Matthew Lang

via FGGT

In the past I've tried to read two books every month. One fiction, one non-fiction. In the last couple of years though I have rarely been able to do this. Ultimately, I don't have that much free time to read, so instead I'm reducing my expectations and setting myself a goal of just one book a month. Here's my proposed reading list for the next six months:

• Frictionless Freelancing - It's been a hectic six months and I'm glad I made the jump to freelancing, but there's still so much more that I need to learn about.
• Pragmatic Thinking and Learning - I've had this on my list of books to read for years. Thought it was definitely time to purchase it.
• Crafting Rails 4 Applications - Rails 4 has been released. No time like the present to get myself up to speed.
• The Mauritius Command - I'm currently halfway through book 3 of the Aubrey/Maturin series and I'm really enjoying it. Can't wait to start this.
• War of the Roses - Stormbird - Conn Igggulden's Emperor and Conqueror series are some of favourite books of all time. If the quality of them are anything to go by then Stormbird will be another cracking read.
• The Second World War - Ever since I was kid, I have been fascinated by the Second World War. The planes, the tactics and the politics behind the countries involved. I've heard so many good reviews of this book I had to add it to my list.

Here is this years list of tools that help me on a day to day basis in my role as a web developer. There are other tools I use throughout the day for social networking and other things, but I've purposefully left these off the list, as I don't deem them necessary in helping me do my job.

Hardware

My hardware selection is very minimalistic, at least I think it is. I've read about various setups from other developers that include multiple machines and usually more than two monitors. I stick with the view that I need only one machine and that I need it to powerful enough to build web applications but also portable enough that I can carry it with me.

• MacBook Pro - I previously owned a black MacBook that I have used as my main development machine for over 4 years, but owing to it's lack of expandable memory and that it won't upgrade OS X to anything beyond Lion, I decided that I needed something new. At the start of the year I plumped for a new MacBook Pro and I've been amazed at the capabilities of it as my main development machine. Also the Retina display is rather purdy.
• Mighty Mouse - Still trying to get my head round the gestures for this, but needless to say, it's a very comfortable mouse to use.
• Apple Keyboard - I've had this keyboard for a number of years now but I'm starting to find it a tad small to use. It's the actual size of the keys I find too small.
• Asus Monitor - Just a 24" external monitor. Nothing fancy.
• External Hard Drive - At the moment I have a Seagate 250MB external hard drive. It's sole use is for my Time Machine backups.

Hardware nice to haves

These have been on the nice to haves list for a while but I think I'll consider at least one of these as a purchase before the end of the year.

• A NAS - To help with the day to day grind I have a massive iTunes library that I code to, however it is taking a lot of space on MacBook. I would love to have extra storage at home that I connect to easily and just pick my music and photos from it.
• A better keyboard - Not sure what I am looking for in terms of a keyboard, but one definite criteria I have is that it is slightly bigger than the standard wireless Apple keyboard.

Software

This is the software that I use every day. These are the essential applications I need to work. If I had nothing else in terms of software, then these applications would be all I would need.

• Mail - Newsflash, well at least for me it is. Mail, the default email client with OS X, is actually a great email client. I previously used the Gmail web client for email but since going Google free, I've been surprised by how much I enjoy using Mail.
• Firefox - An open source browser that is gradually making improvements in performance, but it's mostly because it's open source software that I like using Firefox.
• iTerm2 - This is my preferred terminal emulator as it provides more functionality over the terminal emulator provided with OS X. One particular nice feature is the splitting of terminal windows into panes.
• Sublime Text 3 - I've used Sublime Text 2 for a couple of years and I immediately jumped to the next release when it was available.
• Dropbox - I keep everything in Dropbox. I probably don't need to. Over the last few weeks though it's fallen into my "Do I need this service?" category of thoughts. I'll be assessing Dropbox closely over the next few weeks.
• Skype - Everyone has Skype so it makes sense to use it for calls with clients. Very handy as well for group calls.
• 1Password - Who wants to remember all their passwords or write them down or make them the same for all your logins and sites? Not me, but I still can't believe it took me to this year to start using 1Password.

While I do use the following software every day, these are more like nice to haves rather than essential. Still, they make me more productive every day, so I'm glad I have them.

• Alfred - A very nice replacement for the default Spotlight application launcher. Also I've started to see the power behind extending Alfred to do custom searches on things like my Pinboard bookmarks.
• Fantastical - A little application that sits in my menu bar and allows me to update my calendar easily. The great thing about Fantastical is that I can quickly add meetings and deadlines to my work calendar.
• RSS Notifier - I use Feedbin for following blogs, but for service updates from Amazon and Heroku, I use this application.
• Divvy - Great little application for managing your windows. I have a few shortcut keys setup to resize my windows accordingly.
• MultiMon - Divvy doesn't let me move windows from my MacBook to my external monitor which is where MultiMon comes in. Great little application.
• Broom - Diskspace is a premium at the moment, so while I am reviewing different external storage options I have Broom to let me know when folders get too big.

The Web

A web developer's playground. Just a small selection of the many services and products that I use online.

• DuckDuckGo - I'm still sticking with this as my preferred search engine. Yes it does lack the comprehensive results that Google has, but I'm finding that if I don't find anything on the first page of results with DuckDuckGo, then I do have ready to roll searches for StackOverflow.
• Github - My preferred source code management tool. Nothing to fault here. Easy to manage repositories and plenty of collaboration tools for both private and public projects.
• Heroku - I've worked with the Heroku platform for over three years now and I love its simplicity. Might be more pricier than other options but that's the trade off when you don't want the hassle of being a sys admin.
• LinkedIn - I closed my LinkedIn account a couple of years ago only to find that I actually needed it at the start of the year to get myself marketed as a freelancer. Jury is still out on it's usefulness but I am trying to make more use of it on a daily basis.
• FreeAgent (Referral link) - I've only been using FreeAgent for six months now but it's already paying for itself in terms of usefulness. Having your accounts in order as an independent contractor is a necessary evil, but the FreeAgent application does such a great of job making mananging my income simple.
• Instapaper - Reading development articles is part of development life if you want to stay up to date on the ever changing Internet.
• Pinboard - You never know when you are going to need that article on nested resources on Rails or that article on implementing 'Remember Me' functionality in Sinatra. Good job I keep a nice archive of the articles I read and find useful with Pinboard.
• Feedbin - My new RSS reader of choice. Check out a more complete review by myself here.
• Gauges - Another service that I picked in the move away from Google. Okay it doesn't have the number of different metrics that Google Analytics has, but it provides all the information I need in a simple and easy to read interface.

Backups

One backup is good, two is better. I've been lucky so far, but I think I need to beef up my backup strategy.

• Time Machine - It would be sort of crazy not to use Time Machine if you own a Mac. Background backups without the fuss. Still, it shouldn't be your only form of backup.
• Dropbox - Which brings me to Dropbox again. I keep backups of a few folders in Dropbox so that if the worse was to happen with my MacBook Pro, I could be at least up and running on another machine regardless of which operating system it is.

There was more to this list but I had to limit it to just my essential tools. If I included all the extensions, addons, plugins and other tools I used, this post would just be too long to read. I wanted to just give an overview of a typical set of tools that web developers use.

I wanted to share my apps setup on my iPhone for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to see if any one had similar setups on their devices and secondly, it's something worth writing about.

So how do I have my iPhone setup?

Right from the first day I got my iPhone I had my own specific setup in mind. The setup I'm describing is very similar to the setup I had on my previous Android phone. The first screen, the home screen, on my iPhone is limited to apps I use on a daily basis.

For a long time now I've stuck to the same types of apps on my home screen with just a few changes to the actual apps in the last six months. Here's what's on my home screen just now.

• Fantastical - I started using this a few months ago, was previously Google Calendar synced to Calendar app.
• TaskPaper - I've tried Wunderlist, TodoList, Things and others. I keep coming back to TaskPaper due to it's easy to use UI and use of a flat text file for my lists.
• Reeder - I started using within the last month, I was previously using Feedly synced to Google Reader.
• Path - I've had this on my phone since day one.
• Forecast - Started using this year.
• Felix - Started using this year, I was previously using Wedge but Felix has really came on in the last six months.
• Instapaper - I've had this on my phone since day one.
• Pop - Started using this year at the recommendation of Patrick Rhone. It's really handy as just a scratchpad or dumping ground for thoughts and ideas.

These are the apps that I use every day. I purposely keep this screen limited to just eight apps as it leaves some screen space so that I can see my wallpaper if it's a nice photo.

On the second screen is the rest of the apps that I use but instead they are categorised into folders.

I initially had these folders grouped by the verb that describes the action of each app after reading about the idea on Gina Trapani's Smarterware blog, but grouping them by a verb was difficult for some of the apps. Instead I just a name them to something that makes sense to me.

• Schedule - Scheduling and timekeeping tools.
• Network - All my App.net apps. It's the only social network I actively take part in now.
• Words - Writing and reading apps.
• Bytes - Apps for services that I use online like Trello, Github and Pinboard.
• Photos - Camera apps and photo albums.
• Listen - iTunes, Instacast and other apps related to consuming visual and audio media.
• Shop - Finance related apps.
• Setup - Setup and connectivity apps.
• Games - Handy when we're out and about and I need my oldest to sit at piece for a few minutes.
• Travel - Hardly used.

I've tried in the past to limit myself to eight folders on this screen however it just wasn't possible. I have enabled most of the notifications on this screen as a reminder that I have things that need to be done or reviewed. I very rarely switch to this screen unless I have a notification for one of these apps. Bookstand is also sitting on this screen awaiting the release of iOS 7 when I can finally put it in a folder.

I've had this setup on my phone for some time now, and I'm very unlikely to change it. I'm quite selective with my apps and I tend to stick to one app for one type of function. The only exception to this is the number of writing tools I have on my phone. I've had PlainText and Pop installed for some time, but I have been trying out Drafts recently.

Michael Wade is a management consultant currently based in Arizona and has been blogging since 2005. I found Michael's blog, Execupundit, through Nicholas Bate's blog and ever since I subscribed, I've been hooked on Michael's views on management, the workplace and life.

I'm always envious of bloggers like Michael who continually turn out not only excellent posts, but posts that make you question yourself and your work. Michael's posts take the form of random thoughts, quotes, links to other blogs, link posts and topical news.

Michael's blog isn't just for those in the levels of manangement though, it's for everyone. Michael is one of my blogs for recommended daily reading.

... is the best hour to write for Curtis. Maybe it is for you too?

... with nothing more than a sheet of paper and the guidance of Steven Pressfield.

Okay it's not a fixie, but I'm really looking forward to heading over to YNOT Cycle HQ to purchase one of the their fine messenger bags in the next few weeks.

via PedalConsumption

Carl Holscher recently wrote about the sharing culture in social media and his preference for remaining private in some of the services he uses.

Yesterday I signed up to the habit tracking service Lift on the recommendation of Curtis McHale. Lift at the moment say they have no settings to keep your profile private, however they do have a setting there to say that you are interested in such a feature.

Habit tracking is definitely something I'm interested in but this is something I would like to remain private in the long term. While I'm only in the initial phase of evaluating this product, I'm prepared to put up with a public profile for the moment. I don't wish to share on Lift mainly due to the reason that I don't know that many people using it and if I wanted to share, it would be with people I know.

And that sums up my rule really for sharing. If I'm a user of a product or service that involves such actions, I'll restrict my account settings so that I remain private or as private as I can be. If there's a number of people I know on that service, then I'll be a bit more public.

I like sharing, but I prefer my daily interactions such as habit tracking to remain private or only to be shared with people I know. So how do you know people without ever actually meeting then? That's another blog post for another day.

Markdown has pretty much been my default markup language for the last few years. All my writing is done using Markdown as well as my journal, notes and other forms of textual data. Although using Markdown for writing is easy now that I know the syntax very well, I still need good tools around me to make the most of Markdown.

I live in my browser on an almost daily basis so I have started accumulating a number of bookmarklets that help me when it comes to using Markdown

Marky the Markdownifier

This is a bookmarklet that converts the current page you're viewing to Markdown. If you're like me and use Markdown for all your documents, then this is really handy. There's also a number of other bookmarklets from Markdownifier that provide different results.

Markdown Link Bookmarklet

Crafting Markdown links from urls is something I do a handful of times everyday. It makes senses then that I automate this little chore.

Jason Seney has a great little bookmarklet that once clicked, converts the current url and title to a Markdown link for you and pops it up in a modal box for you to copy it from.

Kiwi Bookmarklet

Although I use my browser for a lot of day to day work, I use a dedicated client called Kiwi for posting to App.net. The nice thing about Kiwi is that it now supports Markdown style links when you are writing your posts.

Much like the my previous bookmarklet, this one creates a Markdown link for a new App.net post in Kiwi. If you select any text on the page then it will also use that for your link.

This is by no means a finished list. There are probably lots of others addons and extensions and for browsers out there, but I like bookmarklets due to their flexible nature in being able to run on different browsers.