Matthew Lang

Being a software developer means that I spend a lot of time debugging code for problems. Sometimes it's obvious where the problem is but not all bugs are that easy to find. It would be nice if we could quickly identify the problem, but the real world isn't like that. Most days debugging code requires at least a couple of hours of tracking down the problem but sometimes you find yourself spending the bulk of the day finding the problem. These days can end up being very long when you're debugging for hours on end.

Problem solving takes time and patience. Fortunately for me my client understands this and left me to my devices today. I spent the majority of today debugging some code and then once the problem had been found, the code to fix it took about a hour to put in place.For days like this, it pays to be persistent.

So Journalong has been tried and tested as a fully paid product, but I’m just not getting people using Journalong, so I’m moving the product towards a freemium product. The paid side of the service is still going to be $10 a year with all the trimmings, but the free service will be restricted in the settings that you can adjust. The free account will allow you to journal multiple times a day.

This isn’t the only change I’ll be making for Journalong in the next few weeks. It’s become apparent that writing with Journalong is somewhat restrictive due to the constraints of the textbox that you write in. It’s not focused and it’s only takes up so much of the page. What I really want is a full screen, no distractions, text entry. Just me and my journal entry.

The freemium changes will come in the next couple of weeks with the new journal entry screen to follow. It will be interesting to see if these changes can generate more interest in Journalong.​

Use the rule of three. Keep major decisions to three or fewer people. The more people involved the longer it takes to come to a consensus. Small teams coordinate and make decisions, while big ones quibble and form committees.

— Limit major decisions to three or fewer people to avoid wasted time by Lifehacker

I suppose the benefit also with three people is that you will always get a majority vote.

In the end if you can come up with something you can feel good about working on, that's the real winner here.
— Ideas do matter by Chris Forsythe

... with Nicholas Bate.

I made a small purchase last week at the Apple store. A new MacBook Pro to replace my very old Macbook. with. It's only my second laptop in 5 years yet I know of developers that change their equipment yearly.

In fact all my technology purchases are extremely sporadic for a software developer. I haven't had a new laptop since 2008 and my first iPad was a third generation iPad. It has taken me until the iPhone 5 to own an actual iPhone. Needless to say I like to wait until technology pans out before I decide to make a purchase. I'm always late to the party.

Being late in adopting technology is no bad thing though. The first version of any new piece of technology is never the finished design. It's always the second generation version that is a more complete and feature rich product. The initial bugs and chinks have been ironed out and there's always some slight improvements elsewhere in the product.

Being a late adopter means that while I might not have the latest cutting edge equipment, I am banking on getting more value for my money with a second or even third generation product. Sometimes it pays to wait a bit.

via FGGT

Netter and netizen are just a couple of the words I've heard used to describe the people on
App.net. The social network (dare I use the term) burst onto the scene in 2012 with promise of being a self sustaining ad-free social network that will be paid for by it's users by an annual subscription fee. I joined in August 2012 and now six months on, I'm still thoroughly enjoying the experience on App.net.

I still have my Twitter account and I now use it purely as a marketing tool for freelancing. I was on Twitter during the week, doing a quick poll from other developers. Within a few minutes of posting my tweet, the first in about a week, I got two follower requests from spam accounts and I also got a couple of replies to my question from spam accounts.That's what really gets me about Twitter. It's the spam. With a majority of the tweets I make, I end up with a couple of new follower requests from vague accounts that I would rather didn't follow me. On App.net though things are a little difference. The subscription fee is the perfect entry barrier to weed out spam accounts. I've never have to block a vague account on App.net.Then there's the people. Okay, I'm missing a few people on App.net that are on Twitter, but then there's people on App.net who aren't on Twitter. It's a whole different crowd. On Twitter I mainly follow other developers who work with the Ruby programming language but on App.net I'm following a wider range of people. A wider range means different content to read on a daily basis.

Finally there's the features that App.net are rolling out. In the past few months, private messaging and file storage have been two big announcements in App.net. Now these might be conceived as typical features for a social network, but where App.net is different is that these features were built to be transparent and easily managed by App.net's users. Take the file storage within App.net. With just a click, I can export all the files I have stored in App.net so that I can take them elsewhere. Yes other social networks might offer this, but App.net built this in from the start. Features are built with the user in mind, not with advertising in mind.I'm glad to be part of a social network that puts its users first. It definitely beats being another cog in an advertising platform.

More time to read, write, code, watch, listen. That's the wish.

Realistically I simply need to acknowledge what's more important at this moment in time.