Matthew Lang

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 believe in when it comes to a mindful and intentional approach to technology. After nearly 2,500 posts, I have nothing more to add to what has already been said. As I wrote in my book enough, saying no is actually saying yes to other things. It’s time to say “no” to this project so that I can say “yes” to others (or, in some cases, fully commit to agreements already made).

— The End by Minimal Mac

It's been an amazing journey following this blog over the years and always a pleasure to read.

A work of art. The detailing in the frame is amazing, especially around the seat tube cluster.

via Cycle EXIF

These scenes from Star Wars are amazing in their detail.

... they're teaching the things other business schools don't.

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 thinking about it a lot over the weekend.

The pursuit to build something that people will want to use and buy is what many people want. To take an idea, build it, and turn it into a successful product. Everytime I see an app (usually based on a simple idea) rocket to the top of the App Store charts I wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?".

The thing is though, this usually isn't the first idea for that person. It might be their tenth or even twentieth attempt at making a successful product. Yes, it might be their first attempt, but I don't think there's ever been a single attempt at a product that's went on to sell millions. There's always been a few failed attempts before that one successful product happens.

Rather than continually change the idea of Journalong into something that works I simply let it trudge along based on it's same initial idea. If I was really serious about making Journalong into something better I might have changed how it recorded entries, or changed it's target market to a more focused group, or even open sourced it after the first three months of inactivity. It's taken me a couple of years to finally admit defeat.

A continually pivoting product isn't something I have a whole lot of time for. lame excuse you might say. I would disagree. The ongoing testing and validating of a product until it starts to gain the traction of paying clients isn't what I want to do. I want to write software, but I also want to be paid for writing that software. I'm exploring a few options such as open sourcing a few ideas to see what happens, but for the moment I'll be keeping the focus on writing code rather than building products.

Cracking bike, cracking colour, cracking name. What more reason do I need to post this here?

via Cycle EXIF

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 from those users that have accounts there, I made the decision a few weeks ago that I would kill the Journalong service off completely and transform it into something else. There were two main factors that influenced this:

1. Lack of Interest & Activity - Journalong started off well with and managed to accumulate over 100 users in the first couple of months. The next few months weren't so great. A couple of users signed up to the service every month since then but in the last few months there has only been two sign ups. From those people that signed up, just a few accounts used Journalong on a monthly basis. Not exactly a busy service you could say.
2. Being Free - In the beginning Journalong was free, then it was paid, then it became free again. If anything from this, I've learned that products and services like this should be paid right from the start. Yes, it can be a hassle coding the payment processing for a web site, but even just a basic monthly subscription should be there if you want the product to become a sustainable business. Once something has been free, it's almost impossible to convince all users of the product or service that they should pay for it.

So that's the reasons for killing Journalong as a service so what next for Journalong? Well I did want to remove myself from managing a dead service, but I think there's still value to having a Markdown journal for your Dropbox. So, over the last couple of days I took the source code for Journalong apart and repackaged it as an open source Sinatra application that you can run on your own computer.

The great thing about this is that I can keep Journalong going at my own pace. Being open source I can make any changes I need or others need in my own time and accept changes from others.

Building and marketing products isn't for me. I prefer to be neck deep in code rather than marketing tools.

via FGGT photo by Father Tu

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 moderating intriguing — but a life-interrupting ‘uncovering of knowledge’ that immediately adjusted your lens on the world around you. When was the last time you had one of those discoveries?

— In Praise of Discovery by James Shelley

The amazing story of author Mark Dawson.

... well, according to Matthew Stibbe anyway.

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 dwell on the times when I could devote an entire weekend to learning something new. Really all that would do is make my time with my kids less enjoyable.

Maybe I’d even start resenting them for ruining my perfect weekends of yesteryear.

That’s lame. Instead I just let weekends be what they are and embrace the constrained environment. Because I can no longer dig into new things all weekend or work weekends I have to be more efficient with my time during the week.

— How I Keep Up With Web Technology by Curtis McHale

Faced with the chance of hacking away on my MacBook all weekend or spending time with my family, the latter would win each time. I'm past that stage of my career now where I'm always on the lookout for the next big thing in web technology. I know what's on the horizon in terms of technology, and for me that's enough.

via Cycle EXIF

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 from the 1500s to the present.

via SwissMiss

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 little black books are still their top seller.

The number of Moleskine paper products, including variations on the notebooks, has ballooned to about 500. But the top sellers are still the blank black notebooks in the original pocket size and a larger version.

— Moleskine Notebooks Adapt to the Digital World by New York Times

via The Cramped

Once again, I'm honoured to be included in such great company.

Thanks Kurt.

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 unfortunate truth is that unlike other forms of discrimination that are more arbitrary and capricious, age discrimination can often be a result of objective and sound business justifications. I’m not trying to justify it as an acceptable practice, but just trying to describe the pickle it puts the manager in trying to make a sound business decision without compromising the ethical and legal obligations of the company.

— Programmers: Before You Turn 40, Get a Plan B by John Fuex

I suppose though I'm already working towards a plan B with my freelancing career, but is that enough?

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 some interesting things. But it’s not essential.

This is different than smartphones, which became addictive at first use and were obvious, must-own devices. It sounds like the watch still needs some work before it’s great.

— The Apple Watch reviews are in, and they’re uncharacteristically meh across the board by Quartz

Ever since the first official news that Apple were going to be releasing a watch, I've been skeptical of it's initial success due to the fact there wasn't a single feature of it that made me want to buy it.

My take on it is that I don't want another touch enabled screen to distract me, I've already got one.

If I had to buy something for my wrist that fell in this category of technology, I would have to say that something like a Fitbit, or even Microsoft's Band would be something more up my street. Mostly for the health tracking benefits.

It's still early days though for the Apple Watch and given Apple's history of products it's fair to say that a more streamlined Apple Watch is probably already being planned.