Matthew Lang

I've tried to start a number of new habits over the last few months, some of them have stuck, some of them haven't. Here's the ones that didn't stick.

1. Reading 2 books a month - Not really an unrealistic habit but perhaps should have been changed to 'read at least two books a month'. I've scrapped this in favour of just having a list of books that I can work through when I can. Some books take longer than others, so why timeframe it? It detracts from the enjoyment that a book brings. Try this instead - Just make sure you have a couple of fiction books beside your bed and keep reading them. When you finish one, replace it.
2. Logging something I learned everyday - I did keep a separate Journalong file for this but some days you just haven't learned anything significantly new. Instead I just log these as they happen. No sense in making a daily habit of it.
3. Mind mapping - I really wanted to start mind mapping again but the truth is I see little benefit in it now. I think mind mapping has its uses but it's just not on my radar now of things I want to keep doing. Yes I realise that as a past mind mapping blogger this is probably considered blasphemy but opinions change.

The thing is when you set out to start a new habit, it doesn't always work. If you really want it to work, you'll set aside the time to do it and keep on doing it. It will eventually stick.

If it doesn't, then just let it go. When a habit doesn't stick, it's not defeat. It's just your way of saying, I don't need this.

Plain text files. I love them. They're portable, easy to manipulate and work with hundreds of different tools. The only thing about them I don't like is they are a nightmare to organise.

Unless you've got an indexing and search tool that does all the hard work of collating them together, you're screwed. Now add to the mix that not all my files are in plain text. I've got an increasing number of documents that are PDFs, spreadsheets and even a few Word documents. It's getting out of control.

In the past I used Evernote, but at the time I felt I didn't have a need for such a tool. I didn't have clients, invoices, projects, ideas, side-products, documents and other stuff all vying for my attention. This stuff needs to go somewhere. Somewhere that I can find it again.

So I'm considering Evernote again. I had no issues with it in the past other than I wasn't using it to its full potential. There's definitely a place for it in my list of everyday tools. I've got so much going on just now and the last thing I need is to be wasting time looking for documents or notes. I need this stuff and I need it fast. Let's hope that Evernote can fit my needs.

A brilliant idea. A bit like a manifesto, but I would say I was more likely to follow a law than a manifesto.

Great find by Kurt..

... but always helpful.

Thanks Michael.

... the executive's summary.

A while back I talked about looking to get back to mind mapping again but in the last few months I've found it quite a struggle to get back into it. I just don't feel comfortable with it anymore. It just doesn't flow as much as I thought it would. In fact I've found it quite cumbersome.

The ideal mind map radiates from a central topic and breaks out into branches that represent related topics. These branches break down further and further until you've got to the topic you need. The problem is that mind maps only radiate from the center. By the time I've added a number of top level topics I've already ran out of space on my paper and no, mind mapping software is not the answer. I'm strictly a pen and paper person when it comes to that initial capture.

So I've decided to jump back to scketchnoting again. I looked at this a while back, but I didn't give it enough of a chance. Now that I'm armed with the Mike Rhode's book on sketchnoting, blank notebooks, blank index cards and a pen, I'm ready to give sketchnoting a fair try again.

The thing that I like about sketchnoting is that it's more freeform than mind mapping. While mind mapping is restricted to a radial layout, sketchnoting can take many different forms of layouts. You fill your page in a way that makes it easy to read. I'll be sketchnoting various things like book notes, quotes and other things just to get the practice in.

A beautifully put together bike. Frames like this deserve only the best components.

via FGGT

I decided to lump these together in one post rather than drag them out into seperate posts. I'll also try and keep the reviews short and light. Watch out for more as I get more books read.

HMS Surprise & The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian

These are books three and four in the Aubrey/Maturin series. I couldn't possibly summarise the plots of these two books in a few short sentences, but they were both terrific reads. Like the first two books in the series there is great attention to detail in not only the characters and the plot, but also on the naval aspect of the stories. If you like your books short and fast paced these might not be for you, but I do love the way Patrick O'Brian has written these. They do require a fair amount of time to get through, but they're definitely worth the time.

Don't be an idiot: Learn how to run a viable freelancing business by Curtis McHale

I am fairly new to freelancing as are many others I would imagine. Most of us might have taken the plunge to freelancing without a thought to planning your finances. I did this a few years ago and the result was a disaster. I was completely burnt out and I didn't even make that much money from it. Fast forward to now and despite a rocky start, I'm getting there and that's thanks to this book.

In the book Curtis explains what's needed to make that initial jump, setting the right payment terms, project goals and reviews and more. This book won't tell you everything you need to know, I've yet to read a book that does, but this is a great starting point for those either looking to freelance or are currently freelancing but want to take it to a more professional level.

I hope that Curtis writes more books on freelancing in the future. He definitely has the right experience to draw from and he's proof that setting the groundwork can make your freelancing career really prosper.

The Freelancer’s Guide to Long-Term Contracts by Eric Davis

When I decided to freelance at the start of the year, I was unsure about how many clients I should have and how often I should be advertising myself as being available. What I didn't know was that there are in fact long term opportunities out there for freelancers. It's sort of the happy balance between working for yourself and full time job security. This was a form of freelancing I hadn't read about before but was really interested in.

Eric's book however has been a great guide through the possibilities of long term contracts. Thanks to this book, I now see them as being the premium service in my freelancing career. If you're looking to start freelancing and want the security of long term contract work then I would recommend that you get this book. It's a different way of working than short term contracts and thankfully Eric has all the advice you'll need.

Next on the list are War of the Roses: Stormbird, Frictionless Freelancing, You Only Better and Crafting Rails 4 Applications. I'll be hoping to report on these at the start of next year.

Last night I posted to App.net an idea for a premium newsletter that aggregates and reports on activities and news happening within the App.net community. The response I got back from people was very positive. A lot of people expressed interest in the newsletter.

Why a newsletter?

It's a question I asked myself a few times while writing this blog post. App.net members can already find out this information on App.net itself, the only problem is that they might not know the correct hashtag or account to follow to get that information. The newsletter is not just a way of letting you know what's happening on App.net but also as a way of bringing App.net members together.

I'm trying to foster a better way of brining people together on App.net.
Since signing up for App.net I've enjoyed being here and I want to continue enjoying that experience. That's why I thought about introducing a newsletter for App.net members. A unified way of getting up to date information in one place. You can still use your own methods if you prefer, e.g. searching for the right hashtag for the book club or finding out when the next writers challenge is. The newsletter isn't compulsory, it's optional. It's your decision how you want to interact with App.net.

Why premium?

When I say premium, I mean a newsletter you pay for. Why would you pay for it? Well why wouldn't you? It takes time to collate, write and edit newsletters and while most free newsletters rely on ads, I don't think that ads are what people want to see in the newsletter, although I haven't validated this yet.

App.net started out as a premium service that indicated right from the start, no ads. I was hoping that the newsletter would follow the same path.

On the other hand I can appreciate those that wouldn't pay for such a newsletter and would want to receive it for free. If you're not paying for an App.net account then why would you pay for an App.net newsletter? Also we're trying to foster participation in this community and many people have free accounts. Why would they want to pay for information that they can get that information through other means?

Then there is those who are already paid members. Do they really want to pay for a monthly subscription on top of their membership? To bo honest, I would. The newsletter would have to deliver value though.

I've been thinking about this and while I can see the benefit of a free newsletter for one and all, I see little reward for those that could be contributing to the newsletter. That fluffy feeling you get from doing something for free for someone can only get you so far. What if the newsletter takes off and demands more of my time?

I started a poll last night (thanks @abraham), to get feedback on whether people would sign up for a premium newsletter on what's happening in App.net. For me the number of responses are too small to definitely say that yes most people would be interested in a paid newsletter. At 9am (GMT) this morning the responses were as follows:

• 61% (11 votes) of respondents indicated that they would be interested in a premium newsletter.
• 33% (6 votes) would be interested in a newsletter if it was free.
• 6% (1 vote) said they wouldn't be interested in a newsletter at all.

Clearly there is demand for a newsletter, but a premium one? I'm not sure on that yet.

What's in it then?

Here's the good part. I've been able to get a lot of great feedback from people with very interesting ideas for content for the newsletter. Here's some of the suggestions so far:

• App.net meet ups across the world - Really just a list of where App.net members are meeting in the next couple of weeks. Usually I hear of these things through App.net itself, but having these delivered to your inbox is a better way of finding out when they are happening.
• Community calendar of events and activities happening on the network - Really what I think we have in mind here is dates for events like #thememonday, #wedc as well as book clubs or movie nights that are happening across App.net.
• New apps and services - Got a new app that you want everyone to know about? Then why not spread the word through the newsletter. We'll also let you know when apps and services get important updates as well.
• New interesting users - I'm not talking about celebs. I'm talking about writers, photographers, thought leaders, musicians. If anyone important joins App.net we can let you know through the newsletter.
• Tips and suggestions - Did you know that Alpha supports the Markdown syntax for embedding links in your post? Not a lot of people know that, but wouldn't it be great to see tips like this and getting more from App.net with other titbits like this.
• Featured photo - Every week a photo taken by an App.net user will be featured in the header of the newsletter with a link to credit that user.
• Member profiles - Every week we could feature a user in the newsletter and do a small Q&A session with them. This could include the ADN staff as well if people wanted this. The point to this is that everyone in the community is important so featuring users in the newsletters would be great to foster connections between people.

What's the next step?

Providing I get enough positive feedback from App.net members then I think a simple first edition of the newsletter is required. Something for everyone to enjoy. What I also need is actual content as well and a structure for that content that will make up the newsletter. I've created a patter room for the ADN newsletter as well as an account on App.net for the newsletter.

An amazing account of how an American photoreconnaissance team, in a battered B-17 called Old 666, carried out a mission to gather intelligence on a Japanese base on the island of Rabaul.

During the first fighter pass the plane was hit by hundreds of machine gun bullets and cannon shells. Five crewman of the B-17 were wounded and the plane badly damaged. All of the wounded men stayed at their stations and were still firing when the fighters came in for a second pass, which caused just as much damange as the first. Hydraulic cables were cut, holes the size of footballs appeared in the wings, and the front plexiglas canopy of the plane was shattered.

— The Most Honored Photograph by LensRentals

via Kotte.org

Even if you don't drink coffee, this is a must buy if you're a cycling fan.

via PedalConsumption

... from Adam Keys that you should reserve a place for work only.

The big idea from that article, burning a hole in my head, is that we should step away from our desks when we’re not working (for me, telling computers to do things). Thinking can happen on a walk, standing outside, or in the shower. Socializing can happen from the couch or mobile device. Procrastinating by reading, surfing, social networking, etc. can happen anywhere.

— Quit your desk by Adam Keys

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would be rewriting the Journalong application complete with a new front end that would be more simplistic. I was hoping to do away with the current look of the journal entry page by trying to re-design it. After a few of getting nowhere I've decided to throw in the towel in on the facelift to Journalong. It's given me too many things to think about regarding the user interface. Basically, I'm over complicating a simple thing.

I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks to push the rewritten version of Journalong to Heroku without the facelift. There will be no change to the functionality of the site, there will however be one immediate change that will be visible on the site.

I'm going to do away with the blog for the website. As a replacement for communicating with Journalong users I'm going to create a newsletter. Not only will it be used for notifying users of updates to Journalong but there will be tips and stories from users of Journalong.

The problem with the blog. It's almost impossible to determine which of your customers are reading your blog. Other than subscribing to Feedburner, or a similar service, there's no way to determine how many people are actively subscribed to your blog and interested in using Journalong.

With a newsletter I'll have more of an idea about who's interested in Journalong. I can monitor the number of people who are subscribed and determine how many are actually Journalong customers and how many aren't.

Once this is done, I'll be working on a number of new features that will make Journalong even easier to use. I hope you can all bear with me for the next few weeks. Good things are coming, I promise.

... is such a bad move for a manager. Don't be that manager.

Read on at Execupundit to see the characteristics of a good manager.

For the last two weeks I've been using Trello instead of Taskpaper for managing projects like Journalong. It's really an experiment to see if I can get more things done with a visual system. Previously I was using lists in Taskpaper. It worked to an extent but anything that was at the bottom of list would frequently be forgotten.

So what is Trello?

Trello is a generic organisation and collaboration tool. Yes it sounds like a vague description, but Trello isn't tied to any one particular workflow. Basically Trello is a simple workflow and list manager.

A Trello board consists of several lists like so:

You create cards that you move through the lists from left to right. The lists themselves can be called anything you want and can be modelled after any iterative workflow that you can think of.

The cards are used to represent individual items of work. It could be a task, a feature for a product, an article you want to write or even part of your wild scheme to take over the world.

The cards themselves contain a title and a description but can also contain a set of tasks, attachments and even comments from yourself and other users collaborating on the same board.

How I'm using Trello

I'm using Trello in two ways at the moment.

Primarily I am using it to get my finger out on moving some development projects along. Journalong was first to get the Trello treatment and work on it as picked up again since I started using it. I use it mainly to mimick the Kanban way of software development as you can see from the board below:

As well as using Trello as a way of managing software projects, I'm also using Trello to manage my blog. In particular, my weekday posts to the blog and the writing process involved for each post.

I have a backlog of ideas that I want to write about. It ranges from software development to personal reflective pieces. At the weekend I pick five ideas from the backlog for the coming week and assign each of them a day of the week. Then I stick them in the drafts column and start writing each one.

As they are completed they get moved on to editing and then they are ready to be published. While the Journalong board is fine, I might change the process for my blog posts. I don't want to get too bogged down in different steps for each post. I tend to write, edit and queues posts for my blog in the one sitting.

Great device support

What makes Trello great however is the support they have for different devices. It's one of the few applications that I have installed on by my iPad and iPhone. Initially I was hesitant of how Trello was going to be implemented in iOS. However since using it for the last few weeks, It's steadily becoming a favourite in my day to day apps category.

The iPhone UI is particularly nice as it lets you zoom in on a list within a board so that you can see all the cards for that list. Everything that you have available in the web UI is available here as well. Checklists, labels, attachment and comments are all there.

It's free!

One thing that you thought I may have skipped over is that Trello is a free for anyone to use. I had reservations about this until it was pointed out to me that the makers of Trello, Fog Creek Software, wanted Trello to be a free product from the start.

There is a business plan that allows organisations to use Google Apps for authentication and to get all their users across without any pain. There is also paid plan called Trello Gold that adds a number of nice touches like changeable board backgrounds and bigger file uploads. The free version of Trello is ideal for most people.

A great visual tool

I've enjoyed using Trello over the last few weeks and I've decided to stick with it for managing projects and my writing. Whether I'll use it for other things like sales leads, invoicing or anything else I can think of will be decided as and when I think I need something beyond a basic list to manage them.

I love the visual side of using a board. You get a clearer picture of where everything is and it means that you instantly know what you should be picking up next. Coming from a background of using mind mapping for a few years, I love systems that use visualisation to convey a message or intent. The nice thing about this tool is that it's visual, portable and adaptable to just about any process that you can think of. It isn't the silver bullet to everything, but if you're having problems getting projects organized and trying to determine where the bottlenecks are then Trello just might be worth checking out.

This post contains a referral link for Trello for which I receive a free month of their paid plan, Trello Gold, for each sign up. If you don't want to use the referral code, you can use this link to checkout Trello for yourself.

Eric Davis' book on long term contracts, recommends making long term contracts the top tier of your services pyramid. "What's a service pyramid?", I hear you say. Well, basically your pyramid comprises of three tiers of products and services. Your affordable products and services for the masses are on the bottom tier, products and services for specific markets go in the middle tier with your premium service at the top tier. It got me thinking about the tiers in my pyramid of services and products. Do I have services and products in each one?

The Top Tier

Currently the only premium service I offer in the top tier is myself as a Ruby on Rails developer. This fits in with Eric's idea that only your long term contracts should reside in here and that's currently what I have in the top tier. I have a couple of long term contracts for providing myself as a development resource to teams using Ruby on Rails.

The Middle Tier

There's nothing in my middle tier, but that's okay. My top tier provides me with nearly all of my income at the moment, but I shouldn't leave this tier empty for too long. As a freelancer I can't be dependent on any one stream of income. Each product or service should be generating some income for me, but at least for the moment I have a good premium service that I can depend on until I get other products and services in place.

The Bottom Tier

At the moment, the only product or service that I have in my bottom tier is Journalong, my free journaling service for Dropbox. I don't have any other products or services here. There's definitely room for another product in here. Something simple and easy to manage. As for services I'm not too sure. I don't currently provide any short term affordable services that others would want. Well at least I haven't been asked.

There's definitely room here for more products and services.

What Next?

What I have taken away from this exercise is that I need to start thinking about other products and services in the middle and bottom tiers of my pyramid. The gaping hole in the middle of my pyramid requires a product or service or even both. It shouldn't cost more than any micro products and services in the bottom tier but should still be cheaper than my rate as a freelance developer.

As for the bottom tier, I am putting more time into Journalong with the goal of turning it around into a profitable micro-product. I've got a few ideas for other products and services in this bottom tier, but I need to be selective about those. There's only room for so much that I can do, and cramming too much into the bottom tier can take my focus away from the middle and top tiers. I will need to keep prioritising things over the next few months if I'm to have something in each tier of my pyramid.

During one of my capture sessions from my inbox, I came across this question in Eric Davis' newsletter from his book on long term contracting:

What's your end game?

It resonated with one of Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people:

Begin with the end in mind

The idea is that in order to know what you want to do, you must first decide what your destination is going to be.

It got me thinking about what direction I am taking my freelancing business in and where I am going to end up. I certainly want to continue to be self-employed for the foreseeable future, but what exactly will I be doing in the future? More freelance work for clients? Consulting? Selling products? I'm not too sure.

I have had work experience with health organisations in the UK including some work in risk management for those organisations. I have prototyped a number of risk and decision management solutions in the past that did interest me. Could I apply this knowledge to building similar products now? Possibly.

Although maybe my destination lies more closer to home. Maybe I'll end up doing something outwith the world of web applications. One thing's for certain. If I'm to progress as self-employed for as long as I can, I need to work out what my end game is for my freelancing business.

Nice racing green also the bars are rather good as well.

via Pedal Consumption

When I first started freelancing, I thought I had the perfect job. Setting my own hours, working from home and no tiresome commute. These positives are what many people want from freelancing but there's a downside as well.

The downside

Working alone is hard for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that you are in fact alone. You're no longer part of a team, you're on your own trying to build a career with the resources you have available to you. It's not as dire as it sounds, but there's lots of little things you miss when you're working on your own.

The office banter is gone. I worked in a great team of developers a couple of years ago and I do miss the chatting before the stand up and pairing with other devs through the day. You can be the most connected person on Twitter, but it's no replacement for a face to face chat with people.

Then there's the resource part. Everything is on you, and I mean everything. No only do you have to deliver great work, but you also must communicate clearly with your clients, keep your skills up to date, market yourself and about a thousand other tasks that keeps your business running.

The upside

So you're working alone with big responsibilities on your shoulders, but there's an upside to working this way as well.

Having a balanced work life that doesn't eat into my time with my family is why I enjoy working from home so much. Not only do I no longer commute to and from work, but my hours are also dictated by the client work that I do. It's very rare now I work at night now. I fit all my client work in during the day, which leaves me time at night to do work on my own projects, get some reading done but best of all I actually get to spend time with my family.

The other big positive for me is I get work the way I want to work. I get to choose the hours I want to do. Having the flexibility to fit more in my day means that the weekend is left free for more important things like taking the kids to the park or getting myself out on the bike.

I also get to choose the the tools I want to use. It's very liberating to have this choice and not be confined to working with one tool or framework and be restricted by the equipment you can use. I've had my fair share of programming jobs in the past that wouldn't have been my first choice, but now I'm actually in a role where I'm enjoying what I am doing.

The verdict

I prefer this independent way of working. The positives really do outweigh the negatives for me. It's definitely not as easy or straight forward as I first thought it was going to be, but it is providing me with more opportunities to carve myself the career that I want.

Programmers have always got old code lying around. Forgotten applications, libraries, ideas and other files and folders. Remnants of days perhaps when ideas were rife and ambitions were high. I have those days as well. I have an idea for something, I mock up a quick test with some code and then most of the time decide that it's not simply worth my time investing in it further. What remains behind is a filing system littered with dead folders and files.

Today I started cleaning up those dead end projects.

I deleted old applications that I'm not hosting anymore, deleted ideas for applications and products that I know are not going to work and also deleted a few repositories from Github account. I cleared out a few forked repositories that I had high ambitions of working on but haven't contributed to them.

From there I then started to remove a few applications from my MacBook Pro. I only deleted a few applications, but better to remove them than to have them sitting idly doing nothing. More deadwood gone.

Then I moved onto the online tools and services I subscribe to and removed a couple of them also. A few more dollars back in my pocket each month and that great feeling of removing yourself from a service or subscription that might distract you with an email each week, but you quickly delete it.

Just like clearing your desk or work environment of deadwood files, folders and other junk on your desk, it's also important to remove the digital deadwood as well. Start with your laptop or tablet and remove the applications you don't use, the old folders and files that are no longer relevant. Once your immediate work environment is clear, move on to your work environment in the cloud and trim those services that you don't use anymore.

Keeping a clean digital environment is just as important as keeping your physical work environment clear. You might just end up saving yourself some money or even getting some space back on your laptop. Even better, you might just have rid yourself of a few unwanted notifications each month.

You don't get anything for free in life, and that is definitely true for hosting platforms. In exchange for often what is perceived as a great free hosting offer is in fact a very limited service.

Take Heroku's free plan. It can handle a fair amount of traffic but it comes with a very limited database and if your website suddenly attracts a flood of new traffic then you are pretty much screwed. Heroku's free plan is good for early days of development, but it's definitely not a good starting point for your actual product.

A common complaint I hear from those with product ideas is the cost of funding their startup. In particular, web hosting. I've seen too many examples of products trying to run on inadequate hosting plans, often free or very cheap hosting, that fits the budget of the startup in limiting costs, buts increases the risk of the product's site failing to respond should it suddenly find itself on the receiving end of a rush of traffic to the site.

Being a lean startup doesn't mean you should limit your hosting budget so that you only go for free hosting services. You should at least be aiming for a being able to deal with the odd rush of traffic here and there from blog posts and marketing that link to your product. Marketing campaigns through emails and social networks can generate a lot of traffic to your product. With the sudden rush of traffic is your product's hosting platform going to cope? An unresponsive product means lost customers which in turn means potentially lost revenue. Nobody likes to lose money like that.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for free or very cheap hosting. Heroku's free plan is ideal for small static websites and good for test and staging environments for web applications. However for your products, that you want to generate you money, you need to spend a bit of money on a well provisioned hosting platform. This is a professional product you're selling after all, so why not invest some money in ensuring that others see a stable well hosted product rather than a product that times out with even the smallest surge of visitors?

There's plenty of choices out there and they range from bare Linux servers that you require you to set them up to managed hosting like Heroku. The choice is down to the amount of technical know how you have and how far your prepared to roll your sleeves up.

Being lean doesn't mean being cheap, it means providing a stable product that can scale with a growing number of sign ups and customers. That doesn't happen on free or cheap hosting plans, so spend the extra money on your product's hosting to get a stable platform that will be a step to ensuring that you at least get customers signing up.

At any one time there are usually three devices sitting on my desk. A laptop, a phone and a tablet. They all have different apps running on them but some of the apps they use are for the same service. So for App.net I have an app running on my laptop, but a different app running on my phone and tablet.

Here's the problem. I haven't really paid too much attention to configuring notifications for each of the apps so sometimes I end up getting multiple notifications going off on the different devices for the same event. For example, in App.net when I get a new follower, I get an email notification in my phone as well as a notification from Felix, and also a notification on Felix on my tablet. Just little bit overkill if you ask me.

So here's my question to all of you. What's your strategy for dealing with notifications on multiple devices?

I sit in front of my laptop for most of the day, so ideally most of my notifications should come through there, but then what notifications should I enable for my phone? Are there any type of apps that you recommend I should completely silence?

If you've got any thoughts on this then please reply back to my original post on App.net or drop me an email here. I'd be really interested to hear your views on this.

... with our guide, Kurt Harden.

via PedalConsumption