Matthew Lang

... is predicted by Nicholas Bate. I look forward to it.

A couple of weeks ago me, Jen and the kids headed to our nearest big electrical store, Currys at Braehead Shopping Centre. We were going to look at televisions for the new room we have called 'the den'. It's only a small room, it was previously a garage, so we only required a small television for it. Nothing like those enormous 50" panels you see, just a 32" would cut it.

We arrived at the store and found the televisions department. Mega expensive massive televisions at the front and at the back in the dark are the small and relatively cheap televisions. As we were only looking for a 32", we made a beeline for the back of the department.

We had a price bracket and within that bracket we had narrowed it down to a handful of television sets. Having found the television that we wanted, I tried to grab the attention of one of the store staff. Short of knocking one of them over the head with a set of speakers, I couldn't get assistance from any of the staff in this department.

While doing this I did see the television we were looking for in stock. However I did want to just check a couple of things with the staff before we purchased it. Having no success at all in trying to pin down a member of staff, we decided to cut our losses and left the store, without purchasing the television we liked.

Having stood there for close to 20 minutes, it was clear where the staff's attention was. The big purchases, the big televisions. As we left we passed two groups of staff that had suddenly congregated either side of the front row of big televisions in the department. If someone stopped to inspect one, they would be in an excellent position to help the customer and in turn, attempt to get a big sale. Beyond that row, you were doomed for assistance. It was like tiered customer service. Those that spend more get more service.

Once we got home, I purchased the same television online from another retailer for the same price. I could have bought the television online from Currys, but given the lack of assistance I got from staff, why should they get a sale from me?

Most big retailers have online stores that give you online purchasing of their goods, but when you make a big purchase like this, sometimes a trip to the physical store does help you to see what it is you're actually buying. It's at this point, that the staff should be helpful no matter what price bracket you're buying in.

Even in a world where buying online is an option, some customers will still venture to the stores to check out goods in person before committing to a sale in the store or at the online store of that retailer. During this time, retailers should ensure that customers are served well if they want an in-store sale. However with service like this, it can put off customers not just for that one purchase but for many purchases after that.

There are a couple of appliances in the house that are nearing their time for replacement. Will I be venturing back to Currys to replace these appliances? Highly unlikely.

If customers don't like a store's service, they'll go elsewhere, and not just for that one purchase but many more after that. It's the oldest lesson in the book for retailers but has an added twist for the age of online retailers, customers vote with their feet, both physical and digital.

When I first started working independently at the start of the year, I had grand visions of being able to dictate my own time and allow myself more time to write, work on my own ideas and follow them through to products. It was also a chance for me to explore other skills like iOS programming and web design. Just as we're passing into the last quarter of the year though, I'm shocked to see how little actual time I have spent doing this.

Aside from a three week vacation between July and August, I have taken very little time off away from client work. It wasn't that I couldn't, it just never occurred to me actually schedule some time in for myself and tell my clients that I won't be available for a few days.

I guess I initially panicked at the start of the year and thought that money in the bank was the goal, so I simply worked as much as I could in terms of client work to get some money put by. I am now in a much better financial position now, but I still need to top it up slightly to get to my goal of having four months basic salary there to live on should I find myself in a position where I am not working.

I may have mentioned this before on the blog, but I want this post to be the call to action I need to schedule some time for myself. Once I've scheduled some time, I'll write about my plans for this time and see what can I fit in during this time.

I've hosted my blog on Heroku for a while now. I also have a number of other apps including Journalong that are also hosted on Heroku. I love the simplicity of deploying apps with a single command and for all the backend maintenance to be taken care of for me.

The extra maintenance comes at a cost though. Unless you're running a really small site or web application, Heroku can quickly get expensive. Extra resources are metered and charged for as well as the number of different addons that you can use with Heroku.

As a result, I've started to consider alternative hosting services for this blog and my private bookmarking application. I don't just want more control over my hosting, I want more space and resources made available to me without having to pay extra for it. Yes, Heroku does provide great addons but these can quickly tally up, especially if you need more database space and services like email or logging.

I did this morning have it narrowed down to either using Linode or Digital Ocean, but the low $5 per month tier from Digital Ocean is very tempting for just running my blog and my bookmarking application. I have spun up a droplet in Digital Ocean for my blog and I'm in the process of moving it over to see what it's like.

I'll report back my findings in a few weeks once I've let the blog settle down and I've had a chance to really explore using Digital Ocean for hosting.

UPDATE: I've since killed the idea of moving my blog to DigitalOcean. I just don't have the time at the moment.

Last week I talked about why I was bored of the hype surrounding the release of Apple's two new iPhone models. I said that the debate surrounding Apple making progress was really a waste of time.

Then there’s the analysis and opinions of millions of people on whether this is Apple at their best or not. A million pointless questions being asked and everyone has their own answer. Not that it matters of course, because Apple will do what Apple want to do regardless of the views and opinions of others.

— Bored of the Hype

I then went on to write about my thoughts on a picking my next gaming console later in the week. So how can I say that the debate around Apple is pointless and then proceed to write about my first world problem of picking a games console?

Well aside from the fact that I just wanted to write about the similarities with the consoles, I had a decision to make and writing about it seemed to be the best way for me to clarify what I was looking for in my next games console. The thing about this is that the decision I am making matters to me as an individual. It's a small thing yes, but it matters to me.

The small things do matter and they warrant some of your time. Whether it's five minutes or an hour. We can't spend all our time focused and debating on the big issues of the world, we still have our own lives to get on with. So give yourself some time off from the big stuff to think about the small things that matter to you.

The excellent RSS reader client, Reeder received a welcome upgrade this week in the form of the new Reeder 2 app. A new app and a new price. Yes folks, if you paid for Reeder and expected a lifetime of free upgrades then think again. Reeder 2 is a separate app and if you want the pleasure of using it, it will cost you. And that's not a bad thing.

Apps Are Cheap

Let's face it, we've sometimes spent more money on a coffee and a bite to eat than we do on apps. We don't argue over paying a few dollars for a bite to eat to keep us going, but why do some of us complain when an app is priced in the same region? Are you seriously going to quibble over $5 for an app that you are going to use practically every day when you've just dropped the same price on a coffee and a bagel?

I've 9 non-Apple apps on my home screen that I use every day. Two of them are free and the rest are bought apps. I wouldn't hesitate to pay for new app versions of these every year. That could be in the region of $60 per year, but I have subscriptions to single services that are more than the combined total of $60 so right away an upgrade at $5 per year is still better value than many SaaS subscriptions.

Also updates to apps where a new version is released are usually in the space of 18 to 24 months, so even forking out $5 every couple of years isn't going to break the bank.

Support The Developer

Many of these apps are not made by massive software companies but by independent developers working from home or small offices. The apps they write aren't hobbies or projects, they're part of the developer's business model and their income.

No business can sustain itself on free updates. There's simply nothing there to support the future of the developer and the app you use on a daily basis if they provide free updates for an app for life.

These developers make apps so that they can generate income to support themselves and for some of them, their families too. It isn't just a sideline, it's much needed income for them. It's a living.

You Get Value

App updates like this are a good thing as you the customer gets more value. New versions of apps give the developer a chance to start with a clean slate and build a better version of their previous app.

Obviously these new features take time, but they also can't be built on the developer's time without some kind of return. Safe in the knowledge that the developer has a revenue stream from the existing app, they can then focus on spending their time exploring ways of making future versions of their apps better.

So there we go. Paying for your app upgrades is worth it. It's cheap and you're ensuring that the app you gain value from will be around for a long time.

I welcome developers that push new versions of their apps and charge for them. It gives them a chance to take a good thing and make it better. Yes, it might cost a few dollars a year for it, but I see it as money well spent.

And it's called Markdown.

Honestly, it's a simple markup that anyone can use.

via FGGT

The console war has begun for the next generation of gamers, but choosing between either of these consoles as my next gaming platform has still left me mostly undecided. In a games shop, I even asked one of the staff what they thought of the specs and which one they would buy. His answer, "buy both", is hardly the best answer you're looking for when you're an occasional gamer.

Currently I have an Xbox 360 with a handful of games. I don't play very often and I certainly don't have the time to co-ordinate myself enough to play online against friends and family, but I do like sitting for a couple of hours each weekend and working my way through a few games.

The first consideration is my oldest son. He likes playing a few games on the Xbox 360 including his favourite game, Minecraft. Most of the games he does play are usually available on both consoles and there will be a version of Minecraft available for the PS4. However, what other titles are there on the PlayStation that are suitable for him to play? Mostly the same titles that he's played on the Xbox previously, so I'm not concerned about availability of suitable games for him.

There's very little between the two consoles in terms of specifications, but having had previous experience with the Kinect, I would have to say that I wasn't completely enamored with it. There just hasn't been enough games for it since its release. Yes, there's all the usual fitness and dance games but that's not the games I play.

If I had to choose between the two, I would choose the PlayStation 4. Simply out of curiosity really, nothing else. I've had a an Xbox for a couple of years now, might be time to try the other camp. Still I've got a few months to think it over before I commit to a purchase.

The text editor. The programmer's most important tool and the center of an ongoing debate that will occupy programmers for years.

I'm not going to debate on the best editor as that would be stupid. Everyone has their own preferences and needs. Vim does offer some nice advantages for those familiar with all the necessary keystrokes, but for my needs I just want a nice, extensible text editor that I am comfortable with. I chose Sublime Text 2 a couple of years ago and more recently I have started using Sublime Text 3 for my day to day coding needs.

The Essentials

Okay they're not really essentials, but if you can't even look at your text editor then you're already hitting your first hurdle. Not only does Sublime Text allow you to change the colour scheme and fonts for the different languages you code in, but it also allows you to change the theme of the editor. A nice touch I think you'll agree.

Theme

I settled on the Flatland theme a few months ago. Its non-gradient look might be a bit bare for some, but I do like this theme. It's very dark and I prefer the dark background in my sidebar and tabs.

It also allows you to customise the height of the folders and files in your sidebar. By default Sublime does have a fair margin around these, but Flatland allows you to specify a smaller size, so that you can fit more into your sidebar.

Colour Scheme

Long before I started using Sublime Text 2, I was already using the Solarized colour scheme. I've stuck with it ever since and even use it as the colour scheme for my terminal. I prefer the dark version as the light version does have too much of a stark contrast with the Flatland theme.

Font

I've tried lots of fonts for programming with, but I find that Monaco, a font shipped with OS X, is best suited to my needs. It looks nice on my MacBook Pro and on my external monitor with just a small difference between the two screens.

Installed Packages

I do have a fair number of packages installed for specific things like Cucumber, RSpec, Rails and other language and framework specific needs so I'm going to list those packages that are independent of language and therefore get used on a frequent basis.

AllAutoComplete

Sublime Text 2 just came with autocomplete listings for the file you had currently open, so this plugin is a welcome addition as it includes all currently open files for your autocomplete listing.

SublimeGit

This package is a great package with plenty of integration with Git. It's also the first paid package that I have used with Sublime Text 3. As I use Git all the time, this plugin been worth every penny.

GitGutter

GitGutter allows you to see which lines have been inserted, deleted and modified. It's basically a diff for your editor. Little symbols appear in your editors margin to signify where code has been changed. At a glance it's nice to see where I have modified a single file.

Origami

You can't use Vim and not be impressed with being able to split panes with just a few keystrokes. It was one of the few things I have managed to remember from my many sojourns to the land of Vim. Sublime Text does have the same ability to split panes, but the keystrokes for this are difficult to remember.

Origami makes splitting panes much easier by providing easier to remember keystrokes for manipulating and navigating through panes as well as having the same commands available in the command palette.

MarkdownEditing

I handle a lot of files in Markdown. It's the default markup for the majority of files that I create and use. Brett Terpstra's MarkdownEditing package provides some sensible defaults for editing Markdown files. It also provides some handy keyboard shortcuts for manipulating Markdown files such as inserting headings, pasting links and adding footnotes.

CTags

Although Sublime Text has built in support for finding symbols in the current file, having ctags support just makes navigating between methods a lot easier. Rather than switching to a file and searching for the symbol, I can simply use ctags to pull up all symbols for the project navigate straight to the method I need.

So there we go, a quick run down of my Sublime Text 3 setup. If you're looking for preferences files then I must do an update of these on Github, but I'll provide a link here when that's done in the next couple of days, so be sure to check back.

Yet another big Apple announcement goes by and yet again we see just marginal improvements on the products that Apple have become famous for. Not that I was expecting anything grand or game changing, it's just that the hype around these things by tech sites and magazines is reaching the scales of ridiculous.

It seems common place now for magazine sites like The Verge to live blog these events even though we know 90% of what's coming. I wasn't surprised by anything that was announced at the event. 64-bit processors in the new iPhone 5S ... not surprised. Fingerprint security ... thought it was coming. It comes in gold! We already knew that.

Then there's the analysis and opinions of millions of people on whether this is Apple at their best or not. A million pointless questions being asked and everyone has their own answer. Not that it matters of course, because Apple will do what Apple want to do regardless of the views and opinions of others.

Debating on topics is fun, but I'm bored with the Apple debate now. Let them do what they do best, it's clearly working for them. If you like their products then fine, buy them. If not, go find an alternative. The world doesn't need a million different view points on a phone or a computer or anything materialistic like that.

There are more important things happening right now like state surveillance, war, chemical weapons and conflict. Maybe if these were debated with the same energy as the latest iPhone, we might actually make enough noise for those who should be listening to invoke change. It's a long shot, but it's worth a try.

Nothing better than a developer debate over preferred programming fonts. I love the look of this new programming font, Hermit. Looking forward to it becoming available in the next few days.

It's a no brainer really. Books by NB are straight to the point and easy to act upon. I'm looking forward to this one.

I read Matt's post without even giving a thought to applying it to writing code like Curtis has. I confess to also reading too much as well.

Time for me to prioritize creating over consuming.

Jame Shelley is spot on with his observation on the value of curating.

Right now all over the world, open source software is being used by millions of people. Most of these people probably don't even know it, but the services they use on a daily basis are more than likely being powered by open source software in some form. Since it's birth in the early eighties, open source software has become more and more prominent and should now be considered a mainstream topic that hopefully even non-programmers know about.

I've used open source software in my most of my career as a programmer, but it hasn't been until the last five years where open source software has comprised of the majority of tools in my tool belt. From software languages and frameworks to the tools and libraries that I used on a daily basis, open source software has given me a career that I feel very positive about and enjoy working in.

So to all the open source developers who give up their precious time to build software for others to use and enjoy, I just want to say thank you.

Your selfless acts of contributing your time and effort to the world of code for free is reflected in all the greatness that open source software has achieved.

Killer bike for the clan.

via FGGT

Patrick Rhone. Writer, curator, Mac fan, thinker, family man and blog hero. Did I miss anything? It's hard to put Patrick into one box when his blog lets you know that he isn't just good at one thing. He's great at many things.

Patrick's blog first came to my attention when I first started using Twitter. I was simply looking for other people to follow who were interesting. His recommendation came up and I have followed his blog ever since.

Patrick's blog has a mixed bag of topics. Personal thoughts, productivity insights, technology usage and of course writing. The thing about Patrick is that despite his love of technology and its advantages, he still writes about tools like pens, notebooks and index cards and how he uses them. I see it as the perfect balance between man and machine. His blog is a reminder that there's more to getting things done than just buying the next killer app.

Patrick's blog has been daily reading for me for over five years and will continue to be so in the future.

Path, the social network that limits you to just 150 people, just pushed a new update to their app that offers a premium model with complete access to their shop. At the moment their shop comprises of only stickers for use in messages with your family and friends and filters for the pictures you send. The option to upgrade to premium gives you access to all these items in the Path shop for an annual cost of $14.99.

While I applaude Path's decision to finally offer a premium model, it's not the premium model that I envisioned. I don't want stickers, filters or anything like that. I'm looking for the ability to share my posts to other networks like App.net and to others by email. I also want to export the data in my Path so that I have complete access to all the moments I have accrued since I started using Path. There's a lot of good memories in there.

These are the features I would pay for, not stickers and filters. I'm all for supporting the products and services I use, but the product must offer something in terms of real value to me besides it's core functionality. Full access to a sticker book and some Instagram-style filters isn't going to make me upgrade to their premium model.

Perhaps those extra features I described will be available in the future but the for the moment, I'll be staying away from the sticker premium model that Path are offering.

I just had a very unproductive day trying to implement a search addon for a customer. From first thing in the morning to early evening I have spent trying to get a simple search library to work. It's days like this that I end up getting frustrated and annoyed with my lack of progress. A wasted day if you will.

The truth is that no all days are going to be straight-forward or marked with progress. The trick is to learn from your unproductive day and adjust your plan for the following day.

Tomorrow I'll be approaching the problem from a different angle and reviewing my steps one at a time until I can be absolutely sure what the problem and see where I am going wrong. That's my plan.

What's your plan for following up on an unproductive day?

Reviewing and adjusting your workflow is good practice as a freelancer if you want to minimise the time you spend on admin duties. Even the smallest changes can make a big difference.

Take my time sheet for example. The actual inputting of entries into my time sheet can take me a few minutes to do at a time. Doing this multiple times a day can lead to lost time. Sometimes I even just take a notes of what I have worked on through the day and then take 10 minutes at the end of the day to fill in my time sheet.

I started looking for an alternative method of inputting into my time sheet last week. I needed a timer that I could start and stop and record the entry in my time sheet quickly. I tried a number of apps, but I eventually found a suitable app that sits in the background and works with FreeAgent.

Slips is a menu bar app that allows you to quickly record entries for your time sheet in FreeAgent (my preferred invoicing tool). Now when I say quickly I do mean quickly. I find it much easier and quicker now to update my time sheet from this app than finding my way through my browser and it's many open tabs. Of course there's the added benefit of me not getting sidetracked by something open in my browser.

Micro changes such as this might only get me back a few minutes a day but adding those minutes up over the year and could be a significant amount of time that I am getting back.

I wrote last week about finding purpose for my iPad, a tool that I feel was underused. Over the weekend I managed to sort out the various apps that I needed and re-arranged my screens so that the apps I use on a day to day basis are on my home screen and other apps are just a slide away.

In a departure from my iPhone, I have foregone the use of folders for grouping applications. I did this for two reasons. There's more screen space on the iPad and I don't need to use as many apps as I do on my iPhone.

Another change I made that is different from my iPhone setup is the number of apps on my home screen. I almost filled the screen with apps. Om my phone I just use the top two rows for apps on my home screen, but I don't mind having so many apps on my iPad's home screen,so I just fill the screen with the apps I need and pick a pleasing wallpaper.

One of the key decisions in picking apps for my iPad was whether to use the same apps on my iPhone for my iPad. The devices run on the same platform, but the bigger screen on the iPad means that I can afford to pick apps that offer more in terms of functionality, even if it does come at the cost of some screen estate. So I ditched PlainText for Editorial and of course there is no Reeder support on the iPad yet, so I have opted to use Mr Reader to read my RSS feeds.

So there we have it, my iPad setup. Simpler than I thought it was going to be, but it did require a different approach if I wanted to get the most from using it. And if you're questioning whether it will work for me or not, I'm writing this on my iPad in a cafe. That's got to count as a good start.

via Pedal Consumption

A while ago I wrote about my iPhone setup. I wanted to follow it up with a post on my iPad setup, but so far I've yet to find purpose for my iPad. I do most of my work at my desk on a laptop and I use my phone when I am out and about. So where does my iPad fit in?

What I initially wanted to do was to only have apps on my iPad that allow me to write. I mostly use it for reading and writing, but I haven't had much of a chance to do either of these in the last month.

Now I think that I want my iPad to do everything that I can do on my laptop. I'd much rather be working on my iPad than my laptop if was away from the house. Some tasks are a lot easier to do than others though. Reading and writing are easy to do on the iPad, but tasks like programming are not so straight forward.

Over the weekend I'll be tackling this and making sure that I can do most of what I want do from my iPad by installing any apps that I need. I'll let you know how I get on next week.

A little reminder from Michael Wade that even with ten minutes, you can do a lot.

But for small tasks - the "next actions" that David Allen writes about - 10 minutes can be a nice chunk of time. Each minute is valuable. Those portions eventually accumulate and result in the completion of the project.

— The Power of Ten Minutes by Execupundit