Matthew Lang

Still taking it easy from my back spasming out last month. It's put a lot of things on hold but I'm getting back to normal. As a result there wasn't much to report from this past weekend. It wasn't completely uneventful though.

My mum and dad celebrated their Ruby wedding anniversary with a meal at our favourite Italian restaurant in Paisley.

Little Drew had been suffering from a cold and cough in the last few days but he rallied round for the meal. He'll do anything to get some chips and ketchup!

I love these. Mashups of classic albums with Star Wars.

via kottke.org

Ian Dick writes about his farewell to Evernote.

This year though a couple of things changed. Firstly Evernote tweaked there prices so I’d be paying more going forward. Secondly, Apple Notes improved and also offered a way to import Evernote content as did Microsofts Onenote. There also seemed to be a lot of grumbles in the many podcasts I listen to about what Evernote had become and how viable was it’s future.

— So Long Evernote

Evernote's proprietary format has been a reason why I don't Evernote. It's easy to get stuff in but hard to get it back out. I tried Apple Notes for a while but it's Simplenote that gets my award for best notes app.

The 50 best film scores have been compiled over at the Playlist and feature scores from movies such as The Dark Knight, Solaris and the Ocean's trilogy.

A few gems in here that I'll be adding to my own playlists.

via Kottke.org

I've been asking that question myself for the last few weeks. I've been searching for a way to kickstart my own blogging habits again. I often wondered if it was worth the hassle.

I did a quick search for any other people asking the same question. I found a couple of posts that had two great reasons for why people blog.

Kati Stage's response on Medium is reminder that we're not all on Facebook. Despite the popularity of Facebook, there are still people searching for content outside of Facebook.

I see blogging as a way to get more reach. Still today, there are plenty of people who don’t have Facebook. Hard to believe, I know. However, I was one of them just 3 years ago. April 2013 I created my very first Facebook account at the age of 32.

— Is Blogging Dead? Isn’t social media enough? by Kati Stage

Next is the response of Michelle Lyndon-Dykes posting on her site The Barefaced Chic:

We all started blogging for our own, specific reasons. Whether it be to make a living, for fun or simply because we have an absolute need to write. So write we do, and the written word never dies.

— Blogging is Dead, Long Live Blogging by Michelle Lyndon-Dykes

These two posts were a nice reminder of why I blog and it is mostly for two reasons.

I want to write.

I want to write and I want to write more often. Writing code is one thing, but being able to string a series of words into readable sentences is difficult. Saying that I do enjoy it. And enjoying it is half the battle.

I want to reach.

Working on my own means that I don't have appraisals or a team manager monitoring my performance. It's through these rituals that others advance their career.

If I want to advance my career I have to attract new clients. I know this blog isn't tailored to web development but I do try to write about topics around my career. What I'm working on, how I'm doing it and what the results are. It's not all gold and I struggle as much as the next person with it, but I still try to write about it all the same.

You see to reach new clients I have to bring them in with something. That's what I hope to do with my writing.

So to answer the original question, blogging isn't dead. It's still a force to be reckoned with. And I hope it stays that way for a long time.