Matthew Lang

via FGGT

Today is a big day. Not just for us Scots but for the rest of the UK as well. From that last sentence you're probably assuming that I will be voting no in today's independence referendum and you would be right. In fact I've already gone and cast my vote this morning after dropping my oldest off at school.

I haven't been convinced by the yes campaign's argument that Scotland will be richer on its own. No one can foretell what will happen if Scotland becomes independent. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. What I do know however is that I've lived in a country that's been part of a union for my whole life and for over 250 years before that.

Ever since I was old enough to know about politics and the prime minister, I've seen the effects that the government's decision can have on the countries they serve. Growing up in Scotland during Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister brings back lots of bad memories from headlines in newspapers and the televised news. The backlash against the Conservative government at the time was evident everywhere. Newspapers and conversations were the main source of information and criticism. For a while it seemed that no one in Scotland liked the Conservative government that was in power at the time.

It was during this time that many Scots started to hold a contempt for politicians, especially Conservative politicians. That contempt for Conservative politicians is still around today. A lasting scar from the days of Margaret Thatcher. It's something that many people today are clinging too as their main reason for voting. They want to secure a future for Scotland that won't have Conservative government again. That's not a reason to vote. A reason to vote yes is that you firmly believe that Scotland can make it as an independent nation. You believe that a yes vote for Scotland is the best way forward. The yes campaign for me has become a campaign against the current government rather than a campaign about what an independent Scotland could achieve. And that's not the message that I would want to hear if I was considering voting yes.

So why am I voting no then?

Today I count myself very lucky. I have a flourishing career as a freelance web developer, my family have a home to live in that we can call our own and my kids have untold opportunities ahead of them. We're doing good. I've had my fair share of bumps in the road of life including three job redundancies but each time I've managed to find a new job. Some might call it luck, others determination. Whatever you want to call it I think we're doing well under the current government and the previous governments that we have had before.

Maybe I'm being cautious about the independence vote by voting no and I know that in my heart I would love to see Scotland flourish on it's own. That's when my head clicks in with a reminder that there are so many unanswered questions about being independent. I don't have all the answers and neither do the politicians. What I do know is what I know now, what I've always known. And it's working for me and my family.

I'm proud to be Scottish, but I'm also proud to be British. And that's why I voted no.

Big decisions are often fraught with risk. Sometimes though the only way to make the right decision though is to test the options first.

For the last few months I've been working on a CMS application for a client that has been steadily growing in size. We both agree that there will come a time where we will need to make some decisions about the design of the application so that it remains easy enough to maintain and develop but also scales up with the client's expected growth for the next few years.

It's something we've both been putting off for some time now, but with more projects and clients appearing in the client's pipeline, we've decided that now is the right time to start making these decisions.

The problem has always been though that if we make the wrong decision we end up too far down a path that we don't want to be. Backtracking might not be an option and working towards a different solution is something that we don't want to end up doing either.

The answer to this dilemma has been surprising simple. For each technical decision we have to make, we have a number of options that we can consider. Rather than analysing and committing to the most attractive option (in theory anyway), we have decided to take a day and implement that option in a single day to see where we get to. If by the end of the day, we're still happy that we've made the right decision, then we continue on with this option. If we're starting to have doubts, we abandon the option and try something else.

Software developers will recognise this concept as a spike. This is the idea that you carry out enough work to recognise the risks and knowledge that are associated with change in design or functionality. The spike gives the developer the chance to find out the risk and complexity involved in such a change. With the information, developers can provide better estimates for these changes or completely rule out a change.

The spike is a great way to ensure that you limit risk from a decision without committing to that decision. It will involve some time to determine if the option you are spiking is worth pursuing, there's no getting around it. However it is better to invest some time in pursuing the right decision rather than blindly committing to the wrong decision is it not?

Love the raw finish on this.

via FGGT

Apple's addition of a smart watch to their product line is a sign that smart watches are definitely here for a while but is it too early to be calling time on watches?

A few people have mentioned that smart watches will kill the watch. I think it's a little too early to be making that statement.

The smart watch is still new in terms of technology. We've had attempts at smart watches in the past, some good, some bad, and there will be a few more iterations on what makes a good smart watch. That is until companies all meet at that point where they all agree sub-consciously agree on the design template for a smart watch. There will be a few more years yet before we get to that stage where we know that the smart watch will just work for us.

Then there's the technology aspect of the smart watch. It does so much more than a regular watch does, but do you want it to do that? Despite the fact I've had smart phones for over five years now and they've all been able to tell me the time, I still wear a watch. I like wearing a watch. It means I can keep my phone in my pocket when I need to know what time it is. If I didn't wear a watch I would probably have my head buried in phone everywhere I went. As soon I would check the time on it, I would leave it out and read it until I got bored. Thankfully I don't do this thanks to single purpose of the watch. It just tells the time.

I also don't want another device in my house that requires charging on a daily basis. I wouldn't say my house is brimming with technology but we have our fair share of gadgets in the house. A couple of smart phones, a tablet, a laptop, a Kindle, a games console and a couple of televisions. Maybe slightly less than most people but it's something I've tried to keep a cap on. The Kindle is great as it only requires charging every two or three months and only needs an hour to be fully charged. Adding a smart watch to this mix is not something that appeals to my environmental side. I'd rather have a watch that required a single small battery every couple of years than having to charge my smart watch on a frequent basis.

We've seen these statements before about technology phasing out tried and tested ways of doing things in the past.

Remember when Amazon launched the Kindle? Lots of people made predictions that books would be phased out in favour the new digital books. As convenient as a Kindle is though, sometimes a book is definitely better. It requires no power to read the book, it's just as portable and there's that great feeling of scribbling notes in the sidelines. Thankfully today there are still a healthy number of book stores around and they're filled with books. The death of the book? Not yet, which makes me wonder if making statements about the death of the watch is just technology fans getting ahead of themselves.

The smart watch does herald a change in the way we can carry technology about with us. We have another small window to look at when we're out and about seeing the world, meeting people and making experiences. That can still be done with or without a smart watch. For me, I'll be casting my eye towards the traditional mechanical watches for my next timepiece purchase. They're less intrusive, more reliable and cheaper to run over time and besides, I can do everything I need with my smart phone, right?

Love American Football? Love writing code?

Here's a quick run down of American Football related terms in the context of software development.

As promised to one of my App.net followers, here's a quick run down of the setup I use for writing in Markdown.

I stopped using Sublime Text as my preferred code editor a couple of months ago, but there's something that I still use it for every day and that's for writing my blog. As a result I've removed a lot of packages from Sublime Text and managed to whittle it down to just the essentials. Here's a run down of everything I use for writing in Markdown with Sublime Text.

Theme and Colour Scheme

After a number of years of trying different themes on Sublime Text, I've now resorted back to the excellent Soda theme. It's stable and easy on the eye. There are a number of great themes out there but in my experience, they're not as solid as Soda.

As for the colour scheme I'm sticking with Solarized but instead of using the dark variation for coding, I use the light variation. It's makes a nice context switch trigger when I'm moving from code to writing.

Packages

I don't use a lot of packages for writing in Markdown, but there are a few that definitely help.

• MarkdownEditing - A Markdown plugin for Sublime Text that provides good syntax highlighting and editing features.
• Origami - The default pane layouts and keyboards shortcuts can be infuriating. Origami solves by letting you splits panes easily.
• WordCount - Nice way of seeing your word count. Always handy if you like keeping an eye on that sort of thing.
• Marked App Menu - Opens Marked and Marked 2 from the document that you are working on.

External Tools

A special mention goes to Brett Terpstra's fantastic Marked app which is great for previewing and reviewing your Markdown documents. Simply open your Markdown document in Marked and watch it update your Markdown document in a theme of your choosing while you type. Not only that, but Marked also has a ton of features that allow you to review your writing. If you're a Mac owner, I strongly suggest you check this out.

Keep It Light!

My setup for Markdown writing is rather light, but it's supposed to be light. When I am writing I'm not thinking about keyboard shortcuts I could use to type faster or neat plugins to use. Most of the packages I use are there because I can just install them and that's it. There's little configuration or maintenance to do and that's the way it should be.

I've been writing for so long with Markdown that the mark up is becoming automatic as I type so I don't need to worry too much about using shortcut keys for things. I just keep typing, peppering my words with little bits of mark up as I go.

Free services are the most popular way to attract users, but what are you compromising on for this to happen?

The word 'free' is still a popular way for many online services to gain the users they need in order to start becoming more than just another blip on the Internet radar. With that enticing offer of being free, most people sign up, use the service and then decide if they want to keep using it or not. The pull of being free can be a powerful thing and like so many things people like it when they get something for free.

In the beginning users of the service are happy. They can't believe their luck that this service is free and they can use it on a daily basis. They love the new service and sing its praises to their friends who in turn sign up as well. It is free after all. The trend continues and if the service is a hit it can eventually scale to becoming the next big thing.

After a few years, the service owners wants to start making some money, but they don't want to charge their loyal users for the privilage of using their service. That would be a terrible idea. Instead the service owners decide to change some things about the way the service works. Maybe they limit the API, change a well liked feature to what the service owners think is better (for them anyway) or even just start throwing some ads in. That last one always works right?

Alas the loyal users of the service start to feel like they have been cheated and throw their arms up in the air in objection to the new changes the service are implementing. Just because they have been loyal to the service since its early days, it's wrongly assumed that the service owners are going to listen to their users. Sadly they don't. And then an amazing thing happens. Despite the drawbacks to using the service with the new changes they don't approve of, the users decide to keep using the service. It's not about free anymore though, it's about the people your connected to using this service. How will you ever connect to these people without this service?

Clearly I'm taking a few examples from social networks like Twitter and Facebook, but the rules apply to any service that starts out being free and refuses to entertain the idea of a paid account or subscription. The rule is that in order to gain the user base you need to become a smash hit, you need to make your service free for everyone. You need to make it instantly attractive for people to use and that starts with giving it away for free.

It's a plan that has been played out with many services now and while there have been successful exceptions to this (well done Trello), many free services stick to being free and then try to generate revenue by using brand advertising and promotion or selling data as a product to others.

It's at this point where the idea of a free account is nothing more than a compromise. In exchange for using the service in question, you must be prepared to accept the changes to the service and continue using it as best as you can. You might not like the changes that the service are implementing but the decision to continue using it or leave the service is down to you. You're the user after all.

This is the cost of many free services now. If they don't require something back from you in return now, chances are they will in the future. It's just a matter of deciding how much you're willing to compromise on to continue using the service.

I would love to have one of these Weston phone pouches sitting on the shoulder strap of my Gulper.

via PEDAL Consumption