Matthew Lang

Not the copious tomes I was hoping for but I'll take it.

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.