Matthew Lang avatar

Matthew Lang

Family guy and web developer

It's been a while since I reviewed my bookmarklets and since Carl T. Holscher was doing his, I thought I would list mine.

  • Markdown Blockquote (bookmarklet) - A recent addition to my bookmarklets collection is the markdown pull quote grabber. I've recently taken a leaf out of John Gruber's blog and started including quotes from posts that I am linking too. This was quite a convoluted task in the past. Grabbing the link and quote, pasting it in and adding the author and title. Using this bookmarklet though makes the process much more easier. In the near future I plan to modify this so that it renders a blockquote in the format that I use for my blog. Special thanks goes to @malanowski who is the author of this.
  • Markdown Page (bookmarklet) - I frequently copy whole pages as reference material. Mostly articles on web development and programming. As I prefer to use Markdown documents, I needed something that converted a whole page to Markdown. This bookmarklet does exactly that.
  • Markdown Link (bookmarklet) - I'm grabbing links all the time from Firefox and just about everytime I reach for this bookmarklet. I simply need to click this bookmarklet and I get a markdown version of the link to paste into my document.
  • Subscribe with Feedbin (bookmarklet) - I use Feedbin as my preferred RSS reader. In a world of streaming posts and updates on all the social networks, I'm glad there's still a way of subscribing to a site's content without having to succumb to just being another follower. This bookmarklet lets me subscribe quickly to any site that contains a valid RSS feed.
  • Save to Instapaper (bookmarklet) - Finally there's Instapaper's bookmarklet for saving articles to your reading list. I use Instapaper on a daily basis for queing up what I want to read later on. Click to the page you want to save, click the bookmarklet, job done.

Bookmarklets are a good way of manipulating the pages on your web browser without installing add-ons. Unless you're familiar with JavaScript though, you will have to contend yourself with finding bookmarklets that others have made. With a bit practice though you could start writing your own.

The Demise of Killer Apps?

Are killer apps a thing of the past?

I remember a few years back when Twitter was young and great, Facebook was viewed with more positive eyes than it is today and the mobile app stores were just starting out. Good times. It was also about this time that I heard the phrase killer app. For the uninitiated a killer app was often seen as an indispensible app that would help push the sales of the platform the app was run on. Simply put, people would buy the hardware needed to run the app in question. Back then, it seemed that every month there was a new app or service that would be tagged as the next killer app.

Fast forward to today and it's not something I've heard often in the technology press. It's still used to describe some apps but not as much. I still follow the same technology sites I did a few years ago, so what's different?

The world has changed. There's less of a technology barrier now than there's ever been and that due to the small device that you're probably reading this on. Over the last few years mobile apps and services have reduced, or in some cases removed, the complicated steps that would be required to carry out a specific task or action. Along with this simplification comes a growing market of companies and indie developers who all us to use their app. And the demand for apps shows no sign of slowing down. I was browsing through the productivity category of the App Store and there are hundreds of apps in this category. There are just so many choices.

Another factor in this is that the mobile market is not tied to one particular platform. In the past when mobile hardware platforms were getting past their first couple of release iterations, it was certainly clear that alot of people preferred the Apple platform and there were many apps that persuaded people to buy Apple's hardware. Today though the market is more evenly divided. Apple and Google have their share along with others like Blackberry and Microsoft. I would be hard pressed to pick an app that certainly fits the name of killer app and that's due to the fact that many apps are available on not just a single platform.

Which leads me to think that perhaps we're past the stage of killer apps. With such a huge market for applications, there are dozens of apps that let you achieve the same result through different methods. Maybe now we're not looking for killer apps, perhaps we're looking for game changing apps. Not just new ways of doing things, but whole new markets of the mobile apps.

Wearable technology is still fairly new and with Apple's new smartwatch due for release soon, there will be many tech pundits looking for the next killer app for wearable technology. Whether this becomes a market in mobile apps or a completely new market remains to be seen. Given the recent release of similar products by other technology firms though, I don't think there will ever be a killer app for wearable tech.

Is the killer app dead? I would say yes for the foreseeable future but it certainly won't stop business and developers using the title to promote their apps. I think it will take a whole new field of technology before we see true killer apps again. Apple Lense anyone?

Evolving: Freelance to Business Owner

Curtis McHale talks about his change from solo freelancer to business owner and why it's necessary.

As their leader, it’s now your job to make sure your team members do their jobs well. Coders stay up-to-date on code and technology. Designers continue to hone their skills. And you’re responsible for knowing enough about your entire organization that you can have good conversations with your clients without sounding like an idiot. This is how you earn trust and credibility.

— Evolving into a Business Owner by Curtis McHale

I'm still comfortable with my solo freelance career, but I do know that in the future that next natural step is to lead.

GTD in 15 minutes

I read David Allen's GTD book a few years ago. It seemed a lot to take in and while I did try it, it just didn't stick for me. Fast forward to today and I've read Erlend Hamberg's pragmatic take on GTD. Everything you need in one single post. Tempted to implement this in Todoist.