Matthew Lang

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Jul 26, 2024: Went to the Beyond Van Gogh show at the SEC in Glasgow tonight. A truly immersive experience with Van Gogh’s art displayed on all four walls. We must …

Jul 26, 2024: Second mechanical keyboard purchased After hovering over the checkout button for months, I finally purchased a second mechanical keyboard. The Nuphy Air75 v2. Unlike my first KeyChron K6, …

Jul 25, 2024: I made the switch over to @Mtt’s Sumo theme and already made a few wee tweaks. I’d like to see more themes like this available on …

Jul 20, 2024: Rounded off our week at St Andrews with a last minute round at the Fairmont Torrance course for the boys. Both had great scores going round.

Jul 19, 2024: Took the wee guy down to the Balgove course in St Andrews. He had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed getting to hit his irons and wedges off the tee …

Jul 16, 2024: Start of a week long holiday for us up at St Andrews while Ethan plays a competition up the road at Tayport. Got a nice Airbnb in St Andrews. A couple …

Jul 11, 2024: Free-range parenting in Norway Like all of their friends, they’ve been walking to and from school alone since they first attended at the age of six. They were given their own set of …

Jul 10, 2024: Loving my new Endor desk mat. That’s no coffee stain by the way, it’s a space station!

Jul 9, 2024: The new laptop cover is sorted.

Jul 6, 2024: Heading over to Scotscraig Golf Club in a couple of hours. The big yin is going for a practice round ahead of the Scottish Boys' Amateur Match Play in …

Jul 5, 2024: Waking up to significant changes in the political landscape in the UK. Not just a new majority party but also substantial changes in Scotland, Wales …

Jul 4, 2024: Hats off to 37signals for making their latest Once product, Writebook, 100% free—well, at least for the initial version of the product. Sadly, there …

Jul 3, 2024: MacRumors has an in-depth guide to the new home and lock screen changes coming to iOS 18. Placing icons anywhere on the home screen is probably the …

Jun 19, 2024: Watching the big yin play golf is tiring work. Getting a coffee in me before he starts his round.

Jun 14, 2024: I put my Apple Watch on upside down this morning. Send more coffee.

Jun 13, 2024: If you’re like me, and you like the Alpenglow theme for Firefox, you’ll like this collection of other Alpenglow themes that are available.

Jun 10, 2024: I’m back to work this morning after a weekend of junior golf for my oldest. He finished 16th out of 80. Not having played the course before and …

May 28, 2024: I love this printable habits calendar by Ira Zayats. Customisable for multiple habits and months. Also, being printed means you can pin it to the wall …

May 27, 2024: Nice sunset tonight.

May 17, 2024: Working from the garden this afternoon was somewhat more productive than I thought. Fresh air, a single screen, and only enough space on the table for …

May 16, 2024: Coding by candlelight.

May 13, 2024: Managed to snag a couple of notebooks from Atoms to Astronauts. These were discounted as they had “build imperfections” but I can’t tell the …

May 11, 2024: I have a second Github account that I wish to use with co-pilot in VS Code, but it seems that VS Code does not allow multiple accounts when using this …

May 11, 2024: Some wonderful colours over the skies of Paisley tonight.

May 6, 2024: Back at Blairgowrie for Ethan to compete in the second round of the SGF Foundations Trophy. He’s tied for second place, so he’s looking good to …

May 5, 2024: With the big yin at Blaigowrie today for the SGF Foundations Trophy.

May 4, 2024: Ordered the Boarding the Tantive IV set for the wee yin and picked up the Tales of Space Age set and the Mos Espa Podrace Diorama for myself. The Lego …

Apr 26, 2024: Spent the day updating a Bash script at work for one of our deployment processes. A nice change of pace from what I’ve been doing through the …

Apr 26, 2024: If there’s one timeline I love scrolling through, it’s Elk, the Mastodon web client. A timeline focused on the centre of the screen with …

Apr 25, 2024: Feedbin has added a few new changes if you consume newsletters using Feedbin including customisable newsletter email addresses and a whole new domain …

Apr 24, 2024: Back to mid-week golf with the boys! Big yin is studying for an exam tomorrow so it’s just me and the wee guy out on the course tonight.

Apr 11, 2024: Is it Friday yet?

Apr 3, 2024: The Airshow integration with Feedbin might just be the nudge I need to move from Overcast to Airshow. There’s nothing wrong with either app, but …

Apr 3, 2024: I can’t remember a wetter, colder, greyer and more miserable spring than the one we’re having right now in the west of Scotland.

Mar 19, 2024: Just finished watching The Flash. I don’t get why it got the negative response that it did when it was released. I thought it was really good.

Mar 18, 2024: Trying to add a change of scenery to my work week.

Mar 13, 2024: My MacBook Air’s battery life is starting to wane when it’s unplugged for most of the day. I didn’t think I would notice it this …

Mar 7, 2024: My early morning walk finally yielded a wee photo opportunity.

Mar 4, 2024: I really like the re-design of kottke.org.

Feb 26, 2024: I finished flooring the last of the rooms yesterday. The wee yin is chuffed to bits with his bigger room. No more major home projects now until late …

Feb 24, 2024: Back to Ikea this afternoon for the second time in a month. Picking up some furniture for the big yin’s room.

Feb 24, 2024: I like the Basecamp home screen updates, but it would nice to see logos on individual projects as well.

Feb 23, 2024: This post by Nikita Prokopov on JavaScript bloat in 2024 is interesting. Here are a few others that can be added to the list - Hey’s Imbox page …

Feb 23, 2024: I picked the wrong time of year to do a major home project. I had to rest for a few days between flooring our three rooms as the lurgy had taken old. …

Feb 18, 2024: First stage of our changing of rooms complete. My office is now upstairs and ready to go. Going to floor the big yin’s new room over the next few days …

Feb 9, 2024: Made a red velvet cake tonight using this BBC recipe. Disappointed that it looks more like a chocolate sponge than a red sponge.

Feb 6, 2024: I feel like I am in the minority on the influence of the Apple Vision Pro. While the technology is certainly a game changer, I can’t help think …

Jan 29, 2024: It looks like YouTube is dropping RSS feed support. I have tried to access a couple of channels I am subscribed to, and they are also returning a 404 …

Jan 28, 2024: Last Sunday of the season, when an NFL game is broadcast at a watchable hour here in the UK. I’m watching the Chiefs at the Ravens tonight and …

Jan 25, 2024: I’ve been giving Airshow a spin over the last couple of days, and I quite like it. I haven’t signed up for the remote sync yet, but I …

Jan 16, 2024: After a few minutes of keeping a log in Obsidian for my work day, I’ve decided to switch back to bullet journaling. I find it a lot easier to …

Jan 15, 2024: Added to “Things I will never buy”. A travel mug that lets you control the temperature of your drink and find said mug if you lose it. My …

Jan 14, 2024: Skipping the golf today as I’m feeling a bit under the weather. I’ve got plenty to be getting on with indoors, though, where it’s …

Jan 10, 2024: Hey Calendar is now in the App Store!

Jan 10, 2024: Sad to see that YNOT in Toronto is closing its doors. I have several of their products, including two pairs of pedal straps (still going strong) and …

Jan 8, 2024: I have my fingers crossed that 37 Signals release updated versions of their older products like Tada List and Backpack under their Once approach.

Jan 7, 2024: Wooo! Got my Hey Calendar invite! 👍🏻

Jan 7, 2024: Great afternoon of golf with the wee guy. Already working on some changes to his grip and swing and getting ready for the start of the season. He’ll …

Jan 5, 2024: Still waiting to be added to the rollout of Hey’s new calendar app. It will be nice to have my email and calendar side by side.

Jan 5, 2024: I’ve read differing opinions on the Clicks for iPhone keyboard. I’m divided on the device. I can’t see it lasting long, given that …

Jan 5, 2024: Having one of those weeks at work, I’m still stuck on the same issue I started the week with. Made some progress with other tasks, but not this …

Jan 5, 2024: This is a good reminder by Nicholas Bate of the power of a list. The list remains the most powerful task management tool: a simple, accessible and …

Jan 3, 2024: Terry Pratchett’s “A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories”, is a hilarious read so far. Also a good book to kick start my reading for …

Jan 2, 2024: New year, new wallpaper. The January edition of Smashing Magazine’s Wallpaper Edition is here. I quite like the Peaceful Mountains wallpaper.

Jan 2, 2024: Looks like “more” is the word of the year for Kurt.

Dec 31, 2023: Why can’t every New Year’s Eve fall on an NFL game day? It’s much more entertaining than the usual drivel you see on the telly on New Year’s Eve.

Dec 25, 2023: 🎄 Merry Christmas!

Dec 23, 2023: A couple of errands to run this morning, including holiday haircuts for myself and the boys. After that, it’s back home for some brunch. Also …

Dec 20, 2023: Love these “24 for 2024” tips by Gretchen Rubin.

Dec 18, 2023: Have we reached peak saturation point with these annual reviews from different products and services yet on how we used them? My music player, app …

Dec 17, 2023: Skipping the golf today. The boys are going to the indoor studio instead for a hit. I think I’ll just potter about the house instead.

Dec 16, 2023: Given the increasing use of portrait mode as dictated by mobile phone screens, I’m curious if I’ll ever get to the point in my web …

Dec 16, 2023: Once again I find myself scrambling about in my web history looking for a link that I read a few weeks ago but didn’t bookmark. 🤦‍♂️

Dec 15, 2023: Thoughts on Threads and ActivityPub Meta might not be my favourite company, but the move towards supporting ActivityPub has to be applauded. A step in …

Dec 12, 2023: Last night, I started adding a blog to my website. Managed to get a couple of test posts rendered. It’s nothing fancy, just a bunch of markdown …

Dec 10, 2023: After a few days of the lurgy ripping through the house and taking everyone out, I think we’re all starting to turn the corner and get back to …

Dec 5, 2023: Added the standard light set from Game of Bricks to the Home Alone house. I’d say it worked out quite well!

Dec 5, 2023: More evidence of the decline of Mozilla’s browser, Firefox. Sadly, Firefox’s browser market share continues to decline. Definitely the end …

Dec 5, 2023: I’m back to work this morning after a five-day weekend. I would usually feel recharged and raring to go, but a bug is working its way through …

Dec 2, 2023: It’s not often we get snow in this part of Scotland and very rare that we get it before Christmas.

Nov 30, 2023: Watched the first two episodes of Slow Horses season 3. Hooked once again on this great show!

Nov 30, 2023: Good afternoon of winter golf with the boys today.

Nov 29, 2023: I remember the BBC providing more video highlights of Prime Minister’s Questions each week. Very few highlights have been available over the …

Nov 29, 2023: Last day of work today before I enjoy a five-day weekend. Nothing big planned other than enjoying some downtime.

Nov 26, 2023: A good day of golf at Troon today. Pretty drab and grey conditions but the boys played well and enjoyed a wee change of scenery.

Nov 25, 2023: Final leaves of the autumn raked up and bagged and tidied up the driveway in preparation for our Christmas lights and wreath going up. A bit of code …

Nov 22, 2023: There are so many new fonts to choose from! GitHub released Monaspace, their family of fonts for coding. Victor Mono and Geist were also released. …

Nov 21, 2023: Crawling back to X? David Heinemeier Hansson recently posted about X’s appeal. Everything that happens, everyone who matters, is on X first. Even the most rabid …

Nov 20, 2023: I think I would like to see more options available when composing posts in Micro.blog. As a default I would like the ability to always show the …

Nov 20, 2023: Trying a new family thing this year. A Christmas movie every Monday night with the family. Tonight’s movie, Arthur Christmas. The boys might be …

Nov 19, 2023: Code and coffee session working on my new website this morning was something of a success. Added new jobs to import starred Github repos and liked …

Nov 15, 2023: It was a big week this week for my oldest, as he officially signed to pursue a golf scholarship in the States with FirstPoint USA. He has a lot of …

Nov 15, 2023: Another paper product for the analog nerds. The Sidekick Notepad. Interesting idea, but I don’t think it would actually fit on my current desk.

Nov 9, 2023: I wish people would return to self-hosted websites, aka blogs. The fact that everyone seems to be publishing their content in newsletters is driving …

Nov 9, 2023: Using AI to design a better golf putter? Sounds more like marketing hype to me. And using “ai” in the product name is a big turn-off for …

Nov 8, 2023: The trailer for season 3 of Slow Horses has dropped. Between this and For All Mankind, my winter television viewing is sorted. Also, it might be time …

Nov 8, 2023: Everywhere I go on the web, I still see sites using the old Twitter “bird” branding in images, buttons and links. In fact, I can’t …

Nov 8, 2023: What a blog should be Words I wish I had read when I started this whole online thing. And, that’s exactly what a blog should be — a reflection of your interest and …

Nov 7, 2023: “The Bear” has been renewed for a third season. Love the show, the cast and the story. Can’t wait to see where it goes with season …

Nov 6, 2023: The perks of living in Arizona. It is nice to live in a state that does not have to change its clocks. — Execupundit I can never understand why we …

Nov 5, 2023: Another cracking Sunday afternoon out with Drew. The wee guy was hitting the ball great today.

Oct 31, 2023: It’s been an absolute treat reading about @vincent’s progress building Tinylytics. Building in public is a great way of communicating …

Oct 29, 2023: Got the bed of veggies going for the roast, potatoes, carrots and parsnips are peeled and ready, Yorkshire pudding mix is chilling in the fridge, some …

Oct 28, 2023: Docker Desktop is killing my Mac today. Multiple updates/restarts have failed and two re-installs of it are not working either. Going for a clean …

Oct 25, 2023: Geeking out tonight with a live concert viewing of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse.

Oct 24, 2023: A reminder from Nicholas Bate to re-set your personal compass.

Oct 22, 2023: Cracking afternoon of golf with the wee guy. Still blue skies, the slightest hint of a nip in the air, and the changing colours on the trees. Love …

Oct 18, 2023: Watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife tonight. I thought it was great. Nice touch at the end.

Oct 18, 2023: Can anyone recommend some resources on getting setup with Obsidian? I’m thinking plugins, themes and organising it. It will primarily be a place …

Oct 17, 2023: Cracking day at Edinburgh Castle with the family! Still a great place to visit. I would have liked less crowds there to get a chance to get a few more …

Oct 17, 2023: Heading over to Edinburgh today. Planning to visit the castle, Camera Obscura and wander a bit round the old town.

Oct 13, 2023: I am looking forward to some time off next week. No big plans, just see what each day brings.

Oct 11, 2023: Giving Omnivore a go as a read-it-later service after seeing it mentioned on Micro.blog. Like what I see so far.

Oct 7, 2023: Messing about with a new Rails 7.1 app this morning. My first time running with the import maps option for handling JavaScript.

Oct 5, 2023: Stacking projects is a nice new feature in Basecamp. You can stack projects together much like you would bits of paper. They then expand out when you …

Oct 4, 2023: Finding people who I used to follow on Twitter has led me to following a couple of people on Threads. While Threads is not my first choice, it’s …

Oct 4, 2023: Just went through the remainder of my tweets on Twitter and deleted them. My account will remain there but only to follow those people that I can’t …

Oct 4, 2023: A consistent nights sleep continues to evade me. Third day in a row I’ve been awake since around 2:30am. I usually find myself having at least a few …

Oct 1, 2023: What a Ryder Cup that was! Amazing golf played from start to finish. Team Europe playing brilliantly and glad to see MacIntyre walk away with a win on …

Sep 27, 2023: Upgrading my Air to Sonoma. Not having paid much attention to the Sonoma changes outlined a few weeks ago, I have no idea what will change!

Sep 26, 2023: 📸 day 26 / beverage #mbsept

Sep 24, 2023: Early start this morning.

Sep 23, 2023: 📸 day 23 / a day in the life #mbsept The big yin’s office for the day as he prepares for the Scottish Junior Team Championship tomorrow.

Sep 21, 2023: 📸 day 21 / fall #mbsept That little hint in the garden that fall is here. And yes, I prefer using fall to autumn.

Sep 18, 2023: Updated to iOS 17. Anyone know when the Journal app will be available?

Sep 18, 2023: 📸 day 18 / fabric #mbsept

Sep 18, 2023: Hush - A new content-blocking extension for Safari on iOS and Mac. Unlike some blockers, Hush has absolutely no access to your browser habits or …

Sep 18, 2023: The volume of RSS posts coming into my Feedbin account has dipped recently. It might be time to find more blogs to subscribe to.

Sep 16, 2023: 📸 day 16 / oof! #mbsept Oof! Pumpkin overload!

Sep 15, 2023: 📸 day 15 / red #mbsept

Sep 14, 2023: 📸 day 14 / statue #mbsept

Sep 14, 2023: Time to start thinking about migrating some Rails apps to 7.1.

Sep 14, 2023: A truly sad state of affairs if you ask me. Scientists have long-warned that the world is entering a sixth mass extinction, driven by …

Sep 13, 2023: 📸 day 13 / glowing #mbsept Car headlights glowing on the wall.

Sep 12, 2023: I’ve been giving the Bear notes app another try during the last few weeks. I’m not finding it has the same traction that I used to have …

Sep 12, 2023: 📸 day 12 / panic #mbsept No need to panic, I’ll get there.

Sep 11, 2023: I am letting a few domain names I own expire over the next few months. There is no sense in renewing a domain that I’m not using.

Sep 11, 2023: 📸 day 11 / retrospect #mbsept In retrospect, I could have saved myself a bunch of work and named my models better when I built this Rails application.

Sep 11, 2023: Great to see Mike Rohde’s Packers game sketchnotes are back. I hope that when the Packers win the Super Bowl this year 😉, Mike does a wall chart …

Sep 9, 2023: 📸 day 9 / language #mbsept A screenshot of some of my Ruby code. Still my preferred language of choice for web applications.

Sep 8, 2023: 📸 day 8 / yonder #mbsept

Sep 7, 2023: 📸 day 7 / panorama #mbsept Hard to believe this was taken 10 years ago at Niagara Falls.

Sep 7, 2023: TextBuddy sounds quite interesting. It’s just a text editor for manipulating text. A Swiss Army knife for plain text that is there when you …

Sep 6, 2023: 📸 day 6 / well #mbsept The wee guy played really well tonight.

Sep 6, 2023: Steven Pressfield on breaking through resistance. The more Resistance we feel to a project or idea, the more certain we can be that that idea is …

Sep 5, 2023: Is it a thing now that in order to get concert tickets for a band you need to do a pre-sale sign-up?

Sep 5, 2023: Best of Squeeze (Live at the Fillmore). Cranking this one up.

Sep 5, 2023: The Connections game on the NYT app is quite fun and frustrating at the same time.

Sep 5, 2023: 📸 day 5 / forest #mbsept Part of the forest at the golf club taken by my youngest on Sunday.

Sep 4, 2023: 📸 day 4 / orange #mbsept Not your usual shade of orange but I’ll take it.

Sep 4, 2023: Bah. Missed the start of the photo-blogging challenge for September.

Sep 2, 2023: Great day at Elderslie Golf Club with Ethan winning the Junior Club Championship. Well done big yin!

Sep 1, 2023: Finally, I resolved a wee build issue with my custom theme changes here on Micro.blog. Switching the Hugo version down to 0.91 did the trick. Regular …

Aug 31, 2023: Seth Godin on summarizing text with ChatGPT. I do this quite a lot when squashing Git commit messages down. Write clear and concise messages for each …

Aug 30, 2023: Too much cloud cover over us tonight to see the blue moon. Fingers crossed we get better visibility tomorrow.

Aug 19, 2023: Just finished season 2 of The Bear. A fantastic show with a great cast. Hope it’s renewed for a third season.

Aug 14, 2023: First try of the tomatoes from the garden. I’m sure they’ll taste great.

Aug 13, 2023: Hooked up my Micro.blog account up to Bluesky. Considering PixelFed and Mastodon next for cross-posting options.

Aug 13, 2023: I went out for a few holes with the wee guy this afternoon. He played well, but he still needs to work on alignment. He’s getting more and more …

Aug 12, 2023: A great day for Ethan winning the Fereneze Golf Club Junior Club Championship. Well done my boy!

Aug 12, 2023: Cracking views from Fereneze Golf Club now that the grey skies have cleared from this morning.

Aug 11, 2023: Trying something new here, all short and social posts will now come from social.matthewlang.me. Separating the social posts into their own domain will …

Jul 16, 2023: A great Sunday afternoon out on the course with the wee guy.

Jun 13, 2023: A ZX81 mechanical keyboard? Take my money!

Jun 7, 2023: Wee yin watching his big brother playing a team match tonight.

May 26, 2023: Cracking night for nine holes with the wee yin, and he beat his personal best again. I love seeing him enjoying the golf. I can’t argue with the …

May 22, 2023: Started off the week on a more positive note with an early morning walk before 6am.

May 19, 2023: A good nine holes tonight with the wee guy.

May 11, 2023: I played a few holes tonight with the big yin. Neither of us played particularly great, but good to be out in the sunshine.

May 10, 2023: I moved a few podcasts from Overcast to Spotify as I don’t listen to them regularly. Seeing them amongst the regular podcasts I listen to is …

May 9, 2023: I love this list of ancient Greek terms that should make a comeback.

May 3, 2023: Email is Good Just found out about Chris Coyier’s blog, Email is good. A blog focused on the use of email. I don’t use email enough to contact people. …

Apr 29, 2023: Family fourball today at Elderslie. A fun afternoon out on the course!

Apr 28, 2023: A great day at a family wedding in Ayrshire today. Nice to get dressed up for the day!

Apr 2, 2023: A good practice round for Ethan playing for Fereneze Golf Club at the Home Nations competition at Cheshire. Blue skies overhead, but muddy underfoot.

Mar 19, 2023: A Mother’s Day request from Jennifer, chilli for dinner with all her usual favourite sides. Some rice, chips, guacamole, and sour cream. …

Mar 16, 2023: Wield your library like a modern undergraduate wields ChatGPT. Great advice from Kurt Harden.

Mar 9, 2023: The use of the word “very” is something I’m always aware of when I’m writing. I try not to use it, but finding a replacement …

Mar 9, 2023: Another cold afternoon walk to break up the day. It won’t be long until spring, and we will see the green leaves on the trees again. I can’t wait.

Mar 5, 2023: The weather is getting better each week, so we’re finding ourselves at the golf a bit more often. The boys had a good practice round today.

Feb 4, 2023: I just discovered a few different iOS apps by The Iconfactory. Of particular interest are Clicker and Tot. And no, Clicker has nothing to do with the …

Feb 2, 2023: In this era where job automation is increasing, Nicholas Bate reminds us to invest in ourselves.

Feb 2, 2023: Matt Gemmell reminds us that it is okay to write less.

Jan 30, 2023: I wouldn’t mind being able to group projects in Todoist. In much the same way as Things does. Yes, I could probably group tasks in this way …

Jan 30, 2023: Minilog 15 complete. Using a two-page spread for the weekends condenses how many pages I need for a month. This month’s almost fitted in a single …

Jan 30, 2023: Surely a productivity-themed blog without an RSS feed is, by nature, unproductive?

Jan 16, 2023: Over the last few weeks, my Feedbin account has been filling up with more feeds from blogs and communities I’ve started following. While I miss …

Jan 15, 2023: Out on the course with Drew this afternoon. He played great today with a par on the 8th. A great afternoon.

Jan 11, 2023: It’s World Sketchnote Day! Mauro Toselli is already busy on Twitter with a few updates.

Jan 8, 2023: Cancelling my Fantastical family subscription this morning. The price increase for the family subscription from £62.99 to £99.99 is too big a jump for …

Jan 7, 2023: Good to get the boys back in the studio this morning. A nice shot from Drew, sticking it to two feet from 75 yards out. I can’t wait for the …

Jan 5, 2023: Feedbin just announced some interesting new features to support Mastodon. I am still on the fence about Mastodon, but it’s excellent that …

Jan 1, 2023: Setting up my oldest son with my old MacBook Pro today. It’s ideal for him for his studies and I hope it helps him get better grades in his …

Dec 31, 2022: Playing Ticket To Ride Europe with the rest of the family before the bells. My and my niece aren’t quite winning but we’re a close second.

Dec 31, 2022: The migration to my new MacBook Air is almost complete. I liked the opportunity to start from a clean slate, so most of the process involved copying …

Dec 28, 2022: My new Air arrived to replace my ageing Pro. Ten years is a long time to have a laptop. I definitely had my money’s worth from the Pro. Lots of setup …

Dec 28, 2022: It’s the first of three days back at work before New Year. The upside is that being back at work today for a few days means that I’ll be a …

Dec 26, 2022: I have been wrestling with the Vips library for Ruby for most of the afternoon. I am trying to get multiple PNG files with alpha channels to layer on …

Dec 26, 2022: I may have found the perfect place to order practice golf balls for Ethan. Ayrshire Discount Golf Balls. A reasonable price for practice balls, and …

Dec 25, 2022: Merry Christmas Everyone! A Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day! Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

Dec 24, 2022: Well Spent Days Patrick Rhone’s plan for measuring his days in the future is definitely something I can get on board with. One day, I hope not to measure my …

Dec 23, 2022: A Cratchit Christmas Wally Bock shares an ideal model for present-day Christmas in a time when, there’s a demand and push for us to spend and consume beyond our …

Dec 23, 2022: Kurt Harden shares his essential mix for Christmas. Perfect background music while I finish work today and get the house into some order.

Dec 22, 2022: Drew finished the Home Alone build a a few days ago. It’s a fantastic build with plenty of detail. A great set for the holidays.

Dec 21, 2022: I finished today’s NYT Spelling Bee over some coffee and eggs. An excellent start to the day. 😀

Dec 20, 2022: Sticking with tried and tested Over the weekend, I decided to give Readwise’s Reader application a spin. After seeing several tweets about the product, I thought it might be a …

Dec 4, 2022: Out for a quick six holes with the boys this afternoon. Glad to see the boys still playing great.

Dec 4, 2022: The Lego Home Alone build is coming along nicely. Not much progress this week though as Drew has been in his bed with a virus this week.

Dec 1, 2022: Good to see Jason Kottke back at kottke.org.

Nov 30, 2022: I just discovered that the Bear blogging platform has its own discovery feed. Love this! It would be good to see a similar feed on Micro.blog.

Nov 27, 2022: Winter ready The boys pitched in this afternoon and tidied up the back garden. Leaves were raked away, patio furniture cleaned down and stored away, golf nets and …

Nov 27, 2022: Almost ready to migrate Dailymuse from Heroku to Hatchbox. Once migrated, Dailymuse will start getting some much-needed updates on both the front and …

Nov 24, 2022: Happy Thanksgiving to folks in the US! Have a fantastic day!

Nov 24, 2022: Curtis McHale shares his weekly planning process in Things 3.

Nov 24, 2022: Drew and I started the Home Alone build from Lego last night. We finished the van last night and, this morning started the first bag of the house.

Nov 19, 2022: Better off without Twitter? There is a lot of online chat about why losing Twitter might be okay. I’ve read a few threads on Reddit, Micro.blog and Twitter itself that we …

Nov 18, 2022: I’m curious about hosting my own Mastodon instance. More so to see what’s involved in running it and how it integrates with other …

Nov 16, 2022: Nicholas Bate has a plan if you are serious.

Nov 13, 2022: Three generations of Lang out on the course today at Elderslie Golf Club. Boys had a great time playing with their Papa.

Nov 13, 2022: The last splash of colour in the garden before winter sets in.

Nov 9, 2022: What is the sign of a good developer’s blog? An RSS feed, of course! Good to see one on the 37signals development blog. Just two articles in, …

Nov 8, 2022: I’m not convinced that the departure of Twitter users to Mastodon will be permanent. We’ve been here before. I can’t remember the …

Nov 7, 2022: Not quite fully on DigitalOcean Over the last few weeks, I’ve been migrating several Rails applications to Hatchbox. I’ve still got a couple of applications to go. Still, …

Nov 5, 2022: Another Minilog Started I started another minilog yesterday. That’s 12 notebooks mostly completed over the last year. I say mostly completed, as there’s a couple …

Nov 1, 2022: After the cancellation of Setapp, I’m reviewing several other subscriptions that could be for the chop. There’s no average monthly figure …

Oct 31, 2022: I cancelled my Setapp subscription today. I’m only using a handful of apps from this, and I know it would be cheaper for me to use alternatives.

Oct 30, 2022: Spent most of the afternoon finalising some changes for my Rails app for posting to my Jekyll blog. It needs a few more tweaks before I open source …

Oct 22, 2022: I finished watching the first season of Amazon’s Rings of Power this afternoon. I enjoyed it, but I did find it a tad slow.

Oct 19, 2022: Visiting Rosslyn Chapel With Ethan playing the last round of a competition at Longniddry Golf Club today, Jen, Drew, and I decided to wander around the surrounding area. We …

Oct 17, 2022: I am trying out something new this morning. I built a small Rails app that streamlines the posting process to my blog. It automates most of the …

Sep 27, 2022: Trailer: The Last of Us My “must watch” for 2023. It’s great to finally see a trailer for The Last of Us and all the characters and locations from the game. …

Sep 18, 2022: I just found out today that you can email your journal entries to Day One. Game changer!

Sep 17, 2022: Lego Marvel Venom with Light Kit A couple of weeks ago Drew bought this Lego Marvel Venom set. We decided to try out the additional light kit for it from Light My Bricks. I have to …

Sep 16, 2022: Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 I’m a sucker for all things space, even more so when it comes to anything that allows us to see what’s in space. Hence the Astronomy …

Sep 16, 2022: I quite like these AirTag strap mounts from ElevationLab. Good for mounting an AirTag on all types of items. I particularly like the idea of putting …

Sep 15, 2022: Future fatigue The last few years in the UK have been a bit of a rollercoaster. We’ve had Brexit, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the rising cost of energy …

Sep 15, 2022: New MacBook time After nine years with my MacBook Pro, it’s time to upgrade. I’ve been using the same MacBook Pro since 2013, and it’s been a great …

Sep 14, 2022: Enjoying web development once more Tonight, I’ve been building HTML templates with Tailwind to integrate them into a CMS of sorts using Rails. Is it a product? No, it’s just me hacking …

Sep 14, 2022: Rebecca's restart Rebecca Toh has restarted her newsletter and in it’s first edition, Rebecca suggests accepting that we’ll never do everything perfectly …

Sep 14, 2022: Invest wisely with NB. Invest by being there when you are there. — Invest Wednesday 7 All good investments, but number 5 is a good start.

Sep 13, 2022: First thoughts on iOS 16 It’s been 24 hours since I installed iOS 16. The update process took quite some time to complete on my iPhone 12, but it still took longer on my …

Sep 12, 2022: Got the iOS 16 install going for my iPhone. I’m not as enthusiastic as I was in the past about these big iOS releases, but it helps to stay up …

Sep 12, 2022: Trailer: The Mandalorian Season Three Essential viewing. {% include youtube-embed.html embed_code=“odnRRZKhNPk” %}

Sep 12, 2022: Vigil of the Princes I won’t lie, I’ve been watching a lot of the television coverage following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Tonight, I watched some of the …

Sep 10, 2022: Trailer: Glasss Onion I love Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. Such a quirky film and Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc character is great to watch. Looking forward to the …

Sep 10, 2022: Up early, well for a Saturday at least, for a little code and coffee combo. Fixed a couple of wee bugs on my blog and now spending some time on a …

Sep 7, 2022: Happy Birthday Ethan My oldest son Ethan turns 16 today. It still only feels like yesterday when we first brought him home from the hospital. A few highlights over those …

Sep 5, 2022: Setting up Hatchbox A short post tonight as I’ve been spending the evening setting up a Hatchbox account and migrating the first of a handful of Rails applications …

Sep 4, 2022: The productive influence of others After reading Nicholas Bate’s latest powerful productivity post, I thought I would share a few of the people and apps that have influenced me. …

Sep 3, 2022: Having another go Over the last few weeks, I’ve been re-writing a small product that I spent sometime building before lockdown. The product has been gathering …

Sep 2, 2022: Migrating Bear notes to Ulysses This weekend I’m hoping to move all my Bear notes into Ulysses. My Bear renewal for the Pro subscription is at the end of September and while I …

Sep 1, 2022: Blogging once again I’m going to try and kick-start the blogging process once again. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have tried to do this over the last few …

Aug 17, 2022: Game changer. The bookmark you take notes on.

Aug 12, 2022: I’ve been curious about the PHP framework Laravel over the last few weeks. I’ve just been reading the docs and watching a few screencasts. …

Aug 4, 2022: Changes on the shores of Lake Ontario For the last ten years that we’ve been visiting my in-laws in Canada, they’ve lived in the township of Oakville just outside of Toronto. …

Aug 4, 2022: Final Rockchapel visit A final trip to Rockchapel today for nine holes before our flight back to the UK tomorrow. Papa making up the fourball for today.

Aug 1, 2022: Happy Birthday Drew My youngest son, Drew, turned 10 years old today and boy did he have a great day. A few rounds of laser tag ensured that he and his brother reminded …

Jul 31, 2022: Playing Glen Abbey An unexpected perk of this trip to Canada was being able to play Glen Abbey golf course, which has been a host of the RBC Canadian Open for a number …

Jul 28, 2022: Niagara Falls trip All of us headed down to Niagara Falls for the day to enjoy some of the sights down there. The first thing we all did was the boat trip to see the …

Jul 26, 2022: Playing Hidden Lake again Me and Ethan played Hidden Lake again today. We stuck with what we liked and played the new course. We also got paired with a couple of locals who …

Jul 25, 2022: First Rockchapel visit First visit to our favourite nine hole course in the Oakville area, and that’s the Rockchapel course just past Waterdown. Nice being able to …

Jul 24, 2022: Afternoon range session A great afternoon range session for the boys before the rain started rolling in.

Jul 23, 2022: No better time My in-laws have a new home in Canada, so a few changes to the sleeping arrangements. They still have a great spot outside for a quiet coffee though.

Jul 14, 2022: I like the idea of Shawn Blanc’s “Stop Doing” list.

Jul 14, 2022: Another productivity essential from Nicholas Bate.

Jul 14, 2022: The latest release from Field Notes looks great. Although I’m not a North American resident in the area of the great lakes, I’ve spent a …

Jul 13, 2022: 150th Open Practice Day Today we headed up to St Andrews to see some golf at the final practice day of the week before the 1st rounds begin tomorrow. After an early start, …

Jun 23, 2022: A great ending to Kenobi I watched the final episode of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi last night and I have to say it was a great ending to a fantastic series. I had so many …

Jun 23, 2022: After almost two and a half years without catching Covid, it finally got me. I tested positive this morning. The real challenge is now keeping a safe …

Jun 20, 2022: My turn to drop off the wee yin at school this morning. Can’t wait to see what tunes he picks for the car ride to school. His musical likes …

Jun 20, 2022: Stumbled across this collection of Pocket’s recommended long reads for the last ten years. Quite a few I’ve read and a few I …

Jun 15, 2022: Thoroughly enjoyed Hustle on Netflix tonight. Superb movie and something a bit different.

Jun 9, 2022: Building a single page admin section I’m currently following through the hotrails.dev tutorial series so that I can build an admin section for the Writeabout website. For too long, …

Jun 9, 2022: The Last of Us Part 1 Remake Trailer My favourite game of all time has been polished up for the PS5 and will also soon be released on the PC as well. This might just fill in the gap …

Jun 8, 2022: Finding the path again Over the last couple of months, I’ve started to make some progress on many of the habits that I fell away from a few years ago. I’m …

Jun 8, 2022: Black Adam Trailer Shazam was an unexpected DC favourite in the Lang household. I think Black Adam will be another DC favourite for us.

Jun 8, 2022: The Nowhere Man Professor Chris Painter at The Byline Times digs into the lack of direction that the United Kingdom finds itself in under its Prime Minister, Boris …

Jun 7, 2022: Lots to like from Apple’s WWDC event, but the MacBook Air definitely caught my eye. Might just be my next laptop to replace my ageing MacBook …

Jun 6, 2022: So, Boris Johnson survives again. “Move on” seems to be the Tory favoured response to the media after the no-confidence vote. Roll on the …

Jun 5, 2022: Channeling his inner artist The wee guy channeling his inner artist in the corner of the garden this afternoon.

May 29, 2022: Down at Turnberry Walking round the peripheral of the Trump Turnberry course while Ethan plays his county match. Such a beautiful part of the world.

May 20, 2022: A bug or a lack of understanding? This morning I finally resovled an issue with a Rails application of mine. After a couple of weeks, of getting an hour every other night to resovle …

May 20, 2022: Deer on the 11th tee There I was waiting on the final match tonight when I noticed a nice bit of light through the trees from the 11th tee. It wasn’t until I got …

May 17, 2022: A study shows that full absenteeism from social media is good for you. Digital Minimalism and Deep Work author Cal Newport, highlights a new paper shows that taking a prolonged and full break is good for you. The …

May 17, 2022: I’m on board with Kurt on this one. Money spent on books and music is never wasted. Although I do admit that it’s been a while since I …

May 6, 2022: Good advice from Kurt Harden on how to salvage the day when your plans end up changing.

May 3, 2022: Hey, 37signals is back!

May 3, 2022: Nice reminder by Shawn Blanc that the quality of question matters.

May 3, 2022: Signed up for the free plan on MDN Plus this morning. I’m not convinced that I need either of the paid plans yet, but I might change my mind …

May 1, 2022: How I am using different tools and themes to seperate my work from my home. It’s always good to use good tools for the job. In my case, I’m back to using a Macbook Pro and macOS as my development machine and …

Apr 28, 2022: Do what Matt Gemmell does and write down your writing ideas.

Apr 27, 2022: It seems that Heroku is no longer the go to place for deploying Rails applications. I’m having some success with Render for my Rails and static …

Apr 26, 2022: Today I finally got round to going through the Making VS Code Awesome book by Caleb Porzio. Let’s just say I am now a happier developer for …

Apr 26, 2022: Our oldest has his first exam tomorrow afternoon. After a wee pop quiz with him tonight, he seems confident enough for tomorrow.

Apr 25, 2022: I made a wee decision over the weekend, that should see me gaining a bit more time back for myself and the family starting from the end of the summer. …

Apr 25, 2022: How I used localStorage to implement a daily checklist One thing I have wanted to do for a long-time is to have a single checklist for the day that I can check items off for and then reset it for the next …

Apr 25, 2022: The increasing costs of going back to the office and why it's not possible for everyone. Now that we can all go back to the office, people are now realising that perhaps they would rather continue to work from home. This is due largely to …

Apr 21, 2022: Every time Apple announces these Shot on the iPhone challenges, I’m always amazed that they have been taken on an iPhone. The macro challenge is …

Apr 20, 2022: Are we on the verge of a new surge in blogs? Anil Dash writes about the recent resurgence of the web. There are definitely many reasons why this is happening. Still, a key one for me is the …

Apr 19, 2022: Almost finished the new site design. Deployed some changes this morning to make it easier to read on mobile devices. There are still a few snagging …

Apr 18, 2022: Updated my website to be more a stream of posts now than categorised content. I’m pleased with the results and the change to something that now …

Apr 11, 2022: Trying to tame my inbox once again I have followed several high-volume technology RSS feeds for so long that I can’t even remember when it started. Maybe in the Google Reader era? …

Mar 25, 2022: Cracking night Cracking night for 9 holes with Ethan.

Mar 8, 2022: Minilog 4 complete That’s minilog 4 complete. Quite the stack I’m building.

Mar 8, 2022: The 3 x 5 life of Patrick Rhone. Bonus points to Patrick for providing his GTD guided mindsweep as well!

Mar 6, 2022: Tom Critchlow on building a digital homestead. Tom’s site is a treasure trove of good stuff for budding bloggers. Worth checking out!

Mar 6, 2022: Another 9 holes with my boy Had a great nine holes with Drew today. He played fantastic today. So proud.

Feb 28, 2022: Kurt Harden gives us 40 albums that turn 40 this year. I recognise some of these from my folks record collection at the time.

Feb 28, 2022: A few things to zero out with Nicholas Bate.

Feb 23, 2022: Nicholas Bate outlines some healing methods. Having done almost all of these, I can guarantee good results.

Feb 23, 2022: Patrick Rhone lays out his mask guidelines for the future.

Feb 23, 2022: Updated the family WhatsApp group name from Pandemic Posse to Wordle Weirdos. A good sign of the the times.

Feb 23, 2022: This is the second in my build updates for 2022. Last month I mentioned my intention to look at BlitzJS. After a few hours of wrestling with a small application, I wondered if it would be better to …

Feb 13, 2022: As Super Bowl halftime shows go, that is up there as one of my favourites.

Feb 13, 2022: I was looking for a new font for this website and came across IBM’s Plex Sans. I’m very happy with the end result.

Feb 13, 2022: I’ve started getting into the habit of reading source code again. It’s been too long since I have done this, and actually did wonders for …

Jan 31, 2022: It was a glorious morning for a hit. Course is looking great and so glad that we haven’t had any snow either.

Jan 23, 2022: Not the final score I hoped to wake up to for the Packers game. Having watched the highlights though, a deserved win for the 49ers. 👏

Jan 20, 2022: I need to use checklists more often This morning I put the final touches on a Rails application that I planned to move from DigitalOcean to Render whilst upgrading it from Rails 6 to …

Jan 19, 2022: Why I'm on the slow uptake with Todoist I’ve been trying to get more out of my Todoist setup recently by using labels to tag more of the tasks that I have there. It’s similar to the previous …

Jan 18, 2022: Julian Summerhayes on the importance of handwriting.

Jan 18, 2022: Kurt Harden adds to my world once again with “bookwrapt”.

Jan 18, 2022: Nicholas Bate reminds us that daily gets the right things done

Jan 18, 2022: Why I'm passing on renewing my Tweetbot subscription It’s coming up for a year since I started my Tweetbot subscription, and now that it’s up for renewal, I’ve decided to pass on …

Jan 17, 2022: Progress update for my side-projects At the start of the year, I chose “build” as my word for the year. The single word strategy is the idea that you choose a word that will direct what …

Jan 16, 2022: Good session on the practice ground with the wee man this morning.

Jan 15, 2022: Minilog 2 complete. I wasn’t as happy with the sketches in this one. I aim to do better next time.

Jan 14, 2022: Trying to promote myself a bit more on Github I’ve been looking at my GitHub profile over the last couple of days. It seems like a graveyard of half-finished or throwaway projects that do …

Jan 13, 2022: 48 hours after my booster, and happy to report just a sore arm.

Jan 13, 2022: It's been long overdue, but I am reading again I’m reading again. And it’s been long overdue. I can’t remember the last time I finished a book that I hadn’t read before. It’s been that long. There …

Jan 12, 2022: I'm finally on the mechanical keyboard train I’m typing this on my new Keychron K6 keyboard. It is a Christmas present from my wife, and I love using it. This morning I decided to try and …

Jan 11, 2022: Finally got my booster today. No queuing this time, as my appointment was first thing this morning.

Jan 11, 2022: I try not to post anything political here. However, I think, like many people in the UK, I have just reached a maximum tipping point with the …

Jan 11, 2022: Get sketchnoting! It’s world Sketchnote day today! A chance for the sketchnoting community to celebrate this under-appreciated form of note-taking. I first …

Jan 10, 2022: Trimming down some feeds in my Feedbin account Over the weekend, I started reviewing my Feedbin account to reduce the number of unread items I see daily. Recently, I’ve noticed that I check …

Jan 8, 2022: As I start to break open a few sub-projects in Todoist, I start to wonder again if another coupe of boards is the answer or can I manage it all on one …

Jan 8, 2022: I just can’t compete with my wife Jen when it comes to playing Name That Tune with Spotify. She gets most of songs right within a few seconds of the …

Jan 7, 2022: I remembered Draft, the writing app I used years ago. Checked it out today, and it’s still there! The web is truly an under-appreciated and …

Jan 6, 2022: I'm trying to improve my Twitter lists by making the list header more useful. I’ve been trying to re-organise my Twitter following into a few different lists, but I wanted to see at a glance who’s on that list, so I …

Jan 6, 2022: There's no good time to start other than now In the last few years, I have realised that there’s no best time to start a new habit. The critical thing to remember is that anytime is the best time …

Jan 4, 2022: Out walking round our local trails and we managed to spot a deer. It’s been a while since we last seen one round there.

Jan 4, 2022: A gradual change I wrote yesterday about how my New Year resolutions never work and why that is the case. One reason is the amount of time I set aside to prepare for …

Jan 3, 2022: Started keeping a notebook of sketchnotes that I like to re-use often. First up are the date headers and separators I’ve been using.

Jan 3, 2022: Upgrading my development environment to use the latest stable versions of Ruby and Rails. It’s been a while since I have last done this.

Jan 3, 2022: Why I don’t make New Year resolutions Another year, another chance to start over again. How many of us have pledged to make a change in 2022? More to the point, how many of us will fail in …

Dec 25, 2021: Merry Christmas everyone!

Dec 22, 2021: Intrigued by DuckDuckGo’s announcement that they are building their own web browser for the desktop. After a brief flutter with Brave and …

Dec 22, 2021: Minilog v1 complete. I really enjoyed this exercise of keeping a small book of sketches and thoughts over December. Onto the next one!

Dec 21, 2021: I’m chuffed with my banner for today’s minilog. Just one more day and I’ll have done this for 23 consecutive days.

Dec 21, 2021: I’m intrigued by Cal Newport’s Analog January Challenge. I could certainly stay off the Twitter native app and website for the month, but …

Dec 21, 2021: Nicholas Bate shares 22 possible goals for 2022. This list is a great list of goals to start with — hiking, cooking, reading, health, organising and …

Dec 18, 2021: Messing around with microStudio this morning. I thought this might be something for my youngest son to tinker around with over the holidays.

Dec 13, 2021: Bah. Just noticed that using a Sharpie comes through to the previous page. No more Sharpies for my daily pages now.

Dec 9, 2021: I’ve been keeping these daily notes for over a week now. A good daily exercise.

Nov 30, 2021: Projects that leave you better off, as a person, despite not being a commercial or critical success. If you work on projects like this, it’s …

Nov 12, 2021: I created up a Rails 7 app last night using the esbuild and Tailwind options. This is definitely a step in the right direction for Rails. Modern …

Nov 2, 2021: I was going to post a link to a bit of Facebook news but I’ve decided against it. They’ve been given enough air time on the webs. Who …

Oct 27, 2021: Ordered a couple of books from Derek Sivers this morning. I’ve opted for the hardbacks for durability. Nice to have the digital versions …

Oct 21, 2021: I am heading into the office this morning to pick up a new laptop. It’s the first time in 18 months that I have had to do the morning commute. Even …

Oct 21, 2021: If today’s venture into the office was anything to go by, then you can keep it. Commuting in was fine, but the office was such a dark and grey …

Oct 18, 2021: Disappointed to hear that Nock is winding down its retail store. I managed to grab a couple of Hightower cases before all the store stock disappeared. …

Oct 16, 2021: My youngest drew me a picture of Discworld’s best wizard, Rincewind. Thanks Drew!

Oct 14, 2021: Pumpkin picking over at Cupar today. Thankfully the weather was in our favour.

Oct 12, 2021: Great day with Jen and the boys walking around Luss on the shores of Loch Lomond. It helped to clear the cobwebs.

Oct 12, 2021: When we moved into current house, we had three oak trees across the street. A few years ago, they had to cut one down as it was dead. Today, they’re …

Oct 8, 2021: The family has upped their Hobonichi Techo Planner order to three this year. One for me, one for Jen and now one for our oldest Ethan.

Aug 20, 2021: Build paths first Michael Wade explains the sidewalk rule and why we should build paths first. Keeping things simple and action-oriented is difficult and yet if that …

Aug 18, 2021: I may have created a monster by showing my youngest son the new Aliens Pulse Rifle from Nerf.

Aug 18, 2021: Time and attention are unrelated Jason Fried recounts a tale showing that time and attention are unrelated. What I don’t have – and what I can’t squeeze in – is more attention. …

Aug 16, 2021: More recommendations from humans please This blog has been quiet of late. I haven’t felt the need to share much of anything over the last year. In fact, in the previous few years, I’ve …

Jun 30, 2021: An older post from Lifehacker in 2016 outlines the benefits and drawbacks of using plain text.

Jun 30, 2021: Amazed by GitHub Copilot I must admit, I am blown away by GitHub's latest technical preview, Copilot, despite not having access to it yet. It's almost like having Stack …

Jun 17, 2021: Lunch date I just had a wee lunch date with Jennifer at one of our favourite local restaurants. Nice to get out of the house, have the cooking done for you and …

Jun 4, 2021: Let me get this right. Twitter's Blue subscription costs $3 per month, and for that, I still have to see ads in my timeline? Undoing tweets and …

May 25, 2021: The best medicine in life needs no prescription.  I love this. Just posted by Patrick Rhone about a post by Kurt Harden.

May 18, 2021: Michael Wade highlights the importance of a human touch when it comes to sensitive subjects. 

May 18, 2021: Glasgow bigotry, enough is enough Growing up in the west of Glasgow for a few years, I witnessed plenty of actions of hatred and violence just because you had a particular colour of …

May 15, 2021: It was nice to get back to church and celebrate Drew’s first Holy Communion today. Even nicer that he was able to do it with some of his classmates …

May 12, 2021: Another week, another thing I forgot to put in the calendar and completely forgot. It's official. I need to write more stuff down. In fact, I …

May 12, 2021: Is it time for a new Repulican party? The GOP is continuing its move to always side with Trump. In this, Cheney is hardly alone. At the national and state level, Republicans who challenged …

May 11, 2021: As nice as the Jumpstart Rails application is and all the feature it includes, I'm finding the new annual pricing a little on the expensive side. I …

May 11, 2021: How do you get what you want? Nicholas Bate knows.

May 11, 2021: The complete guide to plaintext productivity on Windows. You can also do this on Linux and macOS.

May 11, 2021: Apple back in court in the UK On top of the court case against Epic, Apple is now facing another court case, this time in the UK. Apple is accused of over-charging people for the …

May 2, 2021: Trying something a bit different tonight, chicken parm in marinara sauce and mozzarella.

Mar 18, 2021: We’re getting a bit more daylight now, so me and Jen have started up our mid-week walks again. Lockdown or not, we’re going to keep this going.

Mar 16, 2021: Master & Commander, a masterpiece I completely agree with Michael Wade. Master & Commander is a masterpiece. I never got round to seeing Master & Commander at the cinema. If …

Mar 15, 2021: Do you have all the essentials?

Mar 13, 2021: A productive Saturday It was one of those Saturdays where everything through the day just fell into place. A code and coffee session early this morning yielded another …

Mar 8, 2021: The not so fun weekend of debugging code problems It's been a while since I last posted here. I've been getting my head down and working on my CMS product, which has left not much time for blogging. …

Feb 22, 2021: Reminiscing of days with Sublime Text Over the weekend, I decided to re-install Sublime Text to see If there have been any substantial updates to it. I haven't used it in a few years now …

Feb 21, 2021: First hit of the year First hit of the year for me and Drew at Paisley Golf Club today! A glorious afternoon of weather and a welcome change to the snow and rain …

Feb 17, 2021: Don't forget that text is everything Graydon Hoare suggests we always bet on text. Text is the most socially useful communication technology. It works well in 1:1, 1:N, and M:N modes. It …

Feb 15, 2021: Hello Dingbats In a change from my regular Leuchttrum notebooks that I use, I wanted to try something different. Last week I ordered a Dingbats Wildlife notebook. …

Feb 13, 2021: It's been a code and coffee morning I'm trying to build a bit more flexibility into a Rails application by adding the ability to have multiple widgets on the one page. From a …

Feb 4, 2021: Got AirPods and macOS? Here's an excellent recommendation from Curtis McHale.

Feb 3, 2021: First paragraph: Troy Troy. The most marvellous kingdom in all the world. The Jewel of the Aegean. Glittering Ilium, the city that rose and fell not once but twice. …

Feb 2, 2021: Annie Mueller knows the good plans from the bad plans.

Feb 2, 2021: What you need to remember in a Covid world.

Feb 1, 2021: Is it time for an app store on GitHub?

Feb 1, 2021: Can SAAS build a better vaccination system? Deloitte's system to manage the management of vaccination has come under fire for being unusable and in some cases, even abandoned for paper-based …

Jan 31, 2021: The open web we let slip through our fingers With the internet shifting into huge companies' hands, we’re losing the fight against the open web. Heather Burns reminds us of those times and …

Jan 28, 2021: Need to see more tabs? Then maybe Vivaldi is the browser for you. I've already taken Brave for a spin as a replacement browser for Firefox on a …

Jan 27, 2021: Tweetbot 6 is here Tweetbot 6 is here with support for cards and polls, and a new subscription model of $0.99 per month or $5.99 per year. You don't need to take out the …

Jan 25, 2021: NFL Championship heartbreak once again for the Packers Not the results I wanted last night in each of the Championship games. Heartbreak for the Packers once again. Starting to wonder if there's ever been …

Jan 19, 2021: I managed my first walk/run of the year this morning. I ended up splitting the two roughly 50/50. Not bad for a first attempt at running. I'm aiming …

Jan 16, 2021: It’s Divisional weekend on the NFL. I’m predicting wins for the Packers, Bills, Browns and Saints, but I really just want the Packers to win it all!

Jan 14, 2021: Spent a couple of hours tonight swapping in a TailwindUI component into a Rails app of mine. I can see me swapping more of the TailwindUI components …

Jan 11, 2021: The Couch Console I'm not sure what to make of this Couch Console on Kickstarter. I like having a reason to get up and get some nibbles or a drink, but this makes it …

Jan 11, 2021: The humble checklist Adam Keys reminds us of the effectiveness of the humble checklist. Checklists are great because they are an easy way to get my brain thinking about …

Jan 10, 2021: Pulled the trigger on a license for Tailwind UI. I've already been using the free components, but weighing up the cost of the license for what you …

Jan 8, 2021: I’m always torn between how picturesque it is when it snows and when it will melt enough to get back on the golf course. I’ll enjoy this …

Jan 8, 2021: Looks like I’ve missed the release of Edition 2 of the bullet journal notebook. I hope they get more in soon. Almost at the end of my current …

Jan 8, 2021: Lots of good stuff from Curtis McHale today. Being consistent in 2021, ideas from reading in 2020 and he's moving from Goodreads to StoryGraph. For …

Jan 7, 2021: Just curious. Are any of my blogging buddies using Signal?

Jan 7, 2021: Ultimatum for WhatsApp users Another classy move from the Facebook family. WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messenger that claims to have privacy coded into its DNA, is giving its 2 …

Jan 6, 2021: Plans for the blog With the basics of my blog now in place, I can focus on other parts of the blog that I would like to build. I've been writing notes for an aggregator …

Jan 5, 2021: If you like tracking what you read, you might want to consider The StoryGraph. After a few months of being in beta, they've finally launched—a good …

Jan 5, 2021: A word for 2021 Niklas Göke's word for 2021 is "matter". He'll use this word as his theme for the year to centre all his thoughts and actions. More of a guide for the …

Jan 3, 2021: Jen discovered another notebook retailer for me over the holidays, Notebook Therapy. I can definitely see me ordering from here in the near future. 

Jan 1, 2021: New year, new Techo planner.

Jan 1, 2021: A new blog, of sorts In the last few months, I've been fairly quiet on the blog front. Just like everything else that went wrong in 2020, I could blame it on the global …

Dec 30, 2020: Enjoyed a walk with the family yesterday. So lucky to have this at the bottom of our street.

Nov 3, 2020: I’ve been trying to get some traction going on a few web applications over the last couple of months. It’s just not been happening. …

Nov 3, 2020: Wow, it’s been 30 years now since EMF’s Unbelievable was released.

Nov 2, 2020: I love this “Do or Do Not” notepad.

Oct 31, 2020: David Sparks shares the aftermath of the California wildfires.

Oct 30, 2020: Ordered the Shape Up book from Basecamp. Sure I could read the book for free on the website, but having my own copy means I can put my own notes on it …

Oct 30, 2020: The last double shot from Mike Sad to see that Mike Gunderloy is bowing out from software development and the Internet. He was one of the first Ruby developers that I followed on …

Oct 14, 2020: My patience for software development over the last couple of years has grown to the point where I would love to throw in the towel with it. A …

Oct 14, 2020: What did I miss from last night’s Apple event? As far as I can tell, a new iPhone, a new mini HomePod and a new feature in iOS called Intercom. …

Oct 2, 2020: Friday night dinner at the golf club with a cracking view. Great start to the weekend.

Sep 27, 2020: Another Sunday. Another nine holes with Drew. Cracking day for it and he managed to play most of the holes from the junior red tees. He even managed a …

Sep 24, 2020: I just setup a Windows laptop for the first time in over 15 years. Saying no to ads and declining to take up third party offers like Dropbox …

Sep 24, 2020: The Coalition for App Fairness launches In an effort to address issues with Apple and their App Store, several companies have founded a non-profit organisation that hopes to address these …

Sep 23, 2020: Reading Twitter lists in Feedbin has been largely a painful process. With some lists containing 50+ accounts, it becomes more of a chore than anything …

Sep 23, 2020: Project options Over the last few days I’ve been assessing a number of projects that I have in the works. The problem with each of these projects is that their …

Sep 20, 2020: A welcome change to the usual Sunday. My Dad took Drew out for a few holes at his golf club today. Great to see him playing on a different course and …

Sep 18, 2020: Widgets and App Library oh my! With Apple’s iOS 14 update, there are two features that I am using now to tidy up my home screen. Widgets and the App Library. Widgets are tiles …

Sep 17, 2020: Catching the Spitfire I managed to catch the NHS Spitfire as it flew over two hopsitals in my hometown of Paisley this afternoon. That’s three times now that …

Sep 10, 2020: Greyhound, a great watch Just finished watching Greyhound on Apple TV+. A great watch and goes straight into the action. Tom Hanks is brilliant as always and Stephen Graham is …

Sep 8, 2020: Yeah, I'm buying Madden NFL 21 EA is bringing Colin Kaepernick back to Madden. Starting today, Kaepernick will be available as a QB who can be added to any team in Franchise mode in …

Sep 4, 2020: Just me and my boy out on the course tonight. He’s playing well and finished with a superb 4 playing from the blue tee which is about 150 yards out.

Sep 3, 2020: Of course the tech companies passed on the new digital services tax to consumers Oh look. The big tech companies are now all just passing on the new digital services tax straight to their customers. Who could have predicted that? …

Aug 29, 2020: Spent tonight refereeing our last junior semi-final match at the golf club. Looking forward to finals day now to see all our finalists play once more.

Aug 21, 2020: Jen timed picking up these new caramel crunch biscuits from Aldi perfectly. #mbaug

Aug 20, 2020: I had no idea Unsplash had an iOS app. Found out this morning after continuing my process of updating accounts with my new email address.

Aug 20, 2020: Nicholas Bate’s Tools of Excellence for a Brave New World series continues with The Master List.

Aug 20, 2020: Our Japanese maple in the back garden is starting to change colour. A change of seasons is upon us. #mbaug

Aug 20, 2020: Instagram's sole aim is to keep you in the app Looks like I removed the Instagram app from my phone at the right time. As if Instagram weren’t addictive enough already, the company is adding a new …

Aug 16, 2020: Almost stationary. To be fair, I envy this little guy’s pace of life.

Aug 15, 2020: Silhouette of Ethan playing at Gleneagles last year in the junior open. I like this type of picture. Hoping to get more shots like this when golf …

Aug 13, 2020: I was optimistic about Mozilla yesterday. Today, I’m not so sure after reading various posts and tweets. Without Mozilla, we lose a big big …

Aug 13, 2020: Nicholas Bate’s 14 point productivity primer is a great place to start if you need to get back on track.

Aug 12, 2020: My Soundcore Life 2 headphones were a great buy. Good sound from them and they include noise cancelling as well. They also work nicely for online …

Aug 10, 2020: Looking out the window from one of the buildings at Paisley Abbey. I would love a window like this to work from every day.

Aug 4, 2020: A moment of peace and quiet as I walked off the golf course a couple of weeks ago. #mbaug

Jul 24, 2020: Made the switch from Apple Music to Spotify today. So much easier to move about in the app and there’s the addition of the web player as well.

Jul 12, 2020: Trust people’s common sense Senior minister Michael Gove has said he does not think face coverings should be compulsory in shops in England, saying he trusts people’s …

Jul 9, 2020: I’ve been enjoying watching Picard on Amazon Prime for the last couple of nights. Just a few episodes in, but really enjoying it.

Jul 8, 2020: A paid tier on Twitter? If the benefits were right, I’d definitely go for it.

Jul 7, 2020: We had a new deck put in the back garden to give us more seating space. Up until that time, Scotland had been enjoying a wonderful sunshine. Since the …

Jul 7, 2020: The 3 x 5 card Nicholas Bate gives us a productivity system so simple it can fit on a single index card. A fresh 3 by 5 card taken from the stack. One side is work. …

Jul 4, 2020: Sat down with the rest of the family tonight and watched Hamilton on Disney+. Absolutely amazing, loved it!

Jul 3, 2020: Despite switching to TailwindCSS, I still find myself styling components so that they look very similar to Bootstrap. I’m still startout on the …

Jul 3, 2020: Friday night fun. Pizzas from our favourite local Italian restaurant, a couple of cocktails for me and Jen, followed a few board games including the …

Jul 3, 2020: Today’s plan was to get in a round of golf with my son, my dad and my uncle at my dad’s golf club. I’ve been looking forward to it …

Jul 2, 2020: Hello Hey! I’m sold on Hey email. In the last six days that I have been using it, I’ve been getting my head around its features and workflows that …

Jul 1, 2020: Is it time to go out on your own? In a post-Covid world, maybe the time has come to go out on your own. Keep it simple initially: just you, no start-up capital and a desire to be …

Jun 17, 2020: Great night for a few holes.

Jun 6, 2020: We, the NFL, believe Black Lives Matter An apology from the NFL’s commissioner, Roger Goodell: We, the NFL, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black People. We, the NFL, …

May 17, 2020: Bringing back blogs I hate to play down the benefits of blogging, but I think the author here has a point. There used to be so many blogging platforms. Google even had a …

May 17, 2020: The over due pull request I have a pull request that’s been sitting in Github for about two weeks now. It’s for a Rails app and the pull request includes some …

May 7, 2020: After a lapse of reading, I’m back on track and finished Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo tonight. A good story and something a bit different from …

May 7, 2020: The Last of Us Part II is finally getting a release date in June and the new trailer is just adding to the excitement.

May 5, 2020: Another wonderful evening stroll through the trees with Jennifer and the boys.

Apr 27, 2020: Tantive IV set complete! Took a wee bit longer than we planned but it’s finally finished. Just need to find a place to put it now.

Apr 26, 2020: After some consideration, I’ve decided to kill my Atlassian account. I’m not using any of their products other than Trello. Despite …

Apr 24, 2020: I’ve been trying to build a series of themes using the Tailwind CSS framework. Creating the different components of each theme is simple to do, …

Apr 24, 2020: Progress on the Tantive IV build has been good. Almost there!

Apr 24, 2020: Goodbye mattisms.dev After a few weeks of not posting to my dev blog, I’ve decided that over the weekend I will delete this blog. I don’t see the long term …

Apr 23, 2020: Nicholas Bate with some basics for your marketing strategy.

Apr 21, 2020: Kurt Harden is supporting local businesses. We all should do this and continue to do so when the pandemic ends.

Apr 21, 2020: Mobile version of XCode coming to iOS? I hope so.

Apr 19, 2020: In an effort to break the boredom I’ve opened a few Lego sets that we had initially put by. Drew’s been desperate to build the Tantive IV set so we’re …

Apr 10, 2020: Great day for a walk, although the trees are still a little bare for my liking.

Apr 8, 2020: New DualSense controllers revealed for PlayStation 5 Sony has revealed their new DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5. A familiar look for the controller with the button layout, but what stuck out …

Apr 6, 2020: Me and Jen watched Knives Out last night on Apple TV. We fancied it when we first seen the trailers for the cinema release, but we decided to just …

Apr 3, 2020: A brand new editor is coming to the Bear app and it is available now if you want early access to it. Tables would be a welcome addition to my notes, …

Apr 3, 2020: The Twitter timeline is just completely unusable. Tweets are injected into your timeline by different signals and it makes it too confusing to follow. …

Apr 2, 2020: The Last of Us Part II is delayed again. I’ve waited for this long, I can wait a few months more.

Apr 1, 2020: The good and bad of Apple acquiring Dark Sky It was announced yesterday that Apple has acquired the weather app Dark Sky. As part of the acquisition, the iOS app will continue to function as it …

Mar 30, 2020: I have to say, Ethan’s first batch of oatmeal and raisin cookies are pretty spot on. I wonder if I can get him to cook dinner as well? 🤔

Mar 27, 2020: I’ve been really enjoying using Tailwind CSS over the last few days. I’m finally getting my head around it. The thing about it I like the …

Mar 26, 2020: Rules for living. All of these should be within easy reach for everyone given the circumstances.

Mar 18, 2020: I was skeptical of the value of the $299 price tag on the new Magic Keyboard but reading more about its features then it’s close to being …

Mar 10, 2020: Fast Company asks what would happen if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus?

Mar 9, 2020: Pleasantly surprised by the Apple Watch Pleasantly surprised. That’s exactly how I would sum up my own personal review of the Apple Watch. I’ve been on the fence for a long time …

Mar 4, 2020: Productivity reminder from Nicholas Bate. The list is your assistant.

Feb 28, 2020: I like the idea behind the Iconfactory’s Tot app. Just a limited number of spaces that you can write in and using Markdown too.

Feb 21, 2020: Useful writing I’ve been trying to find a way to reboot my writing habit for a couple of years now. The trouble is, most things I have written are on too wide …

Feb 13, 2020: Despite the many things that Visual Studio can do, I find it very uncomfortable to use when writing code. My preferred coding font just doesn’t …

Feb 12, 2020: You know you’re a golfer when you start to despise the snow. It’s not all bad though. I’ve got me and the boys booked into the indoor studio for 90 …

Feb 9, 2020: A very dark and broody sky for the snow moon.

Feb 6, 2020: There hasn’t been much that has dazzled me since recently picking up C#. I must admit though, I do like using C#’s query expressions. …

Feb 5, 2020: I often wondered what kind of impact web page bloat has on CO2 emissions. Now I know.

Feb 4, 2020: In the search for a viable alternative to Fantastical, I’ve found that Calendar 366 has a pretty good like for like match to Fantastical’s features …

Feb 4, 2020: It’s great to see Feedbin have added an automatic option that will automatically switch between light and dark. What is really great though, is …

Feb 1, 2020: A simple upgrade has turned into a multi-app deep dig of calendar apps over the last few days as I tinker with Fantastical 3.0, Timepage and Calendars …

Feb 1, 2020: Looking more into app subscriptions and Fantastical alternatives There was much debate this week about Fantastical’s move to a subscription app and subscriptions in general. Now, I’m not against …

Jan 29, 2020: Fantastical 3 alternatives Following on my Fantastical 3 post, I’m considering moving to Calendar for iOS as it’s free and does the job. You might also want to …

Jan 29, 2020: The first step I’ve been putting off starting what I know will be a long-running item of work. I’m putting it off because I haven’t taken that …

Jan 28, 2020: I’m wondering why I’m gravitating away from one genre of books to another? I haven’t enjoyed a fantasy book for a while, but I am enjoying science …

Jan 24, 2020: Over at Beautiful News, 30 countries could be 100% geothermal powered.

Jan 23, 2020: Personal DuckDuckGo traffic idea I was looking at the DuckDuckGo traffic for the last few years. The stats are pretty impressive. A seven-fold increase in queries over the previous …

Jan 21, 2020: I need to ship Rails app updates more often On Sunday night I migrated a couple of Rails apps to Ruby 2.7 including Writeabout. Last night I did the same with another Rails app. By the end of …

Jan 20, 2020: Not the score I hoped to wake up to for the NFC Championship game. 🙁🏈

Jan 16, 2020: I’m going to add a back-end admin plugin to Writeabout to make the adding and updating of writing prompts easier. I intended to have an admin API …

Jan 14, 2020: Last night I added a fav icon, a touch icon and Twitter card handling for Writeabout. On the face of it, one could argue this is purely a vanity …

Jan 11, 2020: Baby steps with StimulusJS Last night I needed a much needed break from the usual Rails coding, so I worked through an example on the StimulusJS website so that I could add a …

Jan 10, 2020: It’s been a horrible week of colds, coughs and flu in our house. Today was a major turning point though with everyone back at school and work. …

Jan 9, 2020: Nicholas Bate’s skills, tools and knowledge series continues. One for the notebook fans. Don’t cheat on the quality of your (paper) …

Jan 9, 2020: Blogs, blogs, blogs Over the holidays I mentioned that I was writing a blog post that I would publish this week. Well, after a delay thanks to the flu, I finally hit the …

Jan 6, 2020: Apologies for the radio silence over the last few days and the days to come. The flu has swept through our house. 🤒 I’m hoping to return back to …

Jan 3, 2020: I’m writing this morning on Ulysses. I forgot how great it is to simply write.

Jan 2, 2020: What is your word for 2020?

Jan 1, 2020: Happy new year to everyone! I’m slightly befuddled by a little too much eat and drink but it’s been a great start to the year with the family.

Dec 31, 2019: Mind map to curated list to final plan. It took an hour to do but I’ve managed to outline 12 blog posts for 2020 that I’ll publish at my main …

Dec 31, 2019: Mind mapping again It’s been a while since I last did any mind mapping. A few years in fact. I’ve probably doodled a few smaller mind maps in that time but this is the …

Dec 29, 2019: I’m not back to work until the 6th of January but I’ve got some marketing work to do tomorrow for my side product. Not my favourite aspect of building …

Dec 25, 2019: Merry Christmas! Well, that’s Christmas Day almost done in the Lang household. My parents have just left for the night and I have to say they loved their Christmas …

Dec 24, 2019: Another Christmas, another reading of A Christmas Carol done. I love reading this book at anytime of year, but it should be read in the run up to …

Dec 24, 2019: I’m halfway through James Clear’s Atomic Habits now. So many great examples in this book. I’ve found chapter 17 on tracking habits to be particularly …

Dec 24, 2019: Sadly we’ve hit that point where the kids are no longer fascinated by Norad tracking Santa. We had a good run of about ten years though, so …

Dec 23, 2019: Nicholas Bate has all the skills you’ll need for 2020.

Dec 23, 2019: Morning routines for the rest of us Curtis McHale offers an important reality check when it comes to emulating the routines of the successful. It’s important to remember that many of …

Dec 20, 2019: Just waiting for The Rise of Skywalker to start. 🍿

Dec 19, 2019: I am catching up on some podcasts this morning. This Rework episode with Dave Teare from 1Password is worth a listen. Especially if you are a …

Dec 19, 2019: The Ruby cost at Basecamp David Heinemeier Hansson breaks down the cost of the operations at Basecamp with a spotlight on the cost of running a Ruby on Rails product. Working …

Dec 19, 2019: You are most welcome Nicholas A thank you note from fellow blogger, Nicholas Bate. I forget how I came across Nicholas Bate’s blog. I discovered him, and a few other great …

Dec 18, 2019: Nighthawk sounds like a good Twitter client with its smart filters, close friends and a chronological timeline.

Dec 18, 2019: Lightsabers done right A look at the different techniques used to make the lightsaber work on screen through the different Star Wars movies. Enter the sequel trilogies, …

Dec 17, 2019: I had one of those mornings on the train where I could have just kept writing and writing. Sadly, it came to my stop and I had stop and head to work. …

Dec 17, 2019: Action versus motion Standing on the platform waiting for the train this morning l, I opened up my Kindle app and started reading through another chapter of James Clear’s …

Dec 16, 2019: I’ve been using a similar form of this Gitmoji for a couple of weeks now. It’s good because you can identify commits a lot easier in your …

Dec 15, 2019: Life reminders continue with Nicholas Bate.

Dec 14, 2019: I didn’t realise how amazing and creepy the autosuggestion is on the iOS keyboard. It managed to suggest most of my usual message for a WhatsApp group …

Dec 13, 2019: A few thoughts on the UK general election I don’t tend to comment on political news, but I thought it would be a good chance to round up some of my own thoughts on the UK general …

Dec 12, 2019: Micro.blog has arrived as a recognised community. We have a Font Awesome icon!

Dec 12, 2019: Nicholas Bate reminds us to keep our lists under control.

Dec 11, 2019: A big day tomorrow for the UK. I’m not holding my breath for a positive outcome though.

Dec 10, 2019: Honoured to have made Kurt’s 25 blogs list again. Despite my ups and downs of blogging, it’s good to have made this list once again.

Dec 10, 2019: I sat down last night and managed to get three-quarters of the way through a feature for a Rails app. This morning I realised there was an easier way …

Dec 9, 2019: Pretty productive morning already. Read a chapter from my book using the Kindle app and pushed a code change up to a Rails application using Textastic …

Dec 8, 2019: We had a great time this morning doing breakfast with Santa at The Bothy restaraunt in Glasgow. A hearty breakfast followed by a story with Santa and …

Dec 6, 2019: Took a day off from work today, to well, do some work of my own. Pretty productive day.

Dec 6, 2019: Where does the open source community go after GitHub? The decision by GitHub to renew their contract with the Immigration and Customers Enforcement agency is still a significant point amongst developers. …

Dec 5, 2019: The book reading continues this month with Conn Iggulden’s Shiang: Empire of Salt (book 2) and Jame Clear’s Atomic Habits. I’ll also …

Dec 5, 2019: Is gaming helping destroy the environment? With the help of Claire Barlow from the University of Cambridge and John Durrell, a specialist in superconductor engineering, The Verge’s Lewis …

Dec 4, 2019: Grammarly for iOS. One of those great apps that I use daily but rarely give it a second glance.

Dec 4, 2019: Still, have to try Curtis McHale has some words of wisdom when it comes to deciding to work towards something more than just a 9 to 5 job. The things we want are hard, …

Dec 3, 2019: I’m looking for a domain name for a junior golf event. The name is quite long so I’m using just the initials of the event name for the domain name. My …

Dec 3, 2019: I’m really impressed with Fathom’s website and analytics app. The landing page to sign up to analytics dashboard is one of the most fluent …

Dec 3, 2019: Does the world need more search engines? It’s a question posed by the tech team behind the seach engine Cliqz. Sure, they might have a vested interest in seeing more traffic going to …

Dec 2, 2019: I think I made it through Micro.blog’s Microblogvember. It’s been fun to do and has helped keep me posting. I aim to keep it going through …

Dec 2, 2019: Adaptive product naming A favourite saying of mine is Phil Karlton’s quote about hard things to do in computer science. There are only two hard things in Computer …

Dec 1, 2019: I’ve started using Todoist again. Bullet journaling on its own doesn’t cut it and Things is limited by the fact that it’s only available on Apple …

Nov 30, 2019: Last day of my two month focus on basic functionality for my Rails product. For December and January the goal is to refine these basic features and …

Nov 29, 2019: A few better alternatives to hunting for bargains for #blackinkfriday. Golf, gaming, coding and reading.

Nov 29, 2019: I wonder if this idea for an iPod app will make Kurt ditch his beloved iPod? I suspect not.

Nov 29, 2019: The themes I’m building for my Rails product are hardly fantastic to begin with, but they are improving with each iteration. The goal …

Nov 29, 2019: Are your inboxes making you anxious? CJ Chilver’s reminds us that we can reduce our anxiety by reducing the number of inboxes that we have. There’s a lot of productivity advice out …

Nov 29, 2019: Messaging apps ... which one? An interesting look at choosing the right messaging app. I use iMessage as my default messaging app, closesly followed by WhatsApp. From time to time …

Nov 28, 2019: Another Lego set complete for Drew! There are some nice little touches on this year’s Christmas set with the light brick and the detail inside. Just …

Nov 28, 2019: If my website is my little corner of the Internet, then I need to invest a bit of time in ensuring it’s a worthy property to visit.

Nov 27, 2019: Even though the Ruby programming language is no longer flying high as the most popular language for web applications, it’s rich community of …

Nov 27, 2019: Michael Wade’s rules for Thanksgiving officially mark the start of this fine holiday. Yes, I know we don’t celebrate it in the UK, but …

Nov 26, 2019: Going to mix up my learning goals for 2020 by focusing on Go and React. Picking a couple of technologies that are popular and quite different. …

Nov 25, 2019: A larger company might afford better long term prospects with it being more secure and more stable. However, being a company of one puts you in …

Nov 25, 2019: NYT subscription I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a New York Times subscription. I find myself on their website quite a lot, so I thought it would be …

Nov 24, 2019: There’s nothing more I miss about freelancing than being a company of one. Setting your own work, your own hours, your own workplace, your own …

Nov 23, 2019: On a brighter note I did ship my random writing prompt web page. I’m not sure about the name, the domain choice or what the future holds for it, but …

Nov 23, 2019: Woebegone. Never was there a more suitable word for British politics.

Nov 22, 2019: A cup of tea, some Ruby code and having a little hum along to Bloc Party. I like these kind of Friday nights.

Nov 22, 2019: I must admit, I rather like the look of Tesla’s new Cybertruck. I’m also starting to wonder if this design will herald the beginning of a …

Nov 21, 2019: Shattered & Hollow. Just one of the many great tracks on First Aid Kit’s Stay Gold album. Recommended by my wife a couple of weeks ago.

Nov 20, 2019: I’ve been giving a second look at React over the last few weeks. What I like about React is that it’s widely adopted and has a large community. I …

Nov 20, 2019: Nicholas Bate starts another essential series of posts, life reminders

Nov 20, 2019: Debating clowns I didn’t miss much then with last night’s election debate. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it was not clear if either men had won or …

Nov 19, 2019: Trying to get organised with Things again so that I can abate this ongoing state of procrastination or just plain old forgetting everything.

Nov 19, 2019: Sleep deprivation on the rise It seems we now need naps at work. A recently published study from Indiana’s Ball State University, which examined self-reported sleep duration …

Nov 18, 2019: Tonight’s goal is to build a better image upload experience in my Rails application. I’ve never really bothered too much about adding drag …

Nov 17, 2019: I always love the superb view at my parent’s garden in the winter. Over the years I’ve taken a few pictures like this. Some with leaves …

Nov 16, 2019: I’m not sure if it’s age or wisdom (they’re not exactly the same), but as these increase, I’m becoming increasingly selective …

Nov 15, 2019: Watching Jaws tonight. The murky waters in the movie are much more realistic looking than the more modern shark movies.

Nov 14, 2019: Had a wee listen there to “Protect Ya Neck” by Wu-Tang Clan.

Nov 14, 2019: Apple subscription bundles An Apple bundle might start with news, TV, and music, but Apple could also chuck in iCloud data and maybe even a credit card deal supported by the …

Nov 13, 2019: If I could do the whole career thing again, then I would love to be able to write for a living.

Nov 13, 2019: I’ve spun up a Ghost blog on a small DigitalOcean droplet. No idea what I’ll do with it yet, but the install process was very …

Nov 12, 2019: Applying for a 2nd golf club membership for Ethan. He will stay at his current club, Paisley, but the second club, Fereneze, is just down the road and …

Nov 12, 2019: I don’t know why I took so long to do it, but I’ve just activated the ActivityPub API on my Micro.blog account. I’m now free to follow and be followed …

Nov 11, 2019: Despite the fact that touch interfaces are everywhere in personal computing devices, we’ve yet to see them have the same popularity in the …

Nov 10, 2019: I’ve got space in my golf bag for new wedges and a hybrid for next year. I’ve been enjoying hitting Ethan’s Cobra hybrid, which is …

Nov 9, 2019: Cold start to the morning. Boys are Taekwondo while I sit in the cafe with a little code and coffee combo.

Nov 8, 2019: I watched the latest trailer on Apple TV for the new Star Wars movie. Even after over 30 years of watching these movies, I still get goosebumps when …

Nov 7, 2019: Frightening figures for golf in the UK as the number of registered players fall. I’m still optimistic for the future of golf in the UK though. It’s a …

Nov 7, 2019: I’m resurrecting PenMuse, or something like it A while back, I started a little Rails app that would generate random writing prompts. After a few months, I decided to kill it. To be honest, I’m not …

Nov 6, 2019: I want to stick with Ruby on Rails as my goto web development tool for the foreseeable future. It’s open source, frequently updated, and has a …

Nov 6, 2019: The diminishing MacBook Pro battery performance Ever since I upgraded my macOS to Catalina, I’ve noticed that MacBook Pro’s battery isn’t lasting as long as it used to. In fact in …

Nov 5, 2019: Our street is in a very quiet part of town, but like most places this time of year, there’s the frequent noise of fireworks being set off for …

Nov 5, 2019: Building the reading list again Last week I finished my first book in a long time. It felt good to get to the last page and actually enjoy the book for a change. For a long time, I …

Nov 4, 2019: What does “Ikagi” mean to you?

Nov 4, 2019: Another study backs shorter work weeks Another short-term study on moving to a shorter work week. Is there evidence though, to still support this when the organisation has been on a shorter …

Nov 4, 2019: The blogging challenge Adam Keys has some words on the challenges of blogging. The hardest part is showing up, every day, writing. The hardest part is writing! The second …

Nov 3, 2019: A good turn out today for the start of the junior winter league at Paisley Golf Club. I hope the weather stays favourable through the winter so that …

Nov 3, 2019: In building a product for a specific market, I’ve discovered that the admin interface doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Feedback from …

Nov 3, 2019: Quiet house Using this afternoon’s quiet house to do a few things. One of them is working out why I have now two of every app after upgrading macOS to …

Nov 2, 2019: I’ve been following a few more people on Twitter and using Feedbin to read my timeline. The ability to mark tweets as read is such a simple thing. It …

Nov 2, 2019: Gathering Ruby and Rails coding ideas I’ve been collecting a few ideas for Ruby and Rails apps to try a few things out. In the past I’ve ended up simply building some form of task manager …

Nov 1, 2019: Started job hunting again. Key requirement for future roles is finding a role in which I can work with Ruby. Remote would be a bonus, but yeah, it …

Nov 1, 2019: Goodbye Fitbit After today’s news that Google has bought Fitbit, I’ve decided to delete my Fitbit account. This wasn’t a knee-jerk decision based on Google’s …

Oct 29, 2019: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 both have computers that have been running the same number of years I’ve been on this planet. That’s some uptime …

Oct 29, 2019: Filter and focus Nicholas Bate reminds us of the purpose of a list. The purpose of the list is to filter and focus. The list is that to which you give attention. If …

Oct 25, 2019: The Last of Us II delayed As much I want to get my grubby post-apocalyptic mitts on this game, I’m prepared to wait another few months. “At this point we were …

Oct 22, 2019: Ghost 3.0 Ghost 3.0 now includes memberships and subscriptions. As of today, Ghost is the first totally independent product out there with …

Oct 21, 2019: Rebooting ... again It seems that every once in a while I need to do a personal reboot. A chance to start over again with a few things and correct the mistakes I’ve made …

Oct 21, 2019: The IndieWeb Movement Jamie Tanna’s transcript of his talk on the IndieWeb movement is a wonderful read. Instead of relying on another platform to host your …

Oct 11, 2019: It’s that time of year again.

Oct 6, 2019: I forgot how good the Travelling Wilburys albums are. Volume 1, crank it up.

Oct 6, 2019: Clearing the home screen Spurred by this post on digital minimalism, I’ve decided to do a little clearing of the decks on my iPhone. Gone are a couple of Twitter clients, a …

Oct 3, 2019: I wish there was an option in iOS to see folders of apps in a two by two grid as an initial default over the three by three grid. It would be easier …

Sep 29, 2019: Watching the Paisley GC juniors playing in the Scottish Junior Team Championship at Kilmarnock Barassie today. Great course conditions for them today …

Sep 27, 2019: Closing down Friday is here.

Sep 27, 2019: Not a fan of the new programming font from Microsoft. It’s really wide. Wider than anything I’ve ever used. I’ll stick with Iosevka.

Sep 27, 2019: Yip, e-sport stadiums are now a thing Philadelphia Fusion, the city’s Overwatch League team, are having an e-sports complex built that will become the team’s home ground. …

Sep 26, 2019: The vacuum of leadership It’s not very often that I link to Twitter, but this tweet about teen leaders and how they’re making themselves heard is spot on. …

Sep 25, 2019: Finally! A release date for the The Last of Us Part 2. I guess that’s my birthday sorted then!

Sep 21, 2019: Looking for something to read? Here’s the 100 best books of the 21st century according to The Guardian website.

Sep 19, 2019: I love those few weeks leaving the summer when we start hitting the range and you still have clear nights like this.

Sep 19, 2019: The greatest unsigned quarterback in the NFL? Another NFL season, another time to wonder why teams aren’t signing up Colin Kaepernick to replace their injured star quarterbacks. Well, we …

Sep 18, 2019: Apple iterations A nice reminder from John Gruber about new Apple products and the fine art of shipping that product. I wasn’t a fine of the first Apple Watch. …

Sep 16, 2019: I had no idea that Basecamp offered a free plan for smaller teams and individuals. Is this a recent change in their product or have they always had …

Sep 15, 2019: Spent the afternoon watching the Paisley golf club juniors play in a local competition at Elderslie golf club. Some good scores coming in. Not a bad …

Sep 14, 2019: That’s the garden sorted for the winter. Time to reward myself with a couple of hours watching the Solheim Cup. Go Europe! 🇪🇺 ⛳️

Sep 13, 2019: Keeping it simple In my development work I usually find that the simple way works best and is also easier to maintain. However, the web development industry is still …

Sep 10, 2019: Curious about potential Apple Watch releases today. My Fitbit died a few weeks ago and I’m now wondering if an Apple Watch might be more my thing. …

Sep 10, 2019: I’ve been using it almost daily for years, but it still amazes me how flexible and verstile Trello is for managing … stuff. I say …

Sep 10, 2019: Nothing new today that would make me want to buy an Apple Watch. An always-on display isn’t a deal breaker, but I am consdering it. Still, the …

Sep 7, 2019: Paisley open doors day Every year, our home town has an open doors day where many building and places that are usually closed off, are open to the public. We usually miss …

Sep 6, 2019: I’ve started using Bear to write up features for a product. Instead of going straight a user story and coding, I’m spending a bit more time writing …

Sep 5, 2019: Another great update to Bear, the notes app. Back in the day the best thing I used for managing notes was Backpack. This is probably the next best …

Sep 3, 2019: Hobonichi’s ordered for me and Jen. It’s becoming a little tradition this.

Sep 3, 2019: The Brexit train wreck continues.

Sep 3, 2019: Tis the season for notebooks! Just backed @rohdesign’s Sketchnote Ideabook on Kickstarter. Ordered the bundle of three so my youngest can get one.

Sep 2, 2019: Personal projects do make you a better developer. My focus just now is on a larger project though. It still affords me much of the same benefits, just …

Sep 2, 2019: The benefits of hard work.

Sep 2, 2019: The email shake down I loved this post from the Signal vs Noise blog about trading off tracking people through email for content. Not everything needs to be tracked. Not …

Sep 1, 2019: A product decision over some code and coffee For the last few months, I’ve been building a content management system aimed at a particular industry. I’m close to finishing the first …

Aug 29, 2019: Michael Wade reminds us of the important things.

Aug 27, 2019: Second day on the new job. Another day of online courses, health and safety training and getting myself up to speed with the organisation. God, I miss …

Aug 19, 2019: Feedbin for iOS is now available on the App Store. Great to see Feedbin now have their own native app for iOS that matches the website, feature for …

Aug 18, 2019: NB reminds us to embrace the simplest of movements, walking

Aug 15, 2019: I’m starting to wonder if running a side-product is worth the hassle given the amount of regulation on privacy and payment processing there is …

Aug 14, 2019: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Trailer I can’t wait for this. I remember watching this as a kid. Everything about it was amazing. And judging by the trailer, it looks like it will …

Aug 13, 2019: Nicholas Bate reminds us to do the right things.

Aug 13, 2019: Drew’s first hit on the course Drew’s played his first six holes on the course today from the shortened blue tees we have for our younger players. Despite the pouring rain, he …

Aug 13, 2019: Playing with the Dark Sky API and the Bootstrap card component As part of a side-project I’m working on, I’ve been trying to build an informative weather widget that gives current and forecasted stats …

Aug 8, 2019: Spent the day exploring the beaches and grounds around Culzean Castle today. Such a great place to spend the day and we got lucky with the weather as …

Aug 6, 2019: Had a great time yesterday at St Andrews. Got the boys picture on the Swilken bridge, walked along the beach, had one of the best fish and chips ever, …

Aug 4, 2019: A few pieces of the Webpack puzzle are starting to fall into place now. Got a few notes so that I don’t trip up on the same steps in the future.

Aug 4, 2019: Coffee on my desk, pen and paper ready, text editor open. This morning’s goal is to get my head round Webpacker in Rails 6.0 and Font Awesome …

Aug 2, 2019: Great night tonight. Some ten pin bowling with Jen and the boys and then a wee walk along the Clyde.

Aug 2, 2019: iTerm’s new status bar with configurable Python components should mean no more faffing about with Powerline in Vim. Powerline is useful, but it can be …

Aug 2, 2019: It’s never too late to start writing.

Aug 2, 2019: Looking forward to my new development role with the NHS National Services Scotland in a few weeks. Time to brush up on the .NET knowledge again.

Jul 30, 2019: Rebooting my reading list with a trusted author Despite only being a few chapters from the end of Cixin Liu’s The Wandering Earth, I decided to give up on finishing the book. The first few chapters …

Jul 29, 2019: A corrupt bailout? I often wonder why we as a planet, can’t seem to get our shit together, and then I’m reminded by people pulling stunts like this. To summarize: the …

Jul 26, 2019: A prize fund of $30m, a world-class centre stage, and only the best can take part after months of training and qualifying. Hard to believe that the …

Jul 26, 2019: Not content with being an already great free service, Unsplash now has collections for education.

Jul 25, 2019: I’ve added “Galaxy Fold” to the growing list of muted tech topics that I couldn’t give a monkeys about in Feedbin. It’s …

Jul 24, 2019: Nicholas Bate has what you need for daily productivity.

Jul 23, 2019: There are lots of good reasons to having your own website.

Jul 23, 2019: Bullet journaling again I’m bullet journaling again. To be honest, I didn’t really stop. I’ve been keeping a light bullet journal in a pocket notebook for the last few …

Jul 15, 2019: I was hoping for a week free of fire-fighting, but I’ve been at my desk two minutes and guess what? There’s fires that need putting out. …

Jul 9, 2019: Laptops. Allowing people to take their work home with them since the 90’s.

Jul 8, 2019: I’m loving the new icons and UI touches to Feedbin.

Jul 3, 2019: Great to see Rails 6 will be shipping with multi environment credentials.

Jul 2, 2019: Following on from the news that the Microsoft ebooks store is closing, here’s how to backup your Amazon Kindle purchases on macOS.

Jun 28, 2019: I knew there was a reason that I stopped buying some books as ebooks.

Jun 27, 2019: Spent the last couple of nights trying to resolve a MapKitJS and Turbolinks issue I was having. It was actually two issues rolled into one. Last night …

Jun 25, 2019: Looks like view components are coming to Ruby on Rails. This is going to be a great addition to the framework.

Jun 19, 2019: Time for ships to be accountable for their shipping containers? Maybe it’s time to do something about the ways in which shipping containers are transported across our oceans? Trainers, flip-flops and a …

Jun 18, 2019: Just had that moment when you’ve been trying to work out something for ages and then you find a simple and straightforward answer. I love and …

Jun 18, 2019: Nicholas Bate reminds us that there is always time for a new plan.

Jun 18, 2019: Taking out a full page ad in your opponent’s city newspaper to congratulate them. What a class move by the Golden State Warriors! 👍🏀

Jun 17, 2019: Well done to Brooks Henderson winning the Meijer LPGA Classic! Just 21 years old and now Canada’s most successful professional golfer. A great …

Jun 17, 2019: The beginning of Nike: A simple sales strategy My sales strategy was simple and I thought rather brilliant. I drove all over the Pacific Northwest, to various track meets. Between races, I’d chat …

Jun 14, 2019: Boys had a great time tonight at the club’s junior fun night. They even walked away with a prize each!

Jun 14, 2019: Nicholas Bate reminds us to do it better, even when it’s just those everyday tasks.

Jun 14, 2019: The pebbles of product work I like this. Each piece of work is a mere pebble tossed into a flowing river. Maybe your pebble will become bedrock—sticking around for a long time …

Jun 13, 2019: Thought experiment Thursday with Niklas Göke’s blog, Empty Your Cup.

Jun 13, 2019: Tried Todoist yesterday for about five minutes and then deleted my account. The reason? I don’t want a task manager app that is available …

Jun 13, 2019: Paid version of Firefox I’ve seen a lot arguments for and against Mozilla’s paid version of Firefox. I wouldn’t be adverse to paying for a service that …

Jun 11, 2019: Raptors were so close last night! Need to wait until Friday morning now. I must admit, I’m not a die-hard basketball fan, but I’m chuffed …

Jun 7, 2019: Two wins this week for the Paisley juniors. Good start to the season! Also good to see Ethan win his match tonight. 🏌️‍♂️

Jun 7, 2019: Where have all the good programming and development blogs gone? Maybe I’m not looking hard enough, but I struggle to find good programming blogs …

Jun 7, 2019: Fan-made version of Star Wars scene 38 Also, I wonder if we’ll get a new version of A New Hope with this included as an option? “We were inspired by the Vader scene in Rogue One,” …

Jun 7, 2019: Part-time career? Personally, I do think working fewer hours makes me more productive. But that’s not why I do it. The real reason is that I have other things I’d …

Jun 5, 2019: I think I’ve arrived as a Javascript developer. I wrote this Ruby code last night. this.latitidue.present? && this.longitude.present? …

Jun 5, 2019: I watched the final episode of Chernobyl last night. It’s without a doubt, one of the most beautiful and powerful dramas to have hit the small …

Jun 5, 2019: Prefabricated future Prefabricated and self-contained homes are becoming increasingly good alternatives to traditional homes. These homes are often cheaper and quicker to …

Jun 2, 2019: Found the perfect accompanying domain to go with this one, mattisms.dev. Expect web development posts on Ruby on Rails and other programming languages …

Jun 2, 2019: Respectful communication This weekend the Roman Catholic church celebrates World Communications Day. This is a day that the church uses to identify how it’s message is …

Jun 1, 2019: I’ve been trying to solve a problem for a software product that’s been at the back of my mind for the last few weeks. This morning I sat …

May 30, 2019: In my internet travels today, I have came across two avatars that used Commander Keen images. Clearly the universe is trying to tell me something.

May 30, 2019: Split-screen editing on the iPad? Wow. The iPad is fast becoming a serious alternative to a laptop.

May 30, 2019: Lee Westwood's thoughts on the image of golf Lee Westwood has been talking about the image of golf. It’s not something I haven’t heard before, but it’s good to bring these …

May 29, 2019: Fallen friends Kurt Harden shares some thoughts on his connection with nature. Over the past 24 years I have grown attached to everything that has lived on this …

May 28, 2019: Great night for some golf.

May 26, 2019: Installed Things 3 on my phone this afternoon. I’ve been struggling to make bullet journaling work since I stopped freelancing. I’m already finding it …

May 25, 2019: Always disappointing when you find a blog with good content and there’s no RSS feed.

May 24, 2019: I try remind myself daily that I need to reduce my phone usage but it hasn’t really happened. This post on how your smartphone should be like your …

May 24, 2019: Nicholas Bate with the definitive marketing strategy.

May 24, 2019: 21st century problems. The traffic jam getting to the top of Everest.

May 24, 2019: Community websites and Facebook This week we almost missed another school notice about an “own clothes day” for Drew. The reason why? The notice was put on the …

May 23, 2019: Just watched the last episode of The Big Bang Theory. That’s how you end a TV series.

May 23, 2019: Played 18 holes with Ethan last night. I started well, but as always when playing 18 holes, I fell apart on the back 9. I had a few good holes through …

May 23, 2019: Service outages can be a good thing Feedbin was down again this morning, but thankfully it’s back up and running now. This is the first time that I remember Feedbin having a …

May 22, 2019: Pete Corey’s Minimum Viable Phoenix is a great starting point for those looking to learn the Phoenix web framework.

May 22, 2019: Technical debt explained Although I understand what technical debt is, I often find it difficult to explain it to others in simple terms. From now on though, I’ll just …

May 20, 2019: Right, made it through this morning’s RSS feeds without seeing any spoilers from last night’s final episode of Game of Thrones. Just need …

May 14, 2019: Interesting programming problem I solved this morning. Rewrite a regex expression so that it doesn’t use any escape characters that would break …

May 13, 2019: Starting to think I might just have enough features in place for a new landing page for Markcase.

May 13, 2019: Essential career advice for software developers Scott Hanselman nails it with his advice for a young university student attending the Microsoft BUILD conference. For the young person I spoke to, …

May 12, 2019: The personal website is back.

May 11, 2019: A shame to see that Eastwood golf club is facing closure. A nice course with great views on the outskirts of Glasgow. Golf clubs are facing …

May 11, 2019: I don’t use GitLab, but the way the company is run and managed is really refreshing. Everyone remote, and the company is transparent with just …

May 11, 2019: The importance of doing nothing.

May 10, 2019: Creative screen time Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that my youngest son Drew is spending a crazy amount of time drawing. You can usually find him sprawled …

May 9, 2019: Struggling to do the usual reading and writing that I use to do on a daily basis. I finished Andy Weir’s Artmeis last night. It took me a month …

May 9, 2019: The death of lootboxes in gaming? American government officials have finally taken their shot at video game lootboxes. Specifically, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri announced his …

May 8, 2019: Yes to the bigger picture and more to say yes to by Nicholas Bate.

May 7, 2019: I wish we had tools like this medieval city generator when I was growing up. It would have been a great accompaniment to Dungeons & Dragons.

May 4, 2019: A horrible round of golf today. Started poor, a run of good holes and then another horrible hole at the turn. Need to do better next time.

May 3, 2019: Fastmail’s aliases are a great way of protecting your main email address. I had to contact a website to remove a business incorrectly listed under my …

May 2, 2019: McIlroy says Tiger could play for ten more years. I’ll be honest, I don’t think Tiger’s Masters win has worn off yet. It was a long …

May 1, 2019: Great night for a hit.

Apr 27, 2019: Just finished seeing Avengers End Game. An amazing conclusion to this part of the MCU. Fans will not be disappointed!

Apr 24, 2019: Change the game up with NB’s power rules.

Apr 24, 2019: No more big game politics please It looks like the people of Scotland could be on their way for another vote on independence. I’m not that particularly enthused about the idea. …

Apr 24, 2019: The context switching curse It’s taken me such a long time to find my way back to what I was doing yesterday. Some things are easier to find your way back to, but other …

Apr 22, 2019: Good advice from NB that can apply to more than just business. Start the plan to make 6 months from now so much easier. — Brilliant at the Basics of …

Apr 22, 2019: Ubisoft are making Assassin’s Creed Unity free to download on PC and donating money to the restoration project for Notre-Dame. I never thought I …

Apr 22, 2019: It's Earth Day today, so go find a cave However, if you haven’t yet made plans and wish to take a stand, there is one activity that you can do alone at home that will help you and the …

Apr 19, 2019: Great day down at Troon today with Jennifer and the boys. Spent most of the day walking along the beach searching for shells for Drew’s school …

Apr 18, 2019: Search arrives in Markcase Last night I shipped the ability to search your bookmarks in Markcase. With over 1800 bookmarks in my collection, finding anything was beginning to …

Apr 18, 2019: The revolving door of football managers I don’t really follow the football in the UK, but it surpises me how often managers are held accountable for a team’s performance. I get …

Apr 17, 2019: Last night I shipped a little search improvement to Markcase and tonight a change to another Rails app. Feels good to be working with Rails, even if …

Apr 15, 2019: My own Commonplace book has been neglected of late. Time to change that.

Apr 15, 2019: Deep work and goldfish A study commissioned by Microsoft found that since the year 2000 – or about when the mobile revolution began – the average human attention span …

Apr 14, 2019: Who to win at Augusta? I would love to see Woods win at Augusta today. It’s taken a while but he’s finally back to winning form. As a fellow Brit, I would also like Poulter …

Apr 13, 2019: Another concerned netizen on the rise of Chromium-based browsers.

Apr 11, 2019: Light nights are finally here at the golf club.

Apr 11, 2019: Checking back in after a little blog break This wasn’t intentional, it just kind of happened. With a week off work, I’ve been doing other things rather than sitting in front of a …

Apr 3, 2019: Days Gone might just fill the gaming void until The Last of Us II comes out. 🎮

Apr 3, 2019: We need more illustrated books Maybe it’s the books that I buy, but I don’t see many books with illustrations in them. In books the illustration is a visual indication …

Apr 1, 2019: Related bookmarks for Markcase I’ve been making quiet and steady progress with Markcase over the last couple of weeks. Just minor changes here and there. One of the bigger …

Mar 30, 2019: Me and the boys went for a walk along the Clyde today. Great day for it.

Mar 28, 2019: Improved weather results in DuckDuckGo. Another reason to make it your default search engine.

Mar 28, 2019: Back to Vim In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been slowly getting back into using Vim as my default text editor. Even though VS Code is really popular with …

Mar 23, 2019: Great advice for those building new products. At both Viaweb and YC, every minute I spent thinking about competitors was, in retrospect, a minute …

Mar 23, 2019: Last of the painting done in the den this morning. Just need to get a few bookcases from Ikea for the room and we’ll be done.

Mar 21, 2019: Killed by Google is a reminder that although the Google search engine has been around for over 20 years, many of Google’s products have a much …

Mar 21, 2019: The basics from Nicholas Bate. Glad to see that I am striving to get back to all seven of these.

Mar 21, 2019: LucasArts is back (kinda) “Lucasfilms Games.” To quote an old master, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time… a long time. It’s the original name of LucasArts, the …

Mar 21, 2019: Slowing down with Michael Wade Essential advice from Michael Wade about the benefits of slowing down as a strategy. The counter-intuitive strategy of slowing down will save time in …

Mar 19, 2019: Campfire etiquette for the digital age, courtesy of Wally Bock.

Mar 19, 2019: Curtis McHale recommends some depth.

Mar 18, 2019: Thinking about bringing back my weekly digest posts. For no other reason than, I just want to write more and blog more.

Mar 18, 2019: I watched The Players Championship over the weekend It was a great weekend of golf on the television with The Players Chamionship. Even with a few groups remaining on the course, it was still looking …

Mar 17, 2019: Almost there with registrations for Markcase. I’ll start will limited registrations to begin with and then scale it from there. I’m in no …

Mar 17, 2019: Side-projects are taking a back seat for the next few days so that I can get the den re-painted and spruced up abit. Looking forward to getting a …

Mar 15, 2019: After a few hours of wrestling with Vue, I finally have unit tests in place for a few components. A win for today, but I am still not convinced of …

Mar 15, 2019: Another great episode from the Rework podcast this morning. This episode features Aja Hammerly, a developer advocate at Google. Aja talks about the …

Mar 15, 2019: Should we be surprised? Australian broadcaster Waleed Aly on the attacks in Christchurch the reason why they no longer shock him. “Of all the things that I could say …

Mar 14, 2019: Nichola Bate’s productivity boosters continues.

Mar 14, 2019: Monoliths make getting started easier An advantage of a monolith code base that can go overlooked is the minimal entry barrier to getting up and running for junior developers or new …

Mar 13, 2019: Of all the apps that Setapp has on offer, I can’t find an alternative to Balsamiq. Oh well, back to pen and paper for protoyping.

Mar 12, 2019: Focus this week for Markcase is to add a registration screen that is only open until the number of accounts reaches a certain limit. The idea here is …

Mar 12, 2019: Six years old and still ensuring that my RSS subscriptions are easy to digest and manage. Happy Birthday Feedbin!

Mar 12, 2019: What next for the web? As the World Wide Web celebrates it’s 30th birthday, Sir Tim Berners-Lee reminds us that a better web for all can be achieved. The fight for …

Mar 11, 2019: I need to learn the shortcut keys for Slack. The constant clicking between accounts is such a distraction. Three shortcuts to learn for the week that …

Mar 11, 2019: Switched to the annual plan for Micro.blog account. Another great reason to love Micro.blog!

Mar 10, 2019: Me, Jennifer and the boys went to see Captain Marvel yesterday. A great and enjoyable movie as well as being something a bit different from many of …

Mar 10, 2019: The kettle is on, notebooks are out and I’m about to kick off a weekly planning session. I’m already having to change the plans for today. …

Mar 8, 2019: Apparently, Apple is now under demand to deliver a foldable iPhone. Nevermind a foldable iPhone, how about delivering something like those handhelds …

Mar 8, 2019: Okay, the device in The Expanse is not a cell-phone. Still, it looks more environmentally friendly.

Mar 7, 2019: The “I Miss Rave” playlist on iTunes takes me back. 🎵

Mar 7, 2019: The MacStories team have compiled a collection of shortucts for Apple’s Shortcuts app. Well worth a peek if you want to save yourself a few taps …

Mar 7, 2019: Michael Wade on crisis management A few thoughts from Michael Wade on crisis management. You’ll need a “deep bench” to handle a major crisis because the first team …

Mar 7, 2019: Powerful A light installation that shows the future sea levels in a Scottish coastal town. A powerful image of what the future could look like. via swissmiss

Mar 7, 2019: Say hello to Markcase I’ve been working on a little side-project for the last few weeks, and now I’m ready to reveal it in a soft opening kind of way. Say hi to …

Mar 7, 2019: Web Design 3.0 A very detailed post over at NicePage about the changes in web design, the gap between site builders and designers and how you can design for the new …

Mar 7, 2019: You can now play your PS4 games on your iOS devices As with these other platforms, the idea behind the iOS app is to let you enjoy your PS4 titles without having to sit in front of your TV (so you can …

Mar 6, 2019: These glacier pools in Iceland are the result of retreating glaciers. The photographs themselves are amazing but they signify the increasing problem …

Mar 5, 2019: First beta user setup on my bookmarking app, Markcase. I still have a list of bugs and features I want to deliver sooner than later, but I expect to …

Mar 5, 2019: For those looking to learn web development, then I would highly recommend Thoughtbot’s Upcase site as a place to begin. And just for some added …

Mar 5, 2019: A book of bookmarks I can think of a few people who would appreciate these little books of bookmarks. Hat-tip to swissmiss.

Mar 5, 2019: Planning for March with Curtis McHale Curtis McHale shares his plans for March with his bullet journal. If you need proof that it works for him, then give him a follow on social media. He …

Mar 4, 2019: A list of ideas for Firefox. I would love to see these picked up and made into browser extensions.

Mar 2, 2019: Just blitzed through my unread feeds in Feedbin in a matter of minutes using the keyboard shortcuts. I forgot these existed! And yes I used the Vim …

Mar 2, 2019: Me and Jen took the boys to Taekwondo this morning. Usually we alternate it, but we decided to both go this morning. We sat and had a coffee while …

Mar 1, 2019: A change of seasons means a change of colour for my blog. I’ve been doing this since I started using the Hyde theme on Micro.blog. Just a small …

Mar 1, 2019: Twitter’s “Hide Tweet” button feels like another feature for the platform that requires manual interaction to filter the noise out. …

Feb 28, 2019: I’ve followed Smashing Magazine’s monthly wallpaper posts since they started. I might use one on a rare occasion, but they are always …

Feb 28, 2019: Is Chrome suffocating the web? Chrome’s continued dominance of the web now puts it in the same position as Internet Explorer all those years ago. “It works on …

Feb 27, 2019: Brilliant at the basics. The essential everyday list by Nicholas Bate.

Feb 27, 2019: It’s disappointing to see a number of poor quality and outdated websites when it comes to local golf organisations and communities. Especially …

Feb 27, 2019: A trailer for all 10 Star Wars movies What’s better than one Star Wars trailer for one movie? How about a Star Wars trailer for all ten movies! Hat-tip to Jason Kottke for this one.

Feb 27, 2019: BritBox, the UK rival to Netflix It would be “one permanent, comprehensive home where anyone in Britain can get all of our library content - both the ITV and BBC library - in …

Feb 26, 2019: A reminder from Michael Wade that not all treasure is silver and gold. Who knows what riches you can find in your own journals?

Feb 26, 2019: I’m loving Patrick Rhone’s new podcast, Rhonecast.

Feb 26, 2019: 80 characters per line is still worth sticking to Even though we have bigger screens with more pixels available to use to view, Nick Janetakis makes a strong point for sticking to 80 characters per …

Feb 26, 2019: Overwatch: 30 characters and still going strong A massive milestone for the team shooter. 30 characters to choose from and still going strong. Blizzard’s team shooter Overwatch is hitting a major …

Feb 26, 2019: We're slowly cooking Whether you believe the fable about boiling frogs or not, it looks like we’re becoming a world of slowly boiled frogs. Researchers, led by …

Feb 25, 2019: Hard to believe the Ruby language is 26 years old now. It’s definitely a programming languge that I never get tired off. My only regret is I …

Feb 25, 2019: Nicholas Bate yet again delivers. This time, some pointers to dealing with the new crazy world of work.

Feb 23, 2019: Code and coffee combo this morning. Working on some changes to my bookmarking app to allow for a multi-account deploy. Almost there with it. Also …

Feb 22, 2019: Cutscenes looking worse than the game itself? I don’t know about that. In fact, I can’t remember the last game I played that would fall …

Feb 22, 2019: I'll keep building for the web When it comes to building ideas for applications, I will always choose the web first. It’s what I can I do best and it is where I can ship those …

Feb 21, 2019: Firefall I had no idea about the “Firefall” that occurs at El Capitan at this time of year. “Firefall” occurs when the setting sun reflects off of …

Feb 21, 2019: Superhero movies snubbed no more I’m not one for paying particular attention to the Academy Awards, but even I had to do a double-take when it was announced that Black Panther …

Feb 19, 2019: I dare you to find a better picture of the moon than this one. I also think I have found myself a new wallpaper for my iPhone’s home screen.

Feb 19, 2019: Just realised that my bookmarking web app Commonmarks shares the same name as CommonMark, the strongly defined Markdown format. Time for another name …

Feb 16, 2019: Cup of coffee on my desk. Pen and paper ready. Text editor open. My three essentials for weekend hacking on code.

Feb 16, 2019: Kurt Harden’s hunt for the perfect album continues. I have to say, this is fast turning into a great playlist for Apple Music or Spotify. 🎵

Feb 13, 2019: Dark to light After years of using Solarized Dark as my preferred colour theme for coding, I’m starting to find that I’m now preferring a lighter themes …

Feb 11, 2019: Michael Wade reminds us that slow can be more.

Feb 11, 2019: Goodbye Stoop After a couple of weeks using Stoop, I’ve decided to remove the app from my phone. The app itself is a novel idea for those who want to read …

Feb 11, 2019: The perfect album Sent a few suggestions this morning for the perfect album to my buddy Kurt in Ohio. Suggestions included Bloc Party, Oasis, Massive Attack and Eric …

Feb 8, 2019: The web industry debate rages on The debate about the use of Javascript in the web industry and the role of the front-end developer continues after Chris Coyier’s post, The …

Feb 5, 2019: Commonmarks now deployable to Heroku Over the last couple of days, I put the finishing touches to the Commonmarks application so that others can deploy it easily to Heroku. The reason I …

Feb 1, 2019: Driving to work this and I caught a small glimpse of what would have been a great sunrise. I drove on thinking how good it would have been to just …

Jan 30, 2019: Finally all done with the bait store. Now Drew is looking for his next mega build!

Jan 29, 2019: Tolkien Exhibition in New York I would love to have seen the “Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth” exhibition in New York. The picture depicting Bilbo’s conversation …

Jan 28, 2019: Benefits of the daily diary Good advice from Derek Sivers on keeping a daily diary: It works best as a nightly routine. Just take a minute and write at least a few sentences. If …

Jan 27, 2019: Commonmarks update Just a little Commonmarks update for those interested. I’m working on the password reset over the next few days. By then I should have a working …

Jan 26, 2019: Stoop for newsletters Recently, I’ve been scaling back on the number of newsletters that I subscribe to. Some are due to a lack of interest in the newsletter topic …

Jan 24, 2019: Bait store still a work in progress but Drew’s making good progress. 👍🏻

Jan 22, 2019: Don't just think it ... Write it says our man in Arizona.

Jan 22, 2019: Still loving Musish After a week of using the open source Apple Music web player Musish, I’m still a fan. The familiar look and feel to the native Apple Music apps …

Jan 22, 2019: The four-day work week is good for gender equality Another benefit to the four day work week. A four-day week, such as that proposed by Wellcome, could have a profound gender effect. Women at the …

Jan 21, 2019: Another Super Bowl for the Patriots? Gutted to see the Saints go out like they did last night with the non-call on Robey-Coleman’s pass interference. It definitely changed the …

Jan 20, 2019: Just noticed a change in the Feedbin web UI on my phone and desktop this morning. I don’t know the full details of all the changes, but I …

Jan 19, 2019: Drew with the first part of his Lego Ideas bait store. Even at this early stage, some of the detailing on the build is fantastic.

Jan 17, 2019: Great advice from Michael Wade to remember to do the small things.

Jan 17, 2019: Nicholas Bate and his daily investments. Still a favourite blog of mine.

Jan 15, 2019: DuckDuckGo map related searches are now powered by Apple’s MapKit JS framework. Nice to see DuckDuckGo and Apple unite on privacy and improve …

Jan 15, 2019: For those interested, I’m still working on a startup screen and Heroku deploy button for Commonmarks. I’ll post an update when I’ve …

Jan 15, 2019: Signal v Noise leaves Medium It’s great to see the Signal v Noise blog running under Basecamp’s own control again. Beyond that, though, we’ve grown ever more aware of …

Jan 10, 2019: I’m not sure what to make of the new status feature on GitHub. I barely use the status feature on Slack, so why would I set my status on GitHub?

Jan 10, 2019: Considering Commonmarks as a SAAS product Over the last few days there has been some interest in my bookmarking web app that I’ve been working on. Why another bookmarking solution …

Jan 10, 2019: More screen time for kids? According to philosophy professor Jordan Shapiro, parents should embrace the technology that their kids are using and not worry so much about the time …

Jan 9, 2019: A number of packages that I used to use in Sublime Text have disappeared over the last few months including the DA UI package. Is this the VS Code …

Jan 9, 2019: What would you do with an empty day?

Jan 8, 2019: What did you learn in 2018?

Jan 8, 2019: The new world order of JavaScript There’s no denying that JavaScript is an excellent language for the web, especially the front-end of any web application. Without it, we …

Jan 7, 2019: I must admit, I do miss freelancing. Skipping the commute into the office this morning would have been a good start to the day.

Jan 7, 2019: I probably need to start thinking about imports now for Commonmarks. Pinboard and Pocket are probably the two exports that I need to focus on.

Jan 7, 2019: Private repos for developers on GitHub’s free plan is a great move by Microsoft to match the likes of GitLab. I’ll need to check to see if …

Jan 7, 2019: 8 years using Ruby on Rails and today I just used the after_find callback for the first time. Every day is a school day.

Jan 6, 2019: I am hoping to add RSS feeds to Commonmarks today so that I can hook up my bookmarks to Micro.blog. The plan is to have a public feed that the owner …

Jan 4, 2019: Just finished watching Bird Box on Netflix. Fantastic to watch but closing the blinds now. 😱

Jan 2, 2019: First round of the year with Ethan. Pleased to say we’re both hitting the ball well but my game dipped on the last few holes.

Jan 1, 2019: Say hi to Commonmarks My own bookmarking app is up and running. It’s nothing fancy in terms of how bookmarking apps usually work, but I wanted this to look and act …

Dec 31, 2018: A few scrappy thoughts on buying online instead of locally As I picked up our New Year’s Day order from the butchers this morning, I was reminded of how little I have used my local butchers and other …

Dec 31, 2018: Plugging the web development knowledge gaps Dan Abromov’s Things I don’t know as of 2018, is a refreshing take on the knowledge gaps of software developers. Even though Dan is the …

Dec 30, 2018: Great afternoon exploring the Gleniffer Braes with Jennifer and Drew. Drew even came prepared with his own walking stick!

Dec 28, 2018: I’m clearing the desk, sorting out notebooks, reviewing app subscriptions, getting a list of books to read and considering what to focus on for …

Dec 28, 2018: Keep it simple.. Another great productivity booster from Nicholas Bate.

Dec 19, 2018: Got my own bookmarking app up and running on Heroku last night using Rails. It’s a simple affair with just the ability to add and edit bookmarks …

Dec 18, 2018: I’m still not convinced that JavaScript is the way forward for web applications. At the rate of change in the JS community though, I’m …

Dec 14, 2018: Spinning up another little greenfield Rails project. I was tempted to try another framework/language out for this, but I just want to get it done. So …

Dec 13, 2018: Instagram has been getting less appealing these days. The constant adverts on my timeline don’t help. I didn’t get many for such a long time and then …

Dec 12, 2018: Love NB’s reminder about productivity balance. When you add regular events to your diary, ensure you subtract one or two. — The Simplest of …

Dec 11, 2018: A fascinating and in-depth look at the typesets and other inspirations for the WALL-E movie. This being a favourite movie of mine, I had to recommend …

Dec 11, 2018: Firefox 64 is here! Am I the only one who had higher expectations for this release of Firefox? It is the 64-bit version after all. Multiple tab …

Dec 10, 2018: Voyager 2 has officially entered interstellar space. The distances still boggle my mind.

Dec 9, 2018: Putting the finishing touches on a new website I’ll be lauching during the week. Great to be using Jekyll and Netlify for this.

Dec 8, 2018: Can’t wait for Avengers: End Game.

Dec 7, 2018: A blogging style guide. Love. This. I can see me spending the weekend reading this and its suggested actions.

Dec 6, 2018: A $250 set of Star Wars keys for a keyboard. Yeah, I like Star Wars, but not that much.

Dec 6, 2018: The recruitment game in software development is similar to what Michael Wade posted today. The difference in my case is that I just want a developer …

Dec 5, 2018: The finished Lego Winter Village Fire Station. Most of the work by Drew with me just stepping in a few times.

Dec 4, 2018: Nicholas Bate’s simple productivity boosters continues with scheduling ahead.

Dec 4, 2018: Trying to escape the Google monopoly on the web I read today that Microsoft is reportedly throwing in the towel with their EdgeHTML browser engine and starting work on a new browser based on the …

Dec 3, 2018: An electric bike with anti-theft features and rider recognition for the city. Cost? $4000. I’ll gladly stick with my Langster fixie and a sturdy …

Dec 3, 2018: It’s been two years since the first trailer for The Last of Use Part 2 dropped. Two years and we stil don’t have a release date for the …

Dec 3, 2018: Lately, I have been seeing web development articles with intriguing headlines that have me clicking with anticipation to read them. The article itself …

Dec 2, 2018: I’m getting good feedback on an idea for a new service and product. The next step is to create a website and engage with a wider audience for …

Dec 1, 2018: Drew made great progress on the Lego Winter Village Fire Station tonight. Just a wee bit of help by myself with the fire engine. Well done my boy!

Nov 30, 2018: Daredevil to cancel after three seasons as all good stories must come to a close So it is official. No more Daredevil seasons on Netflix. “We are tremendously proud of the show’s last and final season and although it’s painful for …

Nov 29, 2018: Some advice from Michael Wade on doing the day.

Nov 28, 2018: How to back up your Bear notes. Good thing I do all three of these. Just to be safe.

Nov 27, 2018: Just learned that serverless computing isn’t about doing away with servers, it’s about hiding the servers you use for your platform. …

Nov 27, 2018: Saturn in our sky and other planets. I’ve always imagined what this would be like. Now I know!

Nov 26, 2018: Kurt Harden knows the value of a plan.

Nov 26, 2018: That was probably one of the best Walking Dead episodes ever. Not thee best, but definitely up there. 📺

Nov 25, 2018: This timelapse from the ISS is just amazing.

Nov 24, 2018: New Fleetwood Mac album downloaded. My parents musical taste definitely rubbed off on me.

Nov 23, 2018: Autographed ebooks? Matt Gemmell continues to push the limits of content creation with an iPad.

Nov 23, 2018: Stockpiling of wine? I’m glad to see one company taking Brexit seriously! 😂

Nov 23, 2018: With Wreck it Ralph set to appear in Fortnite, I’m now convinced that Fortnite is nothing more than a early prototype of the OASIS from Ready Player …

Nov 22, 2018: Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends!

Nov 21, 2018: Programming win? Bloody typical. I just spent a couple of hours adding a new field to a Rails application, built up the logic to use the new application, did a …

Nov 21, 2018: Social media isn't reality, but I know that As David Heinemeier Hansson leaves Instagram for the second time, the question of reality on social media rears it’s head again. That’s the …

Nov 20, 2018: I wish I had people like Michael Wade teaching me at school. A proper education in life.

Nov 19, 2018: Curtis McHale shares his process for routines using Things for iOS.

Nov 19, 2018: Honoured to once again find myself in amongst a wonderful collection of bloggers. Many thanks Kurt.

Nov 19, 2018: NB’s simple productivity boosters continues.

Nov 19, 2018: We don’t do Thanksgiving in the Lang household on account of being in the UK, but if we did, we would definitely adhere to Michael Wade’s …

Nov 18, 2018: Bracing myself for a week of Brexit drama.

Nov 17, 2018: Building back out from self-doubt Jonathon Snook has been sharing a few thoughts on imposter syndrome and what he’s doing to overcome it. It seems that every once in a while I go …

Nov 16, 2018: The only thing I like about Google these days is their homepage doodle. I don’t use their search page that often now, but I liked their doodle …

Nov 15, 2018: Coffee and worrying don't go I’m with Kurt on this, amen brother. In my diet plan you can have as much coffee as you like. Because in my diet, you drink coffee because it …

Nov 15, 2018: Just write the damn code One of my big downfalls, when I start work on something, is wondering if I am going in the right direction with it technically. Web development is …

Nov 14, 2018: I love Curtis' idea for a daily shutdown routine.

Nov 14, 2018: I wish I could have read this when I started high school all those years ago. Starting High School: Advice From an Insider

Nov 14, 2018: The Simplest of Productivity Boosters, a new series by Nicholas Bate. Can’t wait to get the mini-book for this one.

Nov 13, 2018: As always, Matt Gemmell provides a thorough and deep dive into his tech choices as an author. This time, it’s the new iPad Pro.

Nov 13, 2018: Still trying to land the Rockbounce to wallride twice in one run for Alto’s Odyssey. I’ve been stuck at this for a few months now, and …

Nov 13, 2018: The power-idea balancing act with Michael Wade.

Nov 13, 2018: Weighing up single-page applications With a new full-time role, I’m in the process of getting my head around some of the technology choices I’ll be working with and the …

Nov 12, 2018: I imagine that the Twitter edit button will be limited to a number of edits and will also include a changelog so that people can refer to any version …

Nov 9, 2018: A manifesto for programmers concerned about the impact of software. I’m definitely in the techno-pessimist camp. To the point where every day …

Nov 9, 2018: Less and slow for a better quality of life says Nicholas Bate. I couldn’t agree more.

Nov 8, 2018: How many companies are this transparent when it comes to making mistakes? Fewer than I would like to say, but hats off to Basecamp for owning up and …

Nov 6, 2018: Reviewers say iPad Pro a serious challenger to laptops. Well, until they add the capability to write and compile code locally, it will never be a true …

Nov 3, 2018: Chasing the tried and tested career During my last few months of job hunting, I was received numerous enquiries from recruiters for positions in startups and recently formed …

Nov 2, 2018: My favourite notes app just turned 2 and continues to be an essential part of my day.

Nov 2, 2018: Nicholas Bate asks, what can we remove?

Nov 1, 2018: So WhatsApp is going to starting showing ads in the Status feature. How long before they do the same thing to Stories on Instagram?

Nov 1, 2018: Dealing with distractions I’ve been trying to reduce my screen time on my phone. It hasn’t been easy and I’ve tried a number of different strategies to do …

Oct 31, 2018: I’ve not picked up my Kindle for a few months now. That’s no reflection on the device itself though. It’s easy to carry, easy to …

Oct 31, 2018: Still contemplating the portfolio career Six years ago I wrote a snippet about a portfolio career. This is still the end goal for my career. Splitting my time into smaller part-time roles …

Oct 31, 2018: The predictable Apple product update Is it just me or has the Apple product update become something of a formality now when it comes to the tech sites that report on it? Apple unvelied a …

Oct 30, 2018: Forget the Apple announcement. Let’s get to a more important issue. How many people signed up today for Micro.blog after seeing it on Hacker …

Oct 28, 2018: Great day for Ethan and the rest of the RGU boys practicing at Caldwell Golf Club today. Hope we get many more weekends like this over the winter.

Oct 26, 2018: Another notebook recommendation from one of my blog buddies. This time, it’s Michael Wade recommending the Dingbat journals. I must resist …

Oct 26, 2018: Nerf are going to do guns from Fortnite starting with the always popular SCAR. Of course my boys will go for the Fortnite choice, but I’ll stick …

Oct 25, 2018: I’m halfway through Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix. Definitely my favourite of the four defender series.

Oct 25, 2018: Nicholas Bate goes beyond the to do list. Always an essential part of my daily surfing on the web.

Oct 25, 2018: When it comes to blogs, Kurt Harden has one of the best there is. A wide range of topics, daily bite size posts and best of all, he just tells it like …

Oct 23, 2018: I’m of the mind that web development has become overly complicated. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience for it anymore.

Oct 20, 2018: Got me a new prompt in the form of Spaceship ZSH. Git, Ruby and Docker info all in the one prompt. Nice!

Oct 20, 2018: Ruby falling out of fashion? Ruby is falling again on the TIOBE index. It’s not a cause for alarm, but I will continue to look at alternatives to Ruby for the long term. …

Oct 13, 2018: I’m becoming more interested in Google’s Material Design for my web applications. The Materialize framework looks like it will be starting …

Oct 13, 2018: Staying productive with side projects I’m in the process of moving back to full-time employment, but the step away from being self-employed doesn’t mean that I am abandoning …

Oct 9, 2018: Great post by Julia Evans about what a senior engineer does. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought recently as I move toward full-time emoloyment …

Oct 9, 2018: VS Code continues to impress me. Not just in terms of functionality, but also in the consistent updating and improvement of the application. Monthly …

Oct 8, 2018: Voyager 2 still going. Space sure is amazing.

Oct 5, 2018: The power of the timetable. Who thought that something so simple could be the ultimate time management tool?

Oct 4, 2018: The new Action Text framework for Ruby on Rails looks great. Easier management of rich content for applications and seperation of that same content …

Oct 3, 2018: again.

Sep 30, 2018: What a great weekend of golf! Another win for Europe!🏌️‍♂️🇪🇺

Sep 29, 2018: Europe still looking strong after this morning’s Fourballs. While I would like to a European victory, it would be great if USA tied it up a bit …

Sep 29, 2018: Just starting to get the benefits of Docker. It’s been a long time jumping on board with this, but better late than never. Also, the Docker …

Sep 28, 2018: It’s a clearing the decks kind of day. Both mentally and physically. It’s always feels good to get things in their right place on my desk, …

Sep 28, 2018: Superb comeback from the European team in the Foursomes. Each time I watch it, I seem to enjoy the Ryder Cup more and more. 🏌️‍♂️ 🇪🇺

Sep 17, 2018: Disappointed to see Path closing down, but to be honest, it’s been a long time coming. The only upside is that they are finally providing a way …

Aug 29, 2018: Back to school for those at work. Great tips from Nicholas Bate.

Aug 29, 2018: Great night for some golf with my boy.

Aug 24, 2018: I forgot how time consuming and demanding job hunting can be. Practically a job in its own right!

Aug 16, 2018: I love how Code allows you to create splits with a simple drag of the mouse. Sure I could learn the keyboard shortcuts to do the same thing, but using …

Aug 15, 2018: After some thought, I’ve decided to skip setting up another Micro.blog account for coding. It’s another domain, another channel, another …

Aug 15, 2018: Done an npm install for a HTML theme and found the resulting node_modules directory contains 700+ libraries. Is that normal for a single theme?

Aug 14, 2018: Any suggestions on a name for my new programming blog? I’m setting one up just to catch notes and findings as I work. Nothing language specific, …

Aug 14, 2018: MoviePass is losing money, not as appealing as when it first came out and now being sneaky with their subscriptions. Am I alone in thinking that …

Aug 14, 2018: Two weeks straight using Visual Studio Code and I have to say, I am definitely won over this time. Performance has been consistent and the extensions …

Aug 14, 2018: Winding down I’m winding down my freelancing business over the next few weeks to take on a permanent role. It’s been fun over the last six years, but I …

Aug 10, 2018: Now seems as good a time as any to not only reboot the blogging habit, but also a number of other little things that have slipped by in the last few …

Aug 4, 2018: I just pasted some text into Grammarly’s app and it couldn’t find a thing wrong with it. Not a damn thing.

Jul 31, 2018: Listening to Banquet from Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm album. One of those albums that is perfect from start to finish. 🎵

Jul 27, 2018: As great as it is to be on holiday and having a change of scenery, there’s always the familiar comfort of getting home after a holiday.

Jul 22, 2018: As much as I would love to see Tiger Woods win another major, I think it’s going to be Jordan Spieth lifting the Claret Jug this afternoon. 🏌️‍♂️

Jul 22, 2018: Great to see Francesco Molinari winning the Open. Truly well deserved. 🏌️‍♂️🇮🇹

Jul 22, 2018: I love this time of year when Comic-Con is on. You get a bumper load of trailers for what’s coming on the small and big screen in the next 12 months. …

Jul 22, 2018: Spotted this overgrown shed playing golf with Ethan today at Hidden Lake.

Jul 22, 2018: Back to Feedbin and the web For the last few weeks, I’ve been using the lire app on iOS for reading through my RSS subscriptions. There’s a number of great little features in …

Jul 20, 2018: Great to hear that The Clone Wars is coming back.

Jul 19, 2018: Thanks to my buddy Curtis for letting me know about cleaning your iPhone’s charging port. Solved my problem of my phone not charging.

Jul 18, 2018: Nightmare. I’m having to lift my lightning cable connection in order to get a charge into my iPhone now.

Jul 10, 2018: The master list. Have to do, want to do, dream to do, home and work. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

Jul 5, 2018: Is 120 the new 80? Did I miss the heated and crazy developer debate that the new accepted line length is 120 characters? Joking aside, I’d like to know if anyone …

Jul 3, 2018: I need to find a way to retire sooner to enjoy more days like this.

Jun 29, 2018: Battleheart 2 for iOS looks great. I never played Battleheart, but I’m a huge fan of Battleheart Legacy.

Jun 28, 2018: Anyone have any recommendations on a Jekyll theme that would serve a similar purpose as an About.me page? I’m looking for something like a …

Jun 28, 2018: Have I lost my tech touch? It’s been a frustrating couple of days getting my laptop into some kind of order. I can’t get the following things to work: Connect the …

Jun 28, 2018: School holidays are here It’s the first day of the school summer holidays here in Scotland. In previous years I would have dropped Drew off at nursery and then dropped …

Jun 27, 2018: Vivo getting one up on Apple? Vivo also achieved another technological feat. Unlike Apple, it managed to incorporate a fingerprint scanner into the screen itself. The reader sits …

Jun 25, 2018: Sometimes I struggle with the whole being online thing. The last few days has been one of those times. I skipped my usual weekly digest as a result. …

Jun 22, 2018: Took a few attempts but just managed to get GitLab’s CI and automated deployment working for a Rails app. Now to apply it to my other projects. …

Jun 21, 2018: Mini standards by Nicholas Bate. Because it always starts with the little things.

Jun 21, 2018: The Micro.blog site is the only place where I can compose a reply and see what I’m replying too at the same time. I wish more Micro.blog clients …

Jun 19, 2018: Goodbye Things I’ve been trialling Things on my iPhone and iPad for the last few weeks. This morning though, I deleted the app from both devices. It is a great …

Jun 18, 2018: WhenWorks WhenWorks is a new appoinments app that allows you to define when people can book appointments with you. Setup is a breeze. Just install the app on …

Jun 17, 2018: I’ve been using Lire for a couple of days now. A great RSS reader and one that really makes a difference if you have a large collection of RSS feeds. …

Jun 14, 2018: I’ve started compiling lists of bookmarks that I use almost daily. By putting them in Bear, I’m hoping to have them more readily available than …

Jun 13, 2018: Boring Stuff Day. What a bloody great idea!

Jun 12, 2018: Just watched The Last of Us Part II gameplay from E3. It looks fantastic. Violent, but fantastic. Shame there’s no release date yet. Might be …

Jun 11, 2018: Moving a few sites over from Heroku to Netlify. Having one of those moments when I wonder why I didn’t make this move earlier.

Jun 8, 2018: App rot Link rot is a problem on the Internet. When you find something great on the Internet, you bookmark the URL for later, and then you find out later that …

Jun 7, 2018: I remember a similar app for iOS that did something similar to Edit. As good as Bear and Ulysses are, sometimes you just need a place to write without …

Jun 7, 2018: The Firefox Side View extension is already proving to be very useful. Great when using a page as a reference for another page I’m on.

Jun 6, 2018: I never get tired of the view from the braes. 📷

Jun 5, 2018: Apple’s upcoming privacy changes for Safari are a welcome change for the Internet. With GDPR and changes like this, I think we’ll start to …

Jun 5, 2018: The MDN web docs is becoming a daily visit in my quest to just understand and write plain-old JS instead of jQuery.

Jun 5, 2018: Two new tests from Firefox. Colour options look fun but the side view extension could be really useful.

Jun 4, 2018: Curious to know if the Ruby on Rails framework and any other frameworks and languages are considering moving away from GitHub.

Jun 3, 2018: Wondering now if the Microsoft acquisition of GitHub is just a ploy to keep devs busy on Monday and distracted from the WWDC announcements.

Jun 1, 2018: Great to see another Assassin’s Creed game coming out. I really enjoyed Origins. 🎮 Nice use of the lambda symbol as the insignia of the …

Jun 1, 2018: Microsoft to acquire GitHub? My first impressions of this are nervousness. I always liked that GitHub were a separate business from Google, Facebook, …

May 31, 2018: Dual-screen? I want no screen. I want holographic displays that I can manipulate with my hands and voice. I’d buy a Windows device if it done …

May 31, 2018: My working day is often plagued by those little decisions that I never get round to resolving. This morning’s decision is one that I never seem …

May 31, 2018: I'm all in with Micro.blog I think I’m getting to that stage now where I am all in with Micro.blog. I’ve been bouncing between platforms over the last few years. …

May 31, 2018: The boys on the ice A horrific story about the plight of seven boys and young men who stowed away on a ship bound for Quebec, Canada. With the ship going nowhere, …

May 29, 2018: Ethan off on his first school trip away from home. A few tears this morning from mum and little brother but he’ll back on Friday and I’m …

May 27, 2018: Nicholas Bate’s Essential Tools of Excellence continues with the fixie. It’s the one bike that everyone should own.

May 27, 2018: The Expanse is coming to Amazon Prime! Great timing. I just cancelled my Prime subscription a few months ago.

May 25, 2018: Han Solo movie was fantastic. Being a Star Wars fan I might be a little biased. But only a little. 🍿

May 25, 2018: I’m finding it increasingly difficult to want to watch the NFL. First, the long-term damage that players suffer and now the NFL owners appeasing …

May 25, 2018: James Mangold is working on a Boba Fett movie? If Logan is anything to go by (fantastic btw), then we’re surely in for a treat.

May 25, 2018: No battle royale mode, a more realistic limited stand mode and playing the game as a female? Dice are definitely winning me back after the Battlefront …

May 24, 2018: Feels like I’m drowning in the digital landscape these days. I need to simplify my digital footprint.

May 22, 2018: The never-ending cycle of trying out apps and what I am doing about it Everytime I try a new app or service out, it feels like I’m simply putting something else on my radar that I need to check. A couple of weeks …

May 18, 2018: Influential media Posts like Buffer’s “How to Share Posts From the Instagram Feed to Stories” are becoming less about how everyone can use a feature …

May 17, 2018: An interesting post about science backed advice for parents who want to bring up well-rounded kids. There’s already a few of these in place in …

May 17, 2018: More Twitter woes. Sad to see great Twitter clients being eroded away.

May 16, 2018: I’m increasingly wary of podcasts where the end of episode “picks” by the hosts and guests are the products and services of fellow …

May 14, 2018: Finally after weeks of waiting, these little beauties arrived in the mail.

May 12, 2018: Spent the afternoon getting the garden into order today. There’s something to be said for a little bit of grafting.

May 11, 2018: After a couple of weeks of heads down work for a client, I decided last night to find some solace in some simple work and clean up the @penmuse …

May 11, 2018: I’m pretty much all in with Firefox these days as my main browser. I’m using it for both browsing and work and I’m also using it on …

May 11, 2018: Started using Aloe Bud to remind myself to take breaks through the day. Particularly important for me as I tend to forget to get up and move about for …

May 6, 2018: Another great view from the top of the braes.

May 6, 2018: Ethan and my dad all set for the Junior/Senior Open at Paisley GC today. Looking forward to seeing their score when we catch up with them for dinner.

May 2, 2018: I wonder if all those people that said, “I want to build the next Facebook” are still behind that aim.

Apr 30, 2018: Bear just keeps getting better and better.

Apr 30, 2018: Views aren’t bad up here.

Apr 27, 2018: Just seen Infinity War. Loved it!

Apr 26, 2018: Nicholas Bate’s daily protocol is the killer app that I suspect many are looking for.

Apr 26, 2018: The best map in the galaxy This morning, the European Space Agency unveiled a new, highly detailed sky map of the Milky Way Galaxy that showcases the brightness and positions of …

Apr 24, 2018: Great to see a company like FastMail use the GDPR rules as a way to protect all their customers and not just those in the EU.

Apr 23, 2018: Another week, another weekly plan.

Apr 23, 2018: I never thought anything like this could happen in Toronto.

Apr 19, 2018: Curtis McHale has some constraints for a better workflow.

Apr 19, 2018: First, there are rumours of Black Ops 4 ditching the single-player mode and now the Battlefield and COD franchises are jumping on the battle royale …

Apr 16, 2018: I would love to make use of the micro-casting plan on Micro.blog, but I’d be too concerned about speaking clearly. Public speaking isn’t …

Apr 14, 2018: The Expanse is back for season 3. I loved reading this series, but the television series does a great job of telling the story as well. 📺

Apr 14, 2018: With no hard launch date for The Last of Us 2, God of War, might just be the game that can fill the gap before Joel and Ellie return. 🎮

Apr 14, 2018: Hello Wavelength Micro.blog has added another great way of creating content, a micro-casting app. Micro.blog now supports hosting short-form podcasts, also known as …

Apr 14, 2018: The rule of three I love this idea of picking the best three shots from a day-trip or an event. So, I’m going to do what I can to temper my happy shutter finger the …

Apr 13, 2018: View from the desk. Getting through some work while Ethan plays at Troon Links in a friendly match against Glasgow with the rest of the Renfrewshire …

Apr 12, 2018: Finding it difficult to shake off the shit-storm state the world is in this morning.

Apr 12, 2018: Started using collections in Jekyll. Pretty powerful stuff.

Apr 12, 2018: Still not happy with layout of PenMuse. I’m thinking of moving to a fixed-width container as opposed to a full-width container.

Apr 11, 2018: Publishing a blog post today that’s been collecting dust for a couple of weeks now. Might be great, might not be, that doesn’t matter. What matters is …

Apr 11, 2018: Using Your Time. Back to blogging again. Good to get something out in the internets again.

Apr 5, 2018: Always interested to see what’s on Kurt Harden’s reading list.

Apr 5, 2018: I would love to see account types on Twitter and then better controls that are derived from them. I always block businesses that follow me on Twitter, …

Apr 5, 2018: Unsplash has its own iOS app now.

Apr 5, 2018: Migrating Day One to Bear This week I’ve started migrating my Day One entries to Bear. I initially wanted to omit all the tags for my Day One entries on the import, but I …

Apr 4, 2018: Michale Wade has the perfect way to focus. Chair. Notebook. Coffee. Drafts. Index cards. Pens. Silence. — The Focus Formula

Mar 29, 2018: Good views while I wait.

Mar 29, 2018: Tower 3 beta installed. A familiar front-end but a little bit more fresh than Tower 2. Not had a chance to use much of new features yet, but first …

Mar 28, 2018: Great to see @dave’s feeds database is up and running. Not many surprises among the top ranked feeds, but great to see such a site exists now.

Mar 28, 2018: I’ve been wrestling with VS Code for the last few weeks but I just can’t get that efficiency hit that I get when using Sublime Text.

Mar 28, 2018: Sustainable living? I’d love a place like this.

Mar 28, 2018: A few observations on the Apple education announcement I missed the Apple education themed announcement yesterday. The time difference means that I’m always in the middle of something else when these …

Mar 28, 2018: I'm ditching Day One For the last few years, I’ve been using Day One as a digital journal. However, over the previous few months, I’ve been using it less and less. To the …

Mar 27, 2018: The audience's algorithm A post over at The Guardian highlights a great idea that I would love to see implemented by any social media platform. I like Derakhshan’s idea of …

Mar 26, 2018: Features for PenMuse for April The automated delivery of daily writing prompts from my PenMuse website is stable enough now that I want to consider expanding on it. Cross-posting to …

Mar 25, 2018: Pretty good day for Ethan at Eastwood golf club today playing alongside the rest of the RGU boys. Pre-shot routine is looking good and he’s hitting …

Mar 23, 2018: I wouldn’t mind seeing more split view options in MacOS. I know there’s apps that can do this, but seeing more than two apps in split view …

Mar 21, 2018: A Ruby on Rails ERP book? I’ve been re-reading this post on how to build an ERP sytem from scratch. I’ll be honest and say that a 250 word post on the topic …

Mar 20, 2018: Great to get back out on the fixie again.

Mar 16, 2018: Human only email I’ve been migrating a number of newsletters over to Feedbin to reduce my incoming email, but I’ve still got a ways to go …

Mar 16, 2018: Nicholas Bate’s tools of excellence series continues. Sometimes an idea is bubbling. A plan, a product, a solution, a breakthrough. You need …

Mar 15, 2018: Firefox now lets you block annoying website notification pop-ups I’ve been using Firefox a lot recently and it’s definitely getting …

Mar 15, 2018: Kaweco GRIP for Apple Pencil I’ve been considering an Apple Pencil for some time now. This Kaweco sleeve might just be the final nudge towards …

Mar 15, 2018: Stephen Hawking is right; you all should leave planet Earth. Kurt Harden is staying behind. I might join him.

Mar 13, 2018: My personal defcon status has been lowered from “bloody miserable” to “almost bearable” as this cold lessens it’s grip. 🤧

Mar 11, 2018: The great thing about RSS readers is the speed at which I can catch up. Even after a couple of days of not checking them, I can still blitz through …

Mar 8, 2018: 📚 Almost halfway through King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence before I decided to give up on it. First book I’ve given up on this year.

Mar 8, 2018: Did I just write a reply in the style of old Donald himself?

Mar 8, 2018: 📚 Got my copy of Michael Wade’s Random Thoughts. Great to have all these in one place.

Mar 8, 2018: Still considering Toronto Following a raft of measures to cool off the property market, sales have plunged, down 35% overall in Feb 2017 relative to Feb 2016; prices are down …

Mar 7, 2018: Lacking direction? Reset your personal compass with NB.

Mar 7, 2018: What do you think Apple will call its over-ear headphones? I’m going with HeadPods on this one.

Mar 6, 2018: All things good for the mind, body and soul.

Mar 6, 2018: Do you want want blank spaces on your iPhone home screen? Here’s how

Mar 5, 2018: Nothing better than getting back to normal. Roads are drivable and schools are back open.

Mar 2, 2018: BBC Studios is adapting Terry Pratchett’s iconic Discworld books for a six-part TV series I enjoyed the adaptations that were on Sky a few years ago. …

Mar 2, 2018: Nicholas Bate offers up some nudges to get you writing.

Mar 2, 2018: Street Fighter’s Chun Li is 50. Wow. Now I feel old.

Mar 2, 2018: Themeable seasons One thing I’ve been doing over the last couple of years is switching colours on my blogs and social media profiles according to the seasons. …

Mar 1, 2018: Another day of snow in Paisley.

Mar 1, 2018: Brilliant and better note-taking at meetings courtesy of Nicholas Bate.

Mar 1, 2018: 🎵Got the Master and Commander soundtrack playing while I catch up on some Rails work for a client tonight.

Mar 1, 2018: Overwatch’s newest hero is an armor-clad engineer named Brigitte. Overwatch can do no wrong in my eyes. Easy to start playing, easy to level up and …

Mar 1, 2018: Twitter finally gives us an official way to bookmark tweets I can’t see me using this at all. I use Pinboard for bookmarking and I’m …

Mar 1, 2018: Ask Micro.blog I’m wondering if this is something that might interest the users of Micro.blog. I want to ask a question to Micro.blog users, but I don’t …

Mar 1, 2018: Version control for project management Did a stupid thing today and deleted a checklist from Trello that I was using. As far as I am aware, there’s no way of undeleting it and also no …

Mar 1, 2018: What's in a number? I’ve been moving over some lists and accounts over to Feedbin. The significant advantage of this is that I don’t need to open Twitter and …

Feb 26, 2018: Micro Monday shout-out to my writing prompt generator on Micro.blog, @penmuse.

Feb 26, 2018: Crux technology My wife is thinking of setting up a Facebook account so that she can book in for a fitness class she likes and keep up to date with the kid’s …

Feb 23, 2018: Michael Wade advocates for a time of calm planning.

Feb 23, 2018: Just what we need, more guns I’m not surprised it’s being suggested by Trump that they need to arm teachers in schools. Rather than making schools safe areas to learn, …

Feb 23, 2018: Start that novel Nicholas Bate has the steps you need to start that novel.

Feb 22, 2018: Great to see Ethan making progress under the watchful eye of club professional Andy Carlton. More work on the short game this week with great results. …

Feb 22, 2018: I’ve been moving a few newsletters so that they’re sent to Feedbin. Amazed by the amount of newsletters that don’t allow you to just …

Feb 20, 2018: Forgot how great the Silent Alarm album by Bloc Party is 🎵.

Feb 20, 2018: Looking forward to more nights like this when I can get both the boys out on the course.

Feb 13, 2018: I could really do with a col-md-1.5 class about now. #webdevwoes

Feb 13, 2018: Robots opening doors? Calm down people, we’re a long way from Skynet happening.

Feb 13, 2018: Using Stimulus in PenMuse It’s been a while since I dabbled in a bit of JavaScript. It’s not that I don’t like programming in JavaScript, it is growing on me, …

Feb 12, 2018: Great to see the snow didn’t put Drew off from his golf yesterday. Snow! What snow?

Feb 12, 2018: So, even with the night shift on, iPads aren’t good for night time reading. Already thought this would be the case. Just as well I prefer to read my …

Feb 12, 2018: The world looks pretty bleak just four degrees warmer.

Feb 7, 2018: Would you download an app that wasn’t on the App Store and didn’t have any developer credentials (name, company etc) against it?

Feb 3, 2018: Feels good to be starting another Rails project. I’m hoping this one runs for a while, but I really need to spend more time on throwaway Rails …

Feb 2, 2018: Despite a few attempts this week and last week at using VS Code, I keep coming back to Sublime Text. I think if I had a severe problem with using ST …

Feb 2, 2018: RSS discovery A common observation around the slow uptake of RSS readers is that RSS is still something that people don’t understand. RSS readers often rely on the …

Feb 2, 2018: Write daily Nicholas Bate with a run down on being happy. Writing daily is just one simple part of it. Write daily about what is working so that you observe, …

Feb 1, 2018: That painful moment when you realise that the reason your JavaScript isn’t working is because is you have a typo in your elements id attribute.

Feb 1, 2018: Move to Jekyll complete Last night I finally pulled the trigger and moved my Ghost hosted blog to Jekyll. While the cost of running a managed blog was the most significant …

Jan 31, 2018: Important things Michael Wade provides another gem of being productive. One important thing today, that will put this day far ahead of days when you hoped to achieve …

Jan 31, 2018: The return of the subscribe button The subscribe button used to be everywhere on the Internet. It’s about time it made a return Every blog should have a Subscribe button. In an …

Jan 30, 2018: A Wishlist for Micro.blog Micro.blog has been getting some great updates over the last couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to seeing more improvements to come. In using …

Jan 28, 2018: Better writing fundamentals by Nicholas Bate.

Jan 28, 2018: I think the Frontlines series might be a good read while I wait for the last two books in the The Expanse series.

Jan 27, 2018: Finally got my freelance website moved over from Ghost to Jekyll. 👍

Jan 25, 2018: Be nice if feed readers like Feedbin could detect similar headlines for the last couple of days and bunch them together. Yeah, I could follow less …

Jan 25, 2018: More jagged thoughts from NB A refreshing thought from Nicholas Bate. We feel we need to add. In fact so often we need to simplify, to reduce, to let go of. We actually need to …

Jan 24, 2018: I wasn’t aware of Monzo’s VC funding. However, I’m still closing my account now that their pre-paid card is shutting down.

Jan 21, 2018: I’ve been playing with Wordpress again over the last few days. So much more going for it than any other blogging platform I’ve used. …

Jan 19, 2018: Looks like I’ve for a few updates to do over the weekend. Bootstrap 4 is here!

Jan 18, 2018: Considering some blog changes I’m considering a few changes in the way I blog. Micro.blog for personal stuff, quotes, snippets, links and the like. Ghost for longer posts on …

Jan 17, 2018: Inbox zero.

Jan 15, 2018: Atom still trying to play catchup with the likes of Sublime Text. I can’t see it ever happening.

Jan 15, 2018: FastMail rule added to delete the almost daily emails I get from Cloudinary for their Heroku addon.

Jan 15, 2018: New updates to Faviconographer. Might give it another try.

Jan 15, 2018: Share to Micro.blog is now available on Feedbin!

Jan 15, 2018: Yesterday’s two NFL games are what the playoffs area all about. High scoring games with plenty of action. 🏈

Jan 11, 2018: Michael Wade once again delivers a gem of wisdom: Move more into the role of “Creator” and away from that of “Reactor.” — …

Jan 11, 2018: Making the Most of Feedbin's New Twitter Integration Today Feedbin announced a new feature to their RSS reader which allows you to subscribe to Twitter users, searches, lists and hashtags. I've been …

Jan 11, 2018: Reading Twitter with Feedbin This is a great move for Feedbin. Rather than following a single collection of accounts, I can now subscribe to a core collection of users, lists and …

Jan 10, 2018: Damn. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Forgot about them. 🎵

Jan 10, 2018: I’m considering a set of wireless headphones for client calls and blocking out the kids whiles I’m working. Recommendations?

Jan 10, 2018: This bug on Ghost is driving me round the bend. Every character you type in is registered as two keystrokes so ‘t’ becomes ‘tt’ and pasting from the …

Jan 10, 2018: My First MailChimp Campaign A few weeks ago I had an idea. A newsletter that would provide help and guidance for a particular type of organisation in using the Internet and …

Jan 9, 2018: Experimenting with numberless actions on Twitter In keeping with Micro.blog’s lack of counts for things like followers and likes, I’ve decided to do the same on Twitter. I have created a few …

Jan 9, 2018: Staying on Track When it comes to planning the day with bullet journaling, there’s one aspect of it that frequently throws me. Knowing when a block of work should …

Jan 8, 2018: Right, so my predictions for the Wildcard Weekend were 1 for 4. Only got the Saints results right, but close games all round.

Jan 8, 2018: Benefiting from the Constraints of Pen and Paper to Tame Tasks In the last 18 months, I’ve moved from using a task manager application to using pen and notebook and a technique called bullet journaling. The …

Jan 7, 2018: First half of wildcard weekend done and I got both predictions for yesterday wrong. Maybe I’ll have better luck today.

Jan 7, 2018: Right, calling it with a victories for the Bills and the Saints today.

Jan 6, 2018: I'm Starting a Newsletter Again, With a Difference​ With a rising interest in newsletters, I started one last year. I tried to publish one long-form post a month as well as a collection of links at the …

Jan 5, 2018: GitHub’s Projects feature is increasingly becoming an alternative to using Trello, but Trello’s native apps still make it my preferred …

Jan 5, 2018: I completely missed the part of GitHub’s project tracking feature that allows you to track projects in other repos as well. Might be the game-changer …

Jan 5, 2018: Just found out how to use the SUMIF function in Numbers for the first time. Every day is a school day.

Jan 5, 2018: Nicholas Bate reminds us of the basics when we’re stuck.

Jan 5, 2018: My Three Words for 2018 I've already written about how I use habits rather than resolutions for the year. Resolutions are doomed to fail, but practices can be iteratively …

Jan 4, 2018: A new year, a new Hobonichi. Same old trusty Lamy Safari though.

Jan 4, 2018: Numberless Analytics One of the significant problems with social media is that everything has a number against it. Followers, likes, retweets, hearts, comments and many …

Jan 3, 2018: I’m seriously thinking about coming off Twitter or just making my account private. Seeing less and less value in using it.

Jan 3, 2018: No Resolutions, Just Good Habits I'm not making any resolutions for the year ahead. In my experience, it's a self-defeating exercise that always ends up with me not seeing it through …

Jan 3, 2018: The unruly web Amongst another Twitter scare, there’s a reminder that there’s a better social network where there’s less hate. The unruly web — …

Jan 2, 2018: Morning Stories For the last couple of years I've been writing every day through a practice called morning pages. It involves writing three pages of anything. Now, I …

Jan 1, 2018: So refreshing to have an inbox of positive posts in my RSS reader this morning. I wish every morning could be like this.

Jan 1, 2018: RSS Update It’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates on my blogging habits and where you can find me. Now is as good a time as any to update these. Here’s …

Dec 29, 2017: Choose a word or three Nicholas Bate picks one word, Mike Vardy picks three words. Whatever number of words you choose for 2018, work with them, live them, breathe them. …

Dec 28, 2017: After three days away from my desk, now is as good a time as any to clear the decks before client work begins in January again.

Dec 25, 2017: Merry Christmas everyone!

Dec 23, 2017: Disappointed to see that the Grammarly blog doesn’t have an RSS feed.

Dec 21, 2017: First, Twitter’s ads play on the fact people don’t know what Twitter is for and now Facebook admits that it can be bad for you. Maybe …

Dec 21, 2017: Frustration is a blog post that doesn’t link to the products that it recommends.

Dec 21, 2017: There’s been a change to Sublime Text in the last release that stops the command palette selecting the last command being selected when you open …

Dec 18, 2017: I’ve been giving Feedly another spin. It’s been four years since I last used it. Other than feed recommendations and subscriber counts …

Dec 18, 2017: Weekly Digest Another week closer to Christmas, another week of school and club activities for the boys. We started off on Monday with the primary school nativity. …

Dec 16, 2017: Always a good view from The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Dec 16, 2017: Moved up another belt for Tigercubs. Well done wee man!

Dec 15, 2017: Time for The Last Jedi! Update: It was amazing!

Dec 14, 2017: Christmas jumper day at school!

Dec 13, 2017: Bear just keeps getting better New themes, autocomplete for tags and of course TagCons! Once you get a decent tag collection going, it can get harder to find the right one in your …

Dec 4, 2017: Bluetooth, oh how I hate thee.

Dec 4, 2017: Nicholas Bate’s What we know about 2018, the complete list. A must read in preparing for the new year.

Dec 1, 2017: Trying to kid myself on that the Hawaiian sunshine is included in every bottle. Alas no sunshine included but a great beer! 👍🏻

Nov 30, 2017: Hard a-larboard! Posting this here in the hopes that Michael Wade sees this and doesn’t need to break his Twitter fast for it. For the Aubrey Maturin lovers , I …

Nov 29, 2017: Discovered that I am a lousy open source software maintainer. Two pull-requests for my Daring theme sitting in the repo without me knowing. Doh!

Nov 29, 2017: Version bump for my Daring theme for Ghost so that it works with Ghost’s 1.0.0 release. Also hat tip to Ghost for their theme scanner that let’s …

Nov 28, 2017: Starting to feel normal again after a lingering cough and cold.

Nov 28, 2017: Better blogging I love this manifesto for blogging. Lots of good points to use. Also, why wasn’t I already subscribed to Hugh’s blog? All content must be …

Nov 28, 2017: Deep work vs distractions Curtis McHale breaks down the process of getting work done in a world of distractions. I particularly like his argument for analog task managers over …

Nov 28, 2017: Independent feeds Tom Critchlow is re-discovering the glory days of blogging. The tags, the blogrolls and much more. The simpleness of it all. There’s something about …

Nov 28, 2017: Mindful giving It’s the time of year for giving and there’s lots of ways you can do it. Small organizations often need help with administrative tasks — …

Nov 28, 2017: The Facebook Pages Organisation This morning I got a text message from my kids' primary school. It was a reminder that this week was book week for the kids. Good stuff, I thought. I …

Nov 27, 2017: Outlined a couple of blog posts this morning that I’ll publish this week.

Nov 26, 2017: Cracking afternoon for Drew at the putting competition up at Paisley Golf Club. Bobble hats off to the professionals up at the golf club, Claire-Marie …

Nov 23, 2017: Looks like collections are the new must have feature in the social media silos. First Instagram and now Facebook. As usual Twitter is left in the …

Nov 23, 2017: Remember what I said about Twitter being left in the dust?

Nov 23, 2017: 4 spaces for indentation on JS looks weird.

Nov 22, 2017: Business without email Proof that your business can survive without email. In short, Schwarz is a classic craftsman. If you want to ask him about his trade, however, you’ll …

Nov 21, 2017: I’m really liking what Kona are doing with their bikes these days. The Honza is another great bike from them. Price is a bit steep though!

Nov 21, 2017: Just finished watching Stranger Things 2. Damn that was good television.

Nov 20, 2017: As a freelancer I’m wondering if a newsletter is worth putting into place. Another thing to maintain and run. Why can’t I just rely on a blog with a …

Nov 19, 2017: Bacon. That’s good for a cold, yeah?

Nov 18, 2017: Hello PenMuse I'm always on the lookout for something different to write about, but some days the nudge just isn't there. I started using my daily themes as writing …

Nov 15, 2017: Too many writing apps? I’ve got three apps on my MacBook that I’m starting to use on a more frequent basis. Ulyssess remains my favourite for writing blog posts, …

Nov 14, 2017: EA’s release of Star Wars Battlefront II is already under fire. Let’s hope that Firefox do better with their release of Firefox 57.

Nov 14, 2017: I’ve got Star Wars Battlefront II downloading on the PS4 for tonight. Early Xmas present to myself!

Nov 14, 2017: Yeah, Firefox 57 is pretty fast. 😲

Nov 13, 2017: Bootstrap 4’s Flexbox support is great. I can see me using it a lot more with new projects and clients.

Nov 12, 2017: Them shadows again.

Nov 12, 2017: Back to GitHub A few months ago I started a GitLab account out of curiosity. I wanted to see if there was anything that GitLab offered that GitHub didn’t. In the …

Nov 10, 2017: I think I have a rogue plug-in for Sublime Text. I’ve been getting errors all morning. Switching to Atom for the rest of the day.

Nov 9, 2017: I wish Github’s Pull Request filters would persist in between changes.

Nov 9, 2017: Tried to use my iPhone SE as a mouse this morning for about a minute. Definitely time for a coffee.

Nov 8, 2017: Attention vs Currency Is attention no longer a viable form of currency? We’re told every day as creators online that attention = prosperity. But no one’s …

Nov 6, 2017: Mondays Nicholas Bate has Monday’s covered. Do you? Mondays can be approached slowly or quickly or even from an oblique angle. But always approach them …

Nov 5, 2017: Another great lesson for Drew this morning. Won’t be long until he is beating his brother out on the course!

Nov 5, 2017: Long shadows up at the golf club today while I was picking up Ethan.

Nov 3, 2017: Finding that Spark’s short and long swipes a pain to use when the actions are different. Reconfigured each side now to have the same action for both …

Nov 3, 2017: Hyper terminal emulator, good but not great A week running Hyper as my terminal has been mostly without incident, but I’ll be switching back to Terminal. Hyper is a good replacement for …

Nov 3, 2017: Twitter's house rules I can understand the joy on Twitter when a certain account was removed by a member of staff who was leaving. De-activating an account out of your own …

Nov 2, 2017: Another great lesson for Ethan with our club professional, Andy. Just a few minor setup changes and Ethan’s already seeing improvements.

Nov 2, 2017: The value of silence There’s value to be had in silence you know. Late at night. A quiet office. No phone calls. No interruptions. The work can be broken down into …

Nov 1, 2017: 40 day writing streak on 750words.com. The daily habit is getting easier to do now. Here’s to another 40 days of writing!

Nov 1, 2017: A bleak future for the web? The Trinet (Amazon, Facebook, Google) is a depressing prospect for the future of the web. The War for Net Neutrality in the USA won a battle in 2014, …

Nov 1, 2017: Pocket Productivity Curtis McHale offers some advice for those looking to get more from their mobile devices when it comes to deep work. One of the final big ways to …

Oct 31, 2017: Nice. You can now click the labels on a Trello card and it will show the text for the labels on all cards.

Oct 30, 2017: Back to winter coaching with the RGU boys and David Orr. A few takeaways to work on.

Oct 30, 2017: Finally, bobble hat season is here! #ynot #ynotmade

Oct 30, 2017: Running Hyper this week instead of Terminal just to see what all the fuss is about.

Oct 29, 2017: I haven’t seen the Buffalo Bills play like this for years. Great game to watch.

Oct 28, 2017: Trying to put together the parts for a monthly newsletter aimed at both Rails developers and Rails product owners/team leaders. We’ll see how it …

Oct 27, 2017: Just discovered the attribute_was method in Rails. Everyday is a school day. #til

Oct 26, 2017: Goodbye Path For a long time, I’ve been a user of Path. A social media network for those who want a level a level of privacy. It was another Twitter or Instagram …

Oct 25, 2017: A reminder from Nicholas Bate that the Internet serves both the good and the bad. False news on what a politician said. Dubious claims on the power …

Oct 25, 2017: New home for my micro.blog - mattisms.blog.

Oct 25, 2017: Part of my web development toolbox for years. Saying Goodbye to Firebug

Oct 25, 2017: Downsizing Twitter Last night I started down-sizing my Twitter account. Here’s a few things I did. Deleted all lists from my account - I had a few lists for …

Oct 25, 2017: Levelling up advice for programmers One of many nuggets of advice for programmers who feel they are lagging behind. The goal is become aware of the range of technologies available, and …

Oct 23, 2017: Back to work this morning after a week off.

Oct 23, 2017: Great first episode of the new season of The Walking Dead. Good pace and build up to the next episode. Reviews of it online I think we’re a bit …

Oct 23, 2017: I would love to be able to pin cards at the top of each list in Trello. Just saying.

Oct 23, 2017: 25 smarter blogs One again I’ve made Kurt’s list and he now he’s planning a surprise visit! Family guy and freelance web developer, Matthew Lang …

Oct 23, 2017: Taking stronger action Gregory Brown is closing his Twitter account (@practicingdev). In 24 hours I’ll be shutting down this Twitter account for good. I am OK, and …

Oct 22, 2017: Subscribed to the Hurry Slowly podcast this morning. Expecting good things.

Oct 22, 2017: Less is more with Slack Half of these ideas on making Slack less of a time suck are terrible suggestions. Just because you can make todo lists in a Slack, doesn’t mean that …

Oct 20, 2017: Great first lesson of the off-season for Ethan with Andy, our club professional. Plenty to work on for next year!

Oct 20, 2017: Nice start to the day.

Oct 18, 2017: A lot of love for Cardhop on the blogs today. Going to have to give it a try at some point.

Oct 18, 2017: Another day, another blog post written. That’s three in a row. Need to get a couple of topics in place for tomorrow and Friday.

Oct 18, 2017: My web development setup for the iPad Pro While it was my intention to write about my web development workflow on my iPad Pro at a later date, one of my readers got in touch asking about how I …

Oct 17, 2017: Features I would love to see in Safari iOS I've been using an iPad Pro as a web development device for a few months now. Overall I've been surprised at the ability of the device to handle this …

Oct 16, 2017: So many good things have happened on Micro.blog in the last few months and the cherry on the cake is the ]macOS …

Oct 15, 2017: My kind of prepping.

Oct 11, 2017: Just tried pumpkin spice cream liqueur. Erm …. not a fan. Might be alright for a coffee though.

Oct 10, 2017: Had that moment in a software project yesterday when you realise you should have named something with ‘x’ instead of ‘y’. …

Oct 10, 2017: Another Star Wars Christmas Another Christmas, another Star Wars movie. I can’t wait to see this. Since watching it this morning, I’ve seen lots of theories online …

Oct 10, 2017: Cowboys must stand for national anthem Jerry Jones chips in on the NFL #takeaknee protest with an ultimatum for the Cowboys team. “I’m not in the business of 51-49,” he said. “That’s not …

Oct 9, 2017: Goodbye to being productive in the air I can’t say that I’m a fan of seeing high-speed Internet access being rolled out onto airlines. Why is it that flights often make for …

Oct 7, 2017: Drew finished building this year’s Lego Halloween set. Well done wee man! 👍🏻

Oct 7, 2017: Drew moved up to his Tiger cubs green belt this morning. It’s great to see him making progress even at this level.

Oct 6, 2017: Currently having a geek out frenzy on ligatures in Sublime Text.

Oct 6, 2017: An Instructor's Instructions Michael Wade with the essential list for instructors. Different ways to explain the subject and how to incorporate those ways into the class so if a …

Oct 4, 2017: Took the Star Wars Battlefront 2 beta for a spin tonight. Love it!

Oct 4, 2017: Typical. The day the Battlefront 2 beta comes out and I’ve got work to catch up on tonight.

Oct 3, 2017: Been a while since I did this. One more technique I found helpful is keeping a “content ideas” file on my phone. Whenever a random idea pops into my …

Oct 3, 2017: I often struggle with content ideas for my freelancing blog. I should look towards my expertise more than anything else. It doesn’t matter how …

Oct 3, 2017: Star Trek Discovery episode #3 was a lot better last night. Going to stick with it.

Sep 29, 2017: Back on the #langster for running errands at lunchtime. Great to be clocking up the miles again. #langsterforlife

Sep 29, 2017: Micro might just be the text editor that brings me back to full-time terminal use! On a related note, when are we going to get a proper Terminal app …

Sep 29, 2017: Techo and Field Notes deliveries in the same week! 👍

Sep 28, 2017: I have to say. The unique way in which micro.blog allows posts and conversation in the form of replies is a brilliant idea. I was unsure of it at …

Sep 28, 2017: This is the most restraint I’ve had to show in my life. This tub contains the awesome trio of nuts, peanut butter and chocolate. I don’t know how …

Sep 27, 2017: It doesn’t seem to matter what Twitter does these days. Even with more characters to tweet with, people are still hating on Twitter. Why?

Sep 27, 2017: It’s that time of year again! Next year will be my third year using a Techo. It’s proven to be so popular at home that Jennifer has ordered one as …

Sep 27, 2017: Took a day off yesterday for some recovery, but it also gave me the chance to upgrade MacOS to High Sierra. No problems so far!

Sep 27, 2017: When did Twitter’s native app for macOS get the split view treatment?

Sep 26, 2017: Just watched the first two episodes of Star Trek Discovery. I think it could get better. I’ll watch the rest of the series as it comes out.

Sep 25, 2017: I’ve returned to blogging with a post about why I think web analytics are not a good fit for my own websites. I must say, it feels great to be …

Sep 25, 2017: The death of web analytics? It's been a long time since I stopped using Google Analytics to track the activity on my websites. In its place, I went with a product called Gauges. …

Sep 24, 2017: Watching the world go by.

Sep 21, 2017: Is it just me or is the iPhone’s battery draining faster under iOS 11?

Sep 21, 2017: The combination of Working Copy and Textastic on iOS 11 now allows me to do more web development work from my iPad Pro. Still hoping though that there …

Sep 20, 2017: Just when I’m starting to like using Safari’s Shared Links feature, Apple goes and removes it. Shame, I liked having it in the sidebar as …

Sep 20, 2017: Published the last edition of my own newsletter last night. It wasn’t working out for me. Glad to have the support of fellow bloggers. Saying …

Sep 20, 2017: No newsletter and micro me Yesterday was the last edition of my newsletter. I won't go into all the reasons why I've stopped the newsletter but it really boils down to one thing …

Sep 19, 2017: Having one of those days I would like to forget.

Sep 19, 2017: Learned my lesson today from buying cheap hardware. Bought a Bluetooth keyboard as a short term replacement for my Logitech K811. I thought it would …

Sep 18, 2017: First national competition for Ethan down at Dumfries & County GC. Great conditions so far. 👍

Sep 18, 2017: Might be time to read Cal Newport’s Deep Work again.

Sep 18, 2017: Now that I’m using the iPad Pro as my main development machine a couple of days a week I’m starting to miss the features that I see …

Sep 18, 2017: Same thing we do every time I pick him up from school. A little selfie for his mum!

Sep 18, 2017: Back to basics for Ethan It wasn't Ethan's day at the Stanley Morrison Trust event down at Dumfries & County GC yesterday. A lack of concentration and fast greens seen him …

Sep 17, 2017: First national competition for Ethan down at Dumfries & County GC. Great conditions so far. 👍

Sep 15, 2017: About time I looked at something a little different than the usual web application framework.

Sep 15, 2017: Electron does take some flak for being a performance hog but the appeal of being able to deliver the same app experience to multiple platforms is too …

Sep 15, 2017: I now have Instagram photos feeding through to here as well as links from my Pinboard account and starred posts from my Feedbin account. Be nice if I …

Sep 15, 2017: Started composing a support email to @manton about the custom CSS changes for my micro-blog site as it was taking a while. I was just about to hit …

Sep 15, 2017: The new Banksy?

Sep 15, 2017: Trello’s new native app is just another Electron app, but I’ll still take it instead of having another browser tab to look for.

Sep 6, 2017: Disney now seems to be the creative equivalent of the Trump presidency.

Sep 6, 2017: It’s official. I’m giving up on Twitter has a medium for conversation. It’s mixture of text, media and links makes it more suited …

Sep 6, 2017: I’ve been tempted to upgrade the iPad Pro to the public beta release of iOS 11 but with the official release being just around the corner …

Sep 6, 2017: The new Banksy?

Sep 6, 2017: Pipedream Cycles Moxie The Singletrack review of what is without a doubt, the best hardtail I've laid eyes on, even if it is just a prototype at the moment.

Sep 6, 2017: Pro colour schemes If you see me bashing away at text editor then you'll know that I'm a die hard Solarized fan. In the last few weeks though I've been using the Dracula …

Sep 6, 2017: Star Wars stamps If stamps, scruffy-looking nerf herders and laser blasting walking carpets are you thing then these stamps by the Royal Mail might be right up your …

Sep 6, 2017: The value of importance ... ... is knowing what is important. Don't attempt everything. Do what's important. No, not everything is important. — Jagged Thoughts for Jagged Times, …

Sep 5, 2017: Finally a break in the weather.

Sep 4, 2017: Bought a license for Monokai Pro this morning. Small change to ensure that a great theme keeps going for my text editor.

Sep 4, 2017: Dinosaurs, warriors, bandits and pirates. His imagination knows no limits.

Sep 4, 2017: Drew built this little set all by himself. He needed just a little bit of help with the mechanism but just a little bit! #legostarwars #coolbeingadad

Sep 4, 2017: Gave up trying to remove those last few Instagram posts from my microblog timeline. Just going to have to leave them there I guess.

Sep 4, 2017: I don’t know who’s scarier!

Sep 4, 2017: Loving the new Monokai Pro colour scheme for Sublime Text 3!

Sep 4, 2017: Not bad 9 holes with Ethan tonight. He’s looking good for his final tomorrow.

Sep 4, 2017: This caddying lark fair burns up the calories. I should take it up full time. Ethan, you pro yet?

Aug 31, 2017: Lost his final tonight but not until he took his opponent to a playoff. Super proud of you pal, keep it going! 👍🏻

Aug 31, 2017: Productivity​ is ... ... defined by Nicholas Bate. Productivity is no longer simply about 'the things to do', it is about tough, balanced, focused decisions on what not …

Aug 30, 2017: Not bad 9 holes with Ethan tonight. He’s looking good for his final tomorrow.

Aug 30, 2017: Learning Ulysses I can't remember the last time I bought individual learning material that wasn't a book. I'd be tempted to the Learn Ulysses course from The Sweet …

Aug 30, 2017: Media diets Jason Kottke shares his. I love this idea as a recurring post.

Aug 30, 2017: ​Where I don’t publish Last week I linked to Manton Reece’s dedication to staying the course for Micro.blog and the potential of blog-focused technologies when it comes to …

Aug 27, 2017: Dinosaurs, warriors, bandits and pirates. His imagination knows no limits.

Aug 27, 2017: I don’t know who’s scarier!

Aug 22, 2017: Accountability Are you accountable?

Aug 22, 2017: Hello TextExpander ... again A while back, I read with disgruntlement about the change that Smile were introducing to their TextExpander product. It was the introduction of a …

Aug 22, 2017: Stay the course I'm still grappling with Micro.blog but what's reassuring is Manton dedication to staying the course for the platform with an eye to the long term. I …

Aug 21, 2017: Ghost & Unsplash Good to see the Ghost team are steadily adding features to my favourite blogging platform. This it's the addition of the vast library of Unsplash …

Aug 18, 2017: Taming the Twitter timeline It seems that I just can't let go of my Twitter timeline. Despite not been very active on Twitter for the last few weeks, I still like to read through …

Aug 16, 2017: Deep book researching advice Cal Newport divulges his technique for researching books. The key to my system is the pencil mark in the page corner. This allows me later to quickly …

Aug 16, 2017: Survive and thrive ... ... with the personal resilience guide from Nicholas Bate.

Aug 16, 2017: The content creation device Jack Baty has been using his new iPad in anger this week. The results are good! I’ve been using the iPad exclusively while at home for more than a …

Aug 15, 2017: Erasing the past Kurt Harden is concerned about the erasing of American history. The first is that it strikes me as an effort to erase history. That never goes well. …

Aug 11, 2017: Time to kill the personal website? Rachel Kaser over at The Next Web certainly thinks so. Like it or not, social media provides an easy-to-use template that lets anyone make their …

Aug 10, 2017: Hello Ghost 1.0 It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. A couple of weeks ago the first major update to the publishing platform Ghost was released. I was …

Aug 10, 2017: Ulysses Subscriptions So following the footsteps of TextExpander and Day One, the writing app Ulysses is now moving towards a subscription service. I've wrote in the past …

Aug 7, 2017: Back to work. Always a good time to reboot a few habits.

Jul 24, 2017: The least loved great sportsman? On a day where a Brit has won his fourth Tour de France, the focus seems to be more on Jordan Spieth's win at The Open. Why isn't Froome's success …

Jul 19, 2017: Bullet journal #2

Jul 15, 2017: Open source Medium Dave Winer ponders on the possibility of an open source version of the popular blogging platform Medium. What if Medium had been designed from the …

Jul 12, 2017: Exploring alternatives to GitHub I've been a user of GitHub for a long time now. Ever since I started my career in Ruby on Rails I've had a GitHub account. I'm looking again at …

Jul 10, 2017: Comic book kind of guy I'm not sure if Nicholas Bate is a comic books kind of guy, but I'm sure he'll make an exception for The Beatles: Yellow Submarine comic when it comes …

Jul 10, 2017: Scorched Earth A sobering read about the future of the planet and what climate change effects could result in in a hundred years time. Heat is just one of a number …

Jul 10, 2017: Time to read Just as it is important to set aside time to think, it is important to block out time for reading. If you believe that such time will be available …

Jul 7, 2017: Fixie Friday no more Fixie Friday has run it's course. There won't be anymore scheduled Fixie Friday posts on the first Friday of the month. Instead I'll just be posting …

Jul 7, 2017: Slack: Necessary evil? I've been using Slack for a few years now. I use it more for work than anything else. I am part of a number of different client teams and it's through …

Jul 7, 2017: Trillion Prime 27.5 Singletrack World are testing a new British built steel hardtail, the Trillion Prime 27.5. I wish there were bikes like this 20 years ago. The mind is …

Jul 6, 2017: Subscription pricing for Day One Day One's change to subscription pricing model is taking some flak but I think it's a good move for them and ensures that it will be around for a long …

Jul 4, 2017: Cracking open Vim again It's been a while since I took another stab at learning Vim. If you don't know what Vim is then all you need to know is that it's a major geek out …

Jul 4, 2017: Deep vs shallow It seems that a lot of the things I'm reading online point towards long-form blogging again. Gregory Brown sums up the change nicely in way I didn't …

Jul 3, 2017: Fall like a thunderbolt I have never read The Art of War, but I've seen this quote enough times mentioned elsewhere (other books, games and of course the Internet) to know …

Jul 3, 2017: The latest Field Notes Time for another quarterly delivery of Field Notes memo books. This time it's the Campfire edition. There are three memo books in a set but the boys …

Jun 23, 2017: Attended Nicholase Bate’s Deep Productivity seminar in March and and it was worth every penny. Highly recommended. …

Jun 22, 2017: Got a DigitalOcean server setup with multiple Jekyll sites. I forgot how great and simple static websites are.

Jun 21, 2017: Thanks to @curtismchale and @patrickrhone for their replies to my newsletter this month. Cheers guys.

Jun 21, 2017: Another new fan of Discworld Glad to see Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are still gaining fans. Annie is the latest convert.

Jun 17, 2017: Yard work done.

Jun 16, 2017: Can’t complain about the new look on Twitter’s iOS app, but would still like to improvements elsewhere on Twitter.

Jun 16, 2017: Right, so you can only schedule a tweet with a pic on it.

Jun 16, 2017: A change of working ... ... is what you need. More insightful thoughts from Nicholas Bate.

Jun 16, 2017: The Green Machine It's great to see that Kona bikes are looking great again.

Jun 12, 2017: Playing the “waiting on DNS” game. Sigh.

Jun 12, 2017: Decision time ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Jun 12, 2017: iPad Pro for software development? Apple's App Store Guidelines now allow executable code in educational apps and developer tools. Might not be a deal breaker for many, but I've longed …

Jun 9, 2017: 8 day streak on @750words. Feels great to be writing daily again.

Jun 9, 2017: Small solutions to big problems It's often the case with me that I look for a big solution to what I perceive to be big problems rather than the small solution. The client upgrade …

Jun 6, 2017: iOS 11 looks great with the new Files app. Not enough changes though for me to use an iPad Pro for programming. Maybe iOS 12?

Jun 6, 2017: Never under-estimate the simplicity of a problem. Fixed a Rails 5 upgrade by updating the web-console gem to the latest version.

Jun 5, 2017: Tame the distraction monster Not your usual productivity hacks. I do think I could be doing with less distractions during the day. If you’ve found yourself distracted by …

Jun 5, 2017: WWDC17 Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off today. I wouldn't call myself a fan-boy but I definitely have a preference for Apple products. I am …

Jun 2, 2017: Fixie Friday - Hartley Cycles Red Hook Crit Track Wonderful paint job on this one. via Bikesoup Magazine

May 31, 2017: Covfefe Once again, Twitter explodes over the tweets of a certain president. As for what covfefe actually is, we still don’t know. Some may say it’s a typo …

May 31, 2017: The basics of email ... ... with Nicholas Bate. I've been wrestling with my inbox for a while now but last month I started batch processing my emails again, and although it …

May 22, 2017: Smarter money, smarter spending I've had pre-paid cards in the past but the app that accompanies the Monzo card should provide better insight into spending habits and make me think …

May 17, 2017: MBP hardware boosts are tempting but I’ll wait on news of new iMacs before I decide on what path to take with my next hardware purchase. …

May 17, 2017: Who do I know that’s been writing frequently on Medium?

May 17, 2017: Another night on the course A lot colder tonight than last week, but glad to get out for a hit with Ethan.

May 17, 2017: Ugmonk "Gather" Desk Organiser Gather is a modular desk organiser that is being funded via Kickstarter. My inner-nerd says yes but as lovely as this organiser is I'm going to pass …

May 15, 2017: Simple rules I often fall into the trap of complicated systems. A simple rule works because I can have one of those completely mindless days and still stick to …

May 15, 2017: The basics ... ... are what we should always come back too.

May 10, 2017: Rebooting the morning routine The morning routine of reading, writing and planning is nothing more than a distant memory these days. I once used to start the day with some writing, …

May 10, 2017: Sunset over Paisley Golf Club Enjoyed a few holes with Ethan out on the course tonight.

May 9, 2017: A spreadsheet will do Over the weekend I closed my Highrise account. In case your not familiar with the name, Highrise is a CRM product for small businesses. It started …

May 9, 2017: Always have a book on the go ... ... and other essential reading basics from NB.

May 9, 2017: Slow down Execupundit reminds us to slow down. I find that I get more work done by slowing down. "Mindfulness" becomes a signpost. Taking pleasure in …

May 8, 2017: Did that thing where you write a series of related words that results in something of value. Will publish today. #amwriting

May 8, 2017: What to look for in a blog It's come to my attention that I am hardly the good faring blogging citizen I was a couple of years ago. This is going to change this week with a set …

May 7, 2017: Enjoyed the first episode of Jamestown. I can see me watching the rest of the series. It also fills the gap until Game of Thrones.

May 6, 2017: Just waiting for Guardians 2 to start.

May 5, 2017: Fixie Friday - Specialized Allez

May 2, 2017: Small wins Major gains.

May 2, 2017: Weekend Report #10 Just when I think we're out of the woods with winter, Drew gets a nasty cold. We skipped his Taekwondo this weekend as he was loaded. Thankfully he …

Apr 28, 2017: More client work today and enabling the daily themes for DailyMuse users today. First new feature for that in a long time!

Apr 28, 2017: Evil Following A bike for all occassions. And it looks menacing as hell!

Apr 28, 2017: Hello Micro.blog This week I finally got my invite to Micro.blog. A few months ago Manton Reece wrote about a project he was working on to bring together …

Apr 27, 2017: Client work lined up for today and some product work on DailyMuse. It’s been neglected in the last few weeks but I’m hoping to give it …

Apr 27, 2017: The integration of RSS feeds means that Micro.blog might just be the perfect place to host an account for your blog roll. A curated list of RSS feeds …

Apr 24, 2017: “Hello there beautiful listener.” - Best podcast intro ever.

Apr 21, 2017: Instagram business accounts require a Facebook page. Bizarre requirement. That’s the price of being owned by Facebook I guess.

Apr 19, 2017: I forgot how bloody great Muse are.

Apr 19, 2017: What a day. I’m mentally exhausted.

Apr 18, 2017: New LinkedIn design would be nice if it did away with those loading progress bars and spinners.

Apr 18, 2017: Coffee & Code The blogroll has been chirping about coffee shops. First it was Future Lawyer: First, some of us refuse to pay 3 to 5 dollars for a cup of coffee, so …

Apr 17, 2017: Social Media Shifts Social media is always on the change. They clamber over each other to promote their best features and in come cases even copy the features of social …

Apr 17, 2017: The Perfect System And yes, it's a one size fits all system.

Apr 17, 2017: The Real Star Although I didn't attend Star Wars Celebration, it was clear from many people online that this was the biggest thing to come out of the convention. …

Apr 15, 2017: First time watching #doctorwho in a whille. Better than I expected.

Apr 14, 2017: Any advice or thoughts on #bloggingburnout?

Apr 14, 2017: I used to be a consistent blogger. Frequent blog posts, sharing links from others and many other good stuff would be part of my blog.

Apr 14, 2017: I want to blog because I enjoy it. It starting to wear on me though.

Apr 14, 2017: I’m going to start a last attempt to post regularly next week. If it fails then I think it might be time to retire the blog ..

Apr 14, 2017: I’ve still not found a way of quickly posting to my blog and while that isn’t the main issue it is one part of the bigger problem.

Apr 14, 2017: Lately though it feels like a chore to do. It feels like too much hassle for little in return.

Apr 14, 2017: One thing about blogging with Ghost is that there are little in the way of automated tools and extensions.

Apr 14, 2017: .. or switch to something that makes it stupid easy for me to share stuff. I’m even considering Tumblr at this stage.

Apr 10, 2017: Back to work this morning and Rogue One is now available to watch on Apple TV. Nice timing Matthew.

Apr 7, 2017: Fixie Friday - Mockba 80 via Amy Danger

Apr 6, 2017: Don’t go anymore than three months without taking at least a week off.

Apr 6, 2017: Finally, schedule your next time off when you go back to work. Something to look forward to when you’re working again.

Apr 6, 2017: For the first time in a long time I feel completely rested. I think it’s been nearly a year since I felt like this.

Apr 6, 2017: If you are freelancing I recommend taking regular breaks from work. Look at it as an investment.

Apr 6, 2017: If you have to do any kind of work for your freelance business, keep it light. Admin work, review your website. That sort of thing.

Apr 6, 2017: It’s hard to take holidays when you don’t get paid for them but that’s all part of the freelancing life.

Apr 6, 2017: Tie in your time off with the rest of the family. Don’t be the parent/partner who’s always working.

Apr 6, 2017: Use the week to rest. I’ve enjoyed some golf this week and a walk down at Troon.

Apr 4, 2017: New iMacs on the way Great to hear that new iMacs are on the way. Regarding iMacs, Schiller also said that new iMacs are in the works, slated for release some time this …

Apr 4, 2017: The basics of productivity Basics or essentials? Either way, these are the foundations for anyone looking to level up. Bonus content at the Deep Productivity seminar in June for …

Apr 4, 2017: Weekend Report #9 Is it April already? Where did March go? Yip, it's been one of them months where it's over before it's even began. The last three weeks have …

Mar 28, 2017: Cookies and batch processing ... ... with Annie Mueller.

Mar 28, 2017: Stormcrow For serious tweet-storming on Twitter. I love this idea for an app as I hate trying to condense down a single thought into 140 characters. Hell, it …

Mar 28, 2017: The Cramped ... ... gets a new curator in the form of volunteer Shawn Mihalik.

Mar 24, 2017: Blogroll updated Added Annie Mueller to the list. Who's on your blogroll?

Mar 24, 2017: The Deep Productivity Seminar Yesterday I attended the Nicholas Bate's Deep Productivity seminar in Oxford. It was a great chance to meet a fellow and much respected blogger and at …

Mar 22, 2017: Bravery in brevity CJ Chilvers looks at the importance of being small and why avoiding the need to grow can be a good thing. I've written before about my love of small …

Mar 22, 2017: Medium memberships Medium announced it's paid tier called Memberships. I'm not convinced though. Sure it's great that Medium are finally charging for their product, but …

Mar 22, 2017: Oxford bound Driving down to Oxford this afternoon for tomorrow's Deep Productivity seminar with none other than Nicholas Bate himself. A great chance to meet and …

Mar 22, 2017: Subscribe improvements ... ... over at Feedbin. I love using Feedbin. Such a great RSS reader and the fact that they keep adding to it and improving it just keeps making it …

Mar 20, 2017: Coffeeshop etiquette Some essential coffeeshop tips and etiquette from the peeps over at DNSimple. When you order your first drink ask for it straight away. Having a good …

Mar 15, 2017: Chain of thought Lately I've been thinking a lot about marketing. While making my afternoon coffee I was running some editing changes through my head on a post I'm …

Mar 13, 2017: Indyref, Brexit, Trump and now Indyref2. Haven’t we been through the mill enough?

Mar 8, 2017: How Americans are still putting up with the Trumpster is beyond me. It must be infuriating as hell.

Mar 6, 2017: I remember when asking a question on Twitter would get you replies from real people. Now you get companies pinging for your business.

Mar 6, 2017: Back to work It's back to work for Ethan with the first RGU under 14s session of the year. Plenty to work on!

Mar 6, 2017: Weekend Report #8 Again, this was sitting in my drafts. Doh! The weekend was something of a blur. After a trip down to see a client and a few days back at my desk …

Mar 5, 2017: My kind of blogging The no-pressure kind. Manton Reece explains. I love that blogs can scale from the trivial to the important. The microblog post about what you had for …

Mar 5, 2017: New Ass-savers Might be time for another batch of these. The one on the Langster is starting to look a bit worse for wear and Drew is starting to cycle as well. …

Mar 4, 2017: Observations ... ... from our man in Arizona, Michael Wade. The best way to create magic is never to rely upon it. Be wary of those who think everything is driven by …

Mar 3, 2017: Holding off on an iMac purchase to see if any new models come out soon. What’s the chances of Apple releasing a curved iMac?

Mar 3, 2017: Installed .NET Core and Visual Studio Code. What could go wrong?

Mar 3, 2017: Looking for an agile friendly project management tool. Team have outgrown Trello. Looking at Jira and PivotalTracker. Any others I missed?

Mar 3, 2017: #playstationlive Fire arrow

Mar 3, 2017: Fixie Friday - Specialized Langster Pro Not mine, but the Pro track edition. Looks great with the wide bars on the front. via Hizoku Cycles

Mar 3, 2017: Patrick is nonline Patrick is now nonline for at least the next year. As of March 4, 2017 I’ve stopped all online publishing. This includes my websites and social media …

Mar 2, 2017: Being of a certain age, I can’t understand the comparison of Medium Series being a thinking man’s Snapchat story. Is it like a tweetstorm?

Mar 2, 2017: Cement factory to home When Ricardo Bofill stumbled upon a dilapidated cement factory in 1973, he immediately saw a world of possibilities. La fábrica was born, and almost …

Mar 2, 2017: Gunslingers ... ... re-imagined. via BoingBoing

Mar 2, 2017: Replacing Evernote with Bear Bear uses a simple three-paned design. The largest column is devoted to your current note. A smaller column to the left contains your notes in …

Mar 2, 2017: Rocket science ... ... it isn't.

Mar 1, 2017: Giving up and adding at Cultural Offering. While I am giving something up for Lent, I am also adding something. I am going to add more books. I am going to add longer …

Mar 1, 2017: Pro devices in the wild At the start of this week I was visiting a client for a catch up and a chance to go over a project I'm working on with them. It was great to hear from …

Feb 25, 2017: Drew on my new tee from Hollister - “Daddy, that’s a cool t-shirt!” - Kid has good taste.

Feb 23, 2017: Ghost on Indie Hackers We launched Ghost about 4 years ago with a $300,000 Kickstarter campaign. Today, it's a sustainable healthy independent business with $750,000 annual …

Feb 21, 2017: Alto's Odyssey trailer The sequel to Alto's adventure is coming soon. This will be one sequel that I know won't disappoint.

Feb 21, 2017: It all begins with ... ... coffee. Once I start the coffee I have five minutes to make sure the dog doesn’t chase the deer into the woods of get sprayed by a skunk. I shine …

Feb 20, 2017: Capturing the wild ... ... with Patrick Rhone. I’ve recently re-adopted something I learned in a high school creative writing class. I’ve been keeping a Field Notes …

Feb 20, 2017: Cool netbooks? I would love to see a return of some great quality and slim netbooks. I'm in the middle of assessing a new iMac to replace my MacBook Pro which means …

Feb 20, 2017: New notebooks ... ... deserve great content.

Feb 20, 2017: Weekly plan bars I've been having a successful run with the bullet journal and implementing Mike Rhode's daily plan bar but as a weekly view rather than a single day's …

Feb 19, 2017: Be nice if @tinyletter could allow new subscribers to select previous newsletters to be sent to their email address from the archive page.

Feb 19, 2017: Second newsletter of the year sent out using @tinyletter. Great product for managing a small newsletter.

Feb 17, 2017: Good blogs I'm bookmarking this as an essential. I'm surprised I haven't read this post before by Merlin Mann, but then it was a long time ago. Essential advice …

Feb 17, 2017: iPod to the rescue A story of one man and his music. Tonight I discovered that my music library has gone missing. I maintain a massive library on my computer - 46,680 …

Feb 17, 2017: Quick wins The complete list from Nicholas Bate.

Feb 17, 2017: Scaling Back For a long time I've wrestled with a number of different terminal apps and tools in the hope of improving my productivity at the command line. …

Feb 17, 2017: Test the list with Execupundit.

Feb 13, 2017: Just noticed the black navigation bar at the top of @github. Nice! 👍

Feb 9, 2017: An email just made my day. I wish I got more emails like that. Thank you sender (you know who you are!)

Feb 7, 2017: I’ve been wrestling with Macvim (and Vim), Tmux and trying to copy and paste for a few days. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Feb 7, 2017: Still rebooting my MBP to re-connect my bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It is 2017, right?

Feb 7, 2017: Watched the #superbowl2017 game last night. Great performance by the Pats in the 4Q. Do feel bad for the Falcons to lose out in overtime.

Feb 7, 2017: Plan the work Work the plan. It's all you need to know to get things done.

Feb 7, 2017: The art of Minecraft Amazing how people have put Minecraft to such a creative use. via kottke.org

Feb 7, 2017: The mid-life crisis bike I often joke with Jen that my mid-life crisis will involve buying a top-end mountain bike without telling her until I take it out the shed for it's …

Feb 7, 2017: Weekend Report #7 This weekend was something of a bust. It's that time of year when kids of a certain age turn from innocent little chaps and madams to plague carrying …

Feb 6, 2017: Didn’t stay up to watch the Super Bowl last night, but definitely going to watch this amazing Brady comeback later on tonight.

Feb 3, 2017: Essential reading material... ... from my man in British Columbia, Curtis McHale.

Feb 3, 2017: Fixie Friday - Ryan's Renovatio via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 30, 2017: Campfire chat I know, from reading my friend Kurt Harden’s blog, that we may not see completely eye-to-eye politically. But, a fact of which I’m absolutely certain …

Jan 30, 2017: Rockin'1000 does Smells Like Teen Spirit Amidst the chaos of the world, I was glad to be taken away for a few minutes with the Rockin'1000.

Jan 30, 2017: Thanks to Kurt ... ... for the recommendation Kurt. If you're looking for the newsletter, you can sign up here. Next edition drops on the 19th of February.

Jan 30, 2017: The profound effect of Deep Work Cal Newport's book Deep Work has been circling the blogs I follow for the past year. I finally took the time to read over the summer. It's such an …

Jan 26, 2017: And that’s why I would like to be able to edit my tweets.

Jan 25, 2017: Sketching some ideas Finally broke out the other stack of Field Notes notebooks I got with my Black Ice editions. Dedicating a notebook to sketching ideas for web based …

Jan 23, 2017: Less - the 2017 edition by Nicholas Bate.

Jan 22, 2017: Can’t dispute the fact that the Falcons are the better team though. #GBvsATL

Jan 22, 2017: Game over. #GBvsATL

Jan 22, 2017: Screw it. I’m switching over to something else. #GBvsATL

Jan 18, 2017: Bluetooth has given up on me again on MacOS.

Jan 17, 2017: Feels great to be human again. #manflugone

Jan 17, 2017: I had plans to buy a @iamspecialized Langster Street for my birthday next month, but it’s a US only model. 😖

Jan 17, 2017: Now I’m left with the choice of two Langster models that I’d rather not purchase and so must look elsewhere. Sorry @iamspecialized!

Jan 17, 2017: The bike industry is bad enough with it’s annual product cycle and “industry standards” without having to add market specific …

Jan 17, 2017: A lesson in building habits It's that time of year where people are starting to tail off on their new year resolutions. Let's face it, for most of us new year resolutions are …

Jan 17, 2017: Award for best planet ... ... goes to planet Earth.

Jan 16, 2017: Central heating on, four layers on, hot water bottle at my back and I’m still bloody freezing. #manflualert

Jan 15, 2017: A great start! #GBvsDAL #GoPackGo

Jan 15, 2017: Picked! #GBvsDAL

Jan 13, 2017: Tempted to buy the Nintendo Switch but I think I’ll wait until its release and then check it out and the games available.

Jan 12, 2017: Just discovered the “caret_” settings in Sublime Text. Bumping up the width for eyes to see it better.

Jan 11, 2017: I hope we get to see some of the features of the @dashboardapp app on @twitter this year.

Jan 11, 2017: Logitech K811 definitely not holding as much charge as it used to. Time for a new keyboard me thinks.

Jan 11, 2017: Productive morning at @BLENDTogether in Paisley with good music in the background. I should work here more often

Jan 11, 2017: Meaningful work Not all work will be meaningful. Some will be meaningful to others but not for you. Some, will be drudgery. Some, will be necessary. Some will just be …

Jan 11, 2017: Winston Churchill Tweeting Twitter might have it's drawbacks but it's power to condense ideas and thoughts into a single-tweet is actually something I like. If they do extend …

Jan 10, 2017: AskJeeves, Altavista and now Yahoo! We’re losing all those great website names from the early days of the Internet.

Jan 9, 2017: I’m always skeptical about acquisations but I think Trello is going to continue to grow at Atlassian.

Jan 8, 2017: Always good to discover a Ruby gem in a book from a couple of years ago and the gem is still actively maintained.

Jan 8, 2017: Judging by the tweets I’m not missing much. #oakvshou

Jan 8, 2017: Taken a while for Rodgers to hit his stride but finally, points on the board! #NYGvsGB

Jan 7, 2017: The Marvel Universe Live was great fun to watch and had plenty of action. Bit loud for Drew but he still enjoyed it.

Jan 6, 2017: Is it time somebody built a bootstrapped version of Medium?

Jan 6, 2017: Fixie Friday - State Bicycle Ashton 4130 Core Line

Jan 6, 2017: Get what you want ... ... this year with Nicholas Bate.

Jan 6, 2017: Rooted productivity Cal Newport touches on single root commitments and productivity. The solution to these issues is simple: maintain a single root commitment, that …

Jan 5, 2017: One of the best things you can do as a member of a dev team is to simply talk to each other on a regular basis.

Jan 5, 2017: 1000 words done for my first newsletter. Not a bad start. #amwriting

Jan 5, 2017: Medium still isn't for me I've wrote in the past about the blogging platform Medium and how I have issue with such a high volume of people writing under one roof and how the …

Jan 3, 2017: Announcing my monthly newsletter I'm starting a newsletter this year. Yes, I'm a bit late to the newsletter thing and yes this is probably another newsletter that you don't need, but …

Jan 3, 2017: The Weekend Report #6 Apologies. Missed a couple of these in November and December! After the feasting and festivities over Christmas, the New Year weekend was a chance to …

Jan 2, 2017: Building some goals for 2017? You might want to start with Nicholas Bate then.

Jan 2, 2017: May the force be with you ... ... for 2017. Sorry people, couldn't resist. via starwars.tumblr.com

Jan 2, 2017: More resolutions When everyone else is making resolutions to do things like less social media, less eating, less television, Kurt is making resolutions to do more. …

Jan 2, 2017: New micro-blogging service Manton Reece is launching a new microblogging service and a book about independent microblogging. I didn't even need to think about backing this. I've …

Jan 1, 2017: Happy new year!

Jan 1, 2017: 4yo stayed in his bed until 9am. I hope to God that’s his New Year resolution for 2017.

Dec 31, 2016: Same old schedule by @bbcscotland. #onlyanexcuse and #jackiebird. Absolute dire.

Dec 30, 2016: Like the idea of topics for #twitter2017. Lists could be replaced by these.

Dec 29, 2016: New year essentials ... ... for an awesome 2017. It finally 'clicks' that you don't need much stuff-at all-to be very, very happy. And in fact paradoxically too much stuff …

Dec 29, 2016: The essentials of daily logging Michael Wade just provided the best daily logging template for my Hobonichi Techo for 2017.

Dec 28, 2016: Be nice if you could filter out Twitter’s Moments based on their category. Moments is quite good but more personalised news would be better.

Dec 28, 2016: Clearing the decks With the new year just around the corner, it's always a good time to clear the decks and start afresh. A few things I'll be doing today: Organising …

Dec 27, 2016: Carrie Fisher dies at 60 Saddened to hear that Carrie Fisher has passed away at the age of 60. It wasn't until a few years ago that I was aware of her career off screen, …

Dec 24, 2016: The Browns win! There is such a thing as the Christmas miracle then.

Dec 23, 2016: #MINvsGB tomorrow. Disappointed it’s not on @skysportsnfl. Will watch the other game tomorrow anyway and wait for the updates to come in.

Dec 23, 2016: The turkey is in, the kitchen is stocked. Just a few presents to wrap and we’re all set in the Lang house!

Dec 22, 2016: All client work wrapped up. Slack turned off. Holidays can officially start now!

Dec 21, 2016: The spirits of a classic Fascinating how many times this classic has been illustrated. I began my annual tradition of reading A Christmas Carol last night. A chapter a night …

Dec 19, 2016: The enigma ... ... that is Nicholas Bate.

Dec 17, 2016: #rogueone was amazing!

Dec 17, 2016: The future adds a zero Except that messages now travel 50 times faster than they used to, sent to us by 100 times as many people as we grew up expecting. Except that we're …

Dec 16, 2016: Headphones too expensive to lose When I first heard about Apple's AirPods I thought they were a joke. Honestly. After all they're EarPods with the wires lopped off. What happens if …

Dec 16, 2016: Level up There comes a point in your career when you can no longer coast along just punching in and out and doing a day's work. Nobody tell's when that time …

Dec 15, 2016: Evernote - Time to move on? So apparently Evernote employees now have the ability to read the notes in your Evernote account. There is an opt-out feature in the settings but I …

Dec 15, 2016: Time tracking - A valuable metric Curtis McHale explains why tracking your hours as a business owner can improve the health of your business. Tracking your time will also help you …

Dec 15, 2016: Trailer for Dunkirk via The Verge

Dec 14, 2016: An honour ... ... to be included in a list of such fine and esteemed bloggers. Many thanks Kurt.

Dec 14, 2016: Otterbox Chargers and Headphones My favourite mobile phone case company Otterbox are now expanding their product line to include chargers and headphones. I'm pretty much tied to my …

Dec 14, 2016: Small wins ... ... are the best wins.

Dec 14, 2016: The Cyclist's Christmas Wish List I'd take the Kona Cinder Cone purely for nostalgia reasons. They are bloody great bikes.

Dec 14, 2016: Timepage 2.0 Update My favourite calendar app, Timepage, has just been released with a number of particularly nice features. Theme colours The themes preferences screen …

Dec 8, 2016: I’ve noticed Firefox running really slow on my MBP these days.

Dec 8, 2016: Alto's Odyssey Looking forward to the sequel to Alto's Adventure. Games on my phone are a rarity but Alto's Adventure are the types of game that make it.

Dec 8, 2016: Get It Done Right Michael Wade reminds us to get it done ... right. In all of the rush to get it done, meet the deadline, finish it so you can move on to something …

Dec 8, 2016: Paper Is Not Broken Patrick Rhone imparts some much needed opinions on the argument that paper is broken. But I’m here to tell you that paper is not broken. I refuse to …

Dec 6, 2016: I’ll let it slide for this half of the series. I hope it picks up after the holidays when it comes back on.

Dec 6, 2016: Last night’s episode of #twd was another long drawn out affair. Is this how it is now? Start big, trudge along and then finish big?

Dec 5, 2016: Never underestimate the benefits of your past software development experience.

Dec 5, 2016: Now I’m using some of that knowledge to build a “light” ERP application with Ruby on Rails.

Dec 5, 2016: There should be an option to chain tweets together rather than do this “reply to self” thing. #justsaying

Dec 5, 2016: Worked with Dynamics NAV for a few years building and maintaining ERP applications for clients.

Dec 5, 2016: A Little Inconvience Is Okay When you notice something is affecting your drive, find a way to adjust your environment. Even if it’s a little inconvenient to others. — Titlting My …

Dec 5, 2016: Don't Forget To Schedule Life I was on one of those consulting projects that seemed fine months earlier when it went on my calendar. My opinion changed as I dodged traffic and …

Dec 3, 2016: The $500 E Ink Gamble Another attempt to replace paper with a tablet. This time it's the turn of a $500 E Ink tablet. Pricey I'm sure you'll agree and given that you can …

Dec 3, 2016: The Last Of Us Part 2 Trailer Finally some real news about The Last of Us sequel. As you might know from reading this blog I'm a huge fan of the first part of this game. The …

Nov 30, 2016: It doesn’t get said enough. @dnsimple’s service and support are amazing.

Nov 30, 2016: Considering Spark Lately my email has been getting the better of me. Despite numerous attempt are curbing email, I still get quite a number of emails each day. Even if …

Nov 30, 2016: Netflix Adds Offline Mode Parents with young kids on long haul flights rejoice! In all seriousness though, it's about time Netflix added this feature. It's surprising how many …

Nov 29, 2016: Another Social Network Entrant Gab aims to be an honest and open network for people to converse online. Their basic features appear to be great. Honestly though, what are the …

Nov 29, 2016: It's never too late... ... to set those goals. You should have your goals and major projects decided before November begins, but starting today is better than some planned …

Nov 28, 2016: “Even though Paul isn’t a professional unboxer, he’s a great entertainer.” - Professional unboxing? I had no idea there was such a thing.

Nov 28, 2016: Rogue One tickets booked. Plumped for the Saturday morning showing. Can’t wait!

Nov 28, 2016: Love Mondays Nicholas Bate reminds us that Mondays are for those who take action. Are simply there to sort the leaders from the followers, the serious from the …

Nov 28, 2016: Rogue One Reminder Tickets are on sale today for Rogue One. With the kids in tow we went for the Saturday morning rather than the Friday night. Also it will be Drew's …

Nov 28, 2016: The MacBook Pro - Great for Hackers It struck me odd how so many people took to the Internet announcing their disgust that the new MacBook Pro isn't made for developers. One particular …

Nov 25, 2016: Chatbooks Your Instagram pictures printed to photo books. Love it.

Nov 25, 2016: Newsletter Coming Soon I can't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post but in case I didn't here's an update. I will be starting a monthly newsletter in January. The …

Nov 25, 2016: The Ideal Gift For those that like notebooks and the Beatles.

Nov 25, 2016: The Simplest Pleasures Courtesy of Nicholas Bate.

Nov 25, 2016: Who Are You Following? Who's on your blogroll?

Nov 25, 2016: Why Notebooks Work For Me This week I've highlighted the three notebooks I am using to replace my task manager app. The reason that I find that notebooks work so well is …

Nov 24, 2016: Sidetracked with Sidetrack Installed Sidetrack this morning as a way of reading my RSS feeds from Feedbin. Loving it so far.

Nov 24, 2016: The Logging Notebook When it comes to getting things done the focus is always on what needs done and when you can do it. Without these two you would end up with the wrong …

Nov 23, 2016: Anonymus Blogging The makers of Telegram have launched a blogging platform called Telegram. Yes, it could be used by nefarious internet trolls, but I would like to …

Nov 23, 2016: Meeting Patrick Thanks for the lunch and afternoon in London Patrick! One down, four to go.

Nov 23, 2016: The 100 Most Influential Images Of All Time Selected by Time magazine to be the most influential images of all time. Warning. Some people may find some of these images distressing. The complete …

Nov 23, 2016: The Bullet Journal Bullet journalling has been around for a few years now, but it's only now that I've decided to start a bullet journal of my own. The bullet journal is …

Nov 23, 2016: The Don't List All the things you shouldn't be doing. via Nicholas Bate

Nov 23, 2016: The Surveillance State Intrusive snooping by the government or a necessary action? The legislation in question is called the Investigatory Powers Bill. It’s been cleared by …

Nov 22, 2016: Trello to JIRA. What’s the advantages from a client (product owner) perspective?

Nov 22, 2016: Bye Bye Black Friday I'm glad to see that the much hyped part of the retail year, Black Friday, is falling out of favour with buyers. But there’s something else …

Nov 22, 2016: The Pocket Notebook I've been carrying a pocket notebook with me everywhere I go for the last few years but it hasn't been until this year that I really started to use it …

Nov 21, 2016: An Execupundit Tradition For Thanksgiving Day on Thursday.

Nov 21, 2016: Belle Is Planning And here's her setup.

Nov 21, 2016: Moving To An Analog Task Management System A few weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and stop using Todoist as my task manager. As you know I'm a big fan of Todoist and it wasn't easy making …

Nov 21, 2016: Rogue One Expansion Pack Coming Soon The Rogue One movie is coming out soon and so is the last expansion pack for Star Wars Battlefront. For the first time an expansion pack will feature …

Nov 21, 2016: Time To Replace Twitter? Not a month goes by now without criticism of Twitter and it's walled garden network. I really don’t like that we are all putting our content, …

Nov 18, 2016: Took advantage of the @ynotmade sale and put an order in for a Laneway backpack. My Gulper is great but too big for off-the-bike use.

Nov 17, 2016: First Todoist and now Any.do are adding AI to their task managers. Is it really that hard to manage a set of tasks?

Nov 17, 2016: Somone convince me this blogging malarkey is worth doing.

Nov 16, 2016: Wouldn’t mind seeing my Twitter lists added as filters to my timeline. Be nice to just switch between contextual timelines.

Nov 16, 2016: AI For Your Todo List Todoist has just anounced a new feature to their task management platform, Smart Schedule. Smart Schedule uses predictive modeling to help you easily …

Nov 16, 2016: Jagged Success comes from two simple realisations. NB explains.

Nov 16, 2016: Japanese Calendar I've got the planner, next is the calendar (and of course being able to speak Japanese). via SwissMiss

Nov 15, 2016: Guerrilla Bike Tactics Great to see the city officials in San Francisco and Seattle responding positively to the need for more bike lines. When two cyclists were tragically …

Nov 14, 2016: No super moon last night, just the Scottish equivalent. Super cloudy skies and rain.

Nov 13, 2016: What is going on in Tennessee? #GBvsTEN

Nov 9, 2016: How are my fellow Canadians taking the news of the election results? @curtismchale?

Nov 8, 2016: Can still hear #easystreet from last night’s #twd.

Nov 8, 2016: Mike on Notebooks Mike Vardy shares his thoughts on Medium on why he uses notebooks. Ultimately, however, I use notebooks to connect with the things that are most …

Nov 8, 2016: The Four Quadrants Great advice by Curtis McHale and at a great time too. 2017 is just around the corner.

Nov 7, 2016: If I block every account when I see their ad in Twitter, will I eventually have an ad free timeline? #wishfulthinking

Nov 7, 2016: Digital Morning Pages Again For over a year now I've been writing my morning pages by hand. At first the exercise was all about moving away from the growing stack of digital …

Nov 7, 2016: Fireworks Some great moments captured from Friday night's fireworks over Glasgow.

Nov 7, 2016: Habit Calendar Another nifty kickstarter idea. A calendar for building habits. via Swiss Miss

Nov 7, 2016: The Execupundit Show The pilot is coming folks. I can't wait.

Nov 7, 2016: Time to Ditch Time Zones? A fair argument about abolishing timezones and the whole planet using Coordinated Universal Time. I like this reason the most though for ditching …

Nov 6, 2016: First mince pie consumed. Couldn’t hold out any longer.

Nov 4, 2016: Convinced 4yo is going for a record. He’s watched “Wreck-it Ralph” 4 times this week and nothing else.

Nov 4, 2016: What a nightmare. There’s no belgian bun emoji.

Nov 4, 2016: Reading again Nice prompt from NB to start reading again. Read deep again. Read the original not the news article puffery. Read the classics. Read difficult stuff. …

Nov 4, 2016: The Case for Big Business Who knew that so many positives can come out of big business? For one thing, he says, big companies have the ability to create jobs. Under Armour now …

Nov 2, 2016: Considering starting a monthly newsletter for next year. One essay a month on a general topic with a few links to round up.

Nov 2, 2016: Instapaper in now free, the new MBP has no SD card slot and IFTTT has renamed their recipes to applets. Dark days ahead.

Nov 2, 2016: Tempted to separate personal and work emails. I would still use a single inbox but just apply filters for each type of email.

Nov 1, 2016: Instapaper is free. Not entirely convinced this is a good thing.

Nov 1, 2016: The @FieldNotesBrand order confirmation email is actually pretty slick with the graph paper background image.

Nov 1, 2016: Well premium subscriptions are free now.

Nov 1, 2016: Driving Range Practice Another practice session at the driving range with Ethan. Glad to see him improving and still enjoying it.

Nov 1, 2016: In the Future I don't know about you but the Execupundit drive-time show trumps them all.

Nov 1, 2016: North American Holidays There's a lot of things I love about living in the UK. Beautiful scenery within an easy drive, great golf courses, bearable weather through the winter …

Nov 1, 2016: Stoking the Creative Fire It's time to get out there. "If you get out of your daily routine—which for most of us is being on social media, or your laptop and phone—and …

Oct 31, 2016: Benjamin Button Reviews the new MacBook Pro Brilliant. Just brilliant. The most obvious change is the redesigned keyboard. Removing the Touchbar creates room for a row of physical function …

Oct 31, 2016: New Ideas for Twitter Love these. Especially the news page.

Oct 31, 2016: Pumpkins This year's pumpkins went down quite well.

Oct 31, 2016: Rhoneisms I love Patrick Rhone's approach to his online writing. Much like Henry David Thoreau had three chairs in his house, I’ve come to realize that I …

Oct 31, 2016: The Stream I'm still finding my feet with consistent blogging but there may be something to what Patrick Rhone is doing with his Rhoneisms. My personal site is …

Oct 29, 2016: Enough Drama The dust has finally settled from Apple's announcements. The world has returned to what it once was, but for a moment there it seemed that the drama …

Oct 28, 2016: Lesson from Vine. No platform or network is immune from being shut down.

Oct 28, 2016: Apple vs Microsoft: A Win for Both Many might see the recent annoucements by Micrsoft and Apple as a win for Micrsoft and who can argue. The company are finally interesting again and …

Oct 27, 2016: Pockethub? Pocketpaper? Pocketslack?

Oct 27, 2016: Switched to both Pocket and Pocket Casts in the last couple of days. New goal. Only use services with Pocket in the title.

Oct 24, 2016: At this point I couldn’t care who bought Twitter. Just as long as someone makes the decision to kill it, commit it or transform it.

Oct 24, 2016: Avoiding my timeline today, so opting to use the Twitter widget in Notifications Centre to post today.

Oct 24, 2016: Aviemore Break Upon a friend's recommendation we took a break last year to Aviemore. We had such a great time last year we decided to head back again this year. We …

Oct 24, 2016: The first three pages ... ... are the most important.

Oct 20, 2016: Much love on Twitter for the Nintendo Switch. Was not expecting that response at all.

Oct 17, 2016: 19 minutes to cancel my account on Siteground. As cancellation processes go, it probably the worst one I’ve experienced.

Oct 17, 2016: Siteground chat duration - 9 minutes. Account still not deleted.

Oct 14, 2016: NFL season has been great so far. What a finish in the #DENvsSD game last night.

Oct 14, 2016: #notagitcommand git stash poop

Oct 14, 2016: What started as an ordering application for a client is slowly turning into a full-blown ERP Rails application. Quite a challenge.

Oct 14, 2016: Fancy a new bike? Get over to the Robin Williams bike auction and get your bid in. Some truly classic bikes!

Oct 14, 2016: Fixie Friday - Bishop Bikes Raw NAHBS Track Skinny tubes. Raw finish. Love it. via Bishop Bikes Sorry, I'm a week late with this one, but you can't rush a good fixie!

Oct 13, 2016: Drew’s chasing the window cleaner round the windows of the house. I hope he doesn’t make him fall off his ladder.

Oct 13, 2016: I’m not actually in London. Twitter web client just thinks I am.

Oct 13, 2016: Twitter has gone electoral map crazy.

Oct 13, 2016: Dictators beware! Good to see technology being put to good use. A Swiss journalist has created a Twitter bot that tracks dictators’ flights to and from Geneva, as part …

Oct 13, 2016: Just Blogging The last year has been a real struggle here on the blog. Inconsistent posting and a lack of direction is to blame. Or so I would think. Over two years …

Oct 13, 2016: Star Wars Rogue One Trailer #2 Seriously. Why isn't it December the 16th yet?

Oct 13, 2016: The Red Bull Foxhunt An insane format but great fun to watch.

Oct 11, 2016: Essential Marketing Advice Curtis McHale has the three step process for marketing your business. Blog, podcast and meet people. The primary thing you need to do is blog. Write …

Oct 11, 2016: The DailyMuse Facelift Development of my DailyMuse service has been lagging in the last year. Sure I've shipped a few features for users, but other than that I've just not …

Oct 6, 2016: Share Your OPML? Dave Winer may be kick-starting an old service. Share Your OPML. In 2006 I had a web service called Share Your OPML. It was fun. It was a way to see …

Oct 5, 2016: Virtual Tea This is wrong. A blatant mis-use of technology.

Oct 5, 2016: Zen Writing Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has the lowdown on how to write every day. And it all starts with a reason. Most important: Have a great reason. The rest …

Oct 4, 2016: Effortless Results ... ... from Michael Wade.

Oct 4, 2016: Here Comes Iron First Netflix's fourth superhero series will air in March 2017. I started watching Luke Cage last night, but Daredevil is still my favourite.

Oct 4, 2016: Just Fine I've been rebooting a few habits and processes over the last few weeks and one emerging trend from all this is that I'm going back to basics. Instead …

Oct 3, 2016: The ultimate fail. A web design company with a web address but no website.

Oct 3, 2016: Essentials ... ... from an essential blog to follow. Of course it's Nicholas Bate.

Oct 3, 2016: Pirates Trailer Still love these movies. via The Verge

Oct 3, 2016: Ryder Cup 2016 Sketchnotes I haven't done any sketchnotes for a while but seeing Mike Rohde's great Packers game sketchnotes got me curious about doing the same for the Ryder …

Oct 3, 2016: The Weekend Report #5 Working on Friday right down the to wire again and then a quick turn around to get ready to go out for dinner and celebrate my Dad's birthday. Caffe …

Oct 2, 2016: Apple family sharing, iTunes app and Music app. A combination of apps and preferences that results in a complete nightmare.

Oct 2, 2016: Hard not to see that USA will hold onto their lead in the Ryder Cup. Can’t dispute it’s been great golf to watch though.

Oct 2, 2016: Hilarious hearing the American fans cheering for shots and then the backspin kicks in! #RyderCup

Oct 1, 2016: What a putt! #RyderCup

Sep 30, 2016: Chasing bugs in my code due to my many different typos of the word ‘denomination’.

Sep 30, 2016: I had no idea you could change the colour of task categories in @highrise.

Sep 30, 2016: Changing Productivity Curtis McHale on the placebo that continually changing your productivity tools offers and why it's best to stick with the basics. For a time a new …

Sep 30, 2016: Game of Thrones on iBooks A Game of Thrones is now available on iBooks. A must buy!

Sep 30, 2016: Raspbian Pixel Still don't own a Raspberry Pi, but the benefits of having one are far outweighing the drawbacks now. Especially with this new look and feel for the …

Sep 28, 2016: Gap in the Themes Market? Over the last few weeks I've been looking at themes for Wordpress and Ghost. Now it's easy to say that Wordpress has a clear advantage over Ghost. …

Sep 27, 2016: A designer/developer could make a nice sideline income from Ghost themes by just keeping them up to date with Ghost releases.

Sep 27, 2016: Can’t wait for @HMRCgovuk to move to one fecking site. Nightmare having to jump between two different sites.

Sep 27, 2016: How many times before I click “I don’t like this ad” until @twitter decides to block ads from my account?

Sep 27, 2016: New Daring release I released a new version of the Ghost theme I use for this blog last night. In an effort to kickstart the blogging habit again, I looked at my blog …

Sep 25, 2016: Great play by the Redskins. #WASvsNYG

Sep 25, 2016: It’s taken 3 complete quarters but this game is starting to pick up. #WASvsNYG

Sep 22, 2016: Tabs everywhere in macOS. Will take some getting used too.

Sep 22, 2016: Tabs in Sublime Text 3 are a nice welcome though. Shame the ST3 update wiped my custom icon 😬

Sep 21, 2016: Having one those days where I could quite easily hit the “delete account” button for most of the services I use.

Sep 21, 2016: Wordpress hosting recommendations please? Dreamhost? Siteground? Also what themes are y’all using?

Sep 20, 2016: A Wordpress theme that doesn’t display the title for each post in the posts index and each individual post page. FFS.

Sep 20, 2016: Spaces found after noticing keyboard shortcut is different.

Sep 20, 2016: Where the hell are spaces in macOS?

Sep 20, 2016: Need help writing a book? Wally Bock has you covered with your first six steps towards a published book. Long before any writing starts, most authors spend a great deal of …

Sep 20, 2016: Start small Start small. Start with just the smallest version of your idea and a way to manually make it happen. You can automate later. You can add more to it …

Sep 20, 2016: Zombie email To get yourself into the groove of batching, try blocking out two to three daily email check-in times on your calendar, perhaps 30 minutes a piece. If …

Sep 18, 2016: Disappointing game tonight on @SkySportsNFL. Low score, little offence. #CINvsPIT

Sep 18, 2016: Finally. Some good offensive plays. #CINvsPIT

Sep 16, 2016: Low tech productivity tips by Nicholas Bate.

Sep 16, 2016: Tempted Tempted to back this laptop stand that adjusts in height. Currently I have a Griffin laptop stand that sits at a significant distance below my …

Sep 15, 2016: Can anyone recommend good examples of Ruby on Rails open source applications with good READMEs and docs etc?

Sep 14, 2016: I haven’t swiped to unlock on iOS10 yet.

Sep 14, 2016: Restarted the Mail app to fix the font size issues. My only glitch from the iOS10 update.

Sep 14, 2016: So you can delete most those iOS apps you never use like Stocks but for some reason you can’t delete Photo Booth from the iPad. Bizarre.

Sep 13, 2016: Looks like I’ll be dusting off my Rspec-fu in the next couple of weeks. Been a good few years since I last used it.

Sep 13, 2016: Safari beachballing on the Github site again. Appears to be a recurring issue.

Sep 13, 2016: iOS 10 is near and MacStories has a complete run down of the upgrade.

Sep 13, 2016: More hardtail fun Singletrack review the Ritchey Timberwolf. Looks great.

Sep 12, 2016: Be refreshing to see a few Wordpress themes that are slider free.

Sep 12, 2016: Is an Aeron still the developers chair of choice?

Sep 12, 2016: When did Wordpress sites become so bloody confusing to use? Oh yeah, when every theme had to have a bloody slider on it.

Sep 11, 2016: I didn’t think it was going to be this close. #GBvsJAX

Sep 11, 2016: Nice catch Cobb! #GBvsJAX

Sep 11, 2016: Phew! Close one. #GBvsJAX

Sep 11, 2016: Week 1 game? More like a playoff game. #GBvsJAX

Sep 10, 2016: Getting some Overwatch tips from Ethan. Great having a gamer in the family.

Sep 10, 2016: Less than 24 hours now until I get Sunday night football back. Also glad the first game on is the @packers.

Sep 9, 2016: Start the weekend ... ... with the Friday link pack courtesy of Swissmiss.

Sep 7, 2016: Got a Mac Mini from late 2014 with 2.6 i5 and 8GB. It is ridiculously slow to start up. Never been able to fix it.

Sep 7, 2016: Time to turn off Twitter for the next few hours.

Sep 6, 2016: Building a page of local and remote freelance designers and developers. I would rather refer work to someone else than just turning it down.

Sep 6, 2016: Just discovered the in? method in Rails.

Sep 6, 2016: Onza are back ... ... and they're making bikes. Proper beautifully made mountain bikes as well! Kind of makes me wish I had a grand and a half burning a hole in my …

Sep 5, 2016: Back to school continues ... ... with projects. Pick one today and start. Simple.

Sep 5, 2016: Finding out why Derek Sivers asks why. But whatever you decide, you need to optimize for that, and be willing to let go of the others. — Why are you doing? by Derek …

Sep 5, 2016: My First Wearable - The Fitbit Alta A few weeks ago my wife bought a Fitbit Alta. She’s been on a health kick for the last couple of months and she wanted an easier way of tracking …

Sep 5, 2016: Need a new clipboard manager? A clipboard manager doesn't sound like a mega-useful app to have on your Mac but Tapbot are aiming to change with the beta release of their Pastebot …

Sep 2, 2016: At long last ... ... some worthy bike upgrades. The DMR V-Twin pedals.

Sep 2, 2016: Can't wait ... ... to see the outcome of Michael Wade's new project.

Sep 2, 2016: Fixie Friday - 8bar FHAIN Black. White. Simple. via 8bar Bikes

Sep 2, 2016: It's back to school ... ... for everyone.

Sep 2, 2016: Time to breathe A little reminder that we all need time to breathe. One of my favourite words has always been ‘desultory’ as coupled with the idea of pottering about …

Aug 31, 2016: Dropbox account deleted. Rarely used it these past few months anyway.

Aug 30, 2016: First thing I noticed was all the instances of poor code I had written. Bad design, object naming, syntax use etc. #learningdeveloper

Aug 30, 2016: Forgot how great the sunspot gem is for interacting with the Solr search engine. Great DSL and actively maintained.

Aug 30, 2016: Nothing marks your learning progression with a programming language than reviewing older code you wrote. #learningdeveloper #end

Aug 30, 2016: Second thing I noticed is how I would have written the poor code now with all the experience I’ve picked up. #learningdeveloper

Aug 30, 2016: Started work this week on a Rails app I last worked on a few years ago. #learningdeveloper

Aug 30, 2016: Saying Goodbye to Evernote Ian Dick writes about his farewell to Evernote. This year though a couple of things changed. Firstly Evernote tweaked there prices so I’d be paying …

Aug 30, 2016: Star Wars Album Covers I love these. Mashups of classic albums with Star Wars. via kottke.org

Aug 30, 2016: The Weekend Report #4 Still taking it easy from my back spasming out last month. It's put a lot of things on hold but I'm getting back to normal. As a result there wasn't …

Aug 24, 2016: Goodbye Vesper The notes app Vesper has closed down. I wasn't a user of Vesper but I did give it a try just over a year ago. I'm never happy to see a product close …

Aug 24, 2016: Instapaper acquired by Pinterest I'm on the fence about this. Products and companies get acquired all the time. The concern that many have is that Instapaper will eventually be pulled …

Aug 24, 2016: Is blogging dead? I've been asking that question myself for the last few weeks. I've been searching for a way to kickstart my own blogging habits again. I often …

Aug 24, 2016: Need some music to work too? The 50 best film scores have been compiled over at the Playlist and feature scores from movies such as The Dark Knight, Solaris and the Ocean's …

Aug 23, 2016: Great, now I’m mechanical keyboard shopping. #geeklife

Aug 23, 2016: Pinterest acquires Instapaper. I really hope Pinterest allow Instapaper to run as is.

Aug 23, 2016: Quit Safari. Start Safari. Github page opens. groan

Aug 23, 2016: Safari beach balling when I open up a client’s repo on Github. It’s gonna be one of them days.

Aug 23, 2016: Wanted: A folder in the iOS Photos app that deletes photos older than 30 days.

Aug 23, 2016: Dropping Todoist for a while For a while there has been a nagging at the back of my mind. Am I really getting the full use from my to-do list? Two people have made me question …

Aug 23, 2016: The most overpriced box set ever $800 for the new box set of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. It's hard to see what you're really getting for your money on this one. I won't be …

Aug 23, 2016: The oldest trick in the book? Or is it just common sense? During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his simple method for achieving peak productivity: At the end …

Aug 23, 2016: Write that book Find a reason and write.

Aug 19, 2016: Quality control Finally starting to see some positive moves from Twitter. Be great if they could make it easier for the majority of us to verify our accounts as well. …

Aug 18, 2016: The boy is getting No Man’s Sky for his birthday in a few weeks. I wish his birthday would roll round faster. I’m desperate to play it.

Aug 18, 2016: They should just call it anti-social media.

Aug 17, 2016: Looking forward to playing a few holes with Ethan tonight at @PaisleyGolfClub.

Aug 17, 2016: More Potter books on the way Not the copious tomes I was hoping for but I'll take it.

Aug 17, 2016: More than just a list If you want it done, it must be scheduled. If it’s not scheduled, it’s just another item on your wishlist that will never be completed. — Time To Kill …

Aug 15, 2016: The leap of faith It's great to see movie crews and especially stunt performers, going to extraordinary lengths to get shots like this for movies. Can't wait to see …

Aug 9, 2016: It doesn’t happen very often but it’s an effing pain when it does happen.

Aug 8, 2016: Thanks to Charlene at @paisleyphysio. Back treatment is going great. What a difference from a week ago!

Aug 8, 2016: Batman vs Superman concept art Amazing work here for the movie. I particularly like the foldable spear. via Ian Dick

Aug 8, 2016: The love-hate relationship with Medium I'm still on the fence about Medium. Despite having an account there and no stories posted I still get people following me. Sure I get what Medium is …

Aug 5, 2016: Fixie Friday - YES Singlespeed via YES BIKES

Aug 4, 2016: Earn that title A reminder from Derek Sivers that you need to continually do the work to earn that title. By using a title without still doing the work, you fool …

Aug 3, 2016: My Web Development Tools - 2016 Edition The world is going gaga for mobile apps. They are seen as the most accessible form of software and the market for them has moved at a considerable …

Aug 2, 2016: Ending the day here on Twitter with a little revelation. I’m actually enjoying using Twitter again.

Aug 2, 2016: Looking forward to my physio tomorrow to get my back into working order. It’s been a nightmare couple of days having restricted mobility.

Aug 2, 2016: My Desktop Development Tools - 2016 Edition Desktop apps are my main tools when it comes to web development. A browser, a terminal and an editor. That’s the absolute minimum applications that I …

Aug 1, 2016: Post scheduling in @TryGhost. Excellent!

Aug 1, 2016: Thanks to @paisleyphysio for the back treatment this morning. It’s done wonders for my mobility!

Aug 1, 2016: Are Your Tasks Competing? NB's Productivity series continues ... Among competing tasks the one with the highest long-term pay-off should be selected. — Productivity 12 by …

Aug 1, 2016: My Hardware Development Tools - 2016 Edition For this week I’m going to focus on the different development tools I use and why I chose them. Today we're going to look ay my hardware line up. It …

Aug 1, 2016: The Weekend Report #3 Ethan had a fun night at Paisley Golf Club with the rest of the kids that get coaching there on the Friday night. Hats off to Andy Carlton and …

Jul 31, 2016: A 58" wedge makes a not bad wee walking stick when you put your back out. #golftipsforlife

Jul 29, 2016: Hardtail hooligans ... ... are going to love this.

Jul 28, 2016: Get Creating Read Nicholas Bate.

Jul 27, 2016: Cut-off Turning my ideas into reality is what I want the most out of life. So that’s what gives me the deepest happiness. Then I realized that all the best, …

Jul 27, 2016: Facebook Blogging? Blogging on Facebook. A chance for the masses to have more of a say online or just another way to keep people in the walled garden of Zuckerberg? I …

Jul 27, 2016: Need Help? May be Patrick can help you?

Jul 27, 2016: Problems with Twitter It appears that Twitter is dying. It's losing money and credibility. John A De Goes looks at the major problem Twitter has. It's a product.

Jul 26, 2016: Picky date time pickers. The bane of web devs everywhere.

Jul 25, 2016: Anyone using one of those Gigabyte boxes for web development? Looking to build a linux box for mostly web development.

Jul 25, 2016: First day back to work after four weeks off. Am gonna coffee … lots and lots of coffee.

Jul 22, 2016: Another round of golf with Ethan yesterday. He played great, I played crap. I really should learn how to hit my driver better.

Jul 22, 2016: Miniture NES pre-ordered. I have to keep telling myself it’s a Christmas present for my youngest and not for me.

Jul 22, 2016: View from the desk I had a great time with Ethan yesterday playing at Paisley Golf Club.

Jul 20, 2016: Back to work on Monday, but using this week to get the decks cleared and ready.

Jul 20, 2016: Seriously @twitter. Take my money and stop the ads.

Jul 20, 2016: Is Your Product Easy to Duplicate? For many software developers, rolling your own version of a product is a tempting thing to do. You might want to add your own feature to the product …

Jul 19, 2016: All the Same Today, right now, anyone with a $300 laptop can use the very same tools as the people at the top of just about any industry. — The very same software …

Jul 19, 2016: Always the Same or Free An interesting point about technology companies and how even just a small price change can have a negative impact on customer numbers. Hastings …

Jul 19, 2016: Hello Simplenote For a long time I’ve been looking for a notes application for myself. The criteria for such an application are simple: It must be available on at …

Jul 19, 2016: New Star Trek Television Series And on the topic of Netflix: Star Trek fans around the world clamoring for CBS' new take on the universe have an unexpected party to thank for the …

Jul 19, 2016: White-board for the win? Of course. Get the big picture.

Jul 14, 2016: Run up to flying home begins. Just about to head to the airport. It’s been a great three weeks but Ethan is itching to get back to the golf.

Jul 13, 2016: And on the topic of sports-related hobbies, I’ll be hoping to joining a golf club in October. It’s a great way of spending time with …

Jul 13, 2016: Any recommendations on hosting docs for an open source Rails application? Github pages? Read the docs etc

Jul 13, 2016: Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. Is that a joke?

Jun 28, 2016: The List Productivity advice for the real world from Nicholas Bate.

Jun 28, 2016: The Weekend Report #2 Friday. Wrapped up client work and finished up packing for the holiday. Saturday was a long day travelling with the family. It was the first time I …

Jun 27, 2016: Interesting hearing a non-UK view on the England team.

Jun 24, 2016: Going to try and block out the news for a while and get some work done.

Jun 24, 2016: Last day of client work before downing tools for four weeks. A good time to get away I think.

Jun 23, 2016: Great to see @path getting regular updates. Love the new #pathdaily feature.

Jun 21, 2016: Disappointed that #downloadingdengar isn’t trending for the @eastarwars Battlefront update.

Jun 21, 2016: Korean Breakdancing A little reminder that people are awesome. via Kottke.org

Jun 21, 2016: Magical Lightswitches A shame you can't get these for UK light switches. They would have been a great addition to the boys rooms.

Jun 21, 2016: Trust In Experts The EU referendum debate has been nothing short of a fear factory in the last few weeks. Politicians have highlighting doom and gloom scenarios for …

Jun 17, 2016: When Television Overtakes Books This has been something of a let down this season of Game of Thrones. There has been some great moments but largely the episodes have plodded on. …

Jun 16, 2016: Installed Elixir and Phoenix, created an application (does nothing atm) and deployed to Heroku. Think I’ve found myself a new web framework.

Jun 16, 2016: Food for Summer Gyro anyone?

Jun 16, 2016: The Death of Text? Facebook is touting video as the next big thing for their platform. However, Tim Carmody points to a number of benefits of the written word. Text is …

Jun 15, 2016: Book Recommendations from Curtis This has to be the definitive list of books on running a successful business. There is room for a few more but starting with the recommendations from …

Jun 15, 2016: Finding Yourself Lost? I've been faced with this problem over the last couple of weeks. Read on for the answer. When you are wondering what to do, when you are stuck, …

Jun 15, 2016: Say Hi to Daring Back when my blog was running on Jekyll, I found solace in the amazing Hyde theme by Mark Otto. Simple, flexible and with a strong focus on the …

Jun 13, 2016: Finish More Great advice given my recent "never finishing anything" run. ... readings of non-fiction books with your own summary of learnings. — Finish …

Jun 9, 2016: Digging Deeper Into Trello Now that we know the basics of a Trello board we can start to dig deeper into the other parts of the board that can help us. Teams Teams are a way of …

Jun 9, 2016: Do the Work There are no shortcuts. There’s no substitute for hours put in. Good work requires commitment and emotional investment. You can try to make …

Jun 9, 2016: Job or Project? Give me a project any day of the week. Projects are open-ended, chosen and ours. Working on a project opens the door to possibility. Projects are …

Jun 8, 2016: The Bike Shop of Dreams.

Jun 8, 2016: What is Worth Communicating? A question prompted by Nicholas Bate in his Jagged Thoughts for Jagged Times series. In the New World of Work the relentless quest to get us to …

Jun 7, 2016: Time for a Business Health Kick With our business health guide Nicholas Bate.

Jun 7, 2016: Twin City Steel I love this mountain bike build. Period correct components from the 90s really make this bike special. via Cycle EXIF (photo by Jeff Frane)

Jun 7, 2016: What is Trello? Trello is a great tool for managing projects and products. Before we dig deep into Trello though I'm going to do a quick overview of what Trello is …

Jun 3, 2016: Fixie Friday - Bianchi Super Pista Love the artwork on the front wheel. via Javi Ballestero On a side note, Fixie Friday has been scaled back to the first Friday of each month. It's …

Jun 3, 2016: The Three Cs I think I've found myself a new set of labels for categorising my tasks in Todoist. Think of your tasks in categories called the "three …

Jun 2, 2016: 300 issues of Ruby Weekly. Well done @peterc and the @cooperpress team in reaching this milestone. Here’s to another 300!

Jun 2, 2016: People would find workarounds by including spaces, symbols or other text just to pad it out.

Jun 2, 2016: Grass Roots Productivity - Do the Work This is it. The last part of the Grass Roots Productivity process. Doing the work. Unfortunately there’s no quick fixes or hacks to this one. You …

Jun 1, 2016: Are You Curious? I love this view on how people are split when it comes to technology. We can make lists about how "there's two kinds of people in the …

Jun 1, 2016: Grass Roots Productivity - Regular Reviewing We’ve looked at capturing and scheduling already in my little productivity process. The next step (not in order though) is the review. For hundreds of …

Jun 1, 2016: Read More Blogs Set Godin has a great reminder of why blogs are the best free source of valuable content on the Internet. RSS still works. It's still free. It's …

May 31, 2016: Grass Roots Productivity - Smarter Scheduling We've got a list of actions from a few days of capturing. Now what do we do? We schedule. And not by just putting whatever we want to do in any free …

May 31, 2016: Internet Mob Justice I'll be honest. I'm fed up seeing this mob justice on the Internet. But now we are reaching the next — and scary — phase of these kinds of stories, …

May 30, 2016: Grass Roots Productivty - Always Be Capturing Everyone has their own preferred system for getting things done. Whether it's GTD, maintaining chains, the pomodoro technique or some other method …

May 30, 2016: The Weekend Report #1 (Trying something new. Mini posts on the last weekend of the month.) Made a home cooked dinner on Friday night. Sat down with Jen to watch a movie. …

May 27, 2016: Fight from Failure Great advice for programmers and anyone building a product. In this mindset, each day your task is to fight from failure to success. You no longer …

May 27, 2016: New Leaders Ready for purchasing. The Cure is screaming out to be bought. I had great intentions of getting another Langster next year but I may have to review …

May 26, 2016: Why I Stopped Using TextExpander Text replacement utilities like TextExpander can make a big difference in the amount of time you spend typing. From email signatures to emails for …

May 25, 2016: Last of my files moved out of my Dropbox account. Now only used when working with clients and for IFTTT and @pragprog ebook delivery.

May 25, 2016: What Next for Apple? Fellow Scot Ian Dick highlights some areas of technology where Apple are falling behind. Apple also seems to be out of the AR/VR loop. It’s computer …

May 25, 2016: Why I Stopped Using Atom Some months ago I'd decided to use Atom as my go to text editor for day to day programming. I had been hearing good things about Atom for a while and …

May 24, 2016: Why I Stopped Using Zapier Zapier is an automation tool that integrated with hundreds of products and services on the Internet. It makes integrating tools together simple and …

May 23, 2016: Forget LinkedIn Some suggestions for alternatives to the workplace social network.

May 23, 2016: Why I Stopped Using Buffer Many people use Buffer as a tool to automate the process of sharing links to social networks. I even used it for a while to do this. I have no …

May 20, 2016: Is There Value in Social Media? All this week I’ve been writing about finding value with social media. Social media as a mainstream communication is already ten years old if we start …

May 20, 2016: Slow and Steady Wins the race. This morning, just as a test, move very slowly. Avoid scanning material. Read it carefully. Sense the rhythm of the words. Make all of …

May 20, 2016: The BFe26 Redesign Excited about this bike with it being a steel hardtail, but I really wish we could settle on one or even two wheel sizes for the mountain bike …

May 19, 2016: Finding Value Outside of Social Media A lot of people use social media as their means of keeping up with news, topics and communities. I’ve always struggled with this aspect of social …

May 18, 2016: Finding Value in Instagram I have an up and down experience in finding value in using social networks. Twitter is definitely not my goto place these days and App.net is now a …

May 18, 2016: Worry Not For Patrick Rhone has some wise words on the subject: Worry is born of desire — desire for change. If worry does not drive the action for change, or …

May 17, 2016: Anyone I know using a Fitbit? Would you recommend one?

May 17, 2016: Finding Value in Twitter as a Freelancer Yesterday I wrote about the value of Twitter on a personal level. While I don't place much value on my personal Twitter account, I have found that …

May 17, 2016: Instructions via Austin Kleon

May 17, 2016: We Need Realists It's funny, you never see "realist" as a required skill in ay job posting. We need order and flexibility, boldness and humility, caring and …

May 16, 2016: A round of golf with the boy this afternoon @PaisleyGolfClub. I hope I don’t embarrass him to much. #foreallthewayround

May 16, 2016: First round of golf with Ethan this year and I only beat him by one shot. I really need to up my game.

May 16, 2016: Finding the Value in Twitter I think of social media as one of those necessary evils in life. I'm well aware of the benefits of globally connected platforms that keeps people in …

May 16, 2016: Remember FriendFeed? I do. It was great. It's a shame it fell into obscurity and was eventually closed down. After months of private beta testing, FriendFeed opened to …

May 13, 2016: Great support from @sparkpost. My email issue was resolved in a few hours.

May 13, 2016: More with Nicholas Bate A great series by NB.

May 13, 2016: Playing with Firefox and Test Pilot I have been a Safari user for a while now. Safari’s built-in sharing on OS X and iOS and the ability to store tabs in iCloud means I could easily move …

May 12, 2016: Still Here The observant among you will have noticed another lull in my writing here. It's been a frustrating few months trying to get back to a steady rhythm of …

May 12, 2016: Ten Years of Hanselminutes Well done Scott Hanselman on reaching double-digits with his technology podcast, Hanselminutes.

May 10, 2016: Been trying a number of desktop apps as web alternatives, but I keep coming back to the web based apps. Hard to beat such a great platform.

May 10, 2016: Doing the Twitter cull thing again. Mostly news sites.

May 10, 2016: The Morning Pages Experiment What I'm experimenting with now, though, is adding a little more structure to my pages. Not something overbearing (the whole point of morning pages is …

May 9, 2016: Do I know any people who are good with SQL Server Reporting Services?

May 9, 2016: Social Media Addiction Daniel's decision to delete the majority of his social media accounts is a reminder that social media isn't a necessity in life. You can live without …

May 6, 2016: That moment where you can’t decide which one your messaging apps you’re going to use. Twitter, Instagram, Path …

May 6, 2016: Converse, Connect & Value Required reading for anyone looking to harness social media as a tool to connect your product with customers. Conversations spark the success of …

May 6, 2016: Fixie Friday - Saffron Frameworks via CycleEXIF, photos by Jim Holland

May 6, 2016: Switch Off A nice reminder from NB for the weekend.

May 5, 2016: My three year old son knows no limits. He’s trying to eat his jelly using a Mikado stick. 😂

May 4, 2016: Still no split-view in Twitter for Mac. Do you have to read the new Moments feature, upload a GIF and start a poll to unlock it?

May 4, 2016: You know what I love to see in @dayoneapp? Being able to merge entries.

May 3, 2016: “A solid post” says my editor. I have to be doing something right with this writing lark!

May 3, 2016: Managed to switch my email address to a new one with a different domain and still receive the email for the old one. @FastmailFM is great!

May 3, 2016: Hello Quitter I have a particularly bad habit of opening apps, leaving them to run and then wondering why I have so many apps open. I only ever need these apps open …

May 2, 2016: Closed my Zapier and Buffer accounts over the weekend. Wasn’t doing much with either of them.

May 2, 2016: The Feed is Dying The feed is dying. The reverse-chronological social media feed — the way you’ve read Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs (which is to say, the …

May 2, 2016: Write more with Nicholas Bate.

May 1, 2016: Nothing stops the boy ... Another Sunday, another medal under the belt. Ethan's settling in well at Paisley Golf Club and the boys in the junior section have been great in …

Apr 29, 2016: Sorry. That should have been more @dayoneapp sync woes.

Apr 28, 2016: Dropbox account downgraded to the free tier for the first time in three years. Just don’t need that much space in the cloud anymore.

Apr 28, 2016: It’s snowing. It’s May next week. #bloodyweather

Apr 28, 2016: Most other services provide their own syncing mechanism or I use iCloud. Dropbox just doesn’t have much appeal anymore.

Apr 28, 2016: Genius Fundraising Idea The contribution buys you an evening at home. No dressing up. No rubber chicken. No sitting at a table for eight trying to create stimulating …

Apr 28, 2016: The Benefit of Writing When Blogging When Ethan was at golf coaching before Christmas, he asked the professional how many balls he would need to hit to get his swing perfect or as close …

Apr 28, 2016: The Turn It Off ... ... Turn It On Again 22 didn't roll off the tongue as easily.

Apr 27, 2016: Snowden Trailer I like the look of this. via The Verge

Apr 26, 2016: Dropbox Infinite Project Infinite, announced at Dropbox’s Open London event wants to give you the best of both worlds. The idea is fairly simple: you can view all your …

Apr 26, 2016: Remembering the Glory Days The Awl remembers the glory days of Google Reader. Instead, our websites now keep tabs on us, the better to target us and hold us down and turn us …

Apr 26, 2016: Still Freelancing at 60? I love this post from Adrian about what he's learnt from his time as a developer and where he sees himself going next. Take conscious decisions in …

Apr 26, 2016: The Benefit of Ownership when Blogging In a quest to get back on the blogging bandwagon, I thought I would take a look this week at the different benefits that blogging offers. Ownership …

Apr 25, 2016: It Can't Be Rushed The project is vaguely on your mind. You sip coffee and read a book. You scan the news but with faint attention because you are still sorting out the …

Apr 25, 2016: Peanut Butter When I was a kid and my mother wasn’t around to make us something to eat, my dad used to smile and explain that we had our choice of a peanut butter …

Apr 22, 2016: A Father's Advice A wonderful piece highlighting some life lessons from a father. Begin conversations with people on airplanes when you hear “We have begun our …

Apr 22, 2016: Be Even More Successful Do this.

Apr 21, 2016: 20 Years Since Moseley Shoals Today marks 20 years since Ocean Colour Scene’s Moseley Shoals entered the British charts. It was the band’s second stab at success: their self-titled …

Apr 21, 2016: Bourne is Back Great to Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass working on the new Bourne movie.

Apr 21, 2016: Off The Grid Stephen Fry's post makes for a good argument in getting off the grid. Jacking out of the matrix would cast one as a hero of the kind of dystopian …

Apr 21, 2016: Perpetual Devotion Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. — Robert Louis Stevenson Love …

Apr 21, 2016: What Do You Miss? Find it again.

Apr 19, 2016: Subscribing to @problogger’s RSS feed again. Feels like 2010 again.

Apr 19, 2016: Sony PlayStation Neo I can't say that I'm exactly thrilled to see Sony releasing a console so soon after the release of the PS4. It is good to see though that all future …

Apr 13, 2016: Also started using Sidekiq for processing background jobs like emails. Another tool added to the web dev toolbox.

Apr 13, 2016: One eye on a Rails app I moved to Heroku from Cloud66. For my needs, Heroku’s managed platform is ideal.

Apr 13, 2016: Business Advice by Derek Sivers Derek Siver's latest post is the best business advice anyone needs before they start. First you find real people whose problem you can solve. You …

Apr 13, 2016: New Kindle Oasis Not content with the millions of Kindles out there, Amazon have introduced another Kindle to the family. This time it's the Oasis. A very different …

Apr 12, 2016: Rails app migration from Cloud66 to Heroku done. Time for bed now.

Apr 12, 2016: Recommendations please for good blogs around the following topics: Web Development, Agile practices, Ruby, Rust and writing. Cheers!

Apr 12, 2016: TextExpander Subscription Change - Too Little Too Late? Smile have adjusted the pricing of the new TextExpander subscription service. We will apply a lifetime discount of 50% off the Life Hacker pricing to …

Apr 11, 2016: Blog Bursts 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 …

Apr 11, 2016: 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 …

Apr 11, 2016: 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 …

Apr 6, 2016: Installed aText, migrated snippets across and uninstalled TextExpander. Time to move on now.

Apr 6, 2016: 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 …

Apr 6, 2016: Forget Flying Cars I'd rather have one of these in the driveway.

Apr 6, 2016: Just Resting 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.

Apr 6, 2016: Smart Writing 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 …

Apr 6, 2016: The Definitive Trilogy Courtesy of Nicholas Bate.

Apr 5, 2016: And on the same day @medium announce a way for writers to get paid for their content. Good move!

Apr 5, 2016: Can’t say I’m a fan of the new @textexpander subscription. I like paying for software I use regularly, but $50 per year! No upgrade for me.

Apr 4, 2016: Finally. A week off. Glad that I put the MacBook in for its battery replacement this week. No temptation to do any work while it’s away.

Apr 1, 2016: Fixie Friday - Polished Cannondale Track A photo posted by A. Danger (@adangerpdx) on Mar 27, 2016 at 7:46am PDT

Apr 1, 2016: Let's be consistent ... ... with Nicholas Bate as our guide.

Apr 1, 2016: What is Art? I love Tanmay's definition of art. Art isn’t just about doing fancy stuff or indulging into painting, dancing etc. Your work becomes art when it …

Mar 30, 2016: It’s good to be shipping. #thewebdevlife

Mar 30, 2016: SQL Server Mgmt Studio could really do with Sublime Text’s “Goto Anything” feature. Navigating the tree with hundreds of objects is torture.

Mar 28, 2016: Lots to do ... ... on Planet Earth. Let's start with the first one. Celebrate more often: you've got a place on the planet, the one consistently rated the best in …

Mar 28, 2016: The Beginning of Markdown John Gruber's early notes on the beginning of Markdown. Just another idea in a notebook. via The Cramped

Mar 28, 2016: Ubuntu Tablet A tablet that runs Ubuntu is now available for pre-order. I've toyed with the idea of adding a tablet to my list of development tools for when I'm out …

Mar 25, 2016: Fixie Friday - Affinity Anthem Affinity's new Anthem track bike is quite the looker. via PEDAL Consumption

Mar 25, 2016: It's All You Need Pen and paper.

Mar 25, 2016: Some Ideas for DailyMuse It’s been a while since I updated my daily email service, DailyMuse. It’s a year old now and I’m finding it to be a great start to the day. If you’re …

Mar 23, 2016: Anyone got any pointers to finding topics to blog about from a web dev perspective?

Mar 23, 2016: Field Notes Wallet I seen this very nice wallet on Tools and Toys and the first thing I thought was, "There's no place to slide in a small pen like my Fisher". …

Mar 23, 2016: LENKR Wooden Handlebars Very nice. via PEDAL Consumption

Mar 23, 2016: Morning Pages Update For six months now I've been writing my morning pages every weekday morning. The idea of morning pages is to write three pages of longhand writing …

Mar 21, 2016: Start Simple With current trends towards front end frameworks and micro-services, it's refreshing to see advice that goes against these trends in software …

Mar 21, 2016: The Pitfall of Free Services There's little doubt that the world wants free online services. Darren Rovell's poll on Twitter might not be completely unbiased as it was conducted …

Mar 21, 2016: Too Late for Twitter? I love this idea of paying a subscription fee for using Twitter, but I fear that it might be too late for Twitter. Before you scream at me to tell me …

Mar 15, 2016: More Raspberry Pi Goodies The recent release of the Raspberry Pi 3 and now Western Digital's new dedicated PiDrive makes the argument for buying a couple of Pi 3s even more …

Mar 15, 2016: Special Thanks Taking time out from the usual run of links and posts to say thanks to Curtis, Michael, Kurt, Patrick and Nicholas. Five bloggers that ensure I get a …

Mar 11, 2016: Fixie Friday - NEUKLN V1 Frameset Gotta love the raw polished finish on this bike from 8bar. via 8bar bikes

Mar 11, 2016: Little Daily Actions These are the actions that could change your world. Forget the bold gesture. Don't bank on the big project. Focus instead on the little daily …

Mar 11, 2016: Tracking A fantastic write up of your average day being tracked. A couple of weeks ago I went to the local shopping centre looking for a thermometer. After …

Mar 10, 2016: I love the possibilities that “rails new” brings. So many things we can build.

Mar 10, 2016: Reviewed: On Writing Well I finally finished William Zinsser's On Writing Well last night. I've been making slow progress through it due to the fact I read it last thing at …

Mar 10, 2016: The Concentration of Power in Journalism A great post about how the concentration of power in journalism now lies with technology providers and social media platforms. Social media and …

Mar 9, 2016: Are ISVs like this so paranoid about their product that they have to restrict access to videos that demo the features of their product?

Mar 9, 2016: ISVs that invoke insane levels of protection on the demoing of their products are closing the door on potential customers everyday.

Mar 9, 2016: To watch a demo of a reporting server tool being used to embed a report I have to sign in to the website to watch the video. Why?

Mar 9, 2016: Axe Review Minus Zombies An axe review with no mention of its use for taking down the odd zombie. Rick Grimes would not approve. Thanks NB!

Mar 9, 2016: The Freewrite I like the idea of the Freewrite, but I would never buy one. It creates a sense of being a distraction free writing tool, but you could still check …

Mar 9, 2016: Ulysses for iPhone Ulysses is now out for the iPhone. Having used it on my MacBook for a couple of weeks, I might still be swayed by the shininess of a new tool, …

Mar 8, 2016: Falling Out With Twitter It's happening again. I'm falling out of favour with Twitter. Last night I thumbed through about six or seven promoted tweets in my timeline and I …

Mar 8, 2016: Game of Thrones Season 6 Trailer Oh yeah, it's going to be good.

Mar 4, 2016: Fixie Friday - Bianchi Pista via AllFixedGear

Mar 4, 2016: The Ongoing Art of Handwriting It will never die. I write now more than I ever did. The growing collection of notebooks and pens on my desk is proof of that. Despite those who say …

Mar 3, 2016: Just discovered the Mac gamma setting on my Dell monitor. Only had the monitor for a year. #rtfm next time Matthew!

Mar 2, 2016: Thanks to @dnsimple and @cloud66 for making SSL upgrades simple to do. Took me just a few minutes to upgrade this morning.

Mar 2, 2016: The New Knog Oi Bike Bell A bike bell that doesn't look like a bike bell. How is it that it's taken this long for someone to come up with a design like this? I am tempted.

Mar 1, 2016: Apple Wins Major Court Victory Apple received a boost in its fight against the FBI after a judge ruled in Apple's favour. Judge Orenstein applied previous legal decisions …

Mar 1, 2016: Free Books Yes, you heard me right. Nicholas Bate has added a number of digital books to his growing list of freely available books. Enjoy.

Feb 29, 2016: The missing step is often the most valued step. Thanks Michael!

Feb 29, 2016: Where is Everybody? Last week my wife Jennifer was looking for something to read during her lunch break. She stumbled across this piece on reasons why we appear to be so …

Feb 26, 2016: Fixie Friday - Cannondale Track Polished Chrome galore! via saadl

Feb 26, 2016: On Writing Well - Technical Writing While reading On Writing Well last night, I was glad to have found the section on technical writing. Describing how a process works is valuable for …

Feb 25, 2016: I’ve been using Sublime Text 3 all week as my text editor. Is it just me or is the speed difference really noticeable over Atom?

Feb 25, 2016: Benjamin Franklin and Scheduling A schedule, just like a financial budget, is there for the purpose of serving my goals. A schedule makes sure the minutes don’t get away from me. It …

Feb 25, 2016: Book Recommendation of the Month Patrick Rhone's book Enough. Buy it, read it love it and then read it again. I'll still be reading this book for many years to come. That's how great …

Feb 25, 2016: The Morning Routine The morning routine is going well since officially embarking on it around November of last year. Here's what happens. 5 mins - Review the day ahead …

Feb 24, 2016: Did I miss the memo? Where’s the Mandrill addon for @heroku?

Feb 23, 2016: Less Noise I’m a user and fan of the private social networking app Path. I love the constraints on their product. You can’t post from the web, just your phone. …

Feb 23, 2016: Signing Off No, not me. It's an idea proposed by Kurt Harden. And I have to say, it sounds like a great idea. We ought to sign off on each day. We should take an …

Feb 22, 2016: The Essential Eight Returns A couple of years ago I took the decision to limit my home screen to eight apps. The goal was to limit my the apps I use on a daily basis to just the …

Feb 21, 2016: The Jeb Gamble Jeb Bush has ended his 2016 presidential campaign. Bush, the son and brother of US presidents, made the announcement in a somber speech before …

Feb 19, 2016: Be nice if @duckduckgo’s instant answers were wrapped in a native desktop wrapper. One app, hundreds of uses!

Feb 19, 2016: Fixie Friday - Aventon Mataro via Primicicli

Feb 17, 2016: 1Password for Families AgileBits have announced their new plan for families. It’s never been easier to share 1Password with your whole family. There’s no sync service to …

Feb 17, 2016: Mastery I've been reading George Leonard's book, Mastery after seeing it recommended by fellow blogger Nicholas Bate. The book has been a real eye-opener in …

Feb 17, 2016: Revision Notes ... ... for the career you love. Thanks NB!

Feb 16, 2016: 3/ It’s times like that I wonder myself why the fuck I spend time here and then I remember the mob are just a small part of Twitter.

Feb 16, 2016: 4/ People here are mostly decent, but I do wish there was a better way of putting out these mobs and their flaming torches.

Feb 16, 2016: 1/ So Stephen fry becomes the latest casualty of the Twitter mob. I don’t blame him for leaving.

Feb 16, 2016: 2/ The Twitter mob rule seems to be one wrong move and you’re out. Must be hard being perfect like those who are too quick to comment.

Feb 16, 2016: Ghost are Moving Ghost's plan to relocate their business to Singapore is a blow to innovative internet businesses in the UK. Why locate your business in the UK if it's …

Feb 16, 2016: Home Values Kurt Harden loves the family life at home and makes it a top priority. At lunch, I was able to drive home for a sandwich. The kids were off school so …

Feb 16, 2016: Shawn Blancs iPhone Apps and Workflows I love reading posts like this. Discovering how different people tweak the home screens on their smartphones gives you a small indicator to how that …

Feb 16, 2016: Social Media: The Best Of, The Worst Of As I'm writing this in my editor in Ghost, the title reads "Social Media Sucks". Yeah, I know. Strong words in that title. I don't like them …

Feb 15, 2016: Just watched Ethan complete a 60 and 0 game on #starwarsbattlefront. “I’ve never been so happy!” he says.

Feb 15, 2016: The Vastness of Space It's stuff like this that just boggles my mind. Compared with the overall vastness of space, the moon is very close to us: it's just 238,900 or so …

Feb 13, 2016: Just opened Tweetdeck in the browser for the first time in a while. Actually quite a good Twitter client.

Feb 12, 2016: Fixie Friday - Cipolinni Cannondale Track The classic red and yellow colours of team Saeco brings back a few memories of watching Cipo. via PEDAL Consumption

Feb 11, 2016: Sure it’s easy to distinguish them in the picture but try looking at them on at the top of your browser before you’ve had a coffee.

Feb 11, 2016: Do I Need LinkedIn as a Freelancer? LinkedIn. The social network for the workplace. I have something of a lax attitude towards it. I don't share much on it and I rarely search for …

Feb 10, 2016: Firewatch A new game on the PS4 and PC that puts you in the role as a fire lookout in a national park in Wyoming. It's caught my attention due to its wonderful …

Feb 10, 2016: Hawking's Reith Lecture An amazing illustrated guide to Stephen Hawking's wonderful second Reith lecture on black holes.

Feb 10, 2016: The Sherp I definitely want one of these. Someday, civilization will collapse. It is with that knowledge that a group of Russians — who might know more than …

Feb 9, 2016: If I had more say in the decision with the client I would have chosen Sinatra instead of Rails for their project.

Feb 8, 2016: Catching up on Super Bowl highlights. Well done the @Broncos. If it’s Peyton’s last season, it has ended in the best way possible.

Feb 8, 2016: +1 for a zombie emoji. Describes exactly how l feel right now. And no, staying up watching the Super Bowl isn’t the reason. 🤒

Feb 7, 2016: 5/ Also Twitter is free so while I might not agree with all of their new features I can’t really grumble. It’s free. #twittertimeline

Feb 7, 2016: If Twitter was to stop tomorrow then I’m glad I still use an RSS reader to stay up to date with the people I like to follow.

Feb 7, 2016: 4/ If you’re threatening to leave Twitter over it then I do think you’re overreacting. Twitter isn’t a necessity in life. …

Feb 7, 2016: 6/ Reserve judgement for when you have used it. Until then, you’ve no facts to base your #riptwitter prediction on. Cheers. #twittertimeline

Feb 7, 2016: Social media isn’t the Internet. There’s a lot of people that don’t know that or they forget that.

Feb 7, 2016: 3/ The “while you were away” sections of the timeline are quite handy. I don’t have time to scroll all day. Do you? #twittertimeline

Feb 7, 2016: Chicken Nuggets and Twitter The perfect analogy of the relationship between Twitter and the user's of Twitter. I don't think it's terrible or the end of the world. Life in a …

Feb 6, 2016: 1/ This new “out of order” timeline doesn’t sound bad at all. It will be mostly in order, just not all in order. #twittertimeline

Feb 6, 2016: 2/ You can always opt out of using the new timeline as well. That’s good. #twittertimeline

Feb 5, 2016: 2nd session of circuit training done this week. That two sessions, two weeks running. Just need to keep the momentum going next week.

Feb 5, 2016: Best GoPro Use Ever We've all seen them. People showing off their GoPro footage of a mountain bike run down the alps, snowboarding down the Rockies or even those crazy …

Feb 5, 2016: Feedbin's Great New Feature Feedbin just won the Internet. Email newsletters direct to your Feedbin. What a great feature!

Feb 5, 2016: Fixie Friday - 8Bar KRZBERG V6 Love the colour! via 8bar Bikes, original source

Feb 5, 2016: Mail is Proven This week I had something of an issue involving my email and a feature in my CRM that I wanted to use. Here's the gist of the problem. For each client …

Feb 5, 2016: The Career Manifesto Courtesy of Michael Wade*. I know the perfect place for this little gem. *(Sign up required, but it is free!)

Feb 4, 2016: Don’t underestimate the power of a client who is easy to talk to and always helpful.

Feb 4, 2016: Props to the @highrise support team who replied to my support query this morning. Great product and great customer service.

Feb 3, 2016: Facebook at Work I'll be surprised if this is as big a thing as Facebook. I can thing of a few things off the bat that I would take issue with: Does the app silence …

Feb 2, 2016: Everyone else in bed. Just me, the laptop and mountain of changes to do for a client. Best get started then.

Feb 2, 2016: It’s not all bad though. Got The Beatles playing in the background.

Feb 2, 2016: I’ve got just under 70 followers on Medium and I haven’t posted anything.

Feb 1, 2016: 1000 tweets! Feels like 2008 all over again.

Jan 29, 2016: As soon as it hits 5pm it’s beer, burgers and then battlefront (the Star Wars kind).

Jan 29, 2016: Is it beer o’clock yet?

Jan 29, 2016: Fixie Friday - Bellitanner NYC Cab Belt drive fixie. That's a first for here (I think!). via Bellitanner Bikes

Jan 29, 2016: Pushing Words Daily Pushing words out even when I don’t have a lot of things I think others will care about is a growing thing. I’m happy that I’m writing what’s real in …

Jan 29, 2016: Spring Semester is Here And so is productivity revision time with Nicholas Bate.

Jan 28, 2016: Declined another LinkedIn request from a Dynamics NAV recruiter. When are they going to start reading your profile before connecting?

Jan 28, 2016: Rails Concerns. So bloody useful.

Jan 28, 2016: Still Using Gauges A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was still using Feedbin as my goto RSS Reader. Well it seems that's not the only product I'm still using after …

Jan 27, 2016: Busy or Thinking? Paul Jarvis writes about the uncomfortable silence that is doing nothing but thinking. The biggest fear that most of us have now is that our internet …

Jan 27, 2016: Impeccable Taste Last week was the funeral service for my uncle who suddenly passed away a couple of weeks earlier. The sudden shock of his passing is still there, but …

Jan 27, 2016: The Off Switch Remember the off switch? Thankfully, I have another option available to me that other might not even consider. One that might be helpful to others as …

Jan 26, 2016: Ethan: “Oh man. I only got one kill with Boba Fett. That’s so embarrassing.” Ethan takes his hero pickups seriously on …

Jan 26, 2016: Hey @twitter, if you’re not going to put lists on the timeline page, then at least let me access my lists using a shortcut key. “g …

Jan 26, 2016: I still think the shortcut-key to send an email in Mail is weird. CMD+SHIFT+D where D is deliver?

Jan 26, 2016: Tiered Twitter It seems Twitter is turning off ads for it's highest engaging users. Matt Gemmell has doubts about the move. I’d pay for Twitter if I could. It has …

Jan 25, 2016: Asking me to estimate on the spot isn’t an estimate. It’s a guess and not even a good one. You still want that “estimate”? …

Jan 24, 2016: That was a DRIVE! #NEvsDEN

Jan 23, 2016: How Belle Beth Cooper Uses Todoist Belle Beth Cooper's in-depth write up about how she manages tasks and projects is recommended for those looking to get more from Todoist.

Jan 23, 2016: The Reading List Thought I would publish my reading list to the world. Definitely helpful to have a Trello board for this. It's not even February and I've already read …

Jan 22, 2016: Mighty mouse usually disconnects when I accidentally bump it from the side of my keyboard. More fragile than mighty I would say. #wiredftw

Jan 22, 2016: Remember the days of wired keyboards and mice and they just worked, like all the fucking time. I loved those days.

Jan 22, 2016: Fixie Friday - Greyhound P & B Love the matt finish on this bike. via FGGT

Jan 21, 2016: Anywhere But Medium Dave Winer on the drawbacks to hosting your writing in the newest walled garden, Medium. Medium is on its way to becoming the consensus platform for …

Jan 21, 2016: Essential Kitchen Gear ... over at Tools & Toys.

Jan 21, 2016: Review - The Amazon Fire 7 Tablet It's been 4 days since our Amazon Fire 7 tablet arrived in the post. The idea behind buying the tablet was as a short term replacement for Ethan's …

Jan 18, 2016: Ethan still off school with tonsillitis and a pulled muscle in his leg. He doesn’t do things in half measures that boy.

Jan 17, 2016: Fairly new to the whole Android thing, so any recommendations for a Markdown editor on Android that links to Dropbox?

Jan 17, 2016: Got an Amazon Fire 7 ordered. For the money you can’t beat it for the kids to use. I’ll also be trialling it for writing and researching.

Jan 17, 2016: Just watched #coingate from the #GBvsAZ game. Aside from it going to Arizona, that takes some skill to not flip the coin, even on landing.

Jan 16, 2016: Predictions for the NFL divisional games this weekend. Wins for Patriots, Packers, Panthers and Broncos.

Jan 15, 2016: Fixie Friday - Bishop Bikes Track Love the detailing on this bike. Absolutely amazing work. via Cycle EXIF

Jan 15, 2016: Recommended Reading This week I subscribed to the writing blog of Wally Bock. Love what I've been reading so far from him. Recommended!

Jan 14, 2016: Dear @twitter, please put lists within easy reach in the web client. Cheers, Matthew

Jan 14, 2016: 5 Words 1 Rule It's as simple as that.

Jan 14, 2016: A Canvas Made of Pixels Clay Bavor's large scale digital canvas is a fantastic use of technology. Even the frame is made to make it indistinguishable from other framed …

Jan 14, 2016: How to Find a Great Task Manager Finding a great task manager can be a daunting affair. Aside from the fact there are so many of them, there's only so much time that you can dedicate …

Jan 13, 2016: Just discovered you can start a new email from @alfredapp. Doh! #rtfm

Jan 13, 2016: Yet again I’m toying with the idea of deleting my LinkedIn account. Is this career suicide for a freelance web developer?

Jan 12, 2016: Four Essentials for a Winning Proposal Curtis McHale continues his look into winning proposals with a look at four essentials for any proposal. Real business owners who want to take their …

Jan 12, 2016: Has Web Development Gone To Shit? There was me thinking I was absolutely bonkers for not falling head over heels in love with the current trend towards towards JS web frameworks. The …

Jan 12, 2016: Reconsidering Moleskine Ana Reinert of The Well-Appointed Desk does an extensive comparison of three of Moleskine's notebooks. First and foremost, Moleskine notebooks are …

Jan 11, 2016: 2 for 4 on the wildcard weekend predictions, not bad. Good to see the Packers back to good form.

Jan 11, 2016: Considering Writing a Book? Consider these gems from Nicholas Bate.

Jan 11, 2016: The Family Business Kurt's family business is ticking over nicely as the winter break comes to an end. My wife and I joke that we operate a small business. There is the …

Jan 9, 2016: Predictions for the NFL wildcard weekend. Wins for the Chiefs, Bengals, Vikings and Packers.

Jan 8, 2016: I’ve been re-discovering a few blogs I used to follow years ago but moved away from. Nice to find them again.

Jan 8, 2016: Fixie Friday - Rossin USSR Team Pursuit Let's start 2016 with a little old school. via Cycle EXIF

Jan 8, 2016: The Playlist of All Playlists Meticulously compiled by Kurt. Enjoy!

Jan 8, 2016: World Sketchnote Day World Sketchnote Day is coming! If you're new to sketchnotes then this is a great way to start the year. Immersing yourself in the sketchnotes of …

Jan 6, 2016: Daily Moleskine Art Brought to you by Tom Joyce. I love these. Reminds me of the Slaine series from 2000AD.

Jan 6, 2016: Simplifying Last week I was toying with the idea of switching from Todoist to Wunderlist. The quick path out was to switch to Wunderlist and start afresh. After a …

Jan 6, 2016: Understanding Others Understanding other people is a tall order because everybody is different—but that’s what makes life worthwhile: our time on this planet would be …

Jan 5, 2016: Caesura Letters 2.0 Caesura Letters, my daily dose of deep reading, is now freely available for all. I've been reading this from its early days on an almost daily basis. …

Jan 5, 2016: Old ... ... but certainly not busted. Marco Arment takes a look at why the 2012 non-Retina MacBook Pro is still a sought after purchase. Despite the …

Jan 4, 2016: I’ll happily pay for an OSX app that opens my apps full-size or with another app in a split pane. Make it happen someone!

Jan 4, 2016: Jen and Drew are napping, Ethan is playing Star Wars Battlefront and I’m working. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Jan 4, 2016: There’s a lotta love out the for Tom Coughlin. Shame his coaching career didn’t end on a high. Still though, 2 SB wins.

Jan 4, 2016: Cramped Commonplacing Today's commonplace entry courtesy of Nicholas Bate's learning tips. My Kaweco fountain pen was quite nice to write with but I might downsize the nib …

Jan 3, 2016: Most Amazing Lego Millennium Falcon Ever! A Star Wars fan has spent a year building the ultimate Lego Millennium Falcon. Absolutely amazing. I just know my sister-in-law would want this. via …

Jan 3, 2016: Remember Blogrolls? You know what I miss? I miss blog rolls, where authors would list their favourite sites on their blogs. — Relative Sanity (@relativesanity) …

Jan 3, 2016: The Blogroll Remember blogrolls? So do I. They were a great way of finding other blogs to follow. Here's a selection of blogs that I'm currently reading. Annie …

Jan 3, 2016: The Website Obesity Crisis Maciej Cegłowski, the creator of Pinboard, highlights the growing obesity of the web and what can be done to improve it. Let’s preserve the web as …

Jan 2, 2016: One for the Devs Love these Atom themes that only use two hues for your syntax highlighting. I've been a Solarized user for years but I might give these a try.

Jan 2, 2016: Start With a Page Write a page a day and in 12 months you'll have the makings of a novel. Study a nation a month and in a year you'll probably have a greater …

Jan 1, 2016: Happy New Year! That's it. The end of another year and the start of a new one. Start as you mean to go one they say and I intend too. This blog has been lacking in …

Jan 1, 2016: More and Less Love Kurt's more and less theme for 2016.

Dec 30, 2015: The one feature I wanted to see in Twitter’s Mac client and it’s not there. Back to Tweetbot it is then.

Dec 26, 2015: Jen’s mixing her drinks again. Lemsip in one cup and tea in the other.

Dec 25, 2015: Best Christmas present this morning was the kids not waking up until 8:45am!

Dec 25, 2015: Wishing you all a Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones! 🎄☃

Dec 24, 2015: “Spoiler warning: This piece contains major spoilers for The Force Awakens.” - What’s a major spoiler? Are there different types of …

Dec 24, 2015: Need Wallpaper That Rocks? Louie Mantia has great wallpaper designs. I've started using some of these for Trello board backgrounds and can see a use for them in a few other …

Dec 24, 2015: Star Wars Brawl Print Love this. via Kottke.org

Dec 24, 2015: Time for New Lights? Maybe. My Knog lights are still going strong and they're holding their charge well. Despite that, these Knog Blinder MOB lights are going on the list …

Dec 23, 2015: It’s been a joy to use Ghost for blogging over the last few months. Managed hosting, simple interface and makes your blog pleasant to read.

Dec 23, 2015: The joys of having your kid playing #StarWarsBattlefront while you work. “Look Dad! I can make the AT-AT fart by throwing a grenade at it!”

Dec 23, 2015: The Ice Storm of 2013 I was just reminded this morning that it was two years ago that the ice storm hit Toronto and the surrounding area. We were visiting Jen's family in …

Dec 22, 2015: Turning down client work again due to my availability. Can only be a good thing right?

Dec 22, 2015: My Now Page My now page is live. Is yours? Thanks to Derek Sivers for the idea.

Dec 22, 2015: What I'm Doing Now Photo by myself after an ice storm hit Toronto in 2013. Aside from putting my family first and helping clients build great web products and services …

Dec 21, 2015: I did read a few tweets about disappointing characters but I think they will evolve in the next movie.

Dec 21, 2015: I finally got to see The Force Awakens last night. Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Dec 21, 2015: The only thing I was annoyed at was the audience. No whoops or cheers when the movie started. We brits are so boring.

Dec 21, 2015: A Christmas Tradition Tonight marks the start of one of my Christmas traditions. The annual reading of A Christmas Carol. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt …

Dec 21, 2015: Another Insight from Arizona I've added this one to my DailyMuse collection. There is much that you want to do and much that can be done but fortunately there is much less that …

Dec 20, 2015: Thanks JJ. Great movie!

Dec 18, 2015: DuckDuckGo: Still Growing Great to see that DuckDuckGo is still growing. Through Dec. 15, DuckDuckGo received 3.25 billion search queries this year, according to its publicly …

Dec 18, 2015: Fixie Friday - Icelandic Green Cannondale Track This is it. The last one of the year folks and what better way to finish this year's Fixie Friday series than with this beautiful Cannondale Track. …

Dec 16, 2015: All I can say is thank goodness for other apps like Tweetbot that don’t have this and hopefully won’t be including it.

Dec 16, 2015: Seen the new Moments feature on the Twitter’s website and iOS app. Not that taken with it. Does it work based on location?

Dec 11, 2015: #WelcomeToCanada. Best hashtag ever. Honestly.

Dec 11, 2015: In Great Company Honoured to be once again included in Kurt Harden's 25 Blogs Guaranteed to Make You Smarter and to be amongst other great bloggers. And yes Kurt, …

Dec 11, 2015: Kill, Commit or Transform Your Writing I'll be honest. I'm probably not the ideal person to be giving advice on writing but here's a little bit of advice for those aspiring bloggers and …

Dec 11, 2015: Want to be an Expert? Follow the seven steps from Nicholas Bate. There's no shortcuts or life hacks to this. Just honest work, but it's the best way.

Dec 9, 2015: Goodbye Carousel and Mailbox Dropbox has decided to call it a day on their photo management app Carousel and the email client Mailbox. Building new products is about learning as …

Dec 9, 2015: It's Journal Day My plan for celebrating the day (which, truthfully, I started last night) is to open up past year’s journals, logs, and notes and tease out any ideas …

Dec 8, 2015: Am I missing something? Dropbox closes down Mailbox. Tweets from people that they have no great email client now. Mail app not good enough?

Dec 8, 2015: Crazy iPhone battery case theory - it’s actually there to stop the iPhone bending in your pocket.

Dec 8, 2015: I know Mail app might not have all the bells and whistles that Mailbox has but it gets the job done.

Dec 8, 2015: Obviously as someone who hasn’t used Mailbox I might be wrong but Mail app isn’t the worse email client out there. Not by a long shot.

Dec 7, 2015: The Mixtape radio station on Apple Music. The BBC Radio 2 equivalent for an Apple generation.

Dec 7, 2015: Flying Over Pluto “These close-up images, showing the diversity of terrain on Pluto, demonstrate the power of our robotic planetary explorers to return intriguing data …

Dec 7, 2015: Still Using Feedbin A while a go I wrote about my move to Feedbin from Feedly and my reasons for the move. At the time I was still getting used to something other than …

Dec 7, 2015: The Staying Power of the B-52 Makes you wonder why on Earth the US military has needed billions for more advanced bombers when this still works. The B-52 is an Air Force plane …

Dec 4, 2015: Can I get some recommendations for an iPad Mini 4 case please? No keyboard cases, just a case that lets me stand the iPad on its side.

Dec 4, 2015: CleanMyMac’s non-responsive feature is now non-responsive. I would grab a screenshot but even that is non-responsive.

Dec 4, 2015: Fixie Friday - 1993 Cannondale Track via PEDAL Consumption

Dec 4, 2015: Public Square of Me A nice reminder that there are more pressing matters in the world than the growing number of icons in my menubar. We are becoming disconnected from …

Dec 4, 2015: That Throw, That Catch, Just One More Time This is why I love American football.

Dec 4, 2015: Want More Time? Yes please! Another great new series from NB.

Dec 3, 2015: An app or process is sucking the life out my MBP. Rebooting about three times a day now. Grrr.

Dec 2, 2015: In the last month I’ve got a client using pull requests, review apps and AB testing. I wonder if I can get them to up my rate as well? 😜

Dec 1, 2015: A shocking state of affairs. There are no biscuits in the house. How I am supposed to get any work done now?

Dec 1, 2015: Another bookmarklet for the list Brett's latest bookmarklet is great for programmer. Turns code blocks into plain text and make them ready for copying. Nice!

Dec 1, 2015: Culling the Email Subscriptions I've been a fan of email subscriptions for a long time. The direct delivery to your inbox might not be everyone's idea of digital heaven but for the …

Dec 1, 2015: Evolution of the Bicycle Evolution of the Bicycle from Visual Artwork on Vimeo. A wonderful video showing the different designs of the bicycle over a period of 300 years. via …

Dec 1, 2015: Miniature Space Tilt shifting is the effect used in photography to simulate a miniature scene, but I've never seen it done on such a scale with these tilt shifted …

Nov 27, 2015: Fixie Friday - Nagasawa Nakano Not the first time I've linked to this bike for Fixie Friday and with good reason. It's a classic track bike. via Cycle EXIF

Nov 27, 2015: Nothing Scheduled, Nothing Gained This blog has been gradually winding down in activity for the last few weeks. You've probably noticed. It's been hard to watch as I used to be a …

Nov 26, 2015: I had no idea that Tweetbot on OS X allowed you to create columns based on lists and searches. Nice!

Nov 26, 2015: Still haven’t bought a Raspberry Pi but I’m finding it hard to find a reason not too. A couple of zeros for the kids would be good.

Nov 25, 2015: Good selection of NFL games coming to the UK next year.

Nov 25, 2015: I need a new analogy for software as a service for a client. Maybe airplanes. Would you fly on an airplane that was fixed with duct tape?

Nov 25, 2015: Captain America: Civil War - Trailer The Cap movies are my favourites in the MCU and the series looks to get even better with Civil War out next year.

Nov 25, 2015: Over at the bothy ... ... I'm breaking down the technical debt concept for product stakeholders.

Nov 24, 2015: I need to order myself a stack of books. Not the Kindle kind, the physical kind.

Nov 24, 2015: Me and Jen have talked about emigrating to Canada, but the houses prices have always put us off. Would need to consider living further out.

Nov 24, 2015: The kind I can scribble in the margins. Can’t scribble on a Kindle. It makes a mess of the screen.

Nov 20, 2015: Recommendations for a OS X SQL Server client? Anything that helps me manage all the objects in the database, not just tables.

Nov 20, 2015: Fixie Friday - P&B Greyhound Lovely build! via FGGT, photo by Arregui Velázquez

Nov 19, 2015: Almost there with getting a client setup on @heroku’s pipeline feature. Review apps are set up. Just to decide on automatic deploys or not.

Nov 19, 2015: Developers can handle the multiple environments well enough with the command line, but its not for everyone.

Nov 19, 2015: For the #sqlserver folks. Is there any advantages to using decimals as your primary key rather than an int? Just curious.

Nov 19, 2015: Half the battle of this has been helping the client decide how best to use multiple environments for the deployment process.

Nov 19, 2015: The plan is to reserve the staging environment for pushes from the master branch. Once tested (again) it can then be pushed to production.

Nov 19, 2015: The previous staging environment was used to test different branches, but it became a block. Review apps were added to alleviate this.

Nov 19, 2015: Christmas Holiday Tradition? Black Friday does not mean shopping; it means we watch the first Christmas movies of the year - Die Hard, followed immediately by Die Hard II - and …

Nov 19, 2015: Like Buses Kickstarter campaigns are like buses. Nothing for ages then two come along at the same time. This time it's the YNOT Magnetic Keychain.

Nov 18, 2015: Is there any advantage to using Firefox Developer Edition over Firefox or any other browser?

Nov 18, 2015: I’ve downloaded and installed Firefox Developer Edition out of curiosity. Just wondering if it offers something extra.

Nov 18, 2015: Spent an hour using @careteditor tonight. Nice features that make it stand out from other Markdown editors.

Nov 17, 2015: I could do with a suite of tests right about now.

Nov 17, 2015: Looks like I’m not worthy to be testing @github’s new repo design. Guess I’ll just have to wait then.

Nov 17, 2015: Kickstarted: The Baron Fig Squire Pen I haven't backed anything on Kickstarter yet. I missed the Baron Fig notebook and the Bullet Journal. I'm not going to miss the Squire pen.

Nov 17, 2015: Your Ideal Week Suddenly, everything was dark, and I realized that I was in bed and it was time to face another day in my fledgling business where I had way too much …

Nov 16, 2015: Another friendly customer experience from the staff at the Braehead Apple Store.

Nov 14, 2015: No Words During times like this I tend to reserve commenting on social media. As NB puts it, "some days there were no words".

Nov 13, 2015: Catching up with some podcasts on @OvercastFM this morning. Great to so many of the features in the iOS app also in the web app.

Nov 13, 2015: Fixie Friday - RAW Santafixie Team via FGGT

Nov 13, 2015: Planned Basic Income For All in Finland In its final version, the basic income would replace other benefits people currently receive, and would therefore be rather high, as indicated by …

Nov 12, 2015: I do wish @slack’s formatting just used @gruber’s Markdown as a starting point.

Nov 12, 2015: I still wonder if the ultimate goal of Apple is to bring iOS and OS X together somehow.

Nov 12, 2015: I’m using an MBP just now but I reckon I could move down to a new MacBook. iPad Pro as a main dev machine might be a stretch though.

Nov 12, 2015: Read a few articles about people being able to switch to iPad Pro from their current laptop. Think it might be a while before I can do that.

Nov 11, 2015: Finally deleted my @appdotnet account. It’s like a ghost town now.

Nov 11, 2015: I had great intentions of going back to using @appdotnet for a while there but it still feels like a ghost town.

Nov 11, 2015: Pretty hard to get psyched about something if the founder isn’t using it.

Nov 11, 2015: So I gave the first few episodes of Sons of Anarchy a go. Good programme but I can’t see me watching every episode.

Nov 11, 2015: Twitter is far from perfect but the it’s gradually getting there. It is improving.

Nov 11, 2015: Finding Dory Finding Nemo was one of Ethan's favourites, perhaps this one will be one of Drew's favourites. Looking forward to it.

Nov 11, 2015: Honest Work I wanted to make a product and sell it directly to people who’d care about its quality. There’s an incredible connection possible when you align your …

Nov 11, 2015: Some Goodies from NB A little present from Nicholas Bate in the post last week. Just getting round to looking at them now. Thanks Nicholas!

Nov 11, 2015: Spoiled for Choice There are too many easy choices. I've noticed that retail stores and their vast volume of products seem to be on the rise. Every shopping trip turns …

Nov 9, 2015: Resilience ... the full story by NB.

Nov 6, 2015: Fixie Friday - Cinelli Mash Again, love the wide bars on the bike. Definitely a growing trend now. via FGGT

Nov 4, 2015: If hearts aren’t your thing I’m pretty sure @appdotnet still use stars.

Nov 4, 2015: Twitter’s new strategy: Make enough changes on Twitter to keep people tweeting.

Nov 4, 2015: Hearts or Stars? The latest update to Twitter has seen the replacement of the favourite action with a star to a like action with a heart. Do I care? Not really. The …

Nov 4, 2015: The Ideal Life Another great post by Curtis McHale. This time on what your ideal life would be. Here's a hint. It's not lounging on a beach every day. There is a …

Nov 3, 2015: Starbucks red cups are out and I’ve only seen one tweet that references “the red cups are coming” and Lex Luthor. Disappointing …

Nov 2, 2015: Got a Plan? Nicholas Bate does and so should you.

Nov 2, 2015: The Beautiful Bullet Journal of Kara Benz. I'm still intrigued by the Bullet Journal and it's place in my toolset. Especially when you see examples of it being used the way Kara …

Nov 1, 2015: Disappointed to hear that @GlenAbbeyGC may be redeveloped into housing and retail.

Oct 30, 2015: A Morning Routine ... with a difference. No to do lists here.

Oct 30, 2015: Fixie Friday - Aero Commuter via Cycle EXIF

Oct 30, 2015: Hobbiton or Oxford? Amazing that Tolkien's work is still being found.

Oct 30, 2015: The Dreaded About Me Page Two words that fill me with dread. About me. I don't mind writing about a lot of things, but one topic I find difficult to write about is myself. In …

Oct 30, 2015: The Mobile Writer Tools & Toys has another fantastic guide. This time it's the tools needed for writers that travel.

Oct 30, 2015: The Path to Resilience Continues ... with Nicholas Bate.

Oct 28, 2015: Reasons To Write Four reasons in fact. Here's an excerpt from the first reason, validate your expertise: Someone once said to me that most of the value created in the …

Oct 28, 2015: Show Up Kurt Harden has some simple but effective advice for your career. Show up - Showing up plays a stunningly important role in success. Think of it this …

Oct 28, 2015: Write Like You Talk I try to write in this style for longer posts. People have commented on this in the past but I never figured it to be a big thing. It seems to be …

Oct 27, 2015: Just ran 4km in 30 minutes. Is that good? It’s the first time I’ve ran any considerable distance in over 20 years.

Oct 23, 2015: groan Wasn’t the 400 lines of JavaScript I wrote for this project enough? Evidently not.

Oct 23, 2015: Feedbin Gets Image Previews My favourite RSS reader has a great new feature, image previews.

Oct 23, 2015: Fixie Friday - AllFixedGear Specialized Langster Nice to see the AllFixedGear crowd have a Langster in their group. via AllFixedGear

Oct 23, 2015: Saying Thank You Steven Pressfield offers a top tip for making a lasting impression. Say thank you As in, on a card. No cold, white, computer paper. In your own …

Oct 21, 2015: The Now Page Movement People often ask me what I’m doing now. Each time I would type out a reply, describing where I’m at, what I’m focused on, and what I’m not. So earlier …

Oct 20, 2015: Blog migration to Ghost has went rather well. Pleased with it so far.

Oct 20, 2015: I bought tickets for #StarWars last night. Between the game release next month and the movie the month after, kids are beyond excited.

Oct 20, 2015: Better Strategic Plans ... with Nicholas Bate. Yip, definitely time to do things differently.

Oct 20, 2015: Final Star Wars VII Trailer Tickets booked. Can't wait!

Oct 20, 2015: Lists As a kid, I remember my father at the dining room table in the morning jotting down his to-do list for the day on his mini legal pad as he sipped …

Oct 19, 2015: About Me I'm a freelance Web Developer from the UK. I build high quality web application solutions using Ruby on Rails and Sinatra. In my time I've built web …

Oct 19, 2015: Contact Me Interested in working with me? Fill in your details below and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours. Your name Your email Subject Message

Oct 19, 2015: New Digs For about two years now I’ve been a user of the static blogging engine Jekyll. In that time I’ve enjoyed the simplicity of it. You generate your site …

Oct 19, 2015: Playgrounds A nice reminder that while places like Medium allow you to share your writing easily, you're still playing by someone else's rules. The allure of …

Oct 19, 2015: Thanks! I'll get in touch as soon as I can.

Oct 19, 2015: The Playlist Inspired by this post by Leo Babauta, I've started to compile a list of articles that I frequently return to for inspiration and motivation. Breathing …

Oct 8, 2015: Medium’s recent changes to allow you to use your own domain have me intrigued.

Oct 6, 2015: Still re-discovering people that I was following on Twitter before I deleted my account.

Oct 6, 2015: Field Notes Planner Field Notes have joined the ranks of paper planners with their own take on a planner. I love the fact paper based tools like this are making a …

Oct 6, 2015: Plant Trees, Be Productive Forest is an app that tries to help you concentrate by giving you the incentive of creating a digital forest. When the timer reaches zero without you …

Oct 5, 2015: Brief assessment from using Tweetbot 4 for the last few days: Nice features but for me the official Twitter client is still my favourite.

Oct 4, 2015: Clyde Timelapse A superb autumn night captured by Ian Dick. via iand.net

Oct 4, 2015: Find Yourself Patrick Rhone is back from his personal retreat. Like Thoreau’s Walden Pond cabin, each hermitage is a small, single room cabin with an attached …

Oct 4, 2015: First Sketchnote Always great to see what people have done for their first sketchnote. Learning to #sketchnote with my new notebook at the ready. 1st page done! …

Oct 4, 2015: Sustainable Services At a buck or few per app, how could it be otherwise? That type of pricing will work for Angry Birds and a handful of other games, but very poorly for …

Oct 2, 2015: So you still can’t rename spaces in El Capitan then?

Oct 1, 2015: Curious to know if any OS X users have ditched Alfred in favour of Spotlight since the Yosemite release.

Oct 1, 2015: Pinned tabs in Safari. Finally!

Oct 1, 2015: Fixie Friday - Cinelli Laser via FGGT

Oct 1, 2015: The Paper Revolution Is paper making a comeback or did it simply refuse to budge from the digital invaders? When reports came out last month about declining ebook sales, …

Sep 30, 2015: Amazing Sketchnotes by Tanmay Vora. Amazing stuff!

Sep 30, 2015: Morning Pages Milestone Yesterday I reached something of a milestone. I filled the Volant Moleskine notebook that I was using for my morning pages. 94 pages of writing. It …

Sep 30, 2015: New Bike Frame Material? Can't wait to see if it can be used as a frame material for bikes. Today a team of material scientists at Pohang University of Science and Technology …

Sep 30, 2015: Well Played I started the El Capitan upgrade process last night by kick starting the download before I went to bed. Woke up 15 minutes early this morning to start …

Sep 29, 2015: The X-Files Is Looking Good Me and Jen watched this religiously years ago. It's great to see it coming back.

Sep 27, 2015: Investigating an error on DailyMuse today. Full service should resume tomorrow.

Sep 27, 2015: Always Good Always good to see a website I worked on go live.

Sep 27, 2015: How the Night Sky Should Look It would be amazing if the night sky looked like this.

Sep 27, 2015: New Website for Caesura Letters New website but always the same great content.

Sep 25, 2015: Pizzas and beers tonight. It’s been a long week. I deserve it.

Sep 23, 2015: Client Work is Enough In the last few months I've made an interesting discovery. I'm crap at building and marketing products. Really bad in fact. From now I'll just build …

Sep 23, 2015: Saying No A quick story about Steven Pressfield and the power of saying no. After an incredibly difficult year of wrestling with those inner demons and …

Sep 23, 2015: The Right Effort I participate when directly engaged. I try to make sure that what I’m posting is of a positive nature. I try to only post things that I believe are …

Sep 22, 2015: Hunter-Gatherer ... The complete list. One of NB's best in my opinion. Definitely in the top five.

Sep 22, 2015: Three Is Enough One index card, three words. That's all it takes.

Sep 22, 2015: Time for a new Langster? Next year it will be 10 years since I purchased my Specialized Langster bike. It's still running well and is a solid bike. Like any bike fan though, I …

Sep 21, 2015: It Arrived! My Hobonichi Techo planner arrived yesterday. Still can't get over how small it is. Can't wait now to start using it!

Sep 21, 2015: Stuff Simplification A good three step guide to de-cluttering from NB.

Sep 21, 2015: Winning Isn't Everything In a shock turnaround, Marco Arment has pulled his ad blocking app, Peace, from the App Store. Later on Apple also started refunding everyone who …

Sep 17, 2015: Fixie Friday - De Rosa Aerodinamica Pista Cycle EXIF delivers with another classy steel fixie. via Cycle EXIF

Sep 17, 2015: Fractured Days A writer has to focus. She can’t just flip a switch and start grinding. She needs time to settle in, to let the current start to flow. She can’t do …

Sep 17, 2015: My Opinion on Medium is Changing Ever since Medium opened its doors to the world it has attracted fans and critics. People that use it rave about its simplicity. Critics of the …

Sep 17, 2015: Why Do I Like To Write? Jason Fried answers this on Twitter. Why do I like to write? Because words are fucking fun to play with. Writing is playing. Can't think of a …

Sep 16, 2015: A New Age of Internet Arment has expressed his hope that blocking bad ads will lead to publishers being forced to adopt “better monetisation methods”, from selling adverts …

Sep 16, 2015: A New Todoist New brand. New website. New apps. Todoist has been my task manager of choice for a long time now and it will continue to be so thanks to a service …

Sep 16, 2015: Posting Rhythm The new posting rhythm continues. A snippet and a couple of link posts each day. I'm publishing something a bit more long form tomorrow morning. Less …

Sep 15, 2015: How to Read a Book There's reading and there's reading. Find out the difference. via Sandbox Rim

Sep 14, 2015: Thanks everyone for the keyboard recommendations from yesterday and thanks @patrickrhone for the RT.

Sep 14, 2015: Hobonichi Techo Planner Ordered I missed out on getting one of these last year but I wasn't going to make that same mistake twice. The increasing usage of pen and paper continues. …

Sep 14, 2015: Ignore the Trivial Many More wise words from NB. There is another way: work from a 3 by 5 card which highlights your vital few, high-payoff activities. Ignore the trivial …

Sep 13, 2015: Can I have your OS X wireless keyboard recommendations please?

Sep 13, 2015: Breaking Tradition Myself an Jennifer made a decision over the weekend that will break a minor tradition in the family. It wasn't an easy decision to make but done for …

Sep 13, 2015: Hunter-Gatherer for the Digital Age ... by our bushcraft guide Nicholas Bate.

Sep 13, 2015: Sunday is for Baseball To me the sports are not comparable; they are simply different games. I prefer to watch football in my home. I can yell, cheer, and make a fool out of …

Sep 11, 2015: Playing the DNS propagation waiting game.

Sep 11, 2015: Received a word document that a school wants to use as a web page. Feels like the late 90s all over again. #frontpageftw

Sep 11, 2015: Thanks to everyone who emailed and DM’d to keep my blog going!

Sep 10, 2015: I like the new AppleTV. Don’t think much of the iPad Pro but only because I can’t use it to replace my MacBook as my dev machine.

Sep 10, 2015: I should really use AirDrop more often. Such an understated feature of OS X and iOS.

Sep 10, 2015: Using Ruby on Rails with SQL Server. I didn’t think I would ever have to do work with SQL Server again but there you go.

Sep 9, 2015: Drowning in Digital I regularly go through the feeling of drowning in digital. I like being online and everything that comes with it, but when you’re working with …

Sep 9, 2015: iA Writer 3 I love how iA have opened up with their iA Writer 3 release: If you came here to read about ground-breaking new features, we have to apologize: iA …

Sep 6, 2015: Books: Dead-tree or Digital? Just a question for you all. What's your criteria for deciding whether to buy a book in dead-tree format or digital format?

Sep 6, 2015: Fixing Twitter Dustin Curtis weighs in with some areas where Twitter needs to do better. I completely agree. And that leads to me to the final thing I want to talk …

Sep 6, 2015: The Digital Struggle I've been struggling to find the motivation to write here. I've had my finger on the digital implode button for a couple of times. I don't think …

Sep 3, 2015: On lighter news here’s a free business idea. A newsletter that aggregates all the best bits from your existing newsletters.

Sep 3, 2015: Happy Blogiversary to Cultural Offering 8 years and still going strong. Well done Kurt!

Sep 3, 2015: Skulls and Monsters and Demons! Oh My! Some truly amazing work by Tom Joyce.

Sep 3, 2015: Thanks Nicholas I love getting stuff in the mail from Nicholas Bate.

Sep 2, 2015: I just clicked the language details bar on a repo for the first time in GitHub.

Sep 2, 2015: Just wondering. With all the focus on iOS 9 being able to block ads, will Apple’s policy change on ad-supported iOS apps change?

Sep 2, 2015: Started using Heroku’s new pipelines feature. No complaints so far with it. Also a much easier process of deploying between environments.

Sep 1, 2015: Playing The Long Game Patrick Rhone is playing the long game on goals. Maybe you should too? The smart players, at best, see such low dips as a buying opportunity — like a …

Sep 1, 2015: Project Success from our man in Arizona, Michael Wade. Read on for the minimal plan to project success. Write enough ideas and plans and you'll eventually scribble …

Sep 1, 2015: The Richness of Slow There I was doing my morning pages on the subject of selecting tools to work fast when we want to be working slower with a clearer purpose. Next thing …

Aug 30, 2015: Good luck to Heather, Josh and Jack representing the @ElderslieGolf juniors in finals day today.

Aug 30, 2015: It would be nice in Twitter if you could see other people’s timelines as they see them.

Aug 30, 2015: Obviously private accounts could be skipped but the rest of the accounts could be added to this special timeline.

Aug 27, 2015: Most of the time tech news is much more pleasant to read than the actual news.

Aug 27, 2015: Tech news of the day. Twitter app is going lighter and Instagram is allowing portrait and landscape photos.

Aug 27, 2015: Can Old World Be More Modern? New technology doesn't always qualify as modern.

Aug 27, 2015: Maintaining The Work Life Balance Curtis McHale dispenses seven tactics that help getting the balance right between work and life.

Aug 27, 2015: Morning Pages Should Be Like Skimming Stones The morning pages habit trundles on with my Moleskine Volant notebook filling up by the day. Some days it's easy to get started while other days it …

Aug 26, 2015: Living the Life A little reminder that the Internet is simply a facade into people's lives. You need to actually know a person to know the life they lead. What I …

Aug 26, 2015: Russian Family Cut Off For 40 Years The amazing story of a family living deep in Siberia without contact with the world for 40 years. It was a clearing, 6,000 feet up a mountainside, …

Aug 26, 2015: Searching for a Worthy Successor to Backpack Do you remember Backpack? If you don't, it was a knowledge base web application where you could store notes, images, drafts, attachments and other …

Aug 25, 2015: How to Ship Great Software Pearls of wisdom from JavaScript laureate, Thomas Fuchs. Don't follow the hype Use what works for you. If you’re productive in PHP, by all means, use …

Aug 25, 2015: Mike Rohde's Sketchnoting Podcast Re-Released I can't wait to get through these. The great thing about these episodes is that they're all fairly short. Easy to watch while you're having a coffee …

Aug 23, 2015: Back to School 2 NB is back with essential skills for the new semester. Number 6 on the list is strictly enforced in our house on a Sunday from September to the end of …

Aug 23, 2015: Black Notebooks No More Moleskine. Black. Two words that many people might associate with each other and with good reason too. When Moleskine notebooks started becoming …

Aug 23, 2015: Everyone Needs a Personal Website I couldn't agree with Matthew on this topic more. Having a personal website is something most people my age don’t do. However, most millennials have …

Aug 23, 2015: Programming Language Commitment I'm not adverse to trying out different programming languages, but the steady stream of new languages and frameworks that appear along with their …

Aug 20, 2015: Email Done Right ... with our man from Arizona, Michael Wade.

Aug 20, 2015: Need Fresh Ideas? Nicholas Bate advises you write. A lot.

Aug 20, 2015: Nuclear Explosions: A Visualisation An extremely interesting and yet haunting visualisation of all the nuclear weapons that have exploded on Earth since 1945. The silence of the …

Aug 20, 2015: The Change Your Thinking Reading List Brought to you by Nicholas Bate.

Aug 20, 2015: Time or Attention? Loved this. So many times I'll say I don't have the time but it's not actually true. I do have the time, just not the attention. But really, as I …

Aug 14, 2015: Dammit. Bought Reeder 2 on the MAS then found out today that Reeder 3 is in beta and includes Instapaper.

Aug 13, 2015: And Talking of Japanese Words ... here's The Art of Manliness with their take on kaizen. The Kaizen approach to self-improvement completely circumvents the unproductive ups and …

Aug 13, 2015: Challenge and Eliminate Don’t be afraid to challenge prospective clients with goals. Make them work to prove that they’re really the right clients for you. Be bold. — Curtis …

Aug 12, 2015: Back to School Ethan's back at school today. Having to adjust to the house being quiet again. Back to work for me as well I suppose.

Aug 12, 2015: Japanese Words Ever since I heard about the word kaizen used in Scrum, I've been fascinated how Japanese words can signify more in one word than the English …

Aug 12, 2015: Nights are Fair Drawing In Darker nights mean no more sun blessed evening rides, well at least until next year. Going to make an effort to get a few more bikes rides under my …

Aug 12, 2015: You Don't Need Nicholas Bate with more thought provoking lists of wisdom.

Aug 10, 2015: Focus Backgrounds Distraction free wallpaper by Joe Darnell.

Aug 10, 2015: Infrequent Posting Is Good While I would love to commit to a steady stream of fresh and interesting content here, I'm just too busy. So if I'm not posting as much, it's because …

Aug 10, 2015: Is Ruby on Rails Still Relevant? It’s a question that I’m seeing on an increasing basis as I venture through the Internet. I’ve seen it appear on a few forum sites and it has appeared …

Aug 10, 2015: Patrick's Path Patrick's journey on the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path continues with the right livelihood. I use the concept of Right Livelihood to remind me to …

Aug 7, 2015: The Apple Music family plan is worth it for the musical education my boys are getting. Access to hundreds of great albums and tracks. 🎸🎵🎤

Aug 6, 2015: Atom’s startup time is certainly a nuisance but if that’s my only critique of it then I can live with it.

Aug 6, 2015: An Empty Cartridge I’ve just checked the order on a batch of Pentel pens and refill cartridges I bought from Amazon. It was around sixty days ago. Since receiving these …

Aug 6, 2015: Break Out Read, write, ask, plan, move, start and hold fast. It's all in NB's break out guide.

Aug 6, 2015: Speed Matters An argument that working faster is better. Slowness seems to make a special contribution to this picture in our heads. Time is especially valuable. …

Aug 5, 2015: Free Can Be Good If you know me and you read my blog on a regular basis you’ll know that I’m an advocate for paying for the software you use. It’s simple, support the …

Aug 5, 2015: Measure the Right Things This brings back nightmares of timesheets being used to measure performance. It's a poor way of measuring any employees performance regardless of what …

Aug 5, 2015: Star Wars Battlefront - Fighter Squadron Gameplay Star Wars Battlefront just keeps getting more and more awesome. Can't wait for November.

Aug 5, 2015: Work Continues Work begins on a couple of software products. I'm not getting too wrapped up in the finished product, it's just too distracting.

Aug 4, 2015: We went through two cabled headsets before I suggested spending more for a wireless headset.

Aug 4, 2015: Putting It Off I’ve been holding onto a few ideas for software products. There’s two in particular that I would like to start building but actually starting them is …

Aug 4, 2015: The Daily PKM Routine The seek, sense and share workflow of personal knowledge management.

Aug 4, 2015: War of the Words All I can say is thank goodness for books.

Aug 2, 2015: How I Use My Notebooks Jenny Mason shares a her notebook preferences and their uses. My pocket notebooks are filled with all sorts of useful information that I need on hand …

Aug 2, 2015: Less Email ... more talking. That's just one of NB's three rules for managing less email.

Aug 2, 2015: Life or Death on the Roll of the Dice This brought back a few memories. Despite their unique preferences and stylistic tendencies, all of the module authors I spoke with agree that …

Aug 2, 2015: The Rockin' 1000 Forget the Foo Fighters, I'd pay to see this lot sing.

Jul 30, 2015: Recruitment agency has sent me a role for a rail engineer. Nice to know that Ruby on Rails attracts roles outside of programming.

Jul 30, 2015: Be Future-safe A very nice reminder of why I choose to host my own blog rather than opting for a service like Medium.

Jul 30, 2015: The Hobby Writer I've got something of a fascination with writing. It's not that I want to become a writer, although the idea is rather tempting, I'm just curious …

Jul 29, 2015: Another round of golf with Ethan and another good score by him. I wasn’t too bad either!

Jul 29, 2015: Another New Coding Font No sooner do I get settled with Monoid when I hear of another coding font. This time it's the code-generated Iosevka.

Jul 29, 2015: Growing Up Too Fast? I was watching Ethan this morning as he was playing with a friend on the Playstation. A session of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare was in full play …

Jul 29, 2015: Some Recommend Reading ... by Tools and Toys. Something for everyone in the list.

Jul 28, 2015: Half-way through my first Django project. Impressed with the features of the framework I’ve seen so far.

Jul 28, 2015: Playing a round of golf with Ethan tomorrow. Looking forward to it, even if the weather isn’t going to be great.

Jul 27, 2015: First time I’ve had to contact Apple support for a purchase in the iTunes store. Prompt reply within 48 hours and full refund issued.

Jul 27, 2015: Given the choice between using Twitter’s embed snippet or just using a block quote for the tweet, I would use the block quote every time.

Jul 27, 2015: Not bad turnaround for a big company that handles thousands (probably millions) of transactions in a day.

Jul 27, 2015: Still wondering though how I can gift movies to my father-in-law in Canada for his Apple TV.

Jul 27, 2015: Hello Atom! About a year ago I made the jump to Vim. Having finally mastered enough of the keystrokes to muster through a single coding session, I made it my …

Jul 27, 2015: Monoid - Open Source Coding Font Got me a new coding font.

Jul 27, 2015: Need a Boost? Execupundit has you covered. It can be difficult to predict the popularity of topics. Supervision may become a mainstay subject since new supervisors …

Jul 27, 2015: Stop Hurting the Web From time to time friends ask me what they should use if they want to start blogging, and for a while I was considering adding Medium to my list of …

Jul 26, 2015: Bold New Start Don't wait for the new year for a bold new start. Start today with Nicholas Bate and reap the benefits. Hint for NB: Would love to see these as a deck …

Jul 26, 2015: Music Recommendation The Last of Us is a fantastic game as is the soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. Highly recommended even if you have never played the game.

Jul 26, 2015: Notebook Lost and Found Ana Reinert has a couple of suggestions to ensure your most prized notebooks get back to you.

Jul 26, 2015: Repeating the Basics A tweet by Brian P. Hogan sums up brilliantly what I've been doing in the last two weeks to stay sharp. Whether you’re playing scales, shooting …

Jul 26, 2015: The Pixar Theory Jennifer read this over the weekend and suggested I read it too. With two young kids, a Pixar movie is usually on the television at some point during …

Jul 23, 2015: Communities Need Trust When it comes to building communities, there's one essential ingredient that can make or break the community. It's trust. Sure there are other things …

Jul 23, 2015: Fixie Friday - Affinity Kissena Second Affinity bike I've added in the last few bikes, they really are beautiful looking bikes. via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Jul 21, 2015: Book Recommendations by Patrick Rhone Another one for the list. Thanks for the recommendation Patrick!

Jul 21, 2015: Down The List Michael Wade sums up well what being productive means: This means working with deliberation and not by impulse. I must elude a multitude of …

Jul 21, 2015: I Want This The Bradley Mountain Waxed Canvas Utility Roll is one of those products you're going to own for a very long time. Love those kind of products.

Jul 21, 2015: Save The Web Amazing piece about the changes in the Internet since the glory days of blogging. The centralization of information also worries me because it makes …

Jul 21, 2015: T-Shirts ... the ultimate guide.

Jul 21, 2015: Take the Stairs We end up with needlessly difficult lives because we have trouble recognizing ease when it’s hidden behind difficulty. It’s hard to see, for example, …

Jul 21, 2015: The Kaweco Liliput Fountain Pen Just dawned on me the other day that I don't currently own a fountain pen so I'm starting a short list of considerations with the Kaweco Liliput …

Jul 20, 2015: I had a good week off with the family last week, but it’s back to work this morning.

Jul 13, 2015: Better Photos for Instagram I've become something of a Instagram fan over the last few months, so this was right up my street.

Jul 13, 2015: Naughty Firefox I've been a long-time fan of Mozilla and Firefox but the move to include Pocket in the open-source web browser isn't my idea of what open source …

Jul 13, 2015: The 32-Hour Workweek I work four days a week when a client allows it and most usually do but I will make exceptions for projects that are on a limited timescale. Working …

Jul 13, 2015: The Medium Debate Continues I'm still not a fan of Medium for blogging, but that's just my preference. It is a great place for reading though.

Jul 11, 2015: Had a mini test ride on a Specialized Fatboy today. I’m pretty sure my next bike will be a fat tyre bike. So comfortable!

Jul 9, 2015: Better Note Taking One study found that taking notes on a computer leads us to transcribe lectures or talks verbatim, which doesn't help us understand the material as …

Jul 9, 2015: Buffer's Transparency Dashboard Special hat tip to Buffer for their transparency dashboard. This is the kind of business I would love to work for.

Jul 9, 2015: Fixie Friday - KHS Aero Track via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Jul 9, 2015: Where's the Value In Writing? For the last two weeks I've been writing my morning pages. The fact that I have managed to keep this going for two weeks is a good sign and I'm glad …

Jul 7, 2015: Need a Better Workspace? Tools & Toys have you covered. Definitely getting me a NeuYear calendar for next year.

Jul 7, 2015: New Han Solo Film Announced A film about the early life of Han Solo has been announced by Disney. Good to see that Disney are moving forwards with Star Wars. via Kottke.org

Jul 7, 2015: Offline Tools When we talk about tools that make us productive, we often refer to products and services that automate things for us. They do the leg work for a …

Jul 7, 2015: Twitter Overhaul If I unfollowed you on Twitter then don't panic. I've got a bunch of you on lists.

Jul 7, 2015: Victoire Cycles 29er MTB Having ridden the 650b wheel size for the last three months, I've been impressed with the larger wheel size. I can only imagine how much fun riding …

Jul 6, 2015: Does Your Organisation Pass the NB Audit? Be honest. I'd be surprised if most organisations managed to even get three out of seven on Nicholas Bate's seven point audit. From my experience the …

Jul 6, 2015: Freelance Offers Offers of freelance work have been overflowing in the last couple of days. Good to see.

Jul 6, 2015: Right Intention, Wrong Store It happens to me more times than I care to admit. I take my iPhone out of my pocket, fully intending to do something — look up an address or take down …

Jul 5, 2015: Are You Bulletproof? And do you need to be? via Nicholas Bate

Jul 5, 2015: Jurassic Mondays Off to the cinema tonight with Ethan to see Jurassic World. Should be good.

Jul 5, 2015: No Regrets I recently read Kurt Harden's list of products he hasn't regretted owning. I decided to carry on this theme with my own list off products that I have …

Jul 5, 2015: Why Young People Should Play Golf This post highlights the benefits that youngsters get from playing golf. Ethan's first year on the junior team has been a huge learning experience for …

Jul 2, 2015: In fact I wonder if it there will be a decline amongst a few of BBC’s radio stations.

Jul 2, 2015: Starting to wonder if Beats 1 is going to grab a significant percentage of listeners from BBC Radio 1.

Jul 2, 2015: Easier Meetings ... with Nicholas Bate's In Three series.

Jul 2, 2015: Fixie Friday - Bob's Custom Titanium Track Who doesn't love titanium? via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Jul 2, 2015: Test Your Problem Solving Skills Interesting insights about how we can solve problems by disproving ideas rather than proving them.

Jul 2, 2015: Writing Again I'm writing again. Trying to get into the habit of writing (not typing) 750 words every morning and keeping a written log of each day as well. Going …

Jul 1, 2015: Cellphones Off Before Bed The study indicated that those spending time on their cellphones just before bedtime resulted in a feeling of more sleepiness versus those who …

Jul 1, 2015: Ethan's First Junior Open Ethan played in the Junior Open at Elderslie Golf Club yesterday. He had a good time but it was a long slog for him. Playing off the longer yellow …

Jul 1, 2015: Vacation What are you going to do on vacation?

Jun 29, 2015: Is Microblogging Back? Returning to Twitter hasn't cracked up to what I thought it would be like. Good to see instead that people are entertaining the idea of microblogging …

Jun 29, 2015: Microblogging ADN doesn't have enough people. Twitter is too short. Facebook is too big. I don't have a Google account. So why am I not posting shorter posts here …

Jun 29, 2015: Own-Mailbox I like this idea of a secure, self-hosted mailbox.

Jun 25, 2015: Five days in and our 2yo is still fighting this stomach bug.

Jun 25, 2015: Fixie Friday - Jacobs Track Bike via FGGT

Jun 25, 2015: Moleskine Timepage Just added Moleskine's new calendar app, Timepage, to my iPhone. I'll be road testing this for a couple of months as a replacement for Fantastical 2. …

Jun 25, 2015: On the Mend I had big plans for this week, but it was effectively written off as our youngest son was ill all week. The great thing about my work being flexible …

Jun 25, 2015: What's in Patrick's Pockets? All the essentials and nothing more.

Jun 22, 2015: My Backyard I think a trip to the highlands needs to planned for this autumn. Best of all, it's just a short drive away. Go, and Be from Josh Brine on Vimeo. via …

Jun 22, 2015: The Inside-Out Seven Another classic NB list for on the wall above your desk. The brand evolved organically from outstanding customer responsiveness rather than stilted …

Jun 22, 2015: The McDonalds Burger Bike Tote A nice idea, but I would rather go for a proper bike ride up the hills and make my own burgers when I get home. Healthier and better tasting.

Jun 19, 2015: In-laws have left. Lower the DEFCON level.

Jun 19, 2015: Sad circumstances for the in-laws visit, but it was good for the boys to see their gran and papa again. Roll on next year for Canada.

Jun 18, 2015: Programmers or developers? What’s the difference?

Jun 18, 2015: All 15 Pixar Movies Ranked by Vulture Adults will have their own variations on this ranked list of Pixar's movies, but has anyone asked the kids to order these films? Chances are the kids …

Jun 18, 2015: Fixie Friday - Ryan's 2015 Leader Kagero via Pedal Consumption

Jun 18, 2015: Say Hi to DigitalBothy It's early days but I'm starting a new blog with a focus on web development. DigitalBothy will be the home for all the technical stuff that I don't …

Jun 18, 2015: The Pocket Notebook - A Game Changer The Simple Dollar cover everything you need to know about using a pocket notebook. It’s really hard to believe, but I have to say that one of the …

Jun 16, 2015: Golden Gate Bridge Construction I've never seen pictures of the bridge while it was being built. Quite amazing. via Eclecticity Light

Jun 16, 2015: Obama's Stealth Startup Great to see the US government using leading engineers from Silicon Valley to work on their digital infrastructure. Lisa had just spent time on the …

Jun 16, 2015: The Buddha Stand Nice trick. via FGGT

Jun 12, 2015: No, that climb didn’t take two minutes.

Jun 12, 2015: That was weird. First pic at the start of the ride just posted alongside the recent one. Bizarre.

Jun 11, 2015: Markdown editors. There must be hundreds of them.

Jun 11, 2015: Pet Peeves: Web sites for desktop software that don’t show screenshots on their landing pages.

Jun 11, 2015: An Evening with Kurt Dog-walking, Shakespeare, baseball, Beethoven and hot dogs. All available at Cultural Offering.

Jun 11, 2015: Fixie Friday - Storm Cycles via FGGT

Jun 11, 2015: The Serious 11 Serious ambitions need a serious checklist. Thanks NB!

Jun 10, 2015: Blank Pages Blank pages are great. They are empty to begin with. Devoid of markings, letters, pictures, symbols or any written mark that represents something. …

Jun 10, 2015: Flatpack Skyscrapers Can a building taller than the Burj Khalifa be built in seven months?

Jun 10, 2015: The Bleachers You think the best coaches and players sit near the field of play? Think again. You always find the best players and coaches in the bleachers. They …

Jun 10, 2015: The Bristol Pound Would you use it? I propose the Glasgow Pound currency. Not an actual note, just a bottle of Irn-Bru.

Jun 9, 2015: Jupiter and Venus Converge UK-based observers will be able to see the convergence of Jupiter and Venus through the month of June. I'll be watching for this one.

Jun 9, 2015: The Fallen of World War II A visualisation of military and civilian deaths in World War II. The numbers are staggering. via Kottke

Jun 7, 2015: Make Your Kids Eat Everything It's certainly not impossible. You may wonder how we get our kids to eat kale and clams, and here is the answer: we make them (we're warm but firm), …

Jun 7, 2015: Matt's Guide to Consulting Not me, but my fellow Scot Matt Gemmell. His 15 minute guide to consulting is a wonderful guide to what consultants of any industry should aspire to. …

Jun 7, 2015: Michael Wade ... says no. That and other great tools for greater productivity.

Jun 7, 2015: Stop Reacting Seriously, stop reacting. Stop checking Twitter, Facebook, email and anything else that's driven by notifications. In fact just turn off all …

Jun 7, 2015: Three In Three Sketchnotes More sketchnoting, this time it was the turn of Nicholas Bates' "In 3" posts from last week.

Jun 5, 2015: Apparently Netflix thinks I might like to watch “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”.
I don’t think so Netflix.

Jun 4, 2015: Good to see tmux have left the growing mess that is SourceForge.

Jun 4, 2015: Goodbye Yahoo Pipes.

Jun 4, 2015: In-laws have arrived. Raise the DEFCON level!

Jun 4, 2015: In-laws settled in for their stay. Now, back to work.

Jun 4, 2015: Still the greatest feature in Firefox. Opening web sites in the sidebar. Especially when the web site scales down to fit the narrow space.

Jun 4, 2015: Tweetbot 2.0 for Mac. Nice.

Jun 4, 2015: With notes annotations on Instapaper I’m starting to wonder if I really need Pinboard.

Jun 4, 2015: 100 Uses for a Pocket Notebook Who knew there could be so many?

Jun 4, 2015: Fixie Friday - Father Tu's Affinity A break from the regular profile photograph we include here. I'm including the rider in this one. Father Tu himself with his Affinity. I was …

Jun 4, 2015: Is Cleveland Cursed? 147 seasons without a title win. That's a long time. It could end this year though if the Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA finals.

Jun 4, 2015: Sketchnoting Again Ever since I took delivery of my Nock Hightower a few weeks ago, my notebook has been with me every where I go. Even when I'm at home it sits on my …

Jun 3, 2015: Extraordinary People, Ordinary Jobs It's unreasonable to expect extraordinary work from someone who isn't trusted to create it. — The fruitless search for extraordinary people willing …

Jun 3, 2015: My Favourite Feature in Firefox I think it's fair to say that I've finally settled on a browser that I enjoy using. For well over a year now, Firefox has been my browser of choice. …

Jun 3, 2015: Selling Three Three point guide to selling from NB. Can it be that simple?

Jun 2, 2015: My Alternatives to Google Ever since going Google free, I've tried a number of different services to cover my needs. In this post I'll highlight seven alternatives to Google's …

Jun 2, 2015: Never Say Again ... with the incomparable Nicholas Bate.

Jun 2, 2015: The Mailbox Effect Kurt Harden continues to deliver life changing lessons from his own experiences. My old communications professor, Raymond Tucker, explained the …

Jun 2, 2015: The USA Freedom Act is Passed The Intercept summarises the recent passing of the USA Freedom Act. Good to see change happening as a result of the work of Jon Snowden, Laura Poitras …

Jun 1, 2015: Batteriser Extends Your Battery Life This is the kind of technology innovation I like to see. "Killer apps" are common as muck these days. Technology like this extends the life …

May 29, 2015: Finding that a lot of the code I’m writing for DailyMuse is to support the product rather than being code for new features.

May 29, 2015: First time searching for Twitter in the App Store. Gone are the multitude of good client apps and replaced by “follow boosting” apps.

May 29, 2015: It’s been a long time since I’ve had the Twitter app on my iPhone. Very impressed with it so far.

May 28, 2015: Alternatives to Google Not only can you be Google free, but the alternatives are just as good in terms of functionality. I suspect the ease of switching away from Google …

May 28, 2015: Fixie Friday - Bianchi Pista Concept Been a while since we featured a Pista here. via Pedal Consumption

May 28, 2015: Supporting Features in DailyMuse In the time it's taken me to get DailyMuse up and running, I've noticed that a lot of the code that I have written for this product is code that …

May 27, 2015: Always Be Learning From Experiences Learning tends to come from acquiring the knowledge of topics that we're not familiar with. This is why as kids we all went to school. At a young age …

May 27, 2015: How Big is Minecraft? Wired answers the question in 8 bit. Funnily enough, the number of possible worlds is similar to the number of planets generated in No Man's Sky which …

May 27, 2015: Ideas for Better Twittering Adam Keys has some thoughts on this. I like this in particular. Keep a private list for high signal-to-noise follows. Good friends and people whose …

May 26, 2015: FIFA Officials Face Corruption Charges FIFA officials are now facing corruption charges for bribery that occurred in the US and was paid through US bank accounts. As leaders of FIFA, …

May 26, 2015: Happy Blog-iversary ... to SwissMiss. 10 years and still going strong!

May 26, 2015: The Learning Benefit of a Side Project As I move towards building up my GitHub profile with examples of work, I realised something about my side projects. They provided the perfect place to …

May 26, 2015: The Open-office Model is Killing the Workplace I've worked in a couple of open-office layouts but nothing near having to share the same table with other colleagues. Our new, modern Tribeca office …

May 25, 2015: Black Holes & Clones The BBC earth mini-site aims to explain what happens when you fall into a black hole. After all, the event horizon is not like a brick wall floating …

May 25, 2015: Building a Universe No Man's Sky has high expectations. With a game universe composing of billions of planets, it is set to change the world of gaming. I for one can't …

May 25, 2015: Is the Web Defeated? I hope not. Technically, it’s simple. The web cannot emulate native perfectly, and it never will. Native apps talk directly to the operating system, …

May 24, 2015: Are You an Early Adopter? I'm generally not, but that's okay. If we didn’t have any early adopters ironing out the kinks, there’d never be a now-safe choice for the late …

May 24, 2015: GitHub is not My Resume I've been searching through various contract opportunities over the last few weeks. Client work is slowing down and I have some availability over the …

May 24, 2015: Switching Off CCTV I'm on the fence about whether switching off CCTV cameras to save money is a good or a bad thing for the public. What sent alarm bells off for me …

May 23, 2015: Big Food is Out I can't say if this trend is happening in the UK, but in the Lang house we've almost completely eliminated processed foods in favour of fresh home …

May 22, 2015: I hope the @ElderslieGolf juniors are playing well in their match against Kilmacolm. Couldn’t make it to let Ethan watch.

May 22, 2015: Wrote my first bit of Rack middleware yesterday for a Rails application. Not so hard to do once you know how it passes requests through.

May 21, 2015: Fixie Friday - 2010 Nagasawa Nakano Red Rainbow Flake via FGGT

May 21, 2015: I Should Be Blogging I really should. My problem at the moment is that I have too many things on the go at once. Something will need to give. If you're struggling to blog, …

May 21, 2015: Lots of People ... ... are willing to pay for your product or service. You'd be surprised just how many.

May 21, 2015: No Excuse There's no excuse for the lack of blog posts around here recently. I've tried to kickstart my daily posts a number of times in the last couple of …

May 20, 2015: The Humble Pocket The Art of Manliness uncovers everything about the humble pocket. This is because the original pockets weren’t like the sewn-in pockets we know …

May 20, 2015: The Moleskine Tool Belt A clever idea for any notebook, but I have to say I do prefer my Nock Hightower.

May 20, 2015: The Writing Workflow of Curtis McHale We need more posts like this. Good to see that Markdown is favoured by Curtis.

May 19, 2015: This has come up in a few ads I’ve seen recently. Makes me wonder if it’s the new choice of words for “ninjas and rockstars”.

May 16, 2015: Giving Atom a spin. A number of great improvements since I last used it. Could it replace Sublime for me? We’ll see.

May 14, 2015: Fixie Friday - Don Walker Cycles A little fast one today.

May 14, 2015: The Emojic 8 Ball XKCD delivers again with the Emojic 8 Ball.

May 14, 2015: The Next Level of Blogging Curtis McHale talks about taking your blogging to the next level and hiring an editor. Working with Diane I get something more though — I get someone …

May 13, 2015: Re-reading I have old favorites I return to again and again. Stories like Watership Down, The Wind and the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Washington Irving’s …

May 13, 2015: Subscriptions Cleanout I cleaned out my RSS feeds over the weekend. The following feeds have been removed for different reasons: A Fresh Cup - Mike Gunderloy is taking a …

May 13, 2015: What's Your Daily Intentions? Patrick Rhone shares a simple way he shapes the day in his favour. An excellent idea.

May 13, 2015: Why You Turn Up I love this. You turn up because of the people around you. You know, the ones with common interests and sense of ambition. The ones who want to …

May 11, 2015: Jason Christman's Star Wars Art Always loved these posters but never got round to buying one. via Star Wars

May 11, 2015: Task Management That Works The Zapier blog has been a new addition to my reading list and it certainly hasn't disappointed. This post about the time-tested task management …

May 11, 2015: The Distracting Dumbphones A brilliant post about the increasing world of digital distractions. Still, I am an optimist. Most nights last year, I got into bed with a book — …

May 11, 2015: The Ruins of Berlin An amazing flyover of the ruins of Berlin after Allied air raids during World War 2.

May 11, 2015: Time to Explore I've been working with Ruby on Rails full-time now for close to 4 years. Two years as a full-time employee and two years as a freelancer. In that time …

May 10, 2015: Recommended books for learning Python?

May 8, 2015: The joys of home delivery from @asda. Ended up with two bags from someone else’s order which included three sirloin steaks.

May 7, 2015: Fixie Friday - Airtight Cycles Möbius 650c Kyudo A work of art. The detailing in the frame is amazing, especially around the seat tube cluster. via Cycle EXIF

May 7, 2015: Goodbye Minimal Mac It's the end of an era as Patrick Rhone calls it a day on his Minimal Mac blog. This is the final post on Minimal Mac. This project contains what I …

May 6, 2015: Paper Star Wars These scenes from Star Wars are amazing in their detail.

May 3, 2015: Giving up 2/3 of the way through Peter V. Brett’s The Daylight War. Feel like I’ve been reading it for weeks. Time to move on.

May 3, 2015: Fat Chance Cracking bike, cracking colour, cracking name. What more reason do I need to post this here? via Cycle EXIF

May 3, 2015: Focusing on Writing Code I wrote this on Friday's post: Building and marketing products isn’t for me. I prefer to be neck deep in code rather than marketing tools. I've been …

May 3, 2015: Meanwhile at NBU ... they're teaching the things other business schools don't.

Apr 30, 2015: Discoveries What was the last thing you discovered? I mean really discovered. Not just a link that you found interesting or an article that you thought was …

Apr 30, 2015: Fixie Friday - Ronin via FGGT photo by Father Tu

Apr 30, 2015: Transforming Journalong Journalong has been limping along for a few months now. With almost no interest from myself in rolling out anymore features and a lack of activity …

Apr 29, 2015: Added a dollop of peanut butter and honey to my porridge this morning. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Apr 29, 2015: Embrace Your Constraints Curtis McHale knows his limits when it comes to keeping up with the ever changing world of web technology. It would be super easy for me to longingly …

Apr 29, 2015: It's Official, Todoist Rules ... ... well, according to Matthew Stibbe anyway.

Apr 29, 2015: Words That Sell The amazing story of author Mark Dawson.

Apr 27, 2015: Feels like January again. Bloody freezing.

Apr 23, 2015: Fixie Friday - Winter Bicycles Velvet Hammer via Cycle EXIF

Apr 22, 2015: Just a heads up that I’ll be available for freelance/contract Rails work from the 1st of June onwards. DM your details if you’re …

Apr 20, 2015: I keep pressing j and k to move up and down the emails in Mail. I’m well and truly a #vim user now.

Apr 20, 2015: Rise of the New York City Skyline This is amazing. As you ride the elevator to the top of 1 World Trade Centre, you can watch an animated time-lapse of the New York skyline starting …

Apr 19, 2015: Hello Instagram Jason Fried wrote about finding a positive experience when he joined Instagram: Every scroll through Twitter puts at least one person’s bad day, …

Apr 19, 2015: How Long To Internalise A Habit? Caesura Letters today discusses the time it takes to form a new habit. Habits are not the result of thinking about something hard enough to change …

Apr 19, 2015: Nice, Not Yet Essential A quick summary from different reviews of the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch on the market, the reviewers agree. And it does …

Apr 19, 2015: Programmers Need a Plan B Given I'm a couple of years from this milestone, it's a worrying prospect to think that my chances of being hired will continue to decline. The …

Apr 19, 2015: The 25 Once again, I'm honoured to be included in such great company. Thanks Kurt.

Apr 19, 2015: The Adapting Notebook Moleskine are adapting to the digital world around them, but the big plus from this article is that despite the prevalence of technology, Moleskine's …

Apr 16, 2015: Best. Trailer. Ever.

Apr 16, 2015: Feels like you’re admitting defeat when pull the plug on something you created.

Apr 16, 2015: I must find a way to put in a 2 hour bike ride at night that doesn’t keep me awake for hours after it. 2am I think I finally fell asleep at.

Apr 16, 2015: In other news, I messed about with an Apple Watch yesterday. I’m still not sold on it.

Apr 16, 2015: Journalong has fallen by the way side for some time now. Think it’s time to call it a day and focus on something else.

Apr 16, 2015: Exercise Often The message is clear. Exercise often. It's just one aspect of clean living.

Apr 16, 2015: Fixie Friday - Festka One LT Dazzle via FGGT

Apr 16, 2015: War on the roads A slightly biased article towards cyclists that points the finger at the motor industry to blame for what they call crazy helmet laws. I disagree. I …

Apr 14, 2015: Digital Hygiene Seth lays out five steps to digital hygiene.

Apr 14, 2015: Something Special “We’ve always spoken about the principle of association since he was young and playing in bigger stage events,” McCormick said. This means paying …

Apr 13, 2015: Go Slow Michael Wade, our resident pathfinder, knows the way forward. Take your time and as you move down the path, be open to new thoughts. They frequently …

Apr 13, 2015: Growing the Game After a rocky start to the year, it seems that Ethan is finding his form again. It was a big ask for Ethan to beat James in his match but despite …

Apr 13, 2015: Make an Index for a Notebook A must step for anyone serious about embracing pen and paper.

Apr 9, 2015: Considered getting myself an @Instagram account. Gave up after trying almost every close permutation of my name. Are underscores allowed?

Apr 9, 2015: Didn’t watch last night’s #scotsdebates. I probably didn’t miss much.

Apr 9, 2015: Vesper or Day One?

Apr 9, 2015: Back to Basics ... is an undoubtably great new series from NB.

Apr 9, 2015: Fixie Friday - Stelbel Ortica via PEDAL Consumption

Apr 9, 2015: Molecover Yip, pretty sure I want one of these.

Apr 9, 2015: The Rosko 650B This was too good not to post. via CycleEXIF

Apr 7, 2015: Hello Tether I've been running Tether on both my Macbook Pro and iPhone for a week now. Install it on both and when you walk away it locks your Macbook. Walk back …

Apr 7, 2015: Marco & DuckDuckGo Good to see Marco Arment switching to DuckDuckGo. I've been using it for the best part of two years. I don't see me ever going back to using Google.

Apr 7, 2015: The Problem with Petition Services Before the Internet, the best way to make a group of people heard was to have those people sign a petition. Under a common goal, a group of people …

Apr 2, 2015: Fixie Friday - Samson Track via FGGT

Apr 2, 2015: Hating on Attention A great piece on being an introvert. My thoughts are my thoughts. I share what I choose to, and the rest is mine. Don't quiz me, demand to know what …

Apr 2, 2015: Let Your Kids Point & Shoot Kids have the wonder and curiosity that adults have spent many years replacing with logic and skepticism. To a kid, what looks like some moss on a …

Apr 2, 2015: The Prodigal User Returns I have burned through a number of different tool choices over the last two years. In an effort to find the best tools that fit how I work, I've tried …

Mar 31, 2015: Heroku’s decision to curb the free tier and introduce a hobby tier is a great move. Am I in the minority here?

Mar 31, 2015: I can understand people’s grievance with the limits on the free tier if they have side projects but is $7 per month really too much to pay?

Mar 31, 2015: Might get my head blown off for this but I’m glad to see Heroku are scaling back on their free tier. They are a business after all.

Mar 31, 2015: The hobby tier is a great stepping stone from the free tier to their new standard tier and well priced as well.

Mar 30, 2015: Switch to Pocket from Instapaper hasn’t been that great. I can see me switching back to Instapaper and Pinboard pretty soon.

Mar 30, 2015: That was one helluva season finale to the The Walking Dead.

Mar 30, 2015: Being Boring With Technology Choices The nice thing about boringness (so constrained) is that the capabilities of these things are well understood. But more importantly, their failure …

Mar 30, 2015: Cycling in Amsterdam Lots of cities could learn a thing or two when it comes to figuring out how to get the best of both worlds for drivers and cyclists.

Mar 30, 2015: Drew Houston ... ... and his drive to keep Dropbox being a successful product. Excellent interview with Dropbox's founder. I've been a happy Dropbox user for years. I …

Mar 30, 2015: Managing Your Time Online with Automation and Filters Left unchecked, you could easily waste away your time online. Posting, bookmarking, pinning, reading, uploading, downloading, torrenting and …

Mar 29, 2015: Good Experience I spent Sunday down at Barassie Links with Ethan and the rest of the Elderslie Juniors Newton Shield team. Just one of the Elderslie team won their …

Mar 27, 2015: Curtis McHale Knows Good Project Plans A project plan should be built in partnership with your client. When they buy into the project plan you then start a scope and build a proposal/scope …

Mar 27, 2015: Fixie Friday - 1986 Pista Beauty or beast? via FGGT

Mar 27, 2015: For the Pen & Paper Fans Tools & Toys excellent guide to analog writing tools. Tempted to purchase a few Field Notes books.

Mar 27, 2015: NSA Busting Security Advice Okay, maybe not NSA busting but definitely more secure than thinking up your own passphrase.

Mar 27, 2015: Suggestions for Your Reading List ... ... all the way from sunny Arizona. Thanks Michael.

Mar 27, 2015: Why I Paid for Fantastical 2 During the week I found out that Flexibits were releasing a major upgrade to their OS X calender app, Fantastical. When Fantastical first came out, I …

Mar 26, 2015: Didn’t even hesitate this morning to purchase Fantastical 2. For an app I use every day, it’s worth paying the upgrade price.

Mar 26, 2015: Expecting free upgrades for the complete lifecycle of a software product is ridiculous.

Mar 26, 2015: Not only am I supporting the future of the app, but also the developers behind it as well.

Mar 25, 2015: DailyMuse: The Today View Email is great. It's a reliable form of content delivery that can reach a multitude of devices and it's platform independent. Who cares if it's …

Mar 25, 2015: The B-52, Still Flying This planning deficit is nothing unusual. It would be a tribute to Boeing engineers’ advance planning that the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat, er, Fella) is due …

Mar 23, 2015: I understand the motives behind such platforms and their push for positive change, but I’m at the stage where I simply bin their emails.

Mar 23, 2015: Sounds harsh, but when you get emails every other day, they become just another “mail for the bin”.

Mar 20, 2015: Diary or Journal? Who cares. Just capture.

Mar 20, 2015: Fresh Ideas ... ... are everywhere. You just have to look.

Mar 20, 2015: Uses for DailyMuse Great to see DailyMuse making a positive change. Those are the two things I’m using it for so far but I can think of many others — daily exercise …

Mar 17, 2015: Also good to have SPDs back on the fixie rather than toe straps. I’m feel more sure footed on them than the straps.

Mar 17, 2015: Back to schools runs on the bike this week … well at least while the weather holds.

Mar 17, 2015: Don’t get me wrong, my straps are secure and keep my feet planted, but sometimes getting my feet out can be a bit of a hit and miss.

Mar 17, 2015: Essential Zones with Nicholas Bate.

Mar 17, 2015: Medium Adds Custom Domains Medium's recent announcement that they will start allowing people to use their own domain names for their Medium blogs will be welcome to many, but is …

Mar 17, 2015: The Great Unfollow A reminder that Twitter is the ultimate destructive distraction. Since returning, I've definitely not been as active as I was in the past and I'm …

Mar 15, 2015: The Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard doesn’t have the greatest product name but good to see MS building a product for other platforms.

Mar 15, 2015: Typing on the MS keyboard would be easier. Not sure how I would fare on the TextBlade.

Mar 15, 2015: Wondering if I really need such a device as a folding keyboard. The MS offering is nice but the pocket sized TextBlade wins on portability.

Mar 13, 2015: Fixie Friday - Kalavinka Super Exhibition via FGGT

Mar 13, 2015: Say Hi to DailyMuse It's been quiet of late on my blog and for a good reason. While my daily posts have ground to an almost complete stop, I do have a good reason for it. …

Mar 13, 2015: XKCD and Pratchett I spent my teens and many years after reading through the Discworld books and now I'm passing them onto my oldest to read. It was too soon for such a …

Mar 12, 2015: More Zombies Please Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are the only things on the television I'll sit down to watch. Glad to hear there's more zombies on the way. HT to …

Mar 12, 2015: Need a Highlighter for the Web? Here you go. Can't wait to see this being available. It will be interesting to see if snippets can be saved to other tools like Dropbox. via Wired

Mar 11, 2015: Developers love details. Nuff said.

Mar 10, 2015: Apple Watch … meh. New MacBook … yay!

Mar 10, 2015: Battle Plans ... ... carefully drawn up by Execupundit.

Mar 10, 2015: Just Another Apple Announcement Last night, round about 5pm, I closed down my work apps, shut the lid on MacBook and left my iPhone at my desk. I checked my son was doing his …

Mar 7, 2015: Second failed attempt at reading Book Yourself Solid. Going to keep it back for a time when I’m not booked solid.

Mar 5, 2015: Fixie Friday - Rodagira Zorlac 2 via FGGT

Mar 3, 2015: Dunbar's Number A little reminder that while we're connected in more ways now than we have ever been, our number of meaningful connections doesn't change at all. The …

Mar 3, 2015: Email Essentials ... ... you just can't ignore.

Feb 27, 2015: I finally sat down to watch #citizenfour last night. Amazing documentary.

Feb 27, 2015: Fixie Friday - Colnago Master An Italian delight. via FGGT

Feb 27, 2015: I'm Busy In case you didn't notice, it's been real busy here at Lang HQ. Client work, side project work and volunteer work have been the focus of the week as …

Feb 26, 2015: Haven’t looked back since cancelling my Amazon Prime subscription. Rather than relying on next day delivery, I just order in advance.

Feb 26, 2015: I might end up paying more in delivery charges, but I don’t order as much anymore. Prime lets you impulse buy, which isn’t a good thing.

Feb 25, 2015: Cold in Ohio I love Ohio but it is cold. It is Ivan-Denisovich cold. It’s Jack-Nicholson-at-the-end-of-The-Shining cold; …

Feb 25, 2015: Self-Destruct Tweets A very interesting idea. Lazin-Ryder is one of a number of Twitter users who are using homegrown methods to make their tweets self-destruct. He says …

Feb 25, 2015: Small Tasks The trick, of course, is to choose the small tasks which Vilfredo Pareto - he of the 80/20 Rule - would designate as among the vital few; i.e. the …

Feb 24, 2015: Always wary about pre-empting the need for a gem when using Rails. More inclined to leave using a gem until I absolutely need it.

Feb 24, 2015: Can’t decide if that was thunder or the wind I just heard. Bloody loud whatever it was.

Feb 24, 2015: Are Trolls Attracted To Videos? No spot comes close to YouTube when it comes to the number of dumb and vicious remarks in its comments section. Even bland videos, ones without an …

Feb 22, 2015: Is OS X running on an iPad going to be a thing then? I would love to see it happen.

Feb 20, 2015: Spent most of the day looking at Wordpress as a CMS for a local school. Like what I’ve seen so far.

Feb 20, 2015: Essential Client Management 40 rules for managing clients including this one: Working weekends for clients: I’ll do it once if there’s a genuine emergency but, unless you pay me …

Feb 20, 2015: Fixie Friday -1993 Cannondale Track Second Track bike of the year for Fixie Friday but I can't deny they are great looking bikes. via PEDAL Consumption

Feb 20, 2015: Programming Advice Search for deeper understanding of approaches to programming that seem strange or incorrect to you. Don’t look for wrongness in what someone else is …

Feb 20, 2015: Saddleback Leather iPad Sleve These iPad sleeves make me want to buy an iPad, just to warrant the purchase of the sleeve. Ridiculous idea but these are great looking sleeves. via …

Feb 19, 2015: Deciding on a Pricing Strategy I've been working on a new idea for a service for the last few weeks and I'm just about ready to take the wraps off it. While the core functionality …

Feb 18, 2015: Alas, front-end design and web copy are really not my thing.

Feb 18, 2015: Draw Up Some Battle Plans ... and earn your victory.

Feb 18, 2015: My Wall Calendar Problem I would love to have a wall calendar that would give me an at a glance view of what's coming up the next few months. Here's the problem though, my …

Feb 18, 2015: Write For Yourself A fantastic piece on the drawbacks of using publishing platforms such as Medium. In truth, Medium’s main prod­uct is not a pub­lish­ing plat­form, …

Feb 17, 2015: If the postman wasn’t singing so bloody loud, he might have realised that he was delivering mail to the wrong door.

Feb 17, 2015: A Big Problem for Google Marco Arment on what could be Google's biggest challenge yet. Shallow social-shareable listicles and clickbait headlines have always been plentiful …

Feb 17, 2015: Clarity Through Blogging Perfect time to be reading this again. Even if nobody reads them, you should write them. It's become pretty clear to me that blogging is a source of …

Feb 17, 2015: What is The Rails Way? It's a question I've been asking myself as I switch between different Rails applications for different clients. In my early days of working with …

Feb 16, 2015: Getting Noticed I've always been the quiet type, often electing for the quiet corner of the room rather than being the speaker on the platform. Paul Dessert's guide …

Feb 16, 2015: Good Weekend For Golf It was a good weekend for the members of Elderslie's Junior Newton Shield squad. Coaching on the Saturday with the club pro followed by an opportunity …

Feb 16, 2015: NB Knows What's More Important Routine & Ritual. Get the critical stuff, the vital stuff, the oh-so-easily-neglected stuff embedded. Make it a ritual. Make it a routine. Make …

Feb 16, 2015: Short Term Contractor, Long Term Freelancer Even before I started freelancing, I always got confused by the almost interchangeable career titles of freelancers and the jobs that were available …

Feb 14, 2015: Junior squad out with @ElderslieGcPro working on their short game. Good turn out as well. #growingthegame

Feb 14, 2015: Well that was a crap movie.

Feb 13, 2015: Fixie Friday - Rozzo Fixie or Singlespeed? Who cares. This Czech built bike is definitely a great looking bike. via Cycle EXIF

Feb 12, 2015: Centireading I can't say that I've read a book over 100 times, perhaps the closest to that count is A Christmas Carol which I've read over 20 times. Centireading …

Feb 12, 2015: Patrick is Kicking Ass Warning, this contains a lot of ass kicking, but it's well worth the read.

Feb 12, 2015: Sell to Yourself First The thing is, that even with all the successful projects behind us, we’re typically bad at selling ourselves to ourselves. Like my friend above, who …

Feb 12, 2015: The One Ring Explained A brilliant five minute guide to the history of the One Ring. via kottke.org

Feb 11, 2015: Doing a number of spikes with the Ionic framework this morning. Like what I’ve seen so far just by getting up and running.

Feb 10, 2015: Decided to give this Twitter thing a try again. We’ll see how it goes.

Feb 10, 2015: Never thought I would be proficient with Vim on a day to day basis. It’s taken a number of attempts but I finally got there.

Feb 10, 2015: Back on Twitter I'm back on Twitter. After weighing up the options, I'm probably better being an active member of at least one social network rather than none at all. …

Feb 10, 2015: Kids & Technology Last weekend our son came home with the school quarterly bulletin. As always we familiarised ourselves with everything that was coming up in the next …

Feb 6, 2015: 3 Reasons for Sharing Content I've been keeping this site going for a few years now, and while my main form of sharing content is through the RSS feed for this site, I do also …

Feb 6, 2015: Tips for an Effective Work Day Curtis McHale knows how to be effective during his work day. No further proof is needed than the man himself. Curtis manages to fit so much into a …

Feb 6, 2015: Westeros Built With Minecraft The entire kingdom of Westeros created in Minecraft. Amazing. via kottke.org

Feb 5, 2015: Store Bought Bike or Online Bought Bike? For the last month I've been pouring over mountain bike websites and magazines in the hope that I can pick up a decent bike at a reasonable price. In …

Feb 3, 2015: A wise man said ... ... these things are unwise.

Feb 3, 2015: Business Goals ... ... with Curtis McHale. Hats off to Curtis for his willingness to be transparent and honest about his goals.

Feb 3, 2015: Hosted Service or Custom Solution? In the early days of the Internet, hosting your own website was reserved for those in the know, but over time it's become easy for anyone to build and …

Jan 30, 2015: Fixie Friday - Amy's Pista Concept via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 29, 2015: Bike vs Taxi via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 29, 2015: Hello Pocket, Goodbye Instapaper A couple of weeks ago I moved my Instapaper account over to Pocket. The reason for the move was that I wanted better organisation of the articles that …

Jan 27, 2015: Is Success Only In Your Head? Curtis McHale asks if success is only in your head?. Well worth reading if you've failed in the delivery of a product or service and are second …

Jan 27, 2015: The Distant Observer It's close to a couple of months now since I stopped being an active user on App.net. The only time I'm posting updates now is when I want to reply to …

Jan 23, 2015: Fixie Friday - Treshombres CLASSY Lurvely! via FGGT

Jan 23, 2015: One Year On With My YNOT Gulper Just over a year ago I noticed that working from home eradicated my need for two separate messenger style bags. In the past I've used a North Face bag …

Jan 23, 2015: Stairway to Space Space, stairs, butter, motorcycles and slinkies. And they say education is boring! I got my oldest to start reading these. He struggles with some of …

Jan 22, 2015: Back on Track Minor setback this week as a couple of viruses knocked me and Jen out of contention for a couple of days. Last day and half has been me trying to get …

Jan 22, 2015: Less Listening, More Learning Podcasts and screencasts can eat up a lot of time. I've started to see a swing towards listening to podcasts and watching screencasts and less time …

Jan 19, 2015: Learning with Rust I'm always reading about other topics in software development. Over the last few years I've read about web design, JavaScript, Ruby, agile …

Jan 16, 2015: Benefits of Being an Indie Dev Marco Arment provides a detailed breakdown of his sales figures for 2014 for his app Overcast. More interesting though is the benefits he mentions to …

Jan 16, 2015: Fixie Friday - Zorlac 2 via FGGT

Jan 16, 2015: Writing is a Habit I've noticed a lull in my posting frequency here. Towards the end of last year, my posting frequency shrank to just one or two posts a week. Despite …

Jan 14, 2015: Paying For Software Is Smart Paying for tools is a smart choice. If programs like Keynote and Mail.app were actually profit centers for Apple, I would imagine that we'd have far …

Jan 14, 2015: Why Are Flashbangs Still in the Hands of US Police? In the past year I've read a number of different accounts of police using these harmful devices for raids. It boggles the mind that something so …

Jan 12, 2015: The De-cluttered Desk I had been putting it off for weeks, probably months in fact. My desk was slowly becoming a paper-based version of Smaug's hoard of gold . It was time …

Jan 12, 2015: The Last of Us This is just a quick hat tip to The Last of Us on the PS4. I've been playing this game for the last few weeks and after playing a series of …

Jan 12, 2015: Which way? A quick reminder to set your direction with NB.

Jan 12, 2015: Zombie Music Two albums worth mentioning are the two albums of The Walking Dead soundtrack. I didn't think these existed until a couple of months ago. The dark and …

Jan 11, 2015: Paisley Packer Lambeau Field is over 3500 miles away. No distance is too great though to root for the team you love.

Jan 9, 2015: Fixie Friday - KRZBERG V5 Team Edition via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 9, 2015: My Development Tools - 2015 Edition I forgot to do this last year. It completely went out of my head. Hardware Not much has changed since I last wrote about this. MacBook Pro - I'm …

Jan 8, 2015: Double Win It was a bit of a double win today for me and my son. We each got good news today that have changed how we're viewing the rest of the year. I'm …

Jan 8, 2015: To TDD Or Not To TDD Skipping the TDD cycle isn't always a bad thing to do. After all, sometimes you just want to write code. Over the holidays I had some free time. An …

Jan 5, 2015: Journal Prompts In this roadmap are many questions. In your journal — whether digital or by hand — you can simply write out the question at the top of the page, and …

Jan 5, 2015: Love Mondays ... ... with NB. Surprise them. Shock them even. Don't even complain once. About having eaten too much, the vacation being too short, the ridiculous …

Jan 5, 2015: Smaller Goals, More Opportunities Setting a goal for the year is made by many at the start of each year, but people frequently give up or just abandon their goal because it seems too …

Jan 5, 2015: The Developer's Sketchbook I've been thinking for a couple of week now about learning Rust, but something that's been bugging me has been what to build with it. Rather than …

Dec 30, 2014: Contextual Resolutions Resolutions rarely affect only ourselves when we make them. Patrick makes a good point of getting those around you to help support your resolutions. …

Dec 30, 2014: I Should Write More I was on a roll there for a while, but it's been difficult to get that consistentcy back again. I am working on it, it's just the hovering over the …

Dec 30, 2014: Uses for Notebooks Sadly I failed to completely fill a whole notebook this year. Seems like a trivial goal to have, but having a notebook full of notes, ideas, mind maps …

Dec 30, 2014: Worst movies of 2014 I would have to say that the Jack Ryan reboot was by far my most disappointing movie of 2014. Chris Pine seems suffocated to be playing the …

Dec 26, 2014: Boxing Day Boxing Day: a day where you avoid anything too clever and start by reflecting on (1) identifying the boxes in your life and (2) checking what's …

Dec 26, 2014: Fixie Friday - Anson's Pelizzoli Ending Fixie Friday 2014 with a lovely Pelizzoli. via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Dec 24, 2014: Goals for Fans of The Beatles Read from the best, read from Nicholas Bate.

Dec 24, 2014: Have You Changed? It turns out, 31-year-old me who’s played a handful of sports in adulthood is substantially more coordinated than 17-year-old me who’d played none …

Dec 24, 2014: The Burst Method An early Christmas present from Arizona. All you need to know to get things done.

Dec 19, 2014: Christmas Quiet I can't wait for the run-up to Christmas to finish, and for Christmas itself to begin. This frantic running about gets worse every year. I may take …

Dec 19, 2014: Fixie Friday - Sparkle Pony Holeshot Disc SS Yeah, I know. It's a single-speed. But you can't deny it's a rather fetching bike. via PEDAL Consumption

Dec 17, 2014: Custom Assertions with Minitest In the last few weeks I've been working on a Rails 3 application for a client. The test suite doesn't cover the whole application, so along with …

Dec 17, 2014: Feedbin's New Updated Section Feedbin has been my goto RSS Reader ever since Google Reader closed. I'm glad to see that development is continuing at a good pace with new features …

Dec 17, 2014: Goodbye Dr Dobb's I haven't been reading the Dr Dobb's site for a while but back in my days as a .NET developer, it was a regular place to visit. Still, it's a shame to …

Dec 17, 2014: School Run Topics This morning's topic of conversation in the car to school with the kids was very enlightening. Where would you go if the zombie apocalypse started? …

Dec 17, 2014: What a Hunk of Junk The different sound components of the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive failing explained by Ben Burtt. The biplane used was probably more reliable than …

Dec 16, 2014: 10x Your Business If you’re serious about growing your business, I want to challenge you to aim high. Don’t just think what you need to do to grow your business by 20% …

Dec 16, 2014: Faster Golf Rory McIlroy reckons a faster version of the game is required to get more kids interested in the game again. Everything’s so instant now and everyone …

Dec 16, 2014: Measurable Goals It's that time of year where you should be thinking about goals and plans for next year. Here's a little tip. Try measurable goals. 2015 is just …

Dec 16, 2014: This Will Help A little self promotion. My latest book, This Could Help, is now officially available on all platforms. It’s a collection of essays and asides, all of …

Dec 12, 2014: Bootstrapped: Under Armour From small beginnings to billion-dollar sports apparel giant, the story of Kevin Plank and Under Armour is proof that bootstrapping your business can …

Dec 12, 2014: Fixie Friday - Москва-80 via PEDAL Consumption

Dec 12, 2014: Santa Science The Santa deniers just ruin it for everyone else. The Guardian hits back with some key evidence to prove Santa is real. Santa’s workshop is located …

Dec 11, 2014: Esteemed Company Always glad to be featured amongst some really great bloggers.

Dec 10, 2014: Build a Better Business for 2015 ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Dec 10, 2014: My iPhone 6 Setup For a long time now I've kept my iPhone setup largely the same. Just two rows of apps on the home screen with other apps on the following screens. …

Dec 10, 2014: Simple Job Performance What does your job really boil down to? Execupundit knows.

Dec 10, 2014: Small Moon Makes me laugh everytime I read it. via XKCD

Dec 10, 2014: YNOT Winter Beanie Anyone want to send me one of these for Christmas?

Dec 8, 2014: New Gaming Market So I finished the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare single-player campaign last night after just three sittings. I was really disappointed with the …

Dec 8, 2014: Pong Traffic Light Wonderful idea. Wonder if there's any other games planning on being released? via Swissmiss

Dec 8, 2014: The NOW Year Calendar I love the idea of incorporating monthly themes into the calendar. Each month leaves a space on the first day to enter your Monthly Theme, and you …

Dec 6, 2014: The Tech Behind the Catch It's that catch again. This time looking at the tech behind Odell's gloves. Beckham’s are custom-made versions of the Nike Vapor Jet 3.0, which …

Dec 5, 2014: A Recipe for Killer Apps? While I do believe that killer apps have had their day for the foreseeable future, I can't deny that the unbundling technique can be used to create …

Dec 5, 2014: Fixie Friday - Kerry Hopkins Aero Track Love the exaggerated gussets on this frame. via Cycle EXIF

Dec 5, 2014: He's Back (Again) Yes, another Terminator movie. Anyone else think that these movies will keep going and going with the inclusion of a time machine in the plot? Still, …

Dec 5, 2014: New Bond Film, New Car The new Bond movie, Spectre, is out next year but that's not what I was interested in. I'm not a petrol-head, but you can't deny that the new Bond car …

Dec 5, 2014: Project or Context? Ensuring that your productivity system is correct is important if you want keep the actions flowing through it. Like deciding if a project is in fact …

Dec 4, 2014: My Bookmarklets 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 …

Dec 4, 2014: Spectrum Vega Console Having owned a Spectrum as a kid, I would love to have one of these little beauties. I think I would be simply caving into nostalgia though if I did. …

Dec 2, 2014: Bookmarklet Love I haven't reviewed my bookmarklets in a long time. Definitely think there's room though for one or two of Carl's recommendations.

Dec 2, 2014: 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 …

Dec 2, 2014: More ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Dec 2, 2014: 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 …

Nov 30, 2014: Glorious Golf Another glorious day for the junior section at Elderslie Golf Club.

Nov 28, 2014: Fixie Friday - Dolan DF 3 Track via FGGT

Nov 28, 2014: 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 …

Nov 28, 2014: Let Kids Fail Finally. A parent with the sense to not hold their children's hand in everything they do. If the kid forgets their homework, tough. They'll learn soon …

Nov 28, 2014: Some Paths Are Rough And that's not a bad thing in Michael Wade's eyes.

Nov 28, 2014: Star Wars Episode VII Trailer At last! Looks like JJ kept the lens flare to a minimum.

Nov 26, 2014: Jurassic World Trailer I'll save the criticism for when I've seen the movie, but I suspect that I will love this movie.

Nov 25, 2014: App.net No More I'm stepping away from App.net. It was a hard decision but I think I made the right move. When I first read about App.net I was already in the Twitter …

Nov 25, 2014: More Jagged Thoughts from Nicholas Bate. The digital interrupt is relentless, often trivial, sometimes insufferable, cunningly finding new channels, often repetitive, …

Nov 24, 2014: Best Catch Ever Odell Beckham Jr shows the world how it's done. And in case you think there's a stroke of luck here, you're wrong.

Nov 24, 2014: Packed Lunch Glad to see I'm not the only one who packs a mean lunch for their kids. The researchers have clearly not experienced the spread I provide my kids. …

Nov 21, 2014: Fixie Friday - Ellipsis Track Bike via FGGT

Nov 21, 2014: Moving from Evernote to Dropbox I've not used Evernote for a while now but Seth Clifford's setup in Dropbox still was intriguing to read about.

Nov 21, 2014: Spark Notebook Love the look of this new notebook on Kickstarter. Looks like it has a place for everything. via Well-Appointed Desk

Nov 21, 2014: Van Gogh Bike Path We need these bike paths everywhere.

Nov 21, 2014: Wrong Question Continues Nicholas Bate's Wrong Question series continues with How do I get more time? Read on and subscribe for answers to this and more of life's mysteries.

Nov 18, 2014: Shared Tools, Shared Responsibility When it comes to working with clients, there's a shared responsibility to ensure that both parties are using the right tools to work together. For the …

Nov 18, 2014: This Is How You Log Your Travels Amsterdam seen through the sketchnotes of Mike Rohde.

Nov 14, 2014: A Time for Things This one is definitely going on the playlist. That list of things is a wish list, a someday-maybe list, but it is not a task list until you commit a …

Nov 14, 2014: Fixie Friday - Little Wing via PEDAL Consumption

Nov 12, 2014: Broadcasting to Twitter Again I'm going to give Twitter another go but this time just as a broadcasting tool. In the past I've been against using Twitter. For me it became too much …

Nov 12, 2014: Daily Reminders from our man in Arizona.

Nov 7, 2014: Business Tools are the Exception to Simplifying Despite my efforts to simplify my tools, there are some that I just need to keep using. They're just too important. Yesterday I wrote about …

Nov 7, 2014: Fixie Friday - Rusby Cycles Fixed Commuter via Cycle EXIF

Nov 6, 2014: Dragon Device Stands Love the look of these device stands.

Nov 6, 2014: Kappstein FlipFree Hub A rear hub that doesn't require you to flip the wheel to switch from fixed to freewheel? I'm sold. This looks like it will be the start of a new fixie …

Nov 6, 2014: List Love You sip coffee and make your list. At a nearby table someone is writing The Great American Novel but you are simply identifying your projects and …

Nov 6, 2014: Simplifying Again In the pursuit of workflow zen, I've been simplifying things a bit. It's been a positive change so far. Data is everywhere. We create and consume vast …

Nov 4, 2014: Listen & Enjoy I'm a big fan of both Mike Vardy and Patrick Rhone, so I was really pleased to see Mike had asked Patrick to be a guest on his Productivityist …

Nov 4, 2014: Reading Redmine: Comments Continuing my series on reading Redmine, we'll take a look at commenting. Next to tool choice, comments is another topic that can cause heated debates …

Nov 3, 2014: Danny MacAskill - The Ridge More death defying bike riding by Danny MacAskill. This time it's back to the Isle of Skye to ride the Cuillin Ridgeline.

Nov 3, 2014: Point Interesting new idea for home security. I would be interested to see how accurate it is.

Nov 2, 2014: New Best New personal best for Ethan today at the golf with a round of 102. I'm really pleased at the progress he's made this year.

Oct 31, 2014: Battleheart Legacy I usually don't install games on my iPhone, but after hearing about Battleheart Legacy I just had to give it a go. Having played D&D as a kid, I …

Oct 31, 2014: GRÜN bike Integral01 There were a number of bikes that caught my eye this week, but this GRÜN bike won this week's place in the Fixie Friday archives with its distinctive …

Oct 30, 2014: Desktop decisions Apple's choice to remove the ability to upgrade the internals of their products has me asking decisions about my own preferred hardware setup for work …

Oct 30, 2014: Microsoft Band Microsoft products have waned with me over the years, but their new product, Band, definitely got my attention today. Also glad to see that they have …

Oct 29, 2014: Idea Index Excellent use of those blank pages at the start of a book, create your index of ideas from the book. via Taking Note

Oct 29, 2014: Planet Journey across the world using your mouse with these amazing images taken from the International Space Station. via SwissMiss

Oct 29, 2014: Team 256 What started as a monthly challenge is now fast turning into a social network daily ritual, which isn't a bad thing when it comes to the fast and …

Oct 24, 2014: Fixie Friday - Legor Cicli 29er Obviously this isn't a fixed wheel bike, but with just a single gear and no suspension in sight, this is about as close as you can get to off-road …

Oct 24, 2014: Pixelmator for iPad I love using Pixelmator on my MBP, but it's great to see it's now available on the iPad too. via Tools and Toys

Oct 23, 2014: Be More You ... ... with a journal.

Oct 23, 2014: Incubating Ideas Techniques like brainstorming try to sell a way of generating ideas in a short space of time, but is there a better way? Out of the blue you have an …

Oct 23, 2014: NB is Timeless No fads, gimmicks, or shortcuts. Just practical advice and hardwork.

Oct 23, 2014: New Todoist for Macs A new look Todoist for all you Mac people. Love this service.

Oct 17, 2014: Fixie Friday - Look AL264 via PEDAL Consumption

Oct 14, 2014: Notebook Organisation For the paper purists out there, a great tip for organising your notebook. via Unclutterer

Oct 14, 2014: Reading Redmine: Multiple Assertions Per Test In an effort to brush up my development skills I've been reading the Redmine source code this week. I've been curious to find out about examples of …

Oct 10, 2014: A New Todoist Karma Many of you will know my love for the Todoist service, but it just got better. The Karma part of Todoist's premium plan just got an overhaul with …

Oct 10, 2014: Book Reviews #4 It's been a while since I last posted about the books I have been reading so here's what I've managed to finish in the last couple of months. Hannibal …

Oct 10, 2014: Fixie Friday - Cannondale Track Campagnolo Ghilbli Disc Seriously, I have to question Father Tu's ability to collect bikes like this. Where does he keep them all? Still, this Cannondale Track is lovely. …

Oct 10, 2014: Need a Plan? Nicholas Bate is there to lend a hand.

Oct 10, 2014: The Real Life Thor An amazing account of a USMC pilot who ejected from his F-8 Crusader over a thunderstorm. As the parachute opened, he felt the familiar tug upwards. …

Oct 3, 2014: Fixie Friday - Titanium GT Pulse Aboslutely stunning bike. Has to be one of my favourites of the year. via PEDAL Consumption

Oct 1, 2014: The App.net Daily Post Experiment For the month of September I committed to posting a 256 character post to my App.net account every day. It turned out to be more beneficial than being …

Sep 30, 2014: How to Build a Popular Content Section for Octopress using Gauges In this post I'm going to try and briefly describe how I built the popular content section working on my Octopress blog using data from Gauges. I'm …

Sep 29, 2014: Time and a Place for Client Work There's a time and a place for client work. Rushing out the door on a Saturday morning isn't one of them. Over the weekend I made mistake in some code …

Sep 25, 2014: Be a Rock Star Don't worry, there's no biting the heads off bats.

Sep 25, 2014: Fixie Friday - 1995 Cannondale Track The classic Cannondale Track. via PEDAL Consumption

Sep 25, 2014: The Smartphone Impact I've been without my iPhone for a week now. It's amazing how many things you miss when a single device can do so much. It's been seven days now since …

Sep 25, 2014: Want to Blog? Write Carl's question on an index card. Put it on your wall. Answer his question. Repeat daily. I miss longer-form pieces. I miss the minds behind …

Sep 19, 2014: Fixie Friday - Look Track Columbus Altec 2 via FGGT

Sep 18, 2014: I Voted No to Independence 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 …

Sep 17, 2014: Getting Fridays Back I really need to learn to say no. I've been freelancing for over 18 months now. It has brought a new sense of freedom to my career but at the same …

Sep 16, 2014: Decision Making with Spikes 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 …

Sep 12, 2014: A Quick Guide to the Other Football Sport Love American Football? Love writing code? Here's a quick run down of American Football related terms in the context of software development.

Sep 12, 2014: Death of the Watch? 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 …

Sep 12, 2014: Fixie Friday - Cinelli x Mash Love the raw finish on this. via FGGT

Sep 10, 2014: My Sublime Text Setup for Markdown Writing 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 …

Sep 9, 2014: The Compromise of Free Services 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 …

Sep 5, 2014: Fixie Friday - Breadwinner Cycles Holeshot CX via PEDAL Consumption

Sep 5, 2014: The First Draft Isn't Final I watched DHH's keynote from RailsConf 2014 and it re-iterated a few things for me but what stood out was the similarities between writers and …

Sep 5, 2014: YNOT Weston Phone Pouch I would love to have one of these Weston phone pouches sitting on the shoulder strap of my Gulper. via PEDAL Consumption

Sep 4, 2014: The Daily Reading Ritual It's taken me a long time to find a habitual way of reading books that works for me. I call it the daily reading ritual. When I first started my …

Sep 3, 2014: 10 Tips for Todoist Todoist has been my choice of task management app for almost a year now. In that time I've learned a thing or two about it. Here are ten tips to help …

Sep 1, 2014: Compromising Compromise doesn't always need to mean settling for second best. When working with clients, compromise can mean everyone taking away something of …

Aug 29, 2014: Fixie Friday - Arrogante This will turn a few heads. via PEDAL Consumption

Aug 25, 2014: Back to School with NB Nicholas Bate's seven step planning list for the new term.

Aug 25, 2014: What is my Target Market? Continuing with the book, Book Yourself Solid, I've identified what my ideal client is, but what's my target market? 18 months ago if you asked me who …

Aug 22, 2014: Bad Press With anything we create we take a risk of getting a bad review of comment. Dealing with this is just about facing a simple truth. There's no pleasing …

Aug 22, 2014: Fixie Friday - Bombtrack Needle I've got a thing for black fixies. I think they just look better. And this Bombtrack Needle is no exception. via PEDAL Consumption

Aug 22, 2014: Notebook Hacking 101 Wonderful idea for organising your notebook.

Aug 20, 2014: How I Use Filters in Todoist Last week we looked at labels in Todoist and how they provide context to your tasks. This week we're going to look at how I use Todoist's filter …

Aug 18, 2014: My Ideal Client Do you vet your clients for suitablility before working with them? Maybe you should for happier freelance career. I've started reading Book Yourself …

Aug 15, 2014: Bricks anyone? A festive idea for your kids or those just pretending to be kids.

Aug 15, 2014: Fixie Friday - Andy Ellis' Makino via PEDAL Consumption

Aug 15, 2014: Good Advice ... We should re-read some of our favorite books from childhood because adult life also has trolls, knights, and the occasional pirate. — Random Thoughts …

Aug 15, 2014: Got a Book in You? Here's a good place to start.

Aug 15, 2014: Making Mistakes We've all been there. We've made a mistake in our career that has had serious repurcusions. We might have hit the wrong key, flicked the wrong switch, …

Aug 14, 2014: Exploring Alternative User Interfaces for Journalong I'm exploring alternative user interfaces to the standard web form for Journalong. In the quest for something simple, there's an obvious answer. The …

Aug 13, 2014: How I Use Labels In Todoist I've already mentioned how I use projects in Todoist. Well this time it's the turn of the humble label. The label. This is Todoist's context tag that …

Aug 8, 2014: Effective Communication Effective communication isn't about how your message gets to your audience, it's about the message itself. I rely on an business to keep me up to date …

Aug 8, 2014: Fixie Friday - Ryan's Leader Kagero We've not had a Kagero for a while. via PEDAL Consumption

Aug 7, 2014: Still Rebooting In what must be my longest period of habitual change, I'm still in the process of rebooting. It is changing me for the better though. Here's a few …

Aug 6, 2014: How I Use Projects in Todoist Inspired by Mike Vardy's series on using Todoist, I thought I would share how I use Todoist and the benefits I get from using it. In this post we're …

Aug 5, 2014: Three Months With Linode My blog has been hosted with Heroku for sometime. My requirements for my blog were not complicated. It's a simple static site that is generated …

Aug 1, 2014: Confession: I've never used IRC It's one of the first big technologies to emerge from the early days of the Internet, it's still a preferred form of chatting online for many people …

Aug 1, 2014: Faster, Easier Writing I've been following the tips from this post in the last week and I'm already starting to see the benefits.

Aug 1, 2014: Fixie Friday - Red Hot Nagasawa 1977 This gorgeous fixie gets this week vote for it being as old as I am. Glad to see that even older bikes can still be pleasing to look at. Unlike me! …

Aug 1, 2014: Juvenile Journaling James Shelley has an important insight into the importance of journaling: Writing a journal feels juvenile. That is the beauty of it. Even as you …

Aug 1, 2014: The Healthy Freelancer An essential guide to leading a healthy life as a freelancer. It's not all work you know.

Jul 31, 2014: Mind Reading Chad Fowler's book, The Passionate Programmer has a chapter entitled 'Mind Reader'. In it Chad talks about a colleague who was always turning in work …

Jul 30, 2014: Getting the Most from Feedbin There's been a lot of talk over the last couple of years that RSS is dead and it certainly didn't look good when Google closed their RSS reading …

Jul 25, 2014: Fixie Friday - Colnago Master Pista via FGGT

Jul 25, 2014: Great Guide to That First Draft Michael Wade has the best advice for getting that first draft done.

Jul 24, 2014: Small Is Good Twitter and Facebook are huge in terms of the number of users they have, but is this always a good thing? Not a week goes by where I'm reminded of the …

Jul 23, 2014: Productivity is About Processes Dazzled by the lights of new task management app? Before switching, make sure you're switching for the right reasons. Productivity isn't about the …

Jul 18, 2014: Fixie Friday - Trophy Bike The Senior VPs get all the cool toys these days. via FGGT

Jul 17, 2014: Mastery takes time Yesterday I mentioned I was embarking on a last attempt to master a different text editor. If I'm to succeed at this, then one truth I must face is …

Jul 16, 2014: Another attempt I'm trying it again. I've made a number of these attempts over the years with my longest attempt lasting just a couple of weeks. Now though I think …

Jul 4, 2014: Fixie Friday - Paul Smith Mercian via FGGT

Jul 1, 2014: Celebrities There's a new age of celebrity available now. They offer more in the way of entertainment and you can even find celebrities who aligned with your own …

Jun 27, 2014: Blog Update Many of you will notice that my daily posts have tailed off somewhat in the last few weeks. Despite recent attempts to scale back on the frequency of …

Jun 27, 2014: Fixie Friday - Violet Nagasawa via FGGT

Jun 20, 2014: Choose the right medium Curtis McHale as an excellent follow up to my Limiting Yourself post. When you dive in to a project or communication make sure you choose the right …

Jun 20, 2014: Fixie Friday - HISPANIA Ciclos It was a hard pick this week, but this bike from Hispania won out.

Jun 20, 2014: Rebooting Yesterday I wrote about coasting along. Good for when you're driving and taking in the good views, but when you're coasting for everything you do, …

Jun 20, 2014: Trade-offs Nicholas Bate is on the ball again with advice on true productivity. Trade-offs are hard, very hard because they are rarely perfectly resolved. To be …

Jun 20, 2014: Two Todoist Tips Mike Vardy has been writing about his experiences with Todoist recently. If you're a fellow user of Todoist then I definitely recommend reading his …

Jun 19, 2014: Coasting It's a horrible thing to admit, but I've been coasting since the start of the year. While I've had the chance to just get on with work, it's not good …

Jun 13, 2014: Fixie Friday - Kenny's GT Pulse via FGGT

Jun 13, 2014: Still There Last night I took my oldest son to his coaching at the golf club. He had a great time. Chatting with his new friend, hitting some balls on the …

Jun 10, 2014: Limit Yourself Every week it seems there's another new service or product online that aims to solve the problem of information overload. Why can't we solve this …

Jun 5, 2014: Fixie Friday - Black Warrior / KALAVINKA via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

Jun 5, 2014: Moving Swiftly on With the release of the new Swift language for Mac developers, I am now interested in trying out app development for iOS and OS X. With thousands of …

Jun 5, 2014: Podcast recommendations ... ... by Curtis McHale.

Jun 5, 2014: Selling advice ... ... from the trenches.

Jun 2, 2014: Markup systems ... ... for your notebook. I'm a big fan of Patrick Rhone's Dash/Plus system, but whatever suits yourself works.

Jun 2, 2014: The Essential Eight I keep just eight apps on the home screen of my iPhone. They're the essential eight, the eight apps I use on a daily basis. I keep it down to eight …

Jun 2, 2014: Time to think I finally got round to reading this over the weekend. Matt makes a fine case for using tools that force you to think before you act. There’s a …

May 30, 2014: Being Useful Curtis McHale knows his tried and tested from his new hotness. You should too.

May 30, 2014: Fixie Friday - Victoire Cycles x Berluti via Cycle EXIF Update

May 30, 2014: Four Lists Essential lists for life from Cultural Offering. Thanks Kurt.

May 30, 2014: Rewarding Work For most of my career I've worked on a number of applications, systems, websites and other software projects. The majority of this software has been …

May 29, 2014: A New DuckDuckGo Sicne I started using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine last year, I've had to content myself with what was an aging look and feel to their …

May 27, 2014: Book Reviews #3 At long last I managed to finish The Second World War which has been holding up my reading list for the last few months. Here's a few reviews of what …

May 23, 2014: Checklists Checklists are often skipped over as an aid to problem solving. They shouldn't be. They provide a quick step plan to narrowing down a search or …

May 23, 2014: Fixie Friday - Rossin Track via FGGT, photo by Father Tu

May 20, 2014: A Startup Plan ... ... without VC's, funding, rock star programmers or a hip office. It can only be Nicholas Bate.

May 20, 2014: The Wrong Assumption Not surprising that George RR Martin writes his Song of Ice & Fire books on a disconnected DOS machine. With that amount of plot lines, character …

May 16, 2014: Fixie Friday - Field Cycles x Enve via Cycle EXIF

May 16, 2014: New Bike Itch I had that 'new bike itch' again, but despite the advances in lighter materials and better suspension, I'm still a hardtail die hard at heart. I went …

May 16, 2014: Scots Reinstated Graham Obree and Chris Boardman have both had their Hour Record times re-instated into the record books thanks to simpler regulations that determine …

May 15, 2014: Communication Communication is important when establishing a relationship with a potential client. It can be won or lost in just a couple of minutes. We have an …

May 13, 2014: Be Wealthy Nicholas Bate once again with advice on becoming wealthy Hint: It's not about working your ass off.

May 13, 2014: Matt Gemmell is ... ... thinking slowly.

May 13, 2014: Paper writing tips from ... ... Kurt Harden. Here's the first: Grab them by the … whatever will get their attention. Memo? Invert that triangle. “Start at the last page” as a …

May 13, 2014: Tolerance Tolerance is something that many of us were able to exercise before the Internet, now though it seems that tolerance has been cast aside and replaced …

May 9, 2014: Bad Assumptions Assumptions about the Internet based services we use lead to the fact that only the more popular ones are catered to when it comes to subsequent tools …

May 9, 2014: Fixie Friday - Stratos via FGGT

May 9, 2014: Important Syndrome ... ... and how to beat it.

May 9, 2014: More daily routines ... ... from Kurt over at Cultural Offering.

May 9, 2014: New Instapaper I'm glad I came back to using Instapaper when I did. They've just introduced a new UI and now you can also highlight sections from what you're …

May 9, 2014: Personal Branding The desire and willingness to create things that genuinely help people is the only business plan and personal brand you need. With this, you can get …

May 7, 2014: Sticking with App.net Many readers here will know of my support of the social platform, App.net, and how it has become a worthy alternative to other social platforms. It's …

May 2, 2014: Daily routines The last two months have been something of a blur. Client work has taken up most of my day now and even into the night as well when I shouldn't really …

May 2, 2014: Fixie Friday - Somec Pista via FGGT

May 1, 2014: Moving to Linode I've been reluctant to explore other services for hosting web applications, but with costs for even a small application on Heroku I've been …

May 1, 2014: The Cramped The new site by Patrick Rhone for those that appreciate quality pens, beautiful notebooks and the chance to simply write.

Apr 25, 2014: Are you a team player? Carl Holscher is. We all have strengths and interests. I have been the Mac Guy. But I need the Excel Guy and the Photoshop Woman to be successful. We …

Apr 25, 2014: Fixie Friday - James Perse City Cruiser via FGGT

Apr 25, 2014: In the zone ... ... with Execupundit.

Apr 23, 2014: Breaking Habits for the Best Even the best kept habits require a break. Regardless of how well you think it's working for you as a habit, it's only when you step back from it, …

Apr 15, 2014: Software Isn't for Life Software is a form of product that will deteriorate and expire with time. With this in mind, how easy would it be for you to switch software from your …

Apr 11, 2014: Fixie Friday - Cinelli Vigorelli Red Hook Crit Limited Edition

Apr 10, 2014: The Limits of Automation The other day I experienced the limits of what automation can deliver and realized that not all tasks are best done in an automated fashion. Some …

Apr 8, 2014: To Kill a Project Stopping a project isn't easy to do, especially when that project is based on an idea that seemed to be within your grasp. Sometimes though it's the …

Apr 4, 2014: Fixie Friday - BB17 Karma via FGGT Photo by Father Tu

Apr 1, 2014: Balance Balance isn't something that comes up a lot when people are writing about productivity. Once you are aware of it though, it's a fundamental lesson to …

Mar 28, 2014: Complicated Software Complicated software looks like hard work, but does that make simple software easier. I would say no. In fact I think it's harder to produce simpler …

Mar 28, 2014: Fixie Friday - Mars Cycles Track via FGGT

Mar 24, 2014: Back on the Course Yesterday was such a glorious day in terms of weather. An ideal day to get Ethan back out on the golf course. Unfortunately the course is still a bit …

Mar 24, 2014: Plain and Simple Bookmarking I seem to have a love/hate relationship with bookmark managers. I like using them yet I find faults in each one and end up disliking them. Can I find …

Mar 21, 2014: Ask Yourself ... .. are you being productive with the work tools you have?

Mar 21, 2014: Fixie Friday - Father Tu's A2 Seriously though, you have to wonder how many bikes this guy has. via FGGT Photo by Father Tu

Mar 21, 2014: For the Pen & Notebook Lover In Your Life ... ... the perfect gift.

Mar 21, 2014: Logitech K811: A Review It's been a month now since I started using the Logitech K811 keyboard. The reason I made the switch was that my old Apple keyboard was getting rather …

Mar 19, 2014: Apps Are Not Solutions A nice reminder from Productivityist that apps are tools just like other tools and need to be revised every now and again to see if they are working …

Mar 19, 2014: Mountain Bikes from NAHBS 2014 Too many beautiful bikes here to recommend one. Nice to see a few rigid singlespeed steeds in there.

Mar 19, 2014: Need to Improve Your Business? Start here with Nicholas Bate's summary to building a better business.

Mar 19, 2014: Testing Boundaries On a day to day basis I'm providing a service to my clients based on the programming languages I use. In time though these programming languages will …

Mar 14, 2014: Does Freelancing Offer More Flexibility? Working as a freelancer doesn't offer the flexibility that I first thought it would, but is that a bad thing? I've been freelancing for over a year …

Mar 14, 2014: Fixie Friday - Rose City Fix via PEDAL Consumption

Mar 13, 2014: Writing Takes Time When I first started blogging I thought I could simply keep on writing and the ideas would come. For a while they did and I would keep future ideas on …

Mar 7, 2014: Five Dollar Value Three pounds got me a tea and hot roll this morning from my local cafe. A pot of tea which should give me three decent cups of tea and a toasted …

Mar 7, 2014: Fixie Friday - GT Team USA via FGGT

Mar 7, 2014: More & Less Nicholas Bate has the balance in productivity.

Mar 5, 2014: No More Netterpress For Me Yesterday I decided to pull the plug on the Netterpress newsletter. Saying no to your own ideas is difficult to do. You want it to grow. You want it …

Mar 3, 2014: Project Retrospectives I'm coming to the end of a project with a client. In the past I would have made sure the client was happy, closed the project off and collected the …

Feb 28, 2014: Fixie Friday - Stubborn Cycleworks Lightsaber via PEDAL Consumption Photo by Father Tu

Feb 26, 2014: I Don't Have One A reminder from Carl Holscher that opinions on everything aren't a necessity.

Feb 26, 2014: No Smoke, No Mirrors A reminder from Michael Wade that we need log our day as it happens. How else are you going to see where your time has gone?

Feb 26, 2014: The Marketing Alternative to Social Networks Marketing your product online has one bad rule. It's not a rule so much as a practice. Whether it's good or bad, I'll leave down to you to decide. …

Feb 25, 2014: Make It Stick For the last couple of days I've been trying to resolve a bug in an application I'm writing for a client. As I was testing and re-writing the …

Feb 24, 2014: Remembering the Start Page Remember having a start page? I do. Everytime I would open my browser, I would be faced with a billboard of widgets that funnelled in data from …

Feb 21, 2014: Fixie Friday - Sean Martin's Zephyr via FGGT

Feb 21, 2014: Switching to Annual Subscriptions Yesterday I got a hold of my credit card statement. This is the statement for the credit card that I use for my freelance business. Web services, …

Feb 21, 2014: Where's Your Own Backup? We IT folk love having backups of data, but what about backups of ourselves? Carl Holscher describes more.

Feb 19, 2014: Social Networks: The False Ego Boost Social networks are everywhere. Some are aimed at specific individuals and markets while others just want to be the biggest network on the planet. …

Feb 19, 2014: Stir Kinetic Desk As nice as this desk is from Stir, it is way out of my price league.

Feb 18, 2014: Netterpress - A Retrospective I'm four editions into my App.net newsletter and it has definitely been an eye-opener into running a regular publication. Don't get me wrong, I'm …

Feb 17, 2014: Considering a Standing Desk Last week I hurt my back while lifting my youngest son. Five days on and the pain is still there. This latest episode of back pain and many more …

Feb 17, 2014: Effective 7 Being effective is a seven point plan. Thanks NB.

Feb 17, 2014: New Lights from Knog These are definitely one of the best brand of lights I've used for cycling. Great to see they're getting more and more powerful but still use USB to …

Feb 17, 2014: Star Wars Rebels Teaser Must catch up with The Clone Wars series before this comes on.

Feb 14, 2014: Fixie Friday - Cloud 9 Cycles via FGGT

Feb 14, 2014: Things To Do With A Bad Back All this week I had the pleasure of taking my youngest to nursery in the morning. It's been great dropping him off and seeing his place of learning. …

Feb 13, 2014: Who Are You? Social networks are a funny thing. They allow people who are shy or uncomfortable in crowds to be as vocal as they like. I often wonder though if this …

Feb 12, 2014: How to Keep a Programming Journal Keeping a journal is great for anyone looking to record their thoughts and experiences but I have also been keeping a programming journal for some …

Feb 11, 2014: One Gesture, Multiple Actions I've been using Unread on my iPhone since it's launch and it is a joy to use. I star the articles I want to remember so that I have a list of them in …

Feb 7, 2014: Fixie Friday - Jooona's Kagero via PEDAL Consumption

Feb 7, 2014: Plain Text Data Please Being a fan of plain text files means that I am particularly picky about the services and tools that I sign up for. A service could have all the …

Feb 5, 2014: Write from the Beginning I need answers. Not right now, but definitely later on. I've an idea in my head to turn my Grass Roots Productivity series into a book. This involves …

Feb 4, 2014: Bring Back DungeonKeeper I wrote about IAPs last month and now after seeing this, I will no longer support games developers who trade a fair business model for greed.

Feb 4, 2014: Good News for Everyone The complete list from NB.

Feb 4, 2014: Unread - The Simple RSS Reader It isn't often you find yourself using an app that is just effortless and simple to use. If you have an account with FeedBin, FeedWrangler or Feedly, …

Feb 3, 2014: Justifying Purchases One aspect of freelancing that I didn't expect to be much of an issue was that of justifying buying new equipment. I already had a pretty nice setup …

Jan 31, 2014: Detach yourself ... ... for a clearer view. Thanks Michael.

Jan 31, 2014: Fixie Friday - Victoire Cycles Polo Bike I just couldn't resist. via CycleEXIF

Jan 31, 2014: Mountain bike lovers beware ... ... Thomson (yes that Thomson) are making frames now. Click ahead to the frame in all its beauty while I wipe the drool from my chin.

Jan 31, 2014: No plan involves later Curtis McHale knows the benefits of working smarter, not harder. You should too.

Jan 31, 2014: Plodders I would love to show one of my teachers this. "You're a plodder. You will never amount to anything", he would say to me.

Jan 31, 2014: Social media is killing social media In the quest to find news users for people to follow in my Netterpress newsletter, I started putting together a few scripts that would poll new …

Jan 29, 2014: Quality and Time I take pride in the work that I do as a web developer. I always try and deliver the best possible work that I can. If you're a developer of any kind …

Jan 28, 2014: Career Advice I was recently asked by a close friend for some career advice. They're in a good job with a good salary and good long-term prospects, but that's it …

Jan 27, 2014: Unproductive Day Today hasn't been a good day. It started going wrong before lunch-time with crossed wires with a client and then after that the plan for the day had …

Jan 24, 2014: Build a Business ... ... a better business, with Nicholas Bate

Jan 24, 2014: Fixie Friday - RAVANELLO  via FGGT photo by Father Tu

Jan 24, 2014: Great Technology Advice from MininalMac The one question you must ask yourself when you let new technology into your life: [What problem does this …

Jan 24, 2014: Lists for Life Some suggestions for lists to keep. I actually have some of these as sub-lists within my master list.

Jan 24, 2014: Marked 2 - An Essential Markdown Viewer Markdown. It's become so engrained in my workflow that I barely think about the syntax now. This post is being written in Markdown, as does most other …

Jan 24, 2014: Turbocharge your Lego ... ... with Atoms.

Jan 22, 2014: How to Run Cheaters with Pow Brett Terpstra released a new version of his Cheaters cheat sheet system. Brett recommends two options to get this running. The first is using the …

Jan 21, 2014: Solutions with Code As a freelance developer working for a client, I don't have the luxury of daily stand ups to get the outline for a new feature I have to work on. I …

Jan 17, 2014: Fixie Friday - Leader Kagero x Stormtrooper Sorry, I couldn't resist. via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 17, 2014: Time to Grow? I always keep my ear to the ground when it comes to local businesses starting and closing in my local town. You never when an opportunity might arise. …

Jan 16, 2014: Need An Escape Plan? Nicholas Bate has some pointers to get you started.

Jan 16, 2014: Offering Value One thing that I will need to focus on this year is increasing my client rosta for my freelancing business. With just a handful of clients at the …

Jan 16, 2014: The Cinelli Hobo Notebook The journal for cyclists. I wants one. via PEDAL Consumption

Jan 15, 2014: Apps - Free Isn't Free Anymore Well on the app stores at least. It's been bugging me for a while now, but you may have noticed the number of games on Apple's App Store that are …

Jan 14, 2014: Budgeting Your Apps & Subscriptions As part of my smarter budgeting theme for the year, one area I'll be looking to budget better for is the amount of money I spend on apps and services …

Jan 14, 2014: Game of Thrones Season 4 Trailer It's one of the few things I watch and enjoy on TV these days and also one of the very few "book to screen" transformations that doesn't …

Jan 13, 2014: Need a Productivity Boost? Nicholas Bate has 7 productivity boosters to get you on the right track again.

Jan 13, 2014: Time for a Reboot Alan Francis wrote a really great article at the start of December about how he wanted to get back to his Extreme Programming roots and start …

Jan 10, 2014: Book Reviews #2 Just a few books I read towards the end of the 2013. I've still got some on my list but a few I've started and given up on. The Broken Blade by Kelly …

Jan 10, 2014: Fixie Friday - Field Cycles Steel bike. Couldn't resist. via Cycle EXIF Update

Jan 9, 2014: I'm done with bookmarking apps Last year I dropped Pinboard as a bookmarking manager and instead rolled my own bookmarking application. Initially it worked well for me as all …

Jan 8, 2014: Accountable Intentions I've probably read close to a dozen posts over the last week on setting resolutions. Half of the posts I read were "how to" posts, offering …

Jan 7, 2014: This year's theme: Smarter Budgeting I mentioned in a previous post about this year's theme being smarter budgeting. After a sort of successful year in 2013, I asked myself where I could …

Dec 30, 2013: After the Ice Storm After the ice storm that hit the Toronto area before Christmas, I managed to get a few shots of the fields across the road from my in-laws house just …

Dec 30, 2013: My Blog Plans for 2014 Last year was a great year for me in terms of blogging. I managed to write posts for most week days with just a few weeks off, I kept my Fixie Friday …

Dec 30, 2013: Palmerston... ... a great place to write. No fast food, no traffic, no slog of a commute, no rat race, no corridor warriors, no boss and no 24 hour internet.

Dec 27, 2013: Fixie Friday - Moth Attack Last one of 2013, enjoy! via FGGT

Dec 20, 2013: Best bike trick of 2013 And the boundaries just got pushed even further for bike tricks. via Kottke.org

Dec 20, 2013: Best golf shot of 2013 via Kottke.org

Dec 20, 2013: Fixie Friday - Dosnoventa Houston via FGGT

Dec 20, 2013: Is the blog truly dead? Every yeay I read that blogs are dead or declining in use. Blogs obviously aren't dead and I acknowledged that much right from the title. I …

Dec 13, 2013: Time to regroup The last few weeks have seen my writing tail off from the schedule I would have preferred to keep. It's meant that I've resorted to writing posts on …

Dec 12, 2013: My First Year Freelancing The start of next year will mark my one year anniversary as a freelance web developer. It's been an amazing ride this last year. I can't believe I'm …

Dec 11, 2013: Journal Day Mark your calendars for next year, Patrick Rhone is proposing a new holiday for journal fans everywhere, Journal Day (December the 9th). There are …

Dec 11, 2013: More Essentials from NB This time the nicely titled, "How to be more intelligent 101". Essential reading from NB.

Dec 11, 2013: The Daily Capture Capturing. It's an action that I repeat every day. Although I don't have exact figures for it, I probably manage about fifty captures a day depending …

Dec 10, 2013: Column Space Column space is a prize piece of real estate in a newspaper. In a medium that is restricted by physical size and print run, editors need to select the …

Dec 9, 2013: Bike Bullies Proof that technology and search companies are not the only corporate bullies when it comes 'brand protection'. Just disgusting Specialized, and yes, …

Dec 9, 2013: Don't Self-Destruct Nicholas Bate identifies the seven ways to self-destruction. Tip: Identify and eliminate these destructive patterns.

Dec 9, 2013: The Archive My blog archive goes as far back as 2009. A single post on a suggestion for Google Reader is all I can show for that year. In 2010, I wrote two posts, …

Dec 6, 2013: Fixie Friday - Rock Lobster Love the diamond tubes on the frame, really sets the bike apart from most other track bikes. via Cycle EXIF Update

Dec 6, 2013: Teaching Programming I've read quite a few articles about teaching kids how to program and write code. There's the argument that the world has embraced technology to such …

Dec 5, 2013: Resistance Resistance is a natural response when you're faced with a big challenge or project. It can be all too easy to simply shrug off the challenge and look …

Dec 2, 2013: Next Year's Motto It's the start of January and I'm already giving my motto for next year some thought. It's simply a theme that you keep true to for the next year of …

Nov 29, 2013: Fixie Friday - Skream Bikes Sprint via FGGT

Nov 28, 2013: Confidence I'll be honest, I'm not a completely confident person. For those that know me personally this will come as no surprise. Right from when I was a kid, I …

Nov 27, 2013: Goodbye Taskpaper, Hello Todoist This week I migrated my master list over to the Todoist service. I've been using Taskpaper for most of the year but one thing that is evidently …

Nov 25, 2013: Sharpening the Saw: Shortcut Keys I managed to catch up on my queue of podcasts this morning and one of the topics on discussion on the Ruby rogues podcast was that of sharpening your …

Nov 22, 2013: Fixie Friday - Giovanni Pelizzoli Ciocc via FGGT (photo by Eroica Cicli)

Nov 22, 2013: My Background Tools For programmers, there's two tools that they will use everyday. A terminal and a text editor. For writers it might be a text editor and a knowledge …

Nov 21, 2013: Personal Producitivty I've read lots of articles about being productive, but what I have yet to see is actual results. Measured results of a person's work and how they …

Nov 20, 2013: Trying out TextExpander One tool that I have yet to fully embrace in my day to day work is a text expander. Back in my days as a .NET developer, AutoHotKey was my preferred …

Nov 19, 2013: Admitting Defeat It's not often that I have days like today. Days where even the best laid plans are completely scuppered. Days where events happen that make you have …

Nov 18, 2013: Limiting Your Social Networks Many of you will know through my posts that I'm a big App.net fan. It's my goto place when I want to drop in on conversations, strike up news ones …

Nov 18, 2013: More Random Thoughts ... ... from Michael Wade. If you do not have a stack of unread books at home then there is no hope for you. I have known brave soldiers who are …

Nov 15, 2013: Fixie Friday - No Quarter Plum Crazy Being a new frame builder in the UK, I just had to link to this amazing restored 1970's track bike by No Quarter. via CycleEXIF

Nov 14, 2013: My Seven Essential Daily Tools I'm always reviewing the tools I'm using on a daily basis, and last week I wondered what tools I was using that I used the most on a daily basis. This …

Nov 14, 2013: The Coach Who Never Punts As an American football fan, I thought this was such a refreshing take on the game. Given that this level of football has fewer risks when adopting …

Nov 13, 2013: My Daily Reading List One habit I've managed to sustain this year is my daily reading list. It grew out of the fact there I have subscribed to some good quality content in …

Nov 13, 2013: Nice Idea ... I'd like to order a couple of sets of these iPad stands for the different iPads in the house. via Tools and Toys

Nov 13, 2013: No Excuse Now Nicholas Bate is giving away some great resources for free or at reduced prices. Don't miss out!

Nov 12, 2013: The App.net Newsletter: An Update It's been a couple of weeks now since I first presented the idea of a newsletter for App.net. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, so …

Nov 11, 2013: Use the Right Tool for the Job When I started freelancing I used email to store lots of things my clients would send me. I would get emails with logins, scripts, web addresses and …

Nov 8, 2013: Fixie Friday - Team Raleigh Track via FGGT

Nov 7, 2013: A Lasting Impression How many people have you encountered in life that have really left a lasting impression on you for most of your life? I know of one that immediately …

Nov 6, 2013: Habits That Didn't Stick I've tried to start a number of new habits over the last few months, some of them have stuck, some of them haven't. Here's the ones that didn't stick. …

Nov 6, 2013: Trello Power Tips Some bloody useful Trello tips from my man in British Columbia. Thanks Curtis.

Nov 5, 2013: Why I'm Considering Evernote Again Plain text files. I love them. They're portable, easy to manipulate and work with hundreds of different tools. The only thing about them I don't like …

Nov 4, 2013: Back to Sketchnoting A while back I talked about looking to get back to mind mapping again but in the last few months I've found it quite a struggle to get back into it. I …

Nov 4, 2013: Build a Better Business ... ... the executive's summary.

Nov 4, 2013: Random Thoughts ... but always helpful. Thanks Michael.

Nov 4, 2013: The Good Life Great find by Kurt..

Nov 4, 2013: What's Your Personal Laws? A brilliant idea. A bit like a manifesto, but I would say I was more likely to follow a law than a manifesto.

Nov 1, 2013: Book Reviews #1 I decided to lump these together in one post rather than drag them out into seperate posts. I'll also try and keep the reviews short and light. Watch …

Nov 1, 2013: Fixie Friday - Yasujiro Nudity A beautifully put together bike. Frames like this deserve only the best components. via FGGT

Oct 31, 2013: Idea: An App.net Newsletter Last night I posted to App.net an idea for a premium newsletter that aggregates and reports on activities and news happening within the App.net …

Oct 30, 2013: Journalong Update A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would be rewriting the Journalong application complete with a new front end that would be more simplistic. I was …

Oct 30, 2013: Little reminder ... ... from Adam Keys that you should reserve a place for work only. The big idea from that article, burning a hole in my head, is that we should step …

Oct 30, 2013: Mug for Merckx Fans Even if you don't drink coffee, this is a must buy if you're a cycling fan. via PedalConsumption

Oct 30, 2013: The Most Honored Photograph An amazing account of how an American photoreconnaissance team, in a battered B-17 called Old 666, carried out a mission to gather intelligence on a …

Oct 29, 2013: Trello: A Restrospective For the last two weeks I've been using Trello instead of Taskpaper for managing projects like Journalong. It's really an experiment to see if I can …

Oct 29, 2013: Winging it ... ... is such a bad move for a manager. Don't be that manager. Read on at Execupundit to see the characteristics of a good manager.

Oct 28, 2013: My Pyramid of Products and Services Eric Davis' book on long term contracts, recommends making long term contracts the top tier of your services pyramid. "What's a service …

Oct 25, 2013: Fixie Friday - Race Green Cannondale Track Nice racing green also the bars are rather good as well. via Pedal Consumption

Oct 25, 2013: What's My End Game? During one of my capture sessions from my inbox, I came across this question in Eric Davis' newsletter from his book on long term contracting: What's …

Oct 24, 2013: The Best and Worst of Freelancing When I first started freelancing, I thought I had the perfect job. Setting my own hours, working from home and no tiresome commute. These positives …

Oct 23, 2013: Removing the Digital Deadwood Programmers have always got old code lying around. Forgotten applications, libraries, ideas and other files and folders. Remnants of days perhaps when …

Oct 22, 2013: Lean Product Hosting You don't get anything for free in life, and that is definitely true for hosting platforms. In exchange for often what is perceived as a great free …

Oct 21, 2013: What's Your Notifications Strategy? At any one time there are usually three devices sitting on my desk. A laptop, a phone and a tablet. They all have different apps running on them but …

Oct 18, 2013: A better you I can't wait to get NB's latest book.

Oct 18, 2013: Don't Wait My wife mentioned the other day that she was thinking about her New Year's resolution for 2014. I said to her, "Did you keep last year's …

Oct 18, 2013: Fixie Friday - Roda Gira Titanium Frame via PedalConsumption

Oct 18, 2013: Navigating life ... ... with our guide, Kurt Harden.

Oct 17, 2013: Am I Doing This TDD Thing Right? I've been building web applications in Ruby, on a full-time basis, for a couple of years now. During this time I've been exposed to a number of …

Oct 16, 2013: My Blogging History Curtis McHale has invited his readers to write about their blogging history, so here's mine. My initial dip into blogging was about 5 years ago with …

Oct 15, 2013: Getting to Know Projects in Sublime Text When I started using Sublime Text 2, I didn't use Sublime's projects feature. This year though, I've started to really get to know my preferred text …

Oct 14, 2013: Say Hello to Linkalong I mentioned previously that I was interested in building a replacement bookmarking application for my bookmark collection on Pinboard. I wanted …

Oct 11, 2013: Fixie Friday - LOW via FGGT

Oct 11, 2013: Great call to action ... ... from Patrick Rhone.

Oct 11, 2013: NHL Goal of the Season This has to be the goal of the season. via kotte.org

Oct 11, 2013: Switching to Trello for Project Management I'm halfway through Curtis McHale's book on turning your freelance career into a viable business and one thing that has become clear through reading …

Oct 10, 2013: How to Find People on App.net A couple of days ago I wrote about what I perceived as a problem on App.net. Finding actual interesting people on App.net through recommendations. …

Oct 8, 2013: Blog Heroes #7 - Steven Pressfield If I'm being honest, I can't exactly remember how I stumbled across Steven's blog. It was a few years ago at least. Anyway, ever since I subscribed to …

Oct 8, 2013: Finding People on App.net While flicking through my App.net timeline last week, I stumbled across a post by Guido Osorios which led me to reading about his reasons for …

Oct 7, 2013: Project Updates Last week I found myself once again buried under a pile of work and projects that I wanted to do. Faced with another week of not making any progress I …

Sep 27, 2013: Fixie Friday - Digital Camo F550 via FGGT

Sep 27, 2013: Planned Features for Journalong With Journalong still fresh in my head I thought I would list a few of the features that I am planning to add to Journalong over the next three …

Sep 25, 2013: Late to the Party While the rest of the family were getting ready this morning, I sat at the edge of my bed and checked out the two websites I quickly look at every …

Sep 24, 2013: What Is LinkedIn For? Yesterday I read a blog post about a LinkedIn user who was unhappy with the service and had opted to delete his account. I've been here before as …

Sep 23, 2013: No Tests Please, I'm Having Fun I want to be a good developer and develop applications that are thoroughly tested but when was the last time you just hacked on a bit of code to try …

Sep 20, 2013: A Great Future ... ... is predicted by Nicholas Bate. I look forward to it.

Sep 20, 2013: A Simple Business Plan ... ... for the masses. No sense in starting a business unless it's viable. This is definitely a good place to start.

Sep 20, 2013: Blog Heroes #6 - James Shelley I first discovered James Shelley through Patrick Rhone's Twitter account just a couple of years ago. Having checked out James' blog, I was intrigued. …

Sep 20, 2013: Fixie Friday - Leader RENOVATIO via PedalConsumption

Sep 20, 2013: Getting Things Done with Curtis Curtis' post gave me the kick I needed yesterday. You are choosing to do other things instead of the goals set out. — No time for whiners by Curtis …

Sep 20, 2013: Take the Risk Another one for the playlist.

Sep 20, 2013: What's Your Swing Like? I've seen some whacky swings at the driving range, but most of the time the swing has the desired affect. The ball hits the intended target. Steven …

Sep 19, 2013: Dear Retailers: Customers Vote With Their Feet A couple of weeks ago me, Jen and the kids headed to our nearest big electrical store, Currys at Braehead Shopping Centre. We were going to look at …

Sep 18, 2013: Scheduling Time for Products When I first started working independently at the start of the year, I had grand visions of being able to dictate my own time and allow myself more …

Sep 17, 2013: Considering an Alternative to Heroku I've hosted my blog on Heroku for a while now. I also have a number of other apps including Journalong that are also hosted on Heroku. I love the …

Sep 16, 2013: The Small Things Matter Last week I talked about why I was bored of the hype surrounding the release of Apple's two new iPhone models. I said that the debate surrounding …

Sep 13, 2013: Fixie Friday - Rustic Leader Kagero via FGGT

Sep 13, 2013: The Future of Writing is Here And it's called Markdown. Honestly, it's a simple markup that anyone can use.

Sep 13, 2013: Why Paying For App Upgrades Is Good The excellent RSS reader client, Reeder received a welcome upgrade this week in the form of the new Reeder 2 app. A new app and a new price. Yes …

Sep 12, 2013: Choosing My Next Games Console The console war has begun for the next generation of gamers, but choosing between either of these consoles as my next gaming platform has still left …

Sep 11, 2013: My Sublime Text 3 Setup The text editor. The programmer's most important tool and the center of an ongoing debate that will occupy programmers for years. I'm not going to …

Sep 10, 2013: Bored of the Hype Yet another big Apple announcement goes by and yet again we see just marginal improvements on the products that Apple have become famous for. Not that …

Sep 9, 2013: A Thank You to All Open Source Developers Right now all over the world, open source software is being used by millions of people. Most of these people probably don't even know it, but the …

Sep 9, 2013: Curating Value Jame Shelley is spot on with his observation on the value of curating.

Sep 9, 2013: My Problem I read Matt's post without even giving a thought to applying it to writing code like Curtis has. I confess to also reading too much as well. Time for …

Sep 9, 2013: Preordered: Nicholas Bate's New Book It's a no brainer really. Books by NB are straight to the point and easy to act upon. I'm looking forward to this one.

Sep 9, 2013: Time for a New Font Nothing better than a developer debate over preferred programming fonts. I love the look of this new programming font, Hermit. Looking forward to it …

Sep 6, 2013: Blog Heroes #5 - Patrick Rhone Patrick Rhone. Writer, curator, Mac fan, thinker, family man and blog hero. Did I miss anything? It's hard to put Patrick into one box when his blog …

Sep 6, 2013: Fixie Friday - Wu Tang Bike Killer bike for the clan. via FGGT

Sep 5, 2013: The Sticker Business Model Path, the social network that limits you to just 150 people, just pushed a new update to their app that offers a premium model with complete access to …

Sep 4, 2013: An Unproductive Day I just had a very unproductive day trying to implement a search addon for a customer. From first thing in the morning to early evening I have spent …

Sep 3, 2013: Micro Changes Reviewing and adjusting your workflow is good practice as a freelancer if you want to minimise the time you spend on admin duties. Even the smallest …

Sep 2, 2013: My iPad Setup I wrote last week about finding purpose for my iPad, a tool that I feel was underused. Over the weekend I managed to sort out the various apps that I …

Aug 30, 2013: Doing More with Less A little reminder from Michael Wade that even with ten minutes, you can do a lot. But for small tasks - the "next actions" that David Allen …

Aug 30, 2013: Finding Purpose for my iPad A while ago I wrote about my iPhone setup. I wanted to follow it up with a post on my iPad setup, but so far I've yet to find purpose for my iPad. I …

Aug 30, 2013: Fixie Friday - Pink & Black Leader KAGERO via Pedal Consumption

Aug 29, 2013: A Web Developer's Playground I'm ashamed to admit it, but I really don't have enough of my code available for others to see. I'm not talking about finished web sites and …

Aug 28, 2013: Giving Draft Another Chance I'm writing this blog post on the web application, Draft. It's been a while since I used it. I stopped using it a while back in favour of Byword, but …

Aug 27, 2013: Filtering the Signals from the Noise I mentioned yesterday that the web can be a great platform for communicating and change, but is often misused. I gave an example of such a misuse, a …

Aug 26, 2013: Be a Good Netizen The internet is an amazing platform for the world to communicate and innovate on. It can provide volumes of information at our finger tips, allow us …

Aug 23, 2013: Almost Additions to the Reading List Just a few more e-books that I am considering purchasing or they're not released yet. Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec - I'm a big fan of MiniTest …

Aug 23, 2013: Away But Not Forgotten NB is off the grid for the moment, but Kurt Harden has a great place to start if you want to start reading some of NB's many great books.

Aug 23, 2013: Celebrate Your Success Working as a freelancer can be lonely. When it comes to celebrating client and project success, Curtis McHale shares his successes with his wife and …

Aug 23, 2013: Fixie Friday - Cinelli Mash Parallax Love the paint job on this frame. via FGGT

Aug 23, 2013: Got an Idea for a Book? Start with Steven Pressfield's Foolscap Method to get yourself started.

Aug 22, 2013: New Additions to the Reading List Some additions to my current reading list involve a couple of new e-books that I have purchased recently. Brandiing by Adii Pienaar - Bought out of …

Aug 21, 2013: DuckDuckGo: A Retrospective Since I went Google free, I've been using DuckDuckGo as my main search engine. It wasn't really the accumulation of your search history that made me …

Aug 20, 2013: Just a Nudge Meet my son Ethan. He loves playing golf. He's also quite good at it. He might not be the next big thing in golf, but he's better than most kids his …

Aug 18, 2013: Blog Heroes #4 - Curtis McHale When I first started considering the idea of freelancing a couple of years ago, I started to subscribe to a number of blogs of already established …

Aug 16, 2013: Fixie Friday - Neon Leader Kagero via Pedal Consumption

Aug 16, 2013: School Day I'm in my mid-thirties now. 36 years living on this blue marble in space. In that time I've had bits of knowledge passed to me by my wife, my kids, my …

Aug 15, 2013: My Ideal Bookmarking Application I've been using Pinboard for sometime now for managing my bookmarks. I can't complain about the service. As bookmarking services go, it's the best out …

Aug 14, 2013: The Windowless Aircraft On my recent trip to Toronto to visit my in-laws, I noticed something on the flight as we flew over the Atlantic Ocean and into Eastern Canada. Almost …

Aug 13, 2013: 3 Ways to Tell the World About Your Idea An idea is nothing unless you can tell it to someone else. With the world on the web at your hands, your ideas can now be seen by millions of people …

Aug 13, 2013: Breaking It Down ... ... with Adam Keys. Not all tricky problems are complex. Some are presented in a complex way, some are complex because of restrictions that are …

Aug 13, 2013: Marginal Gains ... ... have been proven to work. So why not use them? Thanks Curtis.

Aug 13, 2013: Star Wars Weather ... ... where you are.

Aug 11, 2013: Just Write About It Every time I write a post for my blog, I ask myself this question: What if the majority of my readers already know what I'm writing about in this …

Aug 9, 2013: Fixie Friday - 3Rensho via FGGT

Aug 9, 2013: Grass Roots Productivity Part 3: Work Through Your List Yesterday I told you about the second part to my grass roots productivity approach which is to sort your master list. Today we're going to look at the …

Aug 8, 2013: Grass Roots Productivity Part 2: Prioritise Your Master List Yesterday I introduced you to the first step to getting productive, keeping a master list of everything you want to do and must do. So what's next? …

Aug 7, 2013: Grass Roots Productivity Part 1: Keep a Master List Being productive means keeping track of everything you want to do. This is the first step in being productive. We do this by keeping a master list. …

Aug 6, 2013: Grass Roots Productivity I must have read hundreds of articles on productivity, getting things done, todo lists and of course I've used my fair share of apps that are supposed …

Aug 5, 2013: A Reminder About Your Notes Patrick Rhone reminds us that our notes are always there for us. I have found that the longer my used notebooks sit on a shelf, the more valuable …

Aug 5, 2013: How to Work From a Shed ... ... when you don't have a shed. Matt Gemmell offers some great advice on getting it done.

Aug 5, 2013: Hunter's Moon Over the Alps There's more where this came from on the Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist. via Mme. Scherzo

Aug 4, 2013: Blog Heroes #3 - Kurt Harden I first started following Kurt's blog, Cultural Offering, on the recommendation of Nicholas Bate a few years ago. What I love about Kurt's blog is …

Aug 2, 2013: Fixie Friday - Frenorosso via FGGT

Jul 31, 2013: Awesome to Know ... ... there are still places in the universe where Instagram users can't take pictures ... yet. via KA-CHING!

Jul 31, 2013: Blogging Tips from Experts 16 blogging tips from experts. Well worth the read.

Jul 31, 2013: Seven Productivity Boosters ... ... from Nicholas Bate and not a single app in sight. Great stuff.

Jul 27, 2013: Niagara Falls Panoramic I had a stab at taking a panaromic shot with my iPhone at the falls. Turned out better than I expected.

Jul 27, 2013: Old Town Niagara Falls Me and Jen took the bus home from Niagara Falls on Thursday, a first for us as we usually drive back. We've been to Niagara Falls countless times over …

Jul 26, 2013: Everyday Decisions ... with Nicholas Bate.

Jul 26, 2013: Fixie Friday - Titanium Track What's there not to like about this bike? via FGGT

Jul 26, 2013: Make Your Day Count ... ... with advice from Execupundit.

Jul 26, 2013: More Books for the Reading List Just when I thought I had read all the right books for writing, I'm recommended this great list by Steven Pressfield. Thanks NB.

Jul 26, 2013: Thanks Curtis ... ... for the freelance advice this week. Seriously, I don't where I would be without Curtis' blog. It almost feels like he's just writing for me …

Jul 26, 2013: The Latest Addition to my Feed Reader ... ... a blog on note-taking.

Jul 26, 2013: There's Still Time ... ... to do all these wonderful things.

Jul 19, 2013: Fixie Friday - Hot Pink Sprint Build via FGGT

Jul 18, 2013: Are you Stuck? The problem might be closer than you think. If you feel stuck in your job then make a plan to get out. The only thing in your life that makes you …

Jul 18, 2013: Easy Oatmeal Breakfast I'm definitely giving these no-cook refrigerator oatmeal breakfasts a try next week. I'll report back the results.

Jul 18, 2013: Markdown for Notetaking Enough praise can't be given for using Markdown for notetaking. I love it. Here's more from the clever clogs at Pivotal Labs.

Jul 15, 2013: Break time Today marks the start of a three week holiday for myself from my daily posts. The last few months have been a challenge in trying to post something …

Jul 12, 2013: Fixie Friday - Weny's Colossi via FGGT

Jul 12, 2013: Private Correspondence James Shelley has some great thoughts on private correspondence. In this age that champions transparency, this confession may at first be scandalous: …

Jul 12, 2013: The Fragmenting Mountain Bike My first bike. A Kona Fire Mountain. I think it was the 1995 edition of the bike. Gold P2 forks with a dark green frame, cantilever brakes and of …

Jul 11, 2013: Reading List for the Rest of 2013 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 …

Jul 10, 2013: My Development Tools - 2013 Edition 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 …

Jul 8, 2013: Blog Heroes #2 - Michael Wade Michael Wade is a management consultant currently based in Arizona and has been blogging since 2005. I found Michael's blog, Execupundit, through …

Jul 8, 2013: My iPhone Setup 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, …

Jul 5, 2013: A Rule for Sharing Carl Holscher recently wrote about the sharing culture in social media and his preference for remaining private in some of the services he uses. …

Jul 5, 2013: Fixie Friday - YNOT Bag 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 …

Jul 5, 2013: Learn the Easy Way to Write a Novel ... ... with nothing more than a sheet of paper and the guidance of Steven Pressfield.

Jul 5, 2013: The First Hour ... ... is the best hour to write for Curtis. Maybe it is for you too?

Jul 4, 2013: Bookmarklets for Markdown Fans 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 …

Jul 3, 2013: When to Use Database Constraints in Rails Yesterday I was working on a new feature for a client when I ran into an issue. The ActiveRecord model I was working with had a number of constraints …

Jul 2, 2013: Freelance Update #1 It's been six months since I started working as a freelance web developer. In this time I worked harder than I've ever previously worked. And that's a …

Jun 30, 2013: The Blog Post Calendar Keeping up with posts on a daily basis is becoming a little more work than I anticipated. Previously I would try to write a couple of blogs every …

Jun 28, 2013: Feeding our Reading Habits - The Book Alex Kessinger has compiled all his blog posts on the future of feed readers into one handy little book. The full document is here but there's also …

Jun 28, 2013: Fixie Friday - Heather's Kagero via PedalConsumption

Jun 28, 2013: Love This Picture I really regret not having more time to spend here when I first visited. I'll be sure not to make that mistake again. via Mme Scherzo

Jun 28, 2013: Turning Pro is Hard ... ... and Steven Pressfield knows it. The person who is going to change is going to change anyway. She has no choice. She is impelled by inner …

Jun 27, 2013: Feedbin: A Review With Google Reader going soon, people have been looking for a replacement RSS Reader. Fortunately for me I decided look for an alternative a few weeks …

Jun 26, 2013: The Unread eBooks While going through my Dropbox, I came across a number of programming ebooks that I have yet to start reading. Shocking I know. I mean, who buys books …

Jun 26, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Ragley Bigwig 29er This is the hardcore hardtail of the big wheel world. I don't know if I'm convinced that bigger wheels are better for mountain biking, but I'd be …

Jun 24, 2013: Blog Heroes #1 - Nicholas Bate It's hard say when I first started reading Nicholas' blog and how I found it, but it's been required daily reading for me for at least the last five …

Jun 24, 2013: Finally a Markdown Based Wiki I've been looking for a notes application just like nvAlt for some time. Glad to read it can also be used as a wiki.

Jun 24, 2013: Mondays are better ... ... with Nicholas Bate to guide us.

Jun 24, 2013: Taking the Time to Read In this age of always on firehose content, it can be too easy to simply read something and forget to retain any meaning from what you have read and …

Jun 24, 2013: Which bricks ... ...blue or gray?

Jun 24, 2013: Why do you Blog? I get asked this quite a lot. "Why do you do it?" people ask. Here's just a few reasons why I blog. I Have Ownership My blog is my own. My …

Jun 21, 2013: Breaking Out of a Reading Genre Last week I mentioned that I was bored with the fantasy genre for reading. It's not very often I decide to read something out with this genre, but …

Jun 21, 2013: Fixie Friday - The Nicarus via FGGT

Jun 21, 2013: Just a Web Page ... ... or is it more than that? Think about all the things you could communicate with a simple page like this. If you're a businessperson, you could …

Jun 21, 2013: Random Thoughts II ... with Michael Wade.

Jun 19, 2013: Generate Blog Post Ideas With a Mind Map Coming up with new blog post ideas can be difficult if you're the kind of person who likes to post on a regular basis. I'm trying to write a blog post …

Jun 17, 2013: Logging a TIL a day Every day is a school day. I love that phrase. As a programmer and daily resident of the Internet, it really does apply to me. Not a day goes by where …

Jun 14, 2013: A good idea: The text playlist I originally read about Leo Babauta's text playlist at the start of the year. The idea is that you keep a list of articles that you read on a regular …

Jun 14, 2013: Create something ... ... every day. A must read.

Jun 14, 2013: Fixie Friday - Condor Lavoro Track via Pedal Consumption

Jun 14, 2013: Journalong love Nitin Khanna has been enjoying Journalong: So you like to note down your thoughts but don't want the complexity of a proper journaling software like …

Jun 14, 2013: Leaving a legacy I might not approve of Curtis McHale's choice of journaling tool (just kidding), but I do approve of his reason for journaling. I’d like to think …

Jun 14, 2013: Protection ... ... for all that's part of you with Nicholas Bate.

Jun 13, 2013: A new hobby I have a new hobby, sort of. Last weekend I bought myself a new set of golf clubs and last night I took my oldest son to the driving range for a boys …

Jun 12, 2013: Don't neglect your product It's come to my attention that I have neglected Journalong in the last few months. I had big plans for Journalong but in the last few weeks I've …

Jun 11, 2013: Goodbye Twitter This afternoon I said goodbye to my Twitter handle, @matthewlang and deactivated my account there. It's been a move I've been thinking a lot about …

Jun 9, 2013: What's in a name? What's in a name? Quite a lot actually. When I first started freelancing it was my wish to specialise in Ruby and a couple of the more popular …

Jun 7, 2013: Dear Freelancer ... I'm going to read this at the start of every week.

Jun 7, 2013: Fixie Friday - Baby Bianchi Too cute not to post and it even has extension bars for time-trialling. via FGGT

Jun 7, 2013: I hereby give you ... .. permission to suck.

Jun 7, 2013: NB is back ... ... and armed with productivity tips that get you brilliant at the basics.

Jun 7, 2013: The Power Novels Just what I need to kick start the reading habit again. Thanks Michael!

Jun 5, 2013: Time for a reading switch I've been reading fantasy books for over 20 years now. I was first exposed to the genre through a friend at school who gave me the Dragonlance …

Jun 4, 2013: Rushing Code Through Life as a freelance developer isn't always plain sailing. I can deal with the bulk of my day to day activities including requirements gathering, …

Jun 2, 2013: My tips for keeping a journal Keeping a journal seems quite an easy task to do, but remembering to update it and keep it going can be something else. I've kept my journal going for …

May 31, 2013: Don't Strive for Perfect Code Striving for perfect code is a goal of many developers and programmers. We want our code to be simple to read, concise using the best idioms that our …

May 31, 2013: Fixie Friday - De Rosa via FGGT

May 31, 2013: My new blogging rule To zoom in more on the detail. There's millions of topics to write about if you look close enough.

May 31, 2013: Random thoughts III ... from Michael Wade.

May 31, 2013: The exception to the rule ... ... with our pilot through the ocean of life, Kurt Harden.

May 29, 2013: The wrong approach The wrong approach. It's a major downfall of mine. Trying to solve a problem by approaching it wrong and looking for a difficult solution. The thing …

May 28, 2013: Time to leave Twitter? It's a well known fact that if you're a reader of my blog, you'll know that I love the App.net service. A subscription based network for those that …

May 24, 2013: A great idea: Weekly pricing Dedicating yourself to a project weekly means you don't have to switch contexts. I wake up in the morning, get myself ready and then I start on the …

May 24, 2013: Fixie Friday: Cinelli Mash Track via FGGT

May 24, 2013: Starting a re-design After reading Matt Gemmell's post on designing blogs for readers, I decided to assess my own blog for a re-design. Here's the parts of my blog I'm not …

May 24, 2013: The Today Card I've adopted this idea of Patrick's for my own stuff. The card only contains things that I want to do personally for that day. Client work goes in my …

May 24, 2013: Your blog as a business card? Sure. Why not? Your blog is your digital footprint in the world and it is more easily found than physical business cards.

May 20, 2013: Google Free Tonight I took the final step in making the move away from Google. After much deliberation I made the move to migrate my Google Apps email account to …

May 19, 2013: Be a better leader ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

May 19, 2013: Dambusters 70th Anniversary Thanks to Execupundit for this reminder that it is 70 years since the Dambusters raid. The Spitfire was my favourite as a kid and still is.

May 19, 2013: Don't be a design whiner Curtis McHale offers some advice for those that are just a little bit too quick to write off change.

May 19, 2013: The Smart Organisation Quick to change and always adapting. Nicholas Bate knows how the smart organisation works.

May 17, 2013: Have annual reviews had their day? Yesterday I talked about annual reviews and how organisations can often get a simple process wrong, but are annual reviews immediately flawed due to …

May 16, 2013: The Annual Review Done Right It was my oldest son's parents night at his school tonight. We had a fair idea what his teacher was going to say about him and his progress. We …

May 14, 2013: I just want to ship code Today I did my first Capistrano deployment. Yes, that’s right. My first. Any experienced Ruby developers might be wondering how I haven't used …

May 13, 2013: Make this a movie Yet when the units of the veteran 17th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrived to recapture the castle and execute the prisoners, Lee’s …

May 13, 2013: Put the glowing rectangle down I grabbed my first rectangle very shortly after waking. I will likely stare into several throughout my day. For work and for pleasure and as a way to …

May 13, 2013: Swoop bags Finally a bag big enough to hold all my son's Lego with the added bonus of it actually allowing you to see all the Lego you have.

May 13, 2013: The Pain of Task Switching In my ideal day I would have one very important thing to do and that's it. Nothing else. I haven't had an ideal day for a while though due to the …

May 10, 2013: Fixie Friday - Maxim Project Love the paint job on this. via FGGT

May 9, 2013: A Day for Making Improvements I’m a terrible person for saying I’ll do something, then I never do it. I’m not talking about the big important things like completing client work or …

May 8, 2013: Building products that use email At the moment I'm working on an application for a decision making tool for groups that uses email to track people's responses to a question that forms …

May 7, 2013: A day away I'm in between work at the moment. It's an odd place for me to be. I've worked in the full-time job market for over 10 years. If I wasn't working, I …

May 7, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Rocky Mountain Altitude This goes right to the top of the wishlist. I've wanted to own a Rocky Mountain bike since I was a teenager, but only if it's was one of their top end …

May 3, 2013: Fixie Friday - Tokyo Dart Nice geometry on the Dart. via Pedal Consumption

May 3, 2013: Goodbye Feedly, Hello Feedbin Feedly has been my choice of RSS reader for about 2 years now. Initially I was won over by a service that provided a better user experience but still …

May 2, 2013: Keeping a schedule Last week I started work on an idea for application. Just a small prototype of the idea really. No tests, no fancy user-interface, just the bare bones …

May 2, 2013: Pick yourself No way could I build an online product. That was me two years ago. Thankfully my confidence has went up since then, but it took me some time to get …

May 2, 2013: Wizards are busy people Curtis McHale sums up why clients should wait for their favourite consultant. Think of Gandalf (Lord of the Rings wizard if you don’t know). He was …

May 1, 2013: Oh life: Another simple journaling service Journalong is just one of a number of options that I could recommend. But there are others if saving your journal entries to Dropbox isn't your thing. …

May 1, 2013: Overcoming complications There’s a great line from the start of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” spoken by everyone’s favourite pirate Jack Sparrow. Complications …

Apr 30, 2013: An App.net application idea Over the weekend I was looking for a replacement for Google calendars. I was sure that I would be at least using Apple’s Calendar service and iCloud, …

Apr 30, 2013: Artificial deadlines Great analogy on deadlines for engineers. Similar to a soccer game when your opponent leads 0:1 and there are only 5 minutes left on the clock. The …

Apr 30, 2013: Energy management Realise your own energy distribution with Nicholas Bate.

Apr 29, 2013: Breathing space When I worked for an ERP consultancy, I would frequently no sooner get my backside at my desk in the morning before the phone would start to ring. …

Apr 29, 2013: Here is today Great timeline animating.

Apr 29, 2013: Transporting the Lockheed A-12 Amazing account of the moving of these spy planes from the Lockheed plant to Area 51. Dorsey Kammerer was appointed to head up the activity to build …

Apr 26, 2013: Fixie Friday - Rainbow Spectacular paint job on this via FGGT

Apr 26, 2013: The cull continues Ever since the news that Google was sunsetting it's Reader service, I've been looking at alternatives for the Google services I'm already using. I've …

Apr 26, 2013: Too busy consuming? Don't be. Owen Williams covers the reasons why your opinion matters and you should write about it: Yes, there are probably a few thousand other …

Apr 25, 2013: Working from home, a great benefit Last night our oldest son gave us a bit of a scare. He started to run a very high temperature after dinner and through the night he was sick a couple …

Apr 24, 2013: Clear your desk, clear your head Work has been a little slow this week, a morning here, an afternoon there. With the free time in between slots, I should be using that time to get my …

Apr 23, 2013: I want to sign up with email We've all been there. You're given a link to a new great product that is going to do wonders for your productivity but when you are done installing it …

Apr 22, 2013: Letting go I struggled with developing features for Journalong over the last six months. Always at the back of my mind was that I needed Journalong to be …

Apr 22, 2013: Pick a side ... ... Rebel Alliance or The Empire?

Apr 19, 2013: Buying books again Bought myself a couple of books this morning for some light reading. Not the digital kind mind, actual hold in your hand, dead tree books. It's been …

Apr 19, 2013: Fixie Friday - Marco's Monster Track Mmmmmm, shiny! via FGGT - Photo by Father Tu

Apr 18, 2013: How many swings ... ... are you going to take at the fence?

Apr 18, 2013: Six Steps I Should Have Taken With Journalong It's been a year since I started Journalong. It's been a real learning experience. While it might not be the success that I envisioned it to be, the …

Apr 17, 2013: Stop Chasing Rainbows When I started working on Journalong over a year ago, the primary goal for building it was to scratch an itch. I wanted an online journal for my …

Apr 16, 2013: 101 moments ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Apr 15, 2013: RSS is not dead While trawling through my RSS feeds looking for blogs to unsubscribe from, I came across Andrew Chen's blog post about his decision to completely …

Apr 14, 2013: Ideas breed more ideas I had an idea for an application, so I stuck it into Journalong for later. Two seconds after saving it, I had another idea for an application. Put …

Apr 11, 2013: Fixie Friday - Leader KAGERO with risers Not often you see one of these with the riser bars on it. Looks good. via Pedal Consumption

Apr 11, 2013: The advantage of plain text Today I spent an hour getting a script in place that will convert the Wordpress backup of my old Squarespace blog to Markdown posts so that I can pull …

Apr 10, 2013: A new system for reading Getting informed is a means to an end, not an end in itself. And life’s too short for bad information. — A new system for reading by Roberto …

Apr 10, 2013: Leave us introverts alone I find it increasingly tiresome to apologize for my need to be alone to recharge, for reasons that echo why many women are tired of educating men …

Apr 10, 2013: Putting up a breakwater It's been a while since I went through all the incoming data I receive and did some house keeping on them. Over the last few weeks I've been …

Apr 10, 2013: To specialise or not? My career has been quite varied when you look at the different sectors I've worked in. NHS, risk management, payroll, retail and technology repair and …

Apr 9, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Pedal Consumption Ass Savers My fixie tends to be a fair weather bike these days, but the weather in Scotland is so unpredictable that it might be worth investing in these Pedal …

Apr 8, 2013: Not poking the box enough I've just finished Seth Godin's book, Poke the Box and one thing has become abundantly clear. I'm not poking the box enough. I've got a list of …

Apr 4, 2013: Do you blog for you or your readers? Content is king. I hear this a lot when people refer to what drives the popularity of their blog. Which is okay when your blog is targeted as a …

Apr 4, 2013: Matt Gemmell on App.Net and Conversation Matt Gemmell has an excellent post on the community that has built up around App.Net and why he'd like you to consider joining. The practical effect, …

Apr 3, 2013: Going Google Free Google free. I hear those words a lot now. Ever since Google decided to close down the Google Reader service there's been a question I keep asking …

Apr 2, 2013: Prioritizing Family, Career and Other Things Being a parent is tough at the best of times, but being a parent, holding down a job and working on anything else that takes your fancy is hard too. …

Mar 26, 2013: Combine my blogs? For a while now I've been running an essay style blog and a tumble log. They've both got a fair number of subscribers, but one of the complications I …

Mar 25, 2013: A little idea for monitoring RSS feeds The loss of Google Reader as an RSS reader is a great shame but one thing that I am definitely going to miss is the trends page of Google Reader. This …

Mar 22, 2013: Fixie Friday - Gianni Motta Pista Love the paint job on this Pista. via FGGT

Mar 22, 2013: The return of mail A few weeks ago I signed up to a project that involved receiving regular index cards through the post with ideas and suggestions for those ideas on …

Mar 21, 2013: Always switched on A few weeks back I tried to improve some code I was working on, but after a couple of hours I resided myself to the fact that it just couldn't be done …

Mar 20, 2013: Keep on reviewing Ever that get that feeling where you're continually picking up pace with work and you get faster and faster at getting through your list of tasks? The …

Mar 20, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Orange Five29 via Singletrack

Mar 19, 2013: Contemplating a blog move Yes it's that time again where I consider moving to another blog platform. Over the last few years I've tried Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Posterous, …

Mar 15, 2013: The long path Test-driven development (TDD) is often seen as the long way to developing software. The misconception perceived by many is that writing tests and code …

Mar 14, 2013: Be a game changer It’s a sad fact of life, but there’s many workers out there simply dotting the i’s and the crossing the t’s when it comes to their jobs. They start at …

Mar 14, 2013: Do you have a passion for work? Not everyone is cut out for it. It takes not only a passion for the work but plenty of sacrifice. It means there will be no paid vacations or …

Mar 14, 2013: Fixie Friday - PELIZZOLI For3 via FGGT

Mar 14, 2013: Three Questions What do I need to anticipate? What do I need to do better? What do I need to do differently? Read the rest of NB's great series, jagged thoughts for …

Mar 14, 2013: Want more business? Then tune in every day to Nicholas Bate. I especially like the last one on the routes to more business list: Never, ever, ever allow yourself to …

Mar 13, 2013: Goodbye Google Reader So Google Reader is finally being killed off. The RSS reader that spurred many clones and provided a way for you to follow any number of your …

Mar 13, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - DMR Bolt (Long) The ultimate play bike. via BikeRadar

Mar 12, 2013: Reviewing the master list It’s become clear to me that there’s far too much stuff on my master list. It’s things that I want to do, but I’ve started reaching too far forward …

Mar 11, 2013: The monthly services bill This morning I was curious about the amout of money I was spending every month on subscriptions for products and services on the internet. It turns …

Mar 9, 2013: Go to them Cultural Offering takes it a step further with his advice about connecting: Go to them. When you are not happy with a business experience, don't …

Mar 9, 2013: Life tips ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Mar 9, 2013: Teaching kids to think I would love to sit down and teach my sons how to code, but I think it's more important to teach them about applying thinking to problem solving. …

Mar 8, 2013: Fixie Friday - Concept Bikes Assassin via Pedal Consumption

Mar 8, 2013: There's more to programming than writing code Another thought from episode 95 of the Ruby Rogues podcast had me thinking about just exactly what I do as a programmer. Yes, most of my time is …

Mar 7, 2013: Being a team player Episode 95 of the Ruby Rogues podcast got me thinking about my previous roles as a developer and how I interacted with my team. It’s interesting that …

Mar 6, 2013: Comfortable tools Software developers love their text editors. Those developers that invest a significant amount of time in one particular text editor are able to wield …

Mar 6, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Less choice I'm in the market for a new iPhone case. There are hundreds to choose from. I mean hundreds. There's too many to decide from. Competition is nice in …

Mar 5, 2013: In Great Company ... ... once again. Proud and honoured to be featured in Kurt Harden's annual 25 blogs guaranteed to make you smarter again.

Mar 5, 2013: To categorise or not? I’ve been blogging on and off for the last few years, but more recently I’ve been publishing something just about every day. Whether it’s a little bit …

Mar 4, 2013: Are you automating? Automation. The programmer’s best friend. Programmers automate as much as they can. Setting up a new computer, building servers and testing software …

Mar 1, 2013: Fixie Friday - Leader Kagero Love the chainring on this Leader build. via Pedal Consumption

Mar 1, 2013: Talk to your client One of the greatest challenges I’ve had in my career as a software developer is that of expectations. Twenty years ago when the waterfall methodology …

Feb 28, 2013: Tips on getting through your RSS feeds faster Let me get this clear to start with. I only use my RSS reader to scan feeds from blogs that I am subscribed to. This post is just tips for getting …

Feb 27, 2013: The Daily Checklist In an effort to be more productive, healthy and fit I’ve decided to keep a daily checklist for work days so that I can start tracking progress on my …

Feb 27, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Vintage Style Track Crankset This crankset is superbly finished. via Pedal Consumption

Feb 26, 2013: Persistence pays off 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 …

Feb 25, 2013: Exploring the freemium product 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 …

Feb 24, 2013: Getting it ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Feb 24, 2013: Ideas do matter 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

Feb 24, 2013: The rule of three in decision making 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 …

Feb 22, 2013: Fixie Friday - FGGT Karena via FGGT

Feb 22, 2013: The late adopter 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 …

Feb 21, 2013: Why I love being a Netter 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 …

Feb 20, 2013: Abandoned technology When the Xbox Kinect first appeared, I was all over it like a rash. I was a big fan of Nintendo’s Wii before hand, so the progress to a controllerless …

Feb 20, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - More time 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 …

Feb 19, 2013: Be present with Nicholas Bate Nicholas Bate on the importance of being present. But being where we are, that's another story. In a world of distraction, 'the future is brighter', …

Feb 19, 2013: The reach of your words A few years ago I ran a blog called MindMapSwitch. It ran for a couple of years before I had to give it up due to time constraints with work. It did …

Feb 18, 2013: Learning As a web developer I tend to focus on the back end of the implementation of web sites and applications. It's what I do and what I am good at, however …

Feb 15, 2013: Apps for staying in touch with family Staying connected with family in the modern world is great. Thanks to the Internet, the only thing to stop you contacting family on a different …

Feb 14, 2013: Decisions, decisions, decisions As a software developer I'm used to making hundreds, well probably thousands of decisions a day. Deciding on variables, class names and how I …

Feb 13, 2013: Technology Decisions For a long time now I've worked on my trusty black MacBook. Bought back in 2008, it has served me well for the last four years. Now though it's …

Feb 13, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - The bike ... ... not the beard. On-one's new 29er looks great.

Feb 12, 2013: Microsoft: A shadow of its former self I was a fan of Microsoft when I first started out in my career. It was everywhere. Jobs local to me were all about Microsoft technology and stacks. So …

Feb 11, 2013: Taskpaper I stopped using Wunderlist for maintaining lists last week. It just didn't fit with how I worked. I wanted something a bit more low tech, so I …

Feb 10, 2013: Where does your Hogwarts allegiance lie? With Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin?

Feb 8, 2013: Fixie Friday - Cannondale Track Awesome colour by the way. via Pedal Consumption

Feb 8, 2013: I wish the sky could look like this ... ... at night without having to drive miles to get away from the light pollution.

Feb 8, 2013: I'm not a rockstar or a ninja In case you don't know what I'm talking about, let me give you a run down. It's become common place in the last few years for agencies and companies …

Feb 7, 2013: Everything in moderation kids, including technology Digital technology. The great invention of the late 20th century and now integrated into our daily lives on such a scale that many of us take it for …

Feb 6, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - More blog posts in reserve My attempt to blog every weekday on my blog hit a snag today. I didn't have anything scheduled for today. No worries though. I'll simply start again …

Feb 5, 2013: Getting ready for the next Star Wars installment ... ... with some teaser posters from the fans. Really like this one. via DBSW

Feb 5, 2013: Moon setting behind the temple of Poseidon Amazing photograph. via Mme Scherzo

Feb 5, 2013: The next idea: DecisionMail Journalong is up and running and I'm happy with it, but there's another itch building. Another itch to build something else and DecisionMail is it's …

Feb 4, 2013: Journalong pricing and value It's been over a year now since Journalong was launched and since it's launch, the total number of customers is still less than triple figures. Okay, …

Feb 1, 2013: Fixie Friday - 2013 Kagero via Pedal Consumption

Feb 1, 2013: The geek inside me just chuckled ... I would fail at this as well. via xkcd

Feb 1, 2013: Use compass points for better goals Goal setting. How many different methods have you tried? Lots? So have I, and every time I tried to use them I failed to reach the goal. Inevitably …

Jan 31, 2013: Streaks I read an interesting post by Curtis McHale today highlighting his pledge to maintain a daily contribution to open-source projects. Well done Curtis! …

Jan 30, 2013: Productivity apps don't work for me I'm not the first person to realise this, but productivity apps don't work for me. I've tried countless apps and services but none of them seem to …

Jan 30, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Maxlight Sync Titanium Hardtail A new bike to lust after. via BikeRadar

Jan 29, 2013: We need more simple products The fixed gear bike. Two wheels. One gear. Brakes, optional. Simple really. And that's the reason why the fixed gear bike is loved by many cyclists. …

Jan 28, 2013: Road cycling fan no longer I watched Miguel Indurain as a kid. He is a legend in cycling. When I first started watching cycling, Indurain was already on three Tour wins with a …

Jan 26, 2013: Building a Better Business ... ... with everyone's favourite mentor, Nicholas Bate. Ultimately we need to get big, get niche or get out. There are no magic recipes for success. But …

Jan 25, 2013: Fixie Friday - BENOTTO Pista 2700 / 1984 via FGGT

Jan 25, 2013: Mind mapping to outlining I've been trying to get back into using mind mapping on a daily basis again. I've used it a couple of times this week already. So far so good.The …

Jan 24, 2013: My Writing Tools Matt Gemmell recently blogged about his array of writing tools. While my selection is somewhat smaller, I thought it was still worth writing about the …

Jan 23, 2013: Be Present This was supposed to be this year's theme but I opted for being independent instead in light of my recent foray into the world of freelancing. I …

Jan 23, 2013: This old notebook A look at the contents of a writer's notebook. Marvellous to see a notebook like this which has recorded life experiences, ideas, notes and other …

Jan 23, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - YNOT Products So we're definitely going to Canada this year. Which means I'm definitely heading down to YNOT's with a wad of notes to get me some YNOT stuff for the …

Jan 22, 2013: Back on a regular reading schedule The last couple of months have been a bit hectic in our house with an unscheduled job hunt for myself and the holidays were just coming up. With …

Jan 21, 2013: Always be learning One of Patrick Rhone's latest posts is his list of tools for daily learning. Patrick's list is a great place to start for daily learning and I'm glad …

Jan 18, 2013: Becoming a Wordpress Development Professional is launched My friend Curtis has been busy penning a new book. Congrats on the launch Curtis!

Jan 18, 2013: Everyday is a school day ... ... with Patrick Rhone.

Jan 18, 2013: Fixie Friday - Cinelli Super Corsa via FGGT

Jan 18, 2013: Getting it wrong as a parent Some of you might already know this from my tweets in the past but for those that don't here's the thing. My son has been playing golf since he was 1 …

Jan 17, 2013: Don't criticise choice I read an article today where the author outlined her opinion on using the right tool for the job. Actually it was more like an advertisement for the …

Jan 16, 2013: Making time for product building It's been a busy couple of weeks freelancing. However there is one thing that I didn't factor into working this way and that was making time for …

Jan 16, 2013: Micro X-Wing Can't wait to show my oldest son this! via Distracted By Star Wars

Jan 15, 2013: Lifehacker asks ... ... how can I keep a personal, private journal online?

Jan 15, 2013: Pricing products The only answers that matter are dollars spent. People answer when they pay for something. That’s the only answer that really matters. So put a price …

Jan 15, 2013: The holy grail of mobile computing A single device that can be used on the go as well as having the same functionality as a desktop computer when you dock it! The Ubuntu phone marks a …

Jan 15, 2013: Where estimates can go wrong (and how to fix it) Estimating. It's a word that can strike fear into people who are new to the realms of programming, project management, freelancing and other careers. …

Jan 14, 2013: Using multiple networks as a marketing tool Having multiple social networks can be a real headache if you're trying to manage them all at once. When I created my App.net profile and made that my …

Jan 11, 2013: Aggregation of media is not journaling The other week I read about a popular journaling app for the iPhone that allows you to populate your journal by aggregating your posts from your …

Jan 11, 2013: Fixie Friday - SPUN Studio Couldn't actually get a name for this bike. Great build though. via FGGT

Jan 10, 2013: TDD with your MVP Should you TDD your MVP? This question came up on the Hacker News website a few days ago. Reading through the comments there was a very mixed response …

Jan 9, 2013: Wishlist Wednesday - Rogue Hoodie Nice hoodie for cutting about town. via Pedal Consumption

Jan 4, 2013: I'm available for work It's taken a few weeks of job searching to make me realise that pickings are slim for the type of work I want to do on a daily basis. So I have …

Jan 4, 2013: It's time to get back into mind mapping again As part of a toolset reboot for the year I've decided to give mind mapping another go. Mind mapping isn't new to me, I first learned about it about 20 …

Jan 4, 2013: One to one networking I previously wrote about the importance of maintaining your professional network. Today we're going to talk about the same thing, except in the real …

Jan 4, 2013: This year's theme: Independence This year's theme was all set to be something else, but due to the fact I am currently trying to make it as a freelance web developer, I thought a …

Jan 2, 2013: Dealing with redundancy It's been four weeks now since I was made redundant. In that time I've had a chance to reflect on this horrible position that many of us go through. …

Dec 31, 2012: There's Only One New Year's Resolution Wise words from Sergio Delaguera: There’s only one New Year’s resolution: never stop trying. Every year millions of us make promises of losing …

Dec 30, 2012: 21 Habits to Make Life Better ... ... with Michael Wade.

Dec 30, 2012: Don’t Sell Your Solution Curtis McHale's blog is definitely one to watch for 2013. His post on not selling your solution is a mistake I've seen too many people make including …

Dec 30, 2012: Nicholas Bate is leading the revolution ... ... and everyone who wants a more productive year in 2013 is invited.

Dec 30, 2012: The fear of failure Glad to see I am not the only one with this fear. Even great people like Patrick Rhone have the fear.

Dec 30, 2012: You Are Your Number One User I did try and build Journalong according to lean practices but at the end of the day I wanted something that I would be happy with and I have it. Next …

Dec 21, 2012: Fixie Friday - Rudy Melo’s Kagero via Pedal Consumption

Dec 21, 2012: xkcd: Instagram Next time you think about signing up to a free service, remember this: via xkcd

Dec 21, 2012: “How are you?” said one.... Great to see one of Arthur Rackham's illustrations in my Google Reader this morning. This is from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I've been …

Dec 19, 2012: Goals for 2013 ... ... with Curtis McHale. I should do this as well if freelancing becomes my preferred alternative to a full-time job for next year.

Dec 19, 2012: How to Edit Your Own Writing Great advice for people like myself that edit their work wrongly! I don't how many times I have re-read back to myself my writing from the screen and …

Dec 19, 2012: Saddle up for 2013 ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Dec 19, 2012: Scotland Opens First Privately-Financed Incubator TechCube is a world class space for technology startups in Edinburgh. It provides affordable office space, services and community support for …

Dec 19, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - More confidence The last few weeks have seen me attending a number of different interviews and each time it seems my nerves get the better of me. More confidence is …

Dec 14, 2012: Fixie Friday - Leader Hurricane via Pedal Consumption

Dec 13, 2012: Don't neglect your professional network I know and I'm sure you know that networking is important, but I didn't realise how important it was until a couple of weeks ago. At the start of the …

Dec 12, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - iMiNUSD Shell Functional bike clothing is great, but so is functional bike clothing that you can wear when you're on the bike for nipping down to the shops. This …

Dec 8, 2012: Creativity Seven ... ... with your own creative director, Nicholas Bate.

Dec 8, 2012: Do One Thing Avoid the “Jack of all trades, Master of none.”-mantra, as this not only defocuses & complicates your execution, but it most definitely decreases …

Dec 8, 2012: Required life courses ... ... with Kurt Harden.

Dec 8, 2012: Where do you achieve more? Michael Wade examines places where you achieve more work. It is obvious that where we work can affect how we work. Consequently, we need to learn …

Dec 8, 2012: Why no one is reading your corporate blog Not surprised at all that so many corporate blogs are very rarely updated. I've seen too many company blogs that are simply half-ass attempts are …

Dec 8, 2012: Writing with pen and paper Writing, real writing, makes you smarter. via Who Writes For You I need to do this more often. Much more often.

Dec 7, 2012: Fixie Friday - Double Wonderful via FGGT / Photo by Father Tu

Dec 6, 2012: Paradoxical Productivity Why wouldn't you want Paradoxical Productivity by Nicholas Bate?It's mega portable, it's always on, it's future proof. Get productive today with …

Dec 5, 2012: Do you want freedom from the cubicle? Then check out Nicholas Bate.

Dec 5, 2012: Hit it, don’t quit The bottom line: pick a few things to do well, do them, and don’t quit. Great advice from Adam Keys.

Dec 5, 2012: The Work You Love is Waiting For You The main reason people don’t try to do work they love, don’t even look for it, is because they don’t think they’re good enough. That’s hogwash. We’ve …

Dec 5, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Genesis Fortitude Race Steel frame? Check. Rigid forks? Check. 29" wheels? Check. On the wednesday wishlist? Check. via Genesis Bikes

Nov 30, 2012: Fixie Friday - KONGA Rata track bike via FGGT

Nov 29, 2012: Curtis asks ... ... are you a dreamer or a finisher? I was dreamer until this year. I actually finished a product in terms of it shipping it for the world to use, but …

Nov 29, 2012: How to Get Startup Ideas This isn't just today's required reading, but required reading for the whole of next year!

Nov 28, 2012: How to Make Your Job Search ... ... Productive. It's been a busy week of interviews for myself. Made easier from the fact I have simple plan like this.

Nov 28, 2012: Job Hunting ... ... Zombie Style. Who thought that zombies could be so educational?

Nov 28, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - To make the right choice Since I got made redundant last week, I've had an opportunity to look at the path of my career and determine the right direction I want it to take for …

Nov 26, 2012: E's guide to freelancing Well I'm naming it this anyway. Thanks E.

Nov 26, 2012: From cubicle to freedom ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Nov 26, 2012: The Uncompleted Projects Don't let uncompleted projects gnaw away at you.

Nov 23, 2012: Fixie Friday - BB17 Transfer via FGGT / Photo by Father Tu

Nov 23, 2012: From Cubicle To Freedom Yet again, I feel like NB is watching over my shoulder. Highly relevant for me given the circumstances.

Nov 23, 2012: Gratitude This weeks news has me looking at my career differently for the first time in 15 years. Knowing this, allow yourself one day to be grateful for …

Nov 23, 2012: Helpful apps Kurt Harden has a list of apps you can use without a phone.

Nov 23, 2012: Working with family people An old post from the svn blog at 37signals but a reminder that not everyone's number one concern is the big project at work. That’s why I like …

Nov 22, 2012: Some productivity winners ... ... with Adam Keys. No fancy hacks or software here. Just straight forward tips that anyone can do.

Nov 21, 2012: Bookshops fight back Good to see independent bookshops fighting back but I suspect that this will only be a short lived response. It will be interesting to see if people …

Nov 21, 2012: Opportunities ahead Bad news. Got paid off this morning. Good news. I now have an opportunity to carve a career that will benefit me. A career that will interest me, let …

Nov 21, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - More writing ideas I've managed to write 3 posts over 3 days for my blog, but the writing well is running dry with ideas.Anybody want to see something on the blog that I …

Nov 20, 2012: Stop sending 'important' emails Ever get an email marked as important and then proceeded to wonder why it is so important? I get them every now and again at work, but what amazes me …

Nov 19, 2012: Disconnect Saturdays If you want the most from your Saturday, then why not get disconnected?

Nov 19, 2012: Fear Last week seen a spike in traffic to my blog. Looking at the stats, I noticed that most of the traffic was coming from Hacker News (HN). It turns out …

Nov 19, 2012: Mini-Escapes Execupundit offers escape strategies that every one can do.

Nov 19, 2012: The Rebel Alliance Needs You! These are fantastic recruitment posters for the Rebel Alliance. via Distracted By Star Wars

Nov 19, 2012: The slow boiled frog ... ... that is every Twitter user at the moment. A well written post by "love him or loathe him" DHH on how Twitter now amounts to nothing more …

Nov 19, 2012: Why we need side projects I've always had a side project going for the last few years. Whether it was a blog, a bit of code or some writing, there's always been something there …

Nov 16, 2012: Fixie Friday - 3RENSHO / NUGGET This bike has classic written all over it. via FGGT / photo Father Tu

Nov 16, 2012: Honoured ... ... to be featured in Kurt Harden's annual 25 blogs guaranteed to make you smarter.

Nov 15, 2012: Being socialable More of an introvert than an extrovert? Some good tips here to make social gatherings and meetings easier.

Nov 15, 2012: Bring back the 40-hour work week For employees, the fundamental realization is that an employer who asks for more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week is stealing something vital …

Nov 15, 2012: The same old 7 Sometimes I think NB is watching me from afar.

Nov 15, 2012: Thinking ... ... inside, outside and beyond the box. Lots of thinking with Nicholas Bate.

Nov 15, 2012: What do you do? How boring? It's always the same opening line when your speaking to someone you've just met. Instead pick one of these 20 things to talk about or if …

Nov 14, 2012: A better review ... ... where Patrick Rhone looks at how he's still using his first generation iPad and why it's the tools you never think of that get the job done.When I …

Nov 14, 2012: Simple tools A week ago I finally got round to doing some little jobs around the house and one of them was taking a couple millimetres off the top of a door so …

Nov 14, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - A time machine It would be nice to re-visit decisions I've made recently, but I need to live with the results.

Nov 13, 2012: An idea is brewing Start a new coffee shop that prides itself on not only making better tasting coffee and food and provides a better customer service, but also pays …

Nov 13, 2012: The Fight A little reminder from Dustin Curtis. Avoid the trap of worrying about what you lose.

Nov 13, 2012: Todays physics lesson ... ... brought to you by xkcd.

Nov 9, 2012: Fixie Friday - Taipei Skyline behind a Kalavinka Good luck pedaling that off the building! via FGGT

Nov 9, 2012: I Am A Terrible Programmer Glad to hear that I'm not alone. I don't always think that I am a terrible programmer, but some days I just can't afford to spend the extra time in …

Nov 9, 2012: Want to go home on time? Try Nicholas Bate's time management plan for a better day.

Nov 7, 2012: A change of network Barring a few replies out of common courtesy, it's now been three months since I stopped posting to my Twitter account and moved over to App.net. So …

Nov 7, 2012: Do you follow the church of ... ... the Internet?

Nov 7, 2012: Regrets from your past ... ... we all have them. However it's never too late to turn them around.

Nov 7, 2012: Side projects need an end goal Otherwise you're project is going to stall and get nowhere. Know that when you start just a side project, you’re starting so much more. It’ll …

Nov 7, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Courage ... ... to say yes to forking a new career path.

Nov 6, 2012: A new rule for ideas ... ... give them a 2 week shelf life.

Nov 6, 2012: Patrick Rhone's Writing Steps It's easier than you think. Just read step one.

Nov 6, 2012: Reading list for November Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian - I'm continuing the series with the second book after thoroughly enjoying the first book, Master and Commander. Also …

Nov 6, 2012: Start something small Which is why I love working on Journalong. The small problem I had with keeping notes and thoughts in plain text that I could pick up on any of the …

Nov 5, 2012: Ghost This is just an idea for a new blogging platform, but i love the idea for the simple fact that your posts are written using Markdown.

Nov 2, 2012: Fixie Friday - All-City Thunderdome Love the detail on the down tube and the chain stays. via Pedal Consumption

Nov 2, 2012: The Myth of Success ... ... with Caesura Letters. Let us expose the conspiracy: success is an illusion. To be sure, the human experience is full of tantalizing tokens, …

Nov 1, 2012: Behind the scenes of ... ... Raiders. I loved this movie as a kid, but equally amazing is that my oldest son also loves this movie. It's a real testament to a movie when it …

Oct 31, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - A portfolio career While I would love to work with some programming languages full-time I know that it will unlikely be the case. However, being able to split my job …

Oct 25, 2012: Execupundit has an assignment for you ... ... idea books. Think of it as topical journals. I currently post everything into the one journal, but I do leave a few things out as I feel they …

Oct 25, 2012: Fixie Friday - LOW x Pepper Riser Bar What's not to like about this build? And you can't say the colour! via FGGT

Oct 24, 2012: The $5 SaaS Is $5 the magical number when it comes to pricing your product in the SaaS market? Here's my current list of subscriptions: Github - $12 Instapaper - …

Oct 24, 2012: Two sentences is all it takes to keep a journal Seriously, who can't write two sentences every day? That's all it takes to keep a journal for yourself going. Just two sentences. What's stopping you …

Oct 23, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Quickfix Mudguard Fix it on, ride your bike, take it off again.

Oct 22, 2012: Hacker debate Nothing like an Apple product launch to get a hacker debate going. Me, I can take it or leave it. I've grown increasingly immune to these product …

Oct 22, 2012: Outlining Books Faster, Revisited The FBO V3. Allows you to make notes from your books without writing in the margins of said books.

Oct 22, 2012: The Best Upgrade Is You Today's essential reading comes from Patrick Rhone. I have come to believe that the best and most cost effective technology upgrade that one can make …

Oct 18, 2012: Fixie Friday - Colnago Dream Pista Love the disc wheel at the back! via FGGT

Oct 16, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - No.22 Bicycle Company Fixed Frame This frame from the the No.22 Bicycle Company in Toronto is just amazing. via Pedal Consumption

Oct 15, 2012: How To Live As I analyze, reflect, and write, I found myself scratching out my own list; my own criterion for what I want from this finicky thing I’ve been given, …

Oct 15, 2012: Is this the end of the todo list? Jeff Atwood uses his brain, Curtis McHale has thrown away some of his list and I've completely deleted mine. Is this the end of the todo list?

Oct 11, 2012: Fixie Friday - Cervelo Someone has some new wheels over at FGGT. via FGGT.

Oct 11, 2012: The Magazine Marco Arment, the man behind Instapaper, has a new venture called The Magazine. It's a fortnightly magazine for people who love the internet and …

Oct 10, 2012: John Gruber's review of the Kindle Paperwhite I know the Kindle Paperwhite isn't out in the UK yet, but I'm reading the reviews to see what others think. After Scott Hanselman's review I thought …

Oct 9, 2012: Invent the right thing This doesn’t mean new problems shouldn’t be tackled and new techonologies should not be invented. It applies mostly to reinventing wheels. That is, a …

Oct 9, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - A better career 7 Freelancing has been on my mind recently. If I start going down this path, then I will be taking it a lot slower than I previously did. To wake up on …

Oct 8, 2012: Bike trials skills on a Pinarello road bike This type of riding by Martyn Ashton would sure as hell shake up the Tour de France if it had a trials stage. Maybe we need a stage like this to …

Oct 8, 2012: Instant Business Speak - Geeks Nicholas Bate gets us geeks. It's a shame that others don't. Organisations love to use the term geek in a derogatory manner. Often dismissive. Often …

Oct 8, 2012: The best Kindle Paperwhite review I've read so far I gushed over the new Kindle Paperwhite when it was released a few weeks ago, however after reading Scott Hanselman's review of it, I'm glad I've not …

Oct 7, 2012: And over at xkcd today ... How appropriate for today's massive tech companies.

Oct 4, 2012: Fixie Friday - Just Riding Rode to work on the fixie this morning. I would have preferred drier roads this morning, but the Scottish weather gods demand that our country gets …

Oct 3, 2012: A better shared space The trick, I think, is to make a better shared space for a remote/local team than the physically shared space they already have. A space that is just …

Oct 3, 2012: Immerse yourself ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Oct 3, 2012: Instant MBA now free on Amazon Nicholas Bate's Instant MBA is now free on Amazon. Read it.

Oct 3, 2012: Visualizing Tolkien This post has it all. Tolkien, words stats and a smattering of programming fu.

Oct 2, 2012: How To Build ... ... a Blog Readership. Hats off to Dan Shipper for a great post on blogging. Definitely today's required reading.

Oct 2, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Merckx 525 The complete story of cycling legend Eddy Merckx. Who can say no to that?

Oct 1, 2012: 45 Things Patrick Knows Essential reading for today. Make sure to set aside some time for this. And Happy Birthday Patrick!

Oct 1, 2012: Batten down the escape hatch ... ... with Nicholas Bate.

Oct 1, 2012: Building for Enterprise Solutions So the real business opportunities are in enterprise solutions we’re told but no one is building for enterprise. Why is that you ask? Well the title …

Oct 1, 2012: The new world of work ... ... is coming fast and freelancing is on the rise as a result. Interesting.

Sep 27, 2012: Fixie Friday - Bombtrack These Bombtrack bikes are fantastic. Especially love the curve on the seat tube. via PEDAL Consumption

Sep 27, 2012: That's the weekend sorted then Golf ... more golf ... and even more golf. Ryder Cup weekend begins today and me and my oldest son are going to be glued to the television cheering on …

Sep 26, 2012: Getting the right customers One thing that has continually bugged me about the Journalong journal entry screen is the social widgets that I put on there. They serve no other …

Sep 25, 2012: How to Get Unstuck ... ... The Big Paper Exercise with Mike Vardy.It's amazing how often the lo-fi techniques that require just pencil and paper are so much easier to do …

Sep 25, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - New Lurcher X9 I wants one of these ... 29" wheels and a double chain ring at the front. Ticks all my boxes. via shedfire

Sep 23, 2012: Firefighting Firefighting. I've been doing this for most of the last three weeks. It's the onslaught of unforeseen tasks and issues that take you away from the …

Sep 22, 2012: E-Mail Sensitivity/Paranoia: The Checklist I wish I read this list by Michael Wade last week when I was at my wits end with an issue at work. I probably shouldn't have sent the email, but I did …

Sep 20, 2012: Fixie Friday - Fall is coming I wish I had a local spot like this for some leisurely cycling. via FGGT

Sep 20, 2012: IFTTT disables Twitter Triggers Twitter's third party app lockdown continues with the removal of Twitter Triggers from IFTTT. I think the only way for Twitter to go from here is …

Sep 19, 2012: Amazing Star Wars Animation Absolutely fantastic animation. I would love to see this expanded further into a series. via DBSW

Sep 19, 2012: Good to see developers having success with Linux So, far its been good; most apps I use are web apps. I spend 70% of my time in a terminal, and 30% of my time in a web browser. Honestly its the …

Sep 18, 2012: Click and Drag Today's XKCD is amazing. Enjoy.

Sep 18, 2012: I'm not a circus entertainer How many times have you heard these or words to this effect?​ Keep both plates spinning​ It's really just another way of saying multi-tasking.When …

Sep 18, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Fall in Canada Every year we miss the seasons moving from Summer to Fall in Canada and the changing colours in the trees. On the wishlist today, to put back the …

Sep 16, 2012: Stop using email for internal company communication ​I have a love hate relationship with email.I love having a medium that allows me to communicate effectively with others all over the world. Being …

Sep 16, 2012: What is Markdown? Lifehacker has all the resources you'll need for using Markdown. There's hundreds of apps out there that are prepared to lock in your data. But why …

Sep 14, 2012: One for the engineers I’m blogging today because computer nerds know how to make software, they tend to get exploited by people who don’t, and it is ruining America for …

Sep 13, 2012: Fixie Friday - Girl on bike I just know my mate Mark would love this girl's style. via FGGT

Sep 13, 2012: Photo of the day I still want to go back here and watch the sun rise and set on the canyon. I only got to see the canyon during the middle of the day. Nevertheless, it …

Sep 11, 2012: Capturing ideas on the go The notes are for you. Don’t worry about your handwriting, the spelling, or what someone else will think. These are your notes. If a thought occurs to …

Sep 11, 2012: Kids and their imagination I initially drafted this in August 2011, during my stint on 750words.com. Since then it's been sitting in a file waiting to be published, until now. …

Sep 11, 2012: The $9 cardboard bicycle I wonder how waterproof it is? via Kottke.org

Sep 11, 2012: Wishlist Wedensday - Orange RX-9 Never tried riding a cyclo-cross bike, but if I ever wanted one, then this Orange would fit the bill nicely. via Singletrack

Sep 10, 2012: What’s Wrong With Twitter? While social networks might not be at the forefront of your worries, there has been a rising interest in Twitter recently. Tim Bray lists his reasons …

Sep 9, 2012: Nice blog layout ... ... by Elliot Jay Stocks. Blog posts grouped together by year with a description for each year. Easy to find a post in the archive you've already …

Sep 8, 2012: A gathering place An impressive collection of books by Cultural Offering. Makes me wish I had a larger house for a collection of my own books. Unfortunately our pokey …

Sep 8, 2012: Sundays are for ... ... a long walk with the family, spending the time with your kids and their pastimes, a good book, preparing a large family dinner, catching up with …

Sep 6, 2012: Edge of the universe Another little gem that hit my inbox courtesy of Caesura Letters: Sitting at the edge of the universe prompts me to ask the same questions I find …

Sep 6, 2012: Microsoft's first Canadian retail store opening in Toronto Might have to make a wee visit to the store when we visit the in-laws next year. via The Verge

Sep 5, 2012: New Kindle Paperwhite The new Kindle range from Amazon is looking really good. I particularly like the look of the new Kindle Paperwhite. As a purchase though, it might …

Sep 5, 2012: Offense and defense Defense is prepared. It is what we do with what the world throws back at us. via Cultural Offering

Sep 2, 2012: My 5 Favourite Books After seeing this posted on various blogs I'm subscribed to, I decided to list my five favourite books of all time. A Christmas Carol by Charles …

Sep 2, 2012: Startup Kits Give me Nicholas Bate's get real kit over the oh-so tempting one any day.

Aug 30, 2012: Fixie Friday - De Rosa Ti Pretty sure that @andygumley will probably have his eye on this to compliment his road bike. Wouldn't mind it myself, especially since it's a titanium …

Aug 28, 2012: TextDown, a Markdown editor for Chrome I use Markdown everyday, so it's great to see TextDown, an Markdown editor extension for Chrome, that I can now use across different platforms.

Aug 28, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Specialized P-Fix This would make a mighty fine addition to my Langster.

Aug 27, 2012: For me, web apps still rule Like most people I've spent my fair share of money on apps for the iPad, but recently I've found that I'm just not using them that often. The problem …

Aug 26, 2012: Habit holiday Building habits and routines is a great way make sure you're staying on top of life but for all the structure that you have built, sometimes you just …

Aug 23, 2012: Fixie Friday - Royal Mail Messenger Bag Awesome use for some old mail bags. I know it's not the usual Fixie Friday bike, but pickings were slim this week. via Instructables

Aug 23, 2012: Remembering JMC Jason was my reason for taking up mountain biking and remains an inspiration for hundreds of mountain bikers in the UK. A talented rider taken too …

Aug 22, 2012: Added to the reading list ... ... the Aubrey-Maturin series as recommended by Michael Wade. I loved the movie, so reading the series of books is really a no-brainer.

Aug 22, 2012: Marilyn Monroe Twins I've asked my brother-in-law why these towers are called the Marilyn Monroe Twins, but he didn't know. Still, they're great to see on the Mississauga …

Aug 22, 2012: Nicholas Bate has his own way of identifying a product ... ... worth building.

Aug 22, 2012: Sense and Sensibility with Curtis McHale Top geek in the entrepreneur and web development world says that formality is a virus. Thank goodness there are people in the world with their heads …

Aug 22, 2012: The Slow Web Because everything you use and do on the web doesn't need to be freaking instantaneous. The slow web is definitely the way forward.

Aug 22, 2012: Train and Towers Yip, Toronto is home from home. Wish I had more opportunities to visit. via Daily Dose of Imagery

Aug 20, 2012: Escaping from the walled garden Some influential posts that have got me thinking that Twitter isn't really for me anymore. The current problem with Twitter is not that they’re now …

Aug 20, 2012: Moving on ... For a few months now I have been thinking about reducing my time spent on Twitter. When I first started using Twitter, I used it solely for the …

Aug 19, 2012: Your words are wasted You are not blogging enough. You are pouring your words into increasingly closed and often walled gardens. You are giving control - and sometimes …

Aug 17, 2012: Don't Use black. via Nicholas Bate & Swiss Miss

Aug 17, 2012: Everybody Out The world is buggered. We need to go elsewhere, but can we all go? Excellent physics questions and answers over at xkcd.

Aug 14, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - On-One Carbon 29er Race Frame On-One are doing great stuff with carbon fibre these days.

Aug 9, 2012: Fixie Friday - GTB via Pedal Consumption

Aug 9, 2012: View from Your desk with Cultural Offering What's your view from your desk?

Aug 7, 2012: Follow Cultural Offering You won't regret it.

Aug 7, 2012: What’s not to like about this sport? via KA-CHING!

Aug 7, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - And What Do You Do? More much needed career advice recommended by Nicholas Bate.

Jul 31, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Getting this little guy home Forgive the cute picture of my 2nd son who was born today, but today's wish is to get this little guy and his mum back home where they belong. Little …

Jul 30, 2012: The habit manifesto Buster Benson outlines what habit decisions are and provides some tips integrating these habits into your life. Here's an excerpt from the practice …

Jul 24, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Mountain bike expo in SFO Not everything on your wishlist needs to be things you want to own. How about attending events?Well this one should be on every mountain bikers list. …

Jul 23, 2012: Fun physics at xkcd Answering the questions in physics that you didn't ask at school. This time it's a mole of moles.

Jul 19, 2012: Fixie Friday - Æ’s Brascona via Pedal Consumption

Jul 18, 2012: Final journey for Space Shuttle Enterprise I've never seen such close pictures of any of NASA's shuttles before. via The Verge

Jul 17, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - New tunes Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones? It's definitely going on the wishlist. Thanks Rob! via The Hammock Papers

Jul 16, 2012: Book store vs Amazon While browsing through the books at my local Waterstones store, I became aware of how easy it was to pick up books, rifle through them and decide …

Jul 16, 2012: Threat or Opportunity? Ever since Google Drive came out, I've been wondering about it in relation to my journaling product that I am building that uses Dropbox. Is this a …

Jul 14, 2012: .Mail The email client redesigned for today.

Jul 14, 2012: Art of the day via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Jul 12, 2012: Fixie Friday - Makino NJS via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Jul 11, 2012: Let the waters roar The Hammock Papers. Because you never know when you'll need the words to that naval song.

Jul 10, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - A bigger Dropbox Dropbox just announced better plans. Really tempted to move a few more things to the cloud.

Jul 8, 2012: A Winning Formula 7 Nicholas Bate is at again. This time it's his winning career formula. You might want to mix some strategies for success in there as well.

Jul 3, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - SRAM XX-1 Yes folks, we have entered new realms of crazy in the mountain bike world. 11 gears. It was only a couple of years ago that everyone thought we were …

Jun 30, 2012: Marketing advice from Seth The mass market is no longer. There is almost no room left for the next Procter & Gamble or Google. Instead, you are far more likely to do your …

Jun 28, 2012: Being brutally honest with yourself I love reading posts like this. It's that moment when people wake up and say, "Fuck it. I'm doing things better from now on". Be brutally …

Jun 28, 2012: Fixie Friday - SKYLMT SL1 Build The raw steel look. Love it! via Pedal Consumption

Jun 28, 2012: Never open a book with the weather ... ... and other writing tips from Explore.

Jun 26, 2012: BackOfAnEnvelope: Profitability And if you are struggling with your start-up and you're thinking of discounting then don't. NB has you covered: via Nicholas Bate

Jun 26, 2012: How to create sketchnotes on an iPad It's easier than you think.

Jun 26, 2012: The best answer I've seen .. .. to defining what a start-up is. A start-up should be viewed as continually evolving entity, not a static product or service. Entrepreneurs should …

Jun 26, 2012: Wishlist Wedensday - Cannondale Trigger 1 via Singletrack

Jun 18, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Niner S.I.R.9 Wow. Niner sure do know how to make an appealing steel hardtail. via Singletrack World.

Jun 17, 2012: Why you need your own company Then I realized why I need to start a new company. Not for the money. Not because I'm “bored”. But because a company is a laboratory to try your …

Jun 13, 2012: Steal like a writer via Explore

Jun 6, 2012: Bike tools in your handlebars ... yes please! This is just brilliant. Bicycle tools stored in your handlebars. It should fit all different types of bars including drop, track, risers and flat. …

Jun 6, 2012: Fixie Friday - Another fixie to want via Pedal Consumption

Jun 6, 2012: Home from home via Daily Dose of Imagery

Jun 5, 2012: Fork Bottle Openers Bottle openers made from old bicycle forks. Brilliant! via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Jun 5, 2012: How gnarly are the cobbles at Roubaix? Pretty gnarly if you ask me, and I'm more of a mountain biker than a roadie.I ride fast descents through rocks, twisty trails over roots and even make …

May 30, 2012: Big Customers? Who Needs 'Em! And complexity is like a leak in your roof. It starts small. But over time, it does real damage. And once that damage has begun, it's hard to stop. …

May 30, 2012: How to do a startup on the side .. .. and not lose your family. A simple but realistic guide from Eric Farkas.

May 28, 2012: Facebook smartphone I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would want a phone that effectively ties you to one social network. Come to think of it, a phone based …

May 28, 2012: Finally, some common sense Mullenweg said he’s concerned that Silicon Valley is creating products that are so engaging that they’re also incredibly distracting, to the detriment …

May 28, 2012: One Pagers Brilliant tip from Ryan Davis about communicating clearly in the workplace whether you're from a technical or business background.

May 28, 2012: The background to Journalong Over the weekend I put the finishing touches to my first product, Journalong. I thought it would be a good idea to go over what led me to building …

May 24, 2012: Never be a commodity Do What You Want is a quick, satisfying read. It is about how to arm yourself and show value in a commoditized world. Pick it up. You won't be …

May 8, 2012: Don't wait .. .. for anything. Take action with Nicholas Bate.

May 3, 2012: Griprings These are just awesome. Looks are one thing though. Are they comfortable to ride with?

Apr 22, 2012: A new age of dirt jumping bikes Full carbon dirt jump bikes? Well with fat tubes like this, it's no wonder it's capable of taking a beating. via Singletrack

Apr 17, 2012: Pro/Con Journal Decision making for those that like a nicely organized journal for their decisions. via Swiss Miss

Apr 10, 2012: I know how you feel Jon via Mme Scherzo

Apr 10, 2012: Kessel Run Star Wars and time trial racing. What's there not to like? via Distracted by Star Wars

Apr 8, 2012: Fixed Gear Bicycle Book Nice idea, but I would happily pay three times as much for a proper coffee table book. via Under Consideration

Apr 4, 2012: Harris Tweed This Harris tweed frame looks really good. Would it be too much to ask for tartans as well? via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Mar 29, 2012: TSA Infographic The numbers make you wonder why the hell the US government is still backing the TSA. Waste of money? I think so. via Upworthy

Mar 27, 2012: Beyond the wall I've been really enjoying the Game of Thrones TV series. It's been playing well to the books. Looking forward to the next series. via Deviant Art

Mar 27, 2012: Manifesto for Visual Culture via Swiss Miss

Mar 26, 2012: It's a busy universe This image contains over 200,000 galaxies and yet this image only represents a small percentage of space. The numbers just boggle the mind. via …

Mar 25, 2012: Bespoked Bristol 2012 The UK handmade bicycle show is a chance for the indy bike makers and designers to show off their creations. Singletrack magazine was there to find …

Mar 25, 2012: Start the week productively with Nicholas Another fine list from the man himself.

Mar 23, 2012: Fast Boy Cycles TF5 Love the look of this bike. via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Mar 23, 2012: Glo bars The next must have for any bike. via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

Mar 21, 2012: The Markdown Mark I'm a huge fan of Markdown, yet it has been hard to show your preferred markup language or Markdown compatible services in a visual way other than a …

Mar 20, 2012: Patrick Rhone's new book - enough Adding Patrick's new book this to the list of book purchases for next month.

Mar 7, 2012: 500 Words before 8am This is a great habit to get into, even if you're job or career doesn't demand much writing. Starting your day as a producer means that your …

Mar 7, 2012: Introducing an idea: Journalong So a few weeks ago I needed a quick way to write down an idea to my journal located on my Dropbox folder. I only had my phone with me at the time, so …

Mar 7, 2012: Ivy Bike Lock Looks great, but against the grey, rainy streets of Scotland, this will really stick out like a sore thumb. Great idea though! via swiss-miss.com

Mar 2, 2012: Fixie Friday - Alex`s Kinfolk Glad to see there's still room in the world for quill stems. via fixedgeargirltaiwan.blogspot.com

Feb 29, 2012: Is your organisation growing up? There are those who do grow up. Discussions about coffee machines, hotel allowances and bonuses recede. The 'country club' atmosphere which has grown …

Feb 28, 2012: A shotgun approach to motivation Next time you make a goal or come up with a plan, think about this. Make note of your primary source of motivation to complete the goal/plan, and …

Feb 22, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Maxlight's New FF29 I love my steel hardtail frames, but even I have to admit this 29er from Maxlight looks amazing. via singletrackworld.com

Feb 21, 2012: Best holding back So tonight, I deployed my first version of a plain text journalling product to Heroku. It's finally up and running! Those little hours here and there …

Feb 19, 2012: Turning 35 I'm 35 today! It probably doesn't mean much to many people when they turn 35 or any other age really for that matter, but for me this year feels …

Feb 9, 2012: Executing ideas on the side The world is full of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40 — All or Something by 37 Signals Not big words, but it's …

Feb 8, 2012: Wishlist Wednesday - Tomac Type X 29er 29er singlespeeds just look the part, and this Tomac is no exception. via singletrackworld.com

Feb 7, 2012: Top five regrets of the dying, with tangents I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish I'd had the …

Feb 6, 2012: Find Your Thing And Do That Thing ... via blog.chasejarvis.com

Jan 31, 2012: Be Bold, the wallpaper via Smashing Magazine I wonder if Nicholas Bate know's about this? It would tie in nicely with his Be Bold 101 book.

Jan 30, 2012: Seperating creative and critical thinking with an incubation period Productive Brainstorming Requires that you Separate Creative Thinking from Critical Thinking via thestartupdaily.com I had first hand experience of …

Jan 21, 2012: Declare war on passivity Declare war on passivity. Hush the inner voice that insists you’re over the hill, past your prime, unworthy of attaining those dreams. Disbelief is …

Jan 21, 2012: My favourites of 2011 Last year I did a favourite four of 2010. I listed my favourite blog, book, tweeter and podcast. This year I am trimming it down to just my favourite …

Jan 21, 2012: Stay consistent Another great find from Swiss Miss. via swiss-miss.com

Jan 19, 2012: Bespoke I believe there is a place for this is the world of technology. I think there is a need for a Software Tailor. For instance, you have a text editor …

Jan 17, 2012: Buying Philosophy Those things we build for ourselves are guided by our own philosophy. Those things built by others are guided by theirs and through our use we accept …

Jan 16, 2012: Fifty Easy Ways To Make Life Easier At the end of the day, plan tomorrow. Travel light. Regularly empty out the bags and wallet of the accumulated debris. Write down their names. Nobody …

Jan 12, 2012: No biggie It's no biggie for Buster, and it shouldn't be for anyone else. The multiverse, the universe, the world, history, everyone alive, your friends and …

Jan 4, 2012: The Dark Side Of IF Don't do it. Don't dabble with If only. Ban it from your vocabulary for 2012. Play with if. You know it makes sense. — The Dark Side of If by Nicholas …

Dec 17, 2011: Nicholas Bate On Fatigue But the brain-the mind-is not a muscle. It needs distinct periods of rest, of reflection, of relaxation to be at it best. If not-like a solider in …

Dec 5, 2011: My first NaNoWriMo During November I took part in the annual National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it's more commonly known. The aim is simple, write a complete …

Dec 3, 2011: Leaving tracks One of the best mentors I had in business - and one whom I regrettably spent the least amount of time with - gave me three lessons about business …

Nov 28, 2011: Drafts Some drafts flow while others need to be circled so all the weak spots can be tested. A few need to be neglected. Others deserve banishment. — Draft …

Oct 17, 2011: Working on the finishing touches for a client's website It's my second bit of freelance work of the year and my second bit of work in providing a website for a client. The experience has taught me a number …

Oct 16, 2011: Thinking that these 'patent trolls' are a bloody nuisance The Kindle Fire is on trial for a number of different patent violations including one for having icons lead to an action on the screen, for instance …

Sep 21, 2011: Thinking I need a head start for NaNoWriMo And Nicholas Bate has just the thing if it's your first time taking part in NaNoWriMo and you need a head start. Me? I'm trying to clear some …

Sep 6, 2011: I May Have Underestimated Building a Product Over the last few weeks, I've been fleshing out an idea for a product. To test the idea though, I emailed a trusted colleague who has recently …

Aug 30, 2011: Relentless Shipping The great thing about shipping is that if you can do it often enough, these problems of slipping features or making sacrifices in quality can fade …

Aug 28, 2011: Getting Free This left me with a decision: have a rewarding job that pays about half of my cushy government contracting salary or continue on as I was. I chose the …

Jul 18, 2011: Thinking that I need to stop moving the goalposts What is apparent is that Pirsig, focussed as he is on the peak, is overwhelmed by the climb, and continues to lose his desire and strength with every …

May 10, 2011: Book Review - Keeping It Straight by Patrick Rhone Patrick Rhone's book, Keeping It Straight, is an essay based book that contains all the necessary little insights into life that you need to keep …

Jan 3, 2011: My favourite four of 2010 You know those end of year award ceremonies where organisations award people with prestigious titles? Well I thought it would be fun to list my …

Jul 14, 2010: Two reasons why you should blog I’m pretty chuffed with my blogging habits lately. I’ve covered different topics recently and I’m getting the odd comment here and …

Jun 14, 2010: Why commuting with a fixie is better than you you think Over 4 years ago I decided to eschew the typical geared bikes of the time and bought myself a Specialized Langster. Initially this bike was to be used …