Matthew Lang

It's been a while since I took another stab at learning Vim. If you don't know what Vim is then all you need to know is that it's a major geek out text editor. Savvy?

Each time I've tried to learn Vim though I've started with an existing Vim configuration file. Getting up and running from a blank file just never appealed to me. The problem starting with another person's configuration though is that while everything is there that you need, there's a huge number of commands and shortcuts configured that in the beginning seems a rather daunting task to remember.

This time I've started with a blank slate so that every time I need to customise something in Vim I make the change in my configuration file to fix the problem and move on. Needless to say it's taken me a while to get the configuration file to a point where I would be happy doing client work with Vim as opposed to Sublime Text.

The surprising result though is that while I might be working a little slower than if I had been using Sublime Text, I'm actually learning more about Vim than I ever did before.

I'll report back in 3 months with an update to see if using Vim has stuck this time. I'm optimistic that it will this time, although I have been caved in the past.

Time for another quarterly delivery of Field Notes memo books. This time it's the Campfire edition.

There are three memo books in a set but the boys were quick to snag the "Night" covers of this set and lucky for them there was two of them. This is why in the picture above I'm only left with the "Dusk" and "Dawn" covers!

When I subscribed to Field Notes I wasn't really banking on the fact that my sons would be using them as much as they are are. Ethan is using the memo books for his golf and Drew is using them for drawing. I may have to bump up the order number next year!

I have never read The Art of War, but I've seen this quote enough times mentioned elsewhere (other books, games and of course the Internet) to know that it comes from Sun Tzu's book on military strategy and tactics.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I recently spotted this quote during a gaming session on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. In between scenes a quote from history appears on the screen.

It got me thinking about the trend towards crowdfunding for products and how transparency is often thought of as a good thing when it comes to building products.

With the recent surge of crowdfunding, you might think that you have to have an idea to tell the world first before it can be successful. It's not always been this way though.

Before Kickstarter, before crowdfunding, before the Internet successful products were built without customers knowing too much about the products until after there were launched.

I wonder if in the light of all this crowdfunding that it's time to consider working on products in a new way? Building the product under the cover of darkness, without the world knowing. Then when it's ready, deliver it to the world. Letting it fall like a thunderbolt.

We live in an age where everything we do is shareable and only a click of way from others knowing what we're doing. It not only applies to what we do in our own time, but also what we do when we're working and that include what we work on.

In some cases it's a good idea to get crowdfunding for a product. You can test the market and get the financial backing before the big push.

Perhaps we might want to consider the opposite as well. If we spent our time working on something without anyone knowing about it, could we capitalise on it and thereby surprise people's expectations?

Glad to see Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are still gaining fans. Annie is the latest convert.

done.

It's great to see that Kona bikes are looking great again.

... is what you need.

More insightful thoughts from Nicholas Bate.

Apple's App Store Guidelines now allow executable code in educational apps and developer tools.

Might not be a deal breaker for many, but I've longed to replace my raging MacBook Pro with a combo of an iMac and an iPad Pro. With the recent updates to the iMac line I can finally purchase one with updated specs, but the news at WWDC didn't make me think that I was going to see better development tools on an iPad Pro anytime soon.

The new guidelines in the App Store though mean that better software development tools for the iPad might be just around the corner.

... with Nicholas Bate.

It's often the case with me that I look for a big solution to what I perceive to be big problems rather than the small solution.

The client upgrade

Take for example an upgrade I'm doing for a client. There's a number of steps that I always take when it comes to upgrading web applications for clients, but in this case the steps didn't go as planned.

For a few hours I was banging my head against a wall because of an obscure error. Stepping back I decided to go through the application in more detail. After just a few minutes I finally found the problem and made the change to ensure the upgrade process was working. The error itself was a bit of a red herring, but the obscurity of it had me thinking that I had to do something more to get move forward with the upgrade.

The change to get the upgrade was to update an obsolete library to the latest version and then the client's application was working again. I've updated my notes for further upgrades I do for clients so that the same thing doesn't happen again.

The same thing happened with Ethan last week.

The golf swing

Last week, Ethan had an playing lesson with the club pro, Andy. For a couple of weeks now, Ethan's game has been slipping. It was frustrating to watch as I don't know what to look for in his swing when things go wrong other that what he has learned in the past from his coaching. Heading out to the first tee, Ethan got setup, did the usual pre-shot routine and then Andy chipped in with a little nugget of wisdom, "Stand back further".

The change was instantaneous. The drive went right up the middle of the fairway. Through the lesson the recurring theme in Ethan's swing was that he stood too close to the ball and needed to go back a few inches in order to get the ball going in the direction that he wanted. Whether it was a driver off the tee, a hybrid or iron from the fairway or even a wedge leading up to the green, Andy's advice was always the same, stand back further from the ball.

The small (and effective) solutions

Ethan's focus now is to start including a small check in his pre-shot routine that ensures he's the right distance from the ball. Checking the distance between his belt buckle and the end of his club and making sure he can fit a hand span between them is enough to ensure that he's the right distance from the ball.

In both cases the problem was significant, and yet the solution to each problem was the smallest change imaginable. I wouldn't have thought for one second that an out of date library could have had such an effect on upgrading a web application. I also wouldn't have thought that such a small change in Ethan's swing would have such an effect on the resulting shot.

What this has taught me though is that the smaller solutions should be the ones that we look towards first. Using tried and tested approaches and notes on previous upgrades, I've managed to stream line the upgrade process for a clients web application so that in most cases it takes days rather than weeks. Eliminating the small problems ensures that I'm always working towards a functioning upgrade.

It doesn't always work this way though. Every client upgrade is different and there are exceptions to the rule, although there shouldn't be that many. Most of my clients have similar technology environments when it comes to their web applications so upgrades should fall into the timeline of taking a few days, a week at most. Any number of issues can stall an upgrade and due the technicalities of it, it's not always the case that a simple solution can move it forward.

Keep notes on those solutions

It also doesn't hurt to document your experiences. They're all different but from the notes that I have built I have a process in place that eliminates most the of the problems I encounter when it comes to upgrading client's web applications.

As for Ethan's golf swing, he's determined to use the time over the summer to practice more. Ethan has a full summer of lessons, competitions and medals to play for so that he can keep working towards lowering his handicap. To do that he'll need to remember the small fixes that can have such a positive effect on his swing and resulting shot. He's keeping a notebook of his yardage and his lessons so that he has something to go back to and review.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off today.

I wouldn't call myself a fan-boy but I definitely have a preference for Apple products. I am interested in seeing the release of a new iPad Pro. Sadly I don't think there's going to be any new iMacs released.

Expect an explosion of Apple related news and tweets later on today.

Not your usual productivity hacks. I do think I could be doing with less distractions during the day.

If you’ve found yourself distracted by meetings, notifications, and phone calls, it’s important to put the brakes on that vicious cycle. Don’t allow time to slowly melt away and put off today what you believe can be done tomorrow.

— 3 powerful ways to hack your life, find focus, and get more done by The Verge

... with Nicholas Bate.

I've been wrestling with my inbox for a while now but last month I started batch processing my emails again, and although it has taken a few weeks I've got my inbox down to a handful of emails this morning from the 100+ that were sitting there a few weeks ago.

Once again, Twitter explodes over the tweets of a certain president.

As for what covfefe actually is, we still don’t know. Some may say it’s a typo of “coverage,” and that Donald Trump was railing against his portrayal in the media again. But the sensible among you would reject that hypothesis, knowing that there would be no way that the president would be sitting up in his ludicrously opulent mansion, restless at midnight, so steamed about his popularity that he would pull out his phone and throw out a half-considered complaint tweet to his millions of followers.

via The Verge

Is it a typo? Probably. As a result of a long line of gaffs and poorly worded tweets by Donald Trump though, it is hard to take him seriously. And for as long as he has free access to his own account then that isn't likely to change soon.

I've had pre-paid cards in the past but the app that accompanies the Monzo card should provide better insight into spending habits and make me think twice about my spending habits.