Rails app migration from Cloud66 to Heroku done. Time for bed now.
First Competition of the Year for Ethan
Ethan played in his first competition of the year at Paisley Golf Club. He's still struggling with the longer tees in these competitions but he enjoyed the challenge. Looking forward to seeing him out on the course a lot over the rest of the year and getting his handicap down.
Book Recommendation from Curtis
If you want to tip the daily balance from shallow work to deep work, my buddy Curtis in British Columbia recommends Cal Newport's book, Deep Work.
In Deep Work, Cal Newport wants to convince us to step away from the ever-increasing series of distractions — those latest and greatest things that pull away our focus and keep us from doing deep work. Newport doesn’t just stop in telling us that distraction is harming us, but goes on to give us four rules to achieve a state of deep work with more regularity so that we can truly produce work that’s industry leading (without working evenings and weekends).
— Accomplish more of worth and suffer from less distraction: Deep Work by Cal Newport by Curtis McHale
Going by Curtis' review (and the fact I highly value his recommendations), I'm definitely adding this book to my reading list.
I've found it hard to maintain a steady level of posting. Seems like I'm in a continual state of rebooting.
I don't always have an acceptable reason why this happens, but I'm glad to identify a few of these reasons by Adam Keys.
I applaud Moleskine for their determination to break into the digital world with their new Smart Writing Set but I think they're better off sticking to just plain old pen and paper.
It's been a quiet here. I've got the week off and I'm enjoying some time away from the computer. It's been good so far.
Installed aText, migrated snippets across and uninstalled TextExpander. Time to move on now.
I'd rather have one of these in the driveway.
Alternatives to TextExpander?
I love using TextExpander. I use it everyday for all manner of things. It's not completely invaluable but it's certainly very helpful. Their recent change to a subscription model hasn't went down well with many users of their software including myself.
I use TextExpander almost daily, but I also use Todoist on a daily basis. My Todoist premium subscription is $22 per year. Very cheap for all the little extras I enjoy from Todoist and I don't grudge Todoist the money.
I love paying for the software that I use but I simply can't justify the $5 per month (or the $40 per year) that Smile Software are looking for to sync snippets that I use on a single device. I'd like to be wrong, but I think that Smile have just priced their product out of the market.
I may continue to use TextExpander without upgrading but I think in time I'll end up moving to something else.
Update:
Since reading more about the TextExpander 6 launch, a number of people have pointed out security concerns with a key logging app that syncs all your snippets to Smile's servers without being encrypted. Another valid argument against upgrading to TextExpander 6 then.