Are there any good ideas for apps left? I've been pondering on this for a couple of days now and it's led me to a number of sources for ideas for new apps.

Make something easier

There are many apps out there that simply try to make something easier to do. I haven't came across many that I thought did this well, but there are thousands that started out this way. The problem with starting an app from this view is that it's only easier from your angle. Yes, there will be others that will share the same view, but will there be enough people who share your view to warrant building the easier app?

Make a better shop window

The Internet is a vast source of information and services. Everyday new services are added for people to use and many of them start with basic web sites to get going. When Twitter started, a developer in the UK seen an opportunity to make interacting with Twitter easier for people. The Twitter user interface was a single timeline that everyone followed, but seeing your messages or mentions meant changing screens. TweetDeck was born and it became an instant success with it's better interface to using Twitter.

Making a better shop window to a particular service is hard work and is probably out of my reach in terms of skills. It means designing something better, and while I might be able to put together well crafted web page, the thought of trying to create a better interface for a particular service sounds like a rather daunting task.

It would also need to be a service that I use on a frequent basis, but seeing as most of the services I use already have good to excellent apps that let me interact with them, then the challenge to make a better interface is that much harder.

Scratch an itch

Perhaps the easiest source of making an app comes from scratching your own itch. If making thousands of dollars isn't your end goal when making an app, then this is where to start. Building an app that serves a purpose for yourself and gives you the experience to build better apps in the future.

An iOS/OS X client for Journalong is something I've had in mind for a year now, but there's always been obstacles in the way. Now with a growing interest in Swift, I might just have the motivation to start building something.

I'm never going to produce the next killer app, but perhaps shipping something that serves my own purpose first is enough of a step on the road to building more apps in the future.

via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

I finally got round to reading this over the weekend. Matt makes a fine case for using tools that force you to think before you act.

There’s a ritualistic quality to these objects, but that’s not why I love them. I use them to slow myself down. To introduce just enough friction that I’m compelled to pause. We don’t pause enough anymore. We don’t give ourselves time to think.

— Thinking slowly by Matt Gemmell

I keep just eight apps on the home screen of my iPhone. They're the essential eight, the eight apps I use on a daily basis. I keep it down to eight apps so that when I open my phone and go to my home screen, it's easier to find the apps that matter. Having just the eight apps I need on my home screen means I'm not spending time looking for my app or even being distracted by other apps. I unlock my phone, open the first screen (if it's not already on that), read, write, schedule or manage using one of my apps on this screen and then put my phone down. Your own selection of apps might vary according to what you need but here's my eight:

1. Todoist - Todo manager
2. Fantastical 2 - Scheduler & calendar management
3. Unread - RSS reader
4. Riposte - App.net client
5. Kindle - Long form reading app
6. Instapaper - Short form reading app
7. Editorial - Long form writing app
8. Pop - Short form writing app

And here's how they look on screen:

The first four apps are probably typical on many phones. Task management, scheduling, an RSS reader and a social network client. In each case of reading and writing I have two apps for the different reading and writing that I do.

I use the Kindle app mainly for reading on the go. Maybe catchup on a chapter from the book I'm reading if I find myself with a few minutes to kill. The Instapaper app is also there for reading. Anything like a blog post or online article that I've saved to read later.

The same goes for the writing apps. I use one for working on blog posts and other documents while I use Pop mainly as a scratchpad for ideas or something I just want to jot down.

These are the eight apps that I use on a daily basis. There are apps on the other screens I have but these aren't apps I use daily. The second screen is apps that I use mostly day to day. These include apps like Sunlit, Path and Day One while there are also apps relating to my career, such as HipChat, Linode, Cloud66 and Trello. The screen that follows on from this is Apple's own apps that I use from time to time and lastly there's another screen with apps that I never use. You might think that's a lot of screens but to be honest I rarely visit the third screen and the second screen maybe gets opened once a day for something specific.

I also employ a fixed number of apps for my homescreen. If I want to bring another app in, I have to remove one to make space for it. I have rarely had to do this since I started using this format. I have made a number of app changes on this screen over time, but that's to reflect apps that were not working for me and needed to be replaced. Perhaps the most frequently changed app on this screen is the long form writing app. Previously I have tried Drafts, Plaintext, Plaintext 2 and Byword. Having tried a number of these apps and finding shortcomings in all of them, I'm glad that Editorial was finally released for the iPhone.

I've experimented with just four apps as well as having twelve apps on the screen, but having eight is for the right amount of apps I need in front of me at any given time.

For those interested in the Menu Bar at the bottom of the iPhone's screen, I stick to Apple's own offerings for communicating. These are Messages, Phone, Mail and Safari. I've tried different apps on this section of the screen as well but it's hard to beat Apple's own apps for doing these things.

I've tried in the past to get the number of apps down on my phone, but it gets more difficult when you find you start doing more things on the go. Clearing out my home screen means that I have at least one screen on my phone, more importantly the first one, that doesn't give me too many choices in the apps that I can use. Other apps are just a swipe away but I'm too lazy to even do that half the time. Limiting yourself and the choices you can make is a great way to stay focused.

... for your notebook.

I'm a big fan of Patrick Rhone's Dash/Plus system, but whatever suits yourself works.

For most of my career I've worked on a number of applications, systems, websites and other software projects. The majority of this software has been business critical software. When working on software like this, you have to keep in mind that you're delivering value with the software and in turn the business. This might be a retailer, a service provider or some other business. While it's easy to see the value you are providing, sometimes it's hard to see the value that this company provides to others.

In the last couple of weeks though I've been working on a project for a client that has some real rewards and benefits. It's a website that provides speech therapy exercises to kids. Parents login for their kids who in turn carry out a series of exercises assigned by their therapist. Once done, the kids fill out a little assessment form and their done. It's clear to see that this will have some real long term benefits for those that will use the website.

Another reason I can see the benefits in this is that my nephew who is turning three this year, has had trouble in the past with his speech. Due to problems with his hearing, his speech didn't come as it does with other kids his age. He ended up becoming more and more fustrated as a result of having difficulties in communicating with his family. After the problem with his hearing was identified and resolved, he was referred to a speech therapist and we've started to see real progress in his speech. It's amazing to watch the results.

With my nephew in mind, it's a real pleasure to work on software that will be used to benefits others. It's such rewarding work.

Essential lists for life from Cultural Offering.

Thanks Kurt.

via Cycle EXIF Update

Curtis McHale knows his tried and tested from his new hotness. You should too.

Sicne I started using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine last year, I've had to content myself with what was an aging look and feel to their search results. While Google and Yahoo were charging ahead with redesigned search result listings, DuckDuckGo was falling behind. Thankfully though DuckDuckGo recently upgraded their search page.

The new user interface itself is a welcome upgrade to the old one interface. With tabs for images, videos and products, searches become much more useful depending on your search term and the search listings themselves are easy to scan. There is also a section with more details about your search term if it's a person, company, product or brand name.

Not only does the new user interface work well on desktops and laptops, but it's mobile friendly as well. I've frequently use it now on my iPhone rather than the suggested search engines that Apple includes. Without jailbreaking my phone though, there's no way to make DuckDuckGo your default search engine on the iPhone. I'm hoping that this will be an option in the future.

The next step I hope is that DuckDuckGo updates their iOS app with ability to do searches there and pass the results into Safari. There might be restrictions on this, but it's what I would like to see.

I'm glad to see that DuckDuckGo are keeping their search engine modern and relevant. It might just be a change of look to the search engine, but sometimes that's all that is needed.

At long last I managed to finish The Second World War which has been holding up my reading list for the last few months. Here's a few reviews of what I've been reading over the last few months.

• The Second World War by Antony Beevor - Without doubt this is the most complete and detailed account of the Second World War that you will find on any bookshelf. The bibliography alone takes up the last quarter of the book with supporting material from other books as well as journals of military personnel and civilians providing eye witness accounts of events. The book covers all the critical events from the leading up to the start of WWII until it's final days when Japan surrendered to the US. It seems wrong to say that I enjoyed this book given the topic, but I did. It was a learning experience for me. A chance to find out everything I didn't know about the Second World War. There were parts of the book that I found troubling to read, but the incidents that the book highlighted only re-inforce the human cost of war and why it should be avoided at all costs.
• Inferno by Dan Brown - Dan Brown's books sometimes receives unfair criticism that they are not of the same calibre as other great fictional books but I've never found that. I enjoyed this book. Another outing for the Harvard symbologist. It was a good read and it kept me turning pages right to the end. One concern I have though for these books are their duration. Like the Chase / Wilde series by Andy McDermott, I'm starting to see a repeating pattern in the adventures of Langdon as he hops across the world, interpreting symbols and saving the world. I don't think there's much mileage left in these books if Brown decides to write more of them, but I still found this book enjoyable.
• The City by Stella Gemmell - I wanted to love this book so much as I thought that it being from someone who was close to David Gemmell when he was alive, it might have some influences from him. I started the book with enthusiasm but it quickly wained over the course of the first sixty pages. I found it to be slow with no sign of picking up. After sixty pages I eventually gave up and moved on to something else.
• Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck & Cynthia Andres - It's been on the reading list for a while, but it's taken me to now to read it thanks to a prompt by another developer on App.net who mentioned he was reading it to get back to the basics of extreme programming again. The ideas and practices that I learned from this book just back up for me how important agile practices are to software development. A must read for any software developer whether they are starting their career or want to re-kindle those basics of good software development practices again.

via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Checklists are often skipped over as an aid to problem solving. They shouldn't be. They provide a quick step plan to narrowing down a search or criteria to identify a problem.

This week was one of those week's where I was caught out with a problem. In debugging an application, I couldn't work out why the plugin I installed and setup wasn't being called in a screen. Despite changing what I thought was the correct screen, nothing was happening. It turns out I was in fact updating the wrong screen. A simple mistake to make in most applications but here the application is slightly different.

This application I am referring to is in fact a content management system. It contains a number of different layouts depending on the type of site that you want. This means that there are hundreds of files that make up the user-interface to the application. There is a default file representing each particular screen and then there is a screen for each different type of site that can override the default screen if we need it. This means that there are hundreds of files representing the different screens in this application. Some are similar and as a result, ensuring you are updating the correct screen is important.

So where does the checklist fit in then? Well as I was debugging the application on a particular type of site, following through a number of steps would have ensured that I was in fact debugging the correct screen. Thinking of each item on the checklist as a way of narrowing down the problem allows you to eliminate easy to find problems, eventually narrowing down you scope to the actual problem you were having.

I've since started putting together a number of checklists for identifying such problems. I've done a number of debugging sessions like this where I missed a step in identifying the actual issue and instead spent a few hours going down the wrong path. It's time that I don't want to waste in the future. I'd rather identify the problem quickly, fix it and crack on with something else.

Not surprising that George RR Martin writes his Song of Ice & Fire books on a disconnected DOS machine. With that amount of plot lines, character deaths and surprises he can't afford distractions. It does raise another question though, how many assumptions does your computer make about what you do?

I watched the clip of George RR Martin on Conan admitting that he used an old DOS PC that isn't connected to the internet to write his series of books, A Song of Ice & Fire. Martin and Conan have a laugh about it on the clip, but Martin makes a good point about the computers of today. They do so much for you, but are they doing too much?

When I was a software developer working with Microsoft's .NET framework, I wrote all of my applications in a programming environment that did some of the work for you. It's called a integrated development environment or IDE for short. What sets an IDE apart from a regular text editor like Sublime Text or Vim, is that the IDE is more than just a text editor. It's an environment tailored towards a specific set of languages or frameworks. It has features and shortcuts built-in that are there to help you write software applications.

One of the reasons that Microsoft's Visual Studio environment is used by so many developers working with Microsoft's .NET framework is that it does some of the work for you. When you create a file for your project, it will include a template of a class or module with boilerplate code included, or if you're building a website it will include a basic layout on a new HTML file. It does lots of little things like this because it's been built to assist the programmer as much as it can.

Having worked with IDE's like Visual Studio for a number of years it's easy to the see benefits in the amount of code you can write in a typical work day. I wasn't happy with this though. Too many of the small decisions were being taken out of my hands and assumptions were made by Visual Studio that I would need everything that it generated for me. Over time I gradullay tailored the templates and snippets that Visual Studio included by default so that Visual Studio wasn't making as many big assumptions about what I need. Not everyone does this though.

This is what Martin makes a point of when he is writing. He doesn't want an opinionated machine that makes suggestions for him, he wants a machine that just does as it's told. In this case if he makes a spelling mistake it won't suggest the right spelling to him, if he writes a new word that the computer can't find in a dictionary it won't suggest an alternative word that it thinks the writer was supposed to type. It takes the words that Martin types in and that's it. That's probably all that a lot of writers want. A chance to write without distractions and suggestions and other changes that the computer thinks we need.

I use a text editor with a few plugins that automate work for me as a programmer. As a rule I use packages and libraries that only make a minimal number of assumptions about what I need when I am writing code. Yes, I have snippets to create new classes, modules and methods, but they don't assume I need anything more than the declaration of the object in question. I want to make the decision about the structure of a new class or a new method when I'm writing my code. If the computer does it and it's wrong, I end up having to make a correction and then continue with work.

It's good to see that Martin is proof that the latest devices or apps are not what you need to make an idea a reality. Focusing on computer speed, productivity tools and other factors may not make you work any faster than if you had older equipment and tools. It's about using those tools correctly and removing distractions and barriers that make you productive. Every day I face my laptop and get notifications of new emails, app updates, test updates, and all manner of alerts telling me to shift my focus from what I am doing. I should turn these off or at least par them back to only the necessary alerts that I need to do my job.

Computers, tablets, phones and even washing machines, dish washers other home appliances are all made to make assumptions about what we want. These aren't always the right assumptions and we often find ourselves making daily micro adjustments to get the desired result. By ensuring that the devices and apps we use make minimal assumptions about what we do, it allows us to do things our way. And doing things our own way is better than adhering having to constantly fine tune the ways of others to get what we want.

... without VC's, funding, rock star programmers or a hip office.

It can only be Nicholas Bate.

Graham Obree and Chris Boardman have both had their Hour Record times re-instated into the record books thanks to simpler regulations that determine the equipment cyclists can use to break the hour record.

I had that 'new bike itch' again, but despite the advances in lighter materials and better suspension, I'm still a hardtail die hard at heart.

I went out on my first mountain bike ride in a few months this week. It was great fun, I'm hoping to get out a lot more often now that I have more time and family life has settled down again. Our youngest is finally sleeping a lot better thanks to his new inhalers, my freelance career is steady and my bike came out the shop with a few much needed upgrades a few months ago. My bike is an On-One Inbred steel hardtail with mid-travel suspenion at the front. Steel has been a favourite of mine since I got my first mountain bike as a kid, a Kona Fire Mountain. I love the feel you get on the trail as you're riding. I have tried a couple of aluminium frames in the past but you can feel the harshness of these frames as you're riding. Every bump on the trails is transferred through the frame to you. When it gets bumpy you can feel it.

I've also tried a couple of 'hardcore hardtails' for more aggressive riding in the last few years. These bikes are great for downhilling, jumps, and bigger drops than your typical mountain bike could handle. Those days are long past me though. Hefting such weight about on the trail can take it's toll. I'm reaching my late thirties now and I don't have the stamina I had when I was younger, so when I want to get out and ride, I just want to ride. Which is why I eventually settled on the bike I did, a plain hardtail trail bike.

After talking to a friend about his new full-suspension bike, I got that 'new bike itch' again. So last night at 2am while our youngest was demolishing a bottle of milk, I started browsing for full-suspension bikes on my iPhone.

Having never owned a full-suspension bike, I've nothing to compare a hardtail to in terms of riding, but for the purist like me I think that they're more suited to more extreme trails. They have their advantages when setup correctly, even with the extra weight they carry (which is becoming less and less of an issue), they allow for faster lines absorbing all those bumps and roots in the trails that other bikes may opt to avoid. I'm not going to get into a debate with the rest of the mountain biking community over hardtails versus full-suspension, for me I do prefer a well built hardtail.

After 30 minutes of browsing the many online bike stores, one thing was clear to me. Full-suspension bikes are more expensive than their hardtail counterparts, but even aiming at the £1000 point there are few full-suspension bikes that would win me over. I'll admit it would be hard to get a decent full-suspension bike at this price point, going higher would definitely open up more options, but I couldn't realistically pay anymore than £2000 for a mountain bike. If I had a budget of £1500 I would definitely buy a hardtail every time. The simplicity of the setup is what sells it for me. A bike that you can simply ride anywhere. Yes it might not handle the more extreme trails in the Alps, or even the black routes at the trails centres across Scotland, but it will handle the 90% of my riding needs. Also at this point you can push the boat out to getting yourself a better than average bike in terms of components.

The new bike itch is still there largely in part to the changing sizes in wheels that bikes are available in. I think the 650B size will eventually become the more popular wheel size in general with a minority number of bikes coming in the 29" size.

I'm not ready to buy anything just yet, but when the time comes, I will definitely be looking towards the hardtail market again for a new bike. It's a proven design that has lasted for decades and hopefully will last for many more to come.