Web developer with a preference for Ruby on Rails
Use the rule of three. Keep major decisions to three or fewer people. The more people involved the longer it takes to come to a consensus. Small teams coordinate and make decisions, while big ones quibble and form committees.
— Limit major decisions to three or fewer people to avoid wasted time by Lifehacker
I suppose the benefit also with three people is that you will always get a majority vote.
In the end if you can come up with something you can feel good about working on, that's the real winner here.
— Ideas do matter by Chris Forsythe
... with Nicholas Bate.
I made a small purchase last week at the Apple store. A new MacBook Pro to replace my very old Macbook. with. It's only my second laptop in 5 years yet I know of developers that change their equipment yearly.
In fact all my technology purchases are extremely sporadic for a software developer. I haven't had a new laptop since 2008 and my first iPad was a third generation iPad. It has taken me until the iPhone 5 to own an actual iPhone. Needless to say I like to wait until technology pans out before I decide to make a purchase. I'm always late to the party.
Being late in adopting technology is no bad thing though. The first version of any new piece of technology is never the finished design. It's always the second generation version that is a more complete and feature rich product. The initial bugs and chinks have been ironed out and there's always some slight improvements elsewhere in the product.
Being a late adopter means that while I might not have the latest cutting edge equipment, I am banking on getting more value for my money with a second or even third generation product. Sometimes it pays to wait a bit.
via FGGT
Netter and netizen are just a couple of the words I've heard used to describe the people on
App.net. The social network (dare I use the term) burst onto the scene in 2012 with promise of being a self sustaining ad-free social network that will be paid for by it's users by an annual subscription fee. I joined in August 2012 and now six months on, I'm still thoroughly enjoying the experience on App.net.
I still have my Twitter account and I now use it purely as a marketing tool for freelancing. I was on Twitter during the week, doing a quick poll from other developers. Within a few minutes of posting my tweet, the first in about a week, I got two follower requests from spam accounts and I also got a couple of replies to my question from spam accounts.That's what really gets me about Twitter. It's the spam. With a majority of the tweets I make, I end up with a couple of new follower requests from vague accounts that I would rather didn't follow me. On App.net though things are a little difference. The subscription fee is the perfect entry barrier to weed out spam accounts. I've never have to block a vague account on App.net.Then there's the people. Okay, I'm missing a few people on App.net that are on Twitter, but then there's people on App.net who aren't on Twitter. It's a whole different crowd. On Twitter I mainly follow other developers who work with the Ruby programming language but on App.net I'm following a wider range of people. A wider range means different content to read on a daily basis.
Finally there's the features that App.net are rolling out. In the past few months, private messaging and file storage have been two big announcements in App.net. Now these might be conceived as typical features for a social network, but where App.net is different is that these features were built to be transparent and easily managed by App.net's users. Take the file storage within App.net. With just a click, I can export all the files I have stored in App.net so that I can take them elsewhere. Yes other social networks might offer this, but App.net built this in from the start. Features are built with the user in mind, not with advertising in mind.I'm glad to be part of a social network that puts its users first. It definitely beats being another cog in an advertising platform.
More time to read, write, code, watch, listen. That's the wish.
Realistically I simply need to acknowledge what's more important at this moment in time.
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 mode of game play seemed like the next best move for my gaming preferences. I bundled all my Wii stuff together, put it up for sale and used the money to purchase an Xbox Kinect. A couple of years later and it seems that the Kinect has not lived up to my expectations.
When the Kinect first came out I expected games my favourite games to embrace the Kinect technology and provide a different way of playing these games rather than bashing away at a controller and some buttons. This wasn’t to be the case. Since the Kinect’s launch there has been very little big titles launched and so for the last year. Our Kinect sensor has just sat there under the television doing nothing. Another piece of abandoned technology.Until games can be controlled by your thoughts and eyes, I think that gamers and game publishers will continue to favour the hand held controller over any current controllerless technology.
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 have a small following of readers during its time, so even when I stopped writing for it, I decided to leave the website up for others to read.Last year though I was saddened to read that the service that MindMapSwitch was hosted on, Posterous, was shutting down for good. I knew then I had to move MindMapSwitch somewhere else but I wasn't too sure where. As MindMapSwitch wasn't on my priority list I decided to leave it for the moment.
Then last week, I received an email from Posterous that the service would shut down at the end in April and all accounts would be deleted. In order to keep the MindMapSwitch content I downloaded a backup of the content of the blog and deleted my account on Posterous until I decided what to do with the content.Today though I was pleased to receive an email from a university professor in Venezuela who has been using the MindMapSwitch content to teach the benefits of mind mapping to his students.
Unfortunately for him, I had deleted the blog, but I was more than happy to oblige him with a copy the backup I had. It's in a friendly format that can be easily distributed to his students.When I first started writing on MindMapSwitch, I never thought for a second that my words would reach that far round the world. I knew that I would be able to build up a number of loyal readers who were interested in mind mapping, but never did I think that it would be used a teaching aid for others to help them in their studies. It just goes to show that your words can reach far.
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', it's sometimes difficult to just 'be'. To be where you are. In the conversation, in the game of lego, pressing out the weights with focus and concentration at the gym, baking amazing bread, crafting a paragraph, watching the flight of a rare bird and realising it's along way to another planet where you can do that.
— Knowing where are you vs being where you are by Nicholas Bate
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 I'm not shy to put together a basic front end design for a website if I have to. However that's where my skills start to dwindle. I understand all the concepts of front end design and I know enough best practices to get by but I lack the confidence and knowledge to really put out a professional design.
There's always the argument for professionals as to whether they should generalise or specialise. I would like to specialise in a couple of web frameworks that use my favourite programming language, however the web and the technology that is used by it and on it is increasing daily. Which is why I want to generalise on these fringe technologies.
I'm starting to consider expanding my skills by signing up to Treehouse for some online learning in web design, building iOS applications and Wordpress.
As a web developer you should be familiar with the building blocks that make up a web page and how it can be styled but this can only get you so far. I've worked on this basic knowledge for a long time now, but now I want to take my work to a higher level of quality which is why I'm looking towards learning more about web design.
Mobile applications are everywhere. There's simply no getting away from them. Most online services and products have a mobile application to connect to their service, and while I prefer the idea of using websites on my smartphone, there is a place where native applications definitely excel. As a first learning exercise I am going to start building an iOS application for my Journalong product this year. Journalong works well on my iPhone but I want less in the interface of Journalong when it's used on the go. I just want to write and save it to my journal. It will be a good initial project to start on with Jouralong.Finally there's Wordpress. Like or not, Wordpress is still the king of blogging platforms. It's been a success story on the Internet form the early years and today there is such a vibrant community of Wordpress designers and developers that have formed as a result of the success of the open source blogging platform. Why am I interested in Wordpress? Curiosity really. I want to know how difficult it is to pick up Wordpress from a developers point of view and implement a small website with it.
I would like to say that the current range of content management systems offered in the Rails community are better, but the truth is that Wordpress is so much easier to work. If a client approached me and asked what blogging platform would I recommend then I would have to say Wordpress.
At the end of the day taking care of your career is something that everyone needs to do. If I can improve my career with a few new skills then why not. After all, it should improve my appeal to clients as a web developer with a more rounded set of knowledge on not just web development but also the technology that makes use of the web.
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 continent is whether it's an inconvenient time. Just recently though I didn't realise how many different ways technology lets me stay in contact with family.
So there's the usual forms of communication like phone, email and video are the most common forms of keeping in touch with family but what else is there?
Apps from social networks offer a very easy way to stay in touch with family, providing their all on the same network of course.
In our family we use Path to stay in touch and share photos and updates. Path's benefit is that it's a private network. Only people that you allow to follow you get to see your updates. Path is so simple that even my parents are on Path as well. It took them a bit of persuading to sign up, but now they can see photos of all their grandchildren at the touch of a button. With my sister in Dublin and my sister-in-law in Toronto it's great having them both on Path so that we share pictures of the kids as they grow up.
At home myself and my wife Jen use an app called Avocado. Getting more smaller and private again, Avocado is a service for just two people. Not only does it let you message each other privately but it also provides a calendar and todo lists which are shared automatically with your other half.
Of course there's the big three of social networks: Google+, Twitter and Facebook. Of these three I'm only on Twitter but these days I mainly use it for just connecting with other developers and not for staying in touch with family.
There's probably many others apps and services you can use, but what's great about technology now is that there are so many more choices.
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 implement features is just part of the many decisions I make as a software developer on a daily basis. They're all small decisions, but they add up at the end up of the day when a section of code is tested and completed. These are just micro decisions. Really small decisions that I can afford to get wrong as they are easily rectifiable in a really short period of time.As you move up through the scale though, you see that the decisions that you make become less and less frequent as their impact becomes greater and greater.
Right at the top of my tree is a decision to emigrate that will affect me and my family for a time period that can be measured in years. It's a decision that's been on my mind for the last few years, but with every passing year that the decision isn't made, the decision to emigrate becomes harder and harder. Get it right and everything will fall into place as expected. Get it wrong, well I don't really want to dwell on what would happen if we decided to emigrate and it didn't work out.
If only the decision to emigrate was as easy as one of those thousands of decisions I make on daily basis.
... not the beard.
On-one's new 29er looks great.
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 starting to get a bit slow and my need for a more modern computer to develop on is growing on a daily basis.
I abandoned the idea of ever having a desktop computer again about ten years. I had an extremely ugly desktop PC with an equally ugly monitor. I never wanted to see anything like it again, and my next purchase was a laptop to replace it. However ten years in technology is a long time, and I'm starting to consider a desktop again as my main development machine.
Working from home means that I need some that is powerful enough for day to day development, but if I was ever needed to work on site I need the flexibility of being mobile. I was considering going just for a powerful laptop and using that at home and on location, but wielding such a machine about might be a bit cumbersome. I would prefer to carry a smaller laptop about with me if and when I needed it.
Technology decisions such as this are never easy and everyone has their own preferences. In an ideal world I would have a powerful laptop that was lightweight and easy to carry about, but even today such a machine doesn't exist unless you are prepared to go all out on the latest MacBook Air with every upgrade possible. For the price of that I could get a decent desktop and laptop for just a little more. The best of both worlds.
I'm still on the fence about my decision and I won't be making it in a hurry, well just as long as my little black MacBook will keep going.
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 I started working with Microsoft's development tools and languages more out of it being so popular than by personal choice. In those days Microsoft was a key player in technology.
Looking at Microsoft now and it's hard to believe that it's the same company that was set to take over the world.Yes they have the same set of development tools and updates languages for developers, and the market for developers using these languages is still strong. However there's other areas where they appear to be losing out.
The PC is dying. The Windows driven one that is. Tablets are the new home computer, and while Microsoft have released their own tablet, the Surface, they do have a mountain to climb in terms of opposition. Apple and Amazon both have had tablets out well before Microsoft and they both have their own apps market place to sell from. Apple's iPad is extremely popular and I've started to notice that more and more people are jumping on board with Amazon's Kindle tablets.
The PC might still be a success in the office, but I think time will reveal a new success in the workplace. As tablets become more powerful and better apps and services are written, I think they maybe the new success story in the workplace. As I said though, time will tell on that one.The other area Microsoft are fighting is open source software, which is now a serious consideration for business. It maybe wasn't so much 20 years ago, but now you can comfortably run your own e-commerce site with a suite of support applications to run the business without paying a single penny in licensing costs for the software or the operating systems it runs on.
Open source software has become so popular that there are even open source ERP systems that can help you run and manage your business. Having previously worked for a Microsoft partner, I know the licensing costs involved in such systems and they can easily run into tens of thousands for even an ERP backed e-commerce site.Microsoft was a great company back in the day, but today it seems that there isn't much to get excited about from it. Not only that, they are playing a game of catchup in other markets like tablets, software and of course the cloud.
I'm not writing off Microsoft and I know they have successes in other areas but looking at them now and you can't help but wonder where it all went wrong.
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 switched back to a master list in my moleskine and index cards for tracking the stuff I want to do that week.Since I started freelancing though, I've been spurred to keep my development knowledge up to date and I'm also interested in getting some side projects off the ground. I also have a growing client list to maintain. This means more actions getting added to the master list on a daily basis. Maintaining it in my moleskine was becoming a real struggle as it was strewn across a couple of pages. I still needed something that let me track my master list in a digital way, without it becoming too technical.
Enter TaskPaper.
TaskPaper is a todo list that stands apart from many todo list applications in that it uses a plain text file for your list rather than a database or remote data storage. I'm a big fan of simple software that uses flat files for backend storage, especially when that software can link to your Dropbox and let you sync it across all your devices.
Taskpaper is like an editor but it also had nice features that let you interact with your list easily. The best of a todo list and a plain text file really. TaskPaper is also heavily influenced from Dave Allen's GTD system. TaskPaper allows you to create projects in your list and also attach tags to actions.
It's another change in the workflow, but I just want something that works and doesn't get in my way.
With Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin?
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 doing the hiring to describe the type of people they are looking for as a "rockstar" or "ninja". Yeah, I know. It's stupid. Here's why.
Describing the type of person you are looking for as a crowd-surfing, alcohol loving musician or as a specialist warrior for hire is just ridiculous.When you describe the person you want as a rockstar, I think of an out going person with the kind of personality that you just can't ignore. The kind of person that announces their god-like skills with a megaphone before entering the office, before biting the head of a bat and then downing a bottle of vodka. Okay, maybe not those last two things, but you did ask for a rockstar.What I think you are actually looking for is a person that has a passion for what they do. If that's the case, they why not just say so in the job description? There's plenty of people out there who are passionate about what they do, but they don't call themselves rockstars, they go by the job title that fits them and describes what they do best.
So you want a ninja instead then? When you describe the person you are looking for as a ninja, I imagine a person entering the office in a puff of smoke and taking out half your development with a single throw of multiple shuriken. Okay bad example, but isn't that sort of what a ninja does?What I think you are actually looking for is someone who works effectively and productively. Someone who knows how to make decisions on the best tools for the job and uses these tools effectively.
So why not just say what you want? Let's stop using these ridiculous terms to describe the type of person you want for a position. Unless you're advertising for a clown or a stand-up comic then I think you need to take the job description a bit more seriously.Oh yeah, and you can't use guru for the job description either.
... at night without having to drive miles to get away from the light pollution.
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 granted. It's a very present in our home. We have the usual things like a laptop, a tablet, a games console, a reading tablet, smartphones and a number of other devices like televisions, digital picture frames and various MP3 players.
We also have two sons, our oldest is six years old and extremely well versed in the various digital devices around the house. While I applaud his ability to use all these devices un-supervised, for a while there I was worried about the frequency and time that he was using these devices. Every day started with a request to play this device or that device. I felt he was becoming too dependent on the devices for entertainment.I've read a number of articles in the past about the current generation of youngsters that have been brought up in an on-demand environment. If they want it, they can have it. And that is very true when it comes to digital devices. Very few things are out of reach with laptop or a tablet. I don't want this way of thinking for my kids. Technology is great, but it also has it's place.
Technology plays an important part in education and in the workplace. I'm not suggesting that technology is bad, but rather it's best used in moderation. While I like him playing Minecraft, I also like to see him play with his Lego. Drawing on the iPad is another activity he does, but I like to see what he can create with his own hands using crayons, pencils and paper.
Kid activities such as playing with toys, drawing, reading and getting him outside are things my wife and I are going to encourage this year with our oldest son. This isn't about restricting access to technology, instead it's about teaching him that technology has it's place and he shouldn't be too dependent on it.
Learning to appreciate technology and when to use it is an important subject to teach children. We shouldn't forget that there's a world for our kids to see with their own eyes rather than seeing it through a browser.
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 from tomorrow and ensure that I always have a couple of articles in reserve for days where I just can't think of anything to write about.
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 name. The product bug has bitten me, but this time around it's slightly different. I'm not building a product as a revenue stream, I'm more interested in how the product is used and people's perceptions of using software in the decision making process.
So what is the new idea?
DecisionMail is simply a way of getting feedback on a decision through the use of email. You write the question that you want your colleagues to give you feedback on, list those people who you want feedback on the decision from, and then DecisionMail will email that question along with a link, to each of the people you want feedback from on the question.
Your colleagues receive the email and simply click their response to the question. From your select group of people you should then have a clear idea what the group's decision is.
One of my key concerns is that the email from DecisionMail to someone who has been asked for feedback on a decision will either be automatically dropped in a spam folder or will be completely missed in the inbox. I'm aware that the inbox is becoming a horrible place for people. Some people get hundreds of new email every day. I don't know how they manage it, but if this person was involved in a decision, then how can you be sure that that person will respond?
I'm not building this product to solve a particular problem, but I'm instead building this to delve more into using software as a decision making tool. I've already built a number of decision support systems for clients, but I wanted to build something simpler that involved the minimum number of steps to get feedback on a decision. Email is too complicated already for gathering feedback, which is why the email from a DecisionMail account holder, will only require the respondent to click the answer to the question that they agree with the most.
I initially perceived this as a product for virtual teams who have members across different countries, but the anyone could use it to make decisions.
The next few weeks are about getting the basics up and running. Watch this space!
