Matthew Lang

The Hammock Papers. Because you never know when you'll need the words to that naval song.

Dropbox just announced better plans. Really tempted to move a few more things to the cloud.

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.

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 going to have 3x10 gearing, but now 2x9/10 is becoming more popular and if you have the legs for it, you can go down to 1x11, SRAM's new drivetrain.

With this you can now pretty much get any number of gearing you want (within reason of course) on any mountain bike.

Carbon cranks for the XX-1 set might be a bit expensive though, so I'll wait for it to trickle down the range perhaps next year.

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 best work if you are willing to delight a few as opposed to soothe the masses.

— Take This Simple Marketing Quiz by Set Godin

... and other writing tips from Explore.

The raw steel look. Love it!

via Pedal Consumption

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 honest with your self. Write about it and tell the world. Then just think about the first time someone asks you "How's that whole 'make things and be awesome' thing going?".

What are you going to answer with? I know what I would want to answer with.

via Singletrack

.. 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 use Lean to learn from customers and iterate accordingly. Decisions should be made based on data from customers, not purely a vision.

— You Don’t Have to Be a Product Visionary to Create a Great Product by Huffington Post

It's easier than you think.

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

Wow. Niner sure do know how to make an appealing steel hardtail.

via Singletrack World.

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 ideas.

— Why you need your own company by Derek Sivers

via Explore

via Daily Dose of Imagery

via Pedal Consumption

This is just brilliant. Bicycle tools stored in your handlebars. It should fit all different types of bars including drop, track, risers and flat. More details at ideacious.

via core77

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 the odd jump here and there on my mountain bike, but riding at these speeds over cobbles with thin tyres is a true test of skill. Yip, Roubaix is pretty gnarly.

Thanks for the video Curtis!

Bottle openers made from old bicycle forks. Brilliant!

via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan

.. and not lose your family. A simple but realistic guide from Eric Farkas.

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. Best not to let it in in the first place.
As a software developer, I'm all too familiar with this scenario. Targetting just a few big customers in a select market can have the same effect. Best avoided if possible.

— Huge Accounts Make Me Nervous.. by Jason Fried

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 it.My decision to journal was originally started by a little nudge from Patrick Rhone.

His idea is to keep a personal log of accomplishments is a great tip, especially if like me, you're constantly critiquing yourself for even the smallest decisions.I kicked open a text file on my Dropbox and put the first entry. Then I wanted to record something else, "I'll just stick it in here as well" I thought. Finally after a few lines later, I looked at what I had written. A journal of sorts. Well, the start of one at least.I kept the journal in my Dropbox and then started writing to the file over the next couple of weeks. Ideas, thoughts, completed projects all got dumped in here. Then a couple of weeks later, I wanted to write to my journal but I didn't have it set up on my phone. After a few minutes of pain, I finally managed to get Dropbox on my phone and then update my journal.

With Dropbox installed on my phone, I thought it should be easy to update my Dropbox when I want. Not so, because while the Dropbox app does a great job of syncing files across devices, the default editor on my phone wasn't ideal for appending an entry to my journal.Then the thought landed. Being able to update my journal from anywhere, without having to install Dropbox on my phone. Now that's something I would like to be able to do.That weekend I started jotting ideas down for a journalling application that is hosted on your Dropbox account. What I wanted was simple. An interface that allows me to post to my journal without having to sync my Dropbox journal on the devices that I post to my journal.

On the Sunday night I had what was a very rough sketch of the main interface to the application I wanted to build. Over the next few days, I started hacking together a very rough outline of the application to prove that it could work. All I needed to do was pull the current journal file I am writing to from Dropbox, append my journal entry to it and then upload it back to Dropbox. With the help of the Dropbox SDK, I managed to put together a small prototype using Sinatra that proved it could work. Sure it was rough, but it was a start.

Over the next few weeks I started building a more refined version of my journalling application that revolved around the idea of having one screen to update your journal. It had to be simple, non-distracting and quick. And that's how Journalong was born. I wonder if anyone else would use it? So I started building Journalong out to be an application that anyone can use.So what's in the future for Journalong? Who knows, it's only a small product but it's opened my eyes to building more products in the future. Already, I'm thinking of something along the lines of an application that aids in the process of decision making.Anyway that's the background story to Journalong. It's a small application, but a big step for me in the world of building products.

Brilliant tip from Ryan Davis about communicating clearly in the workplace whether you're from a technical or business background.

Mullenweg said he’s concerned that Silicon Valley is creating products that are so engaging that they’re also incredibly distracting, to the detriment of creativity and productivity.

— Matt Mullenweg: I'm Worried That Silicon Valley Might Be Destroying the World by Pando Daily

It's so refreshing to hear from a tech founder like Matt Mullenweg, that he's concerned about the distraction that his product could cause. How many web companies consider this when they're building their big product that will change the world?