Matthew Lang

I had a great time with Ethan yesterday playing at Paisley Golf Club.

For many software developers, rolling your own version of a product is a tempting thing to do. You might want to add your own feature to the product or you might think that having more control over your data is important.

I recently questioned the value of FormKeep, a product that I was using. FormKeep allows you to create forms for any website and persist the information from the form without the need for your own database.

This isn’t a problem for a CMS like Wordpress as it already uses a database for persisting data. In the last few years though static websites have become popular. The simple action of generating the website for each change makes them ideal for people that have websites that require little maintenance. There is one drawback though. With the website being static, it can’t process information and store it anywhere. Static websites are a collection of files served by a web server with no backend database. So how do you add a form to your website?

For a while there’s been a number of products that allow you to embed a contact form in any page on your website, but the problem with this is that the embedded form is typically different in terms of style to the rest of your website and it can look out of place.

FormKeep does away with this drawback by providing just the endpoint that a form will submit too. The obvious benefit is that your form will still share the same look and feel as the rest of your website. Given the popularity of static websites, FormKeep definitely fills a need.

The trouble with FormKeep though is that while I do have a number of contact forms on different websites, there was always a niggle at the back of my mind that I was paying significantly more for a product that I could build on my own.

I’ve tried this in the past with a number of products and it doesn’t always work out. I created my own bookmarking site that included many of the feature that Pinboard offers, but there was still a number of features that I didn’t build. For the money though, it’s hard to argue with Pinboard’s pricing. $11 per year for hosting your bookmarks with a further $25 per year to keep copies of the original URL for each bookmark in your account. I could blow through twice that in a year for similar hosting on Heroku. Eventually I learned my lesson and gave up. I re-opened my Pinboard account the following day.

Building my own FormKeep was simpler than building my own Pinboard though. All I needed was an endpoint that accepted form parameters and saved them to a database. I set aside a few hours one day and quickly had my own version of FormKeep up and running. It’s running on Heroku at a cost of $7 per month. Compare that to FormKeep’s $29 per month and already there’s a significant saving. I might not have the clean UI that FormKeep has but the UI I have works for me.

In this case rolling my own solution worked to my advantage. I still have the same functionality that I had in the past with FormKeep and I’ve made a significant reduction in my expenses for the year now with my own solution now requiring just $7 per month.

Rolling your own solution doesn’t always work. Products might have years of features behind them that you just can’t replicate with a few hours of work. Sure you could have the most important feature up and running but what else needs to be added before you can safely say that your own solution will fit all your needs?

In the case of FormKeep it’s still a fairly small product and can be duplicated. And that’s where I think products need to be wary.

I was a long time user of FormKeep and in that time it’s feature set didn’t change much. Don’t get me wrong though, FormKeep definitely is valuable to people that don’t have the knowledge to run their own endpoint for capturing forms. For a user like myself though, FormKeep doesn’t offer anything that can’t be duplicated in a few hours of coding and that’s something you should consider if your building your own product.

If your product has a small feature-set that can be easily duplicated in a few hours then is it providing value?

Of course. Get the big picture.

And on the topic of Netflix:

Star Trek fans around the world clamoring for CBS' new take on the universe have an unexpected party to thank for the show's international availability: Netflix. The streaming giant announced today that it's obtained the international rights to the new Star Trek in 188 countries (excluding the US and Canada), a deal that'll see new episodes premiering on Netflix less than 24 hours after they make their domestic debut on CBS All Access, the network's own paid streaming platform

— Netflix will stream CBS' new Star Trek series all around the world by The Verge

For a long time I’ve been looking for a notes application for myself. The criteria for such an application are simple:

• It must be available on at least my laptop and phone
• It should support Markdown
• It should support plain text files

I’ve tried a few different notes applications in the past and a few wiki based solutions as well. The problem with most of the wiki based solutions is that they need a web server to run on which means a few bucks in hosting. Not a major problem but I’d prefer to not use a homegrown solution if it means needing a web server to run on.

I’ve also tried desktop based solutions like nvAlt but the lack of being able to view notes on my phone is a deal breaker so that didn’t meet my needs.

Finally I tried Apple’s own Notes app which recently received a minor upgrade and a number of useful features. The benefits of such an app are clear. Synchronised notes through iCloud, available on multiple devices and there’s little chance of Apple doing away with such an app. Drawbacks? I couldn’t think of any other than the lack of Markdown support but that’s me being picky if I’m being honest.

For a while I used Apple’s Notes app without fault but I missed the use of Markdown. Almost everything I write is in Markdown and not having the ability to take a note and copy and paste some if it’s contents to another Markdown supported application started to nag me.

It was back to the drawing board then. I looked online and after a few searches I came across Simplenote. To be honest I dismissed Simplenote in the past but for the life of me I can’t remember why.

I started by installing the Simplenote app on my phone and migrating a few of my notes over from Notes and Trello. I did have to do a few edits on the notes from the Notes app but the notes from Trello was a straight copy and paste.

Simplenote does support Markdown in it’s desktop based apps for Windows and Linux and also for the web client, but there’s no support (that I can see) on the OSX app and the iPhone app. It’s not a big problem though, as I suspect that this feature is coming soon for these platforms. I can wait.

Aside from the Markdown support in Simplenote there’s a number of other benefits that make keeping notes here easy.

Simplenote allows you to add tags to notes. This makes organising your notes much easier. Tags appear at the bottom of the note you can also filter your notes using these tags.

You can also pin notes so that they appear at the top of your notes list. This doesn’t make much of a difference in the apps that use larger screens, but on the iPhone app it makes navigating to these notes a lot easier. I have a number of notes that I use on a daily basis so it’s nice to be able to get to them quickly.

Finally there’s the ability to publish notes. It’s a feature I’ve been looking for in a number of wikis and note applications ever since I closed my Backpack account a number of years ago. Backpack was a great product and I regret closing my account there. It’s always been the best notes based application that I have used. The ability to publish pages from Backpack was a feature that I used so that I could bookmark a number of notes and have them readily available in my web browser. It’s nice to see a similar feature in Simplenote.

It’s early days with Simplenote but one thing that’s clear is that I like the minimal user interface and the small feature set. It does the job of keeping my notes accessible and in the one place and it does this job well. And that’s all I can ask for.

An interesting point about technology companies and how even just a small price change can have a negative impact on customer numbers.

Hastings blames the media, sort of. He says reports about the price hike Netflix is instituting this year, which raises the price of its most popular plan by a dollar a month, confused people and got them to stop paying even before their actual price hike kicked in.

— Netflix blew its Q2 subscriber numbers, and blamed it on press about its price hike by Recode

As a regular viewer on Netflix, I'm happy with the current service and even the price hike. The more money that Netflix can get behind it, the more quality programming they can create.

I have one gripe though. Having sorted out my in-laws Netflix account while on holiday in Canada, I did notice that in Canada you get a much better selection of content than we do in the UK.

I don't know if the same selection of content applies to both Canada and the US but I would love to see a better selection of movies and programmes here in the UK as part of the upcoming price hike.

Today, right now, anyone with a $300 laptop can use the very same tools as the people at the top of just about any industry.

— The very same software by Seth Godin

I wonder though how many of those at the top have stayed away from modern technology?

Writers are a great example of this. While many of us might be falling over the latest apps and technology for writing, how many writers have produced their best work on older technology? There are many great stories of authors using old typerighters, old disconnected computers and even pen and paper.

Friday. Wrapped up client work and finished up packing for the holiday.

Saturday was a long day travelling with the family. It was the first time I decided to eschew technology for the flight. No laptops, iPads or even a Kindle. All I had was Cal Newton's Deep Work book and the job of entertaining our two boys for a while. For a device-free flight it was quite quick. Touched down in Toronto mid-afternoon and had some ribs for dinner at my in-laws house which is our base for the next couple of weeks.

The day after the flight is always the recovery day. The boys were up early as predicted so we had a hobbit style breakfast comprising of an early breakfast at 5am and a normal breakfast at 9am.

For the second time I joined my brother-in-law and his friends for five-a-side football. I've still got a good touch, but I definitely don't have as much energy as I used too.

Me, Ethan and my father-in-law headed to a nearby nine hole golf course for a quick game of golf today. Ethan destroyed myself and his Granpa with accurate green shots and some great putting. After a few errands on the way home, I cooked up some fajitas for the family and then headed to the park with the boys.

Pretty much a damn good weekend.

Productivity advice for the real world from Nicholas Bate.

The EU referendum debate has been nothing short of a fear factory in the last few weeks. Politicians have highlighting doom and gloom scenarios for both sides of the debate. There is a side of the debate I haven't heard until now and that's the side of the experts.

If you're still on the fence about the vote then I suggest you take time out your day for a quick education. In his brief talk Professor Michael Dougan covers all the facts and figures of the EU and the UK. Well worth your time.

I'll be voting to remain in the EU on Thursday. I believe as a nation we're in a better position being part of the EU.

Hat tip to Ian Dick for posting this and bringing it to my attention.

A shame you can't get these for UK light switches. They would have been a great addition to the boys rooms.

A little reminder that people are awesome.

via Kottke.org