Matthew Lang

It's great to see movie crews and especially stunt performers, going to extraordinary lengths to get shots like this for movies.

Can't wait to see Assassin's Creed!

I'm still on the fence about Medium. Despite having an account there and no stories posted I still get people following me.

Sure I get what Medium is trying to achieve by making blogging easy for everyone but I'm still on the fence about such a high volume of people using one platform.

Mark Lowenstein highlights a few of the benefits and drawbacks with Medium.

Medium offers very little in the way of guidance or tutorials to help one get discovered. There is nobody one can talk to, unless you’re an established brand or company who wants Medium to host your content. I’d bet many writers would be willing to pay a modest fee, or sign up for a premium membership with Medium, for some help building an audience/following and getting their content discovered.

Discoverability is a problem many people face on Medium but I don't think this a problem with Medium directly.

When you start writing on Medium, you're writing with (and against) thousands of other people. That's a lot of competition, so why not blog elsewhere? It's your decision.

Amazing work here for the movie. I particularly like the foldable spear.

via Ian Dick

via YES BIKES

A reminder from Derek Sivers that you need to continually do the work to earn that title.

By using a title without still doing the work, you fool yourself into thinking future success is assured. (“This is who I am!”) That premature sense of satisfaction can keep you from doing the hard work necessary.

— Keep earning your title, or it expires by Derek Sivers

The world is going gaga for mobile apps. They are seen as the most accessible form of software and the market for them has moved at a considerable pace. The only problem with mobile applications is that only the bigger companies can usually afford to have their apps available on each of the different mobile platforms. This isn’t a problem for the web though.

For me the web is still the most accessible and reliable platform for applications there is. Using just a single interface (your browser) you can access millions of products and services. Here are a few I use every day to help with my web development work.

Github

Despite a flutter with BitBucket it’s hard to move away from Github. Their product is delivering features on a steady basis and just about every developer has a profile there. The Github community is growing and with more organisations making Github the home for their projects it has become the goto place for sharing code and projects.

Trello

For project management with clients, I like to use accessible and visual tools. Trello fits the bill in both respects. Their Kanban style boards are great for getting an over view of a project and the ability to include checklists, attachments and comments makes it a great collaboration platform for myself and my clients.

Heroku

In the last year I’ve reduced the number of SAAS platforms I’m using down to just Heroku. Gone is my Linode and Cloud66 accounts and replaced with Heroku. For my own projects it’s the ideal platform. I always recommend it to clients who are just starting out with a new project. I’ve moved a number of my own Rails applications to here and now use it exclusively for all my web app hosting needs.

Highrise

My CRM of choice. For a long time I got by on just using an address book, but in time I started to see the need for something more sophisticated than an address book. I needed a tool to record emails with clients, their details and important projects.

I use Highrise on a daily basis and find that it’s ability to send emails to Highrise means that I’m not only collecting my clients information there but also important emails communicating between myself and my clients.

Freeagent

Finally there’s FreeAgent. Still the best invoicing and time tracking solution for freelancers and although I’ve been using it for over three years now, I’m still learning more about it everyday. I’m not using it to it’s full potential at the moment but I am hoping to make better use of it as the year goes on.

Desktop apps are my main tools when it comes to web development. A browser, a terminal and an editor. That’s the absolute minimum applications that I would need to do a days work but there are a few more desktop apps that I also use to help get a good days work done.

iTerm2

My terminal of choice hasn’t changed but what has changed is that I’m now back to using iTerm built-in pane management rather than using tmux. Most days I tend to just have two terminals open side-by-side and that’s all I need. Tmux is a great option if you need more control over your terminals AND you run an editor like Vim but for me it was overkill.

Sublime Text 3

The last time I wrote a post like this Vim was my goto editor for coding. Despite sticking with it for over a year and I eventually switched back to using Sublime Text. I also had a brief spell as well with Atom but I prefer using Sublime Text. It’s what I’m most comfortable with.

Safari

I also switched browsers and moved back to using Safari for browsing and as my preferred browser for building and testing Rails applications. Open source it isn’t, but it’s a solid browser and the ability to sync tabs between different devices is a feature I use frequently. I still use Firefox but more as a secondary browser.

Dash

Not an essential tool but something I’ve come to rely on heavily over the last year. Dash is a document browser and code snippet manager. I don’t use the code snipper manager but the ability to lookup the docs for the different frameworks and programming languages I use makes my day a lot easier. It also negates the need to do frequent searches online.

1Password

Probably my most valuable piece of software. Secure, easy to use and makes handling your passwords a lot easier. I'm also using 1Password for families to allow my wife and son to handle their own passwords. So far it's working well.

Slack

Last year I was a big HipChat user, but the pull to Slack and it's growing set of features was difficult to ignore. Starting with a couple of clients, I gradually made the migration across and now use Slack exclusively as my online meeting point with clients.

Ethan had a fun night at Paisley Golf Club with the rest of the kids that get coaching there on the Friday night. Hats off to Andy Carlton and Claire-Maire Macauley for putting on a great event and bringing all the kids together. No prizes for Ethan but he did score quite well in the putting.

Twinged my back early on Saturday morning which ruled out any work I was going to do in the garden that day. That was nothing though compared to Sunday morning when I completely put my back out and put out any plans we had for the day. A visit to the out-of-hours GP got me some pain killers. My back is on the mend today after a treatment of physio this morning and I'm going back on Wednesday for more treatment.

For this week I’m going to focus on the different development tools I use and why I chose them. Today we're going to look ay my hardware line up. It hasn’t changed since the last time I wrote about this in 2015.

MacBook Pro

I’m using the same MacBook Pro I bought in 2014. The only issue I’ve had in the last year is that I stupidly left it plugged in all the time. Over time the battery gradually degraded in performance and got to the point where I was only getting an hour or two out of it. An appointment at the Genius Bar and was able to get a replacement battery for my MacBook. Now my battery performance is back to a level where I can safely work away from my desk for longer.

The MacBook itself is still fast and responsive. The screen is probably the feature I like the most about it. The crystal-clear Retina screen is easy on the eye and makes reading articles and code easier with no blurring of pixels.

Dell U2414H Monitor

My Dell monitor is still clear and crisp and is my main screen for the day when I’m working. It’s not as clear as the Retina screen on my MacBook but it’s close enough that I can use it all day for coding.

Logitech K811

I love this keyboard. With it’s backlit keys and ability to switch to multiple devices I’m happy to keep this going for the foreseeable future.

If you’re thinking of buying one or are having problems with battery life then I suggest you turn off the backlit keys during the hours of the day where you can see the keys using natural light. I used to have the backlit keys on all day, and it drains the battery on the keyboard quickly.

I don’t see this version of the keyboard on the British Logitech website but it is still available on Amazon. There’s a new model, the K870 that has rounded keys. Not sure if it’s any better than the K811 but the multiple device support is there with a docking bay for your phone and tablet. Not sure I'm sold on the rounded keys though.

Mighty Mouse

Finally there’s the Mighty Mouse. I’ve persevered with this for over two years now and the problem of frequently disconnecting from my MacBook is still there. If anyone has any recommendations for alternatives to the Mighty Mouse then I would love to hear from you.

Seagate Backup Drive

I’m still using this Seagate drive for Time Machine backups. I haven’t had to do a restore from it for sometime so I think it might be due for replacement. I’m not sure on the lifespan of hard drives but I would like to move to something a little less bulky and faster. Perhaps an SSD drive would be a nice addition to my backup process.

Anymore Changes?

My hardware selection doesn’t get changed that often. I know developers that change their equipment on a yearly basis but if it works, why change it? I did consider the move to a MacBook Air in the past but the MacBook models have changed again and I don’t see me making the move to a MacBook or MacBook Air. It might be another year or two before I consider changing my laptop again for another MacBook Pro, but until that day I'm happy with what I have.

NB's Productivity series continues ...

Among competing tasks the one with the highest long-term pay-off should be selected.

— Productivity 12 by Nicholas Bate

... are going to love this.

Read Nicholas Bate.

It appears that Twitter is dying. It's losing money and credibility. John A De Goes looks at the major problem Twitter has. It's a product.

May be Patrick can help you?

Blogging on Facebook. A chance for the masses to have more of a say online or just another way to keep people in the walled garden of Zuckerberg?

I want to bring blogging to Facebook. I think it's the only way we can get back on track, by giving the sources great tools to communicate with people who are thirsty for ideas and information. But we can't do it without linking, styles, titles and links to rich media. We can't boot up a culture of free thinking inside a silo without these basic features of the web. We need to be able to get our ideas into this space so they can engage with the people here and connect with ideas that live outside of Facebook.

— I still want to bring blogging to Facebook by Dave Winer

I might have been set against this in the past, but Dave's arguments for blogging on Facebook make sense. It's another way for people to connect.

Turning my ideas into reality is what I want the most out of life. So that’s what gives me the deepest happiness.

Then I realized that all the best, happiest, and most productive times in my life, were when I was completely cut-off.

— Disconnect by Derek Sivers