Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reply to the question, “If I were President, I’d ….”:
One objective reality is that our government doesn’t work, not because we have dysfunctional politicians, but because we have dysfunctional voters. As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choose the right leaders in the first place.
Kermit the Frog, on Fox News decrying the latest Muppets movie as having a “dangerous liberal agenda”:
That’s categorically untrue. If we had a problem with oil companies, why would we have spent the entire film driving around in a gas-guzzling Rolls Royce?
Well-known iOS developer, Jeff LaMarche, recently built a treadmill desk and now walks at work. He is down 25 pounds. He created a very detailed set of instructions in case you are interested.
I’ve been using this desk for a little over a month now. Since December 21st to be exact. Despite Christmas (and multiple Christmas parties), New Year’s Eve, socializing and drinking after the New York City Tech Talks, and a family vacation, I’ve still managed to lose 23 pounds, and I’ve done it just by going to work. To say I’m happy about how this is working out would be an understatement. I still have quite a bit more weight to lose, but it all seems very doable now.
More outstanding charts from Horace Dediu. The latest data show that out of every 100 phones sold, nine are iPhones. For every dollar of phone revenue, Apple takes $0.40. Even more impressive is that for every dollar of phone profit, Apple takes $0.75. If you include Samsung, only $.09 of that profit is left for everyone else.
Microsoft posted a request to customers asking for how the company should market Windows Phone.
If you’re here, we assume that’s because you love Windows Phone as much as we do – but maybe you’re frustrated that word’s not getting out to everyone about how great Windows Phones are? Just like with your suggestions on features to add to future versions of the product, we’d like your suggestions on how we can spread the word about Windows Phone itself via advertising campaigns, community or social media involvement and other types of promotions. Creativity highly encouraged, let us know what your ideas are!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the new Microsoft. Asking customers how to market a product? Really? Can you imagine how much flack Apple would catch if they did this? Picture in 2007, as he unveiled the iPhone, that Steve Jobs said, “We are pleased to announce this revolutionary device with a very unique user interface. Here’s the thing, guys. We don’t actually know how to sell it.”
Even as an Apple fan, this is depressing. What happened to the once-dominant company? Microsoft has been mired in stagnation for the better part of a decade.1 Windows Phone (namely the Metro UI) represents the only innovation out of Redmond since Xbox - and they can’t market the damn thing. It’s almost like they were genuinely surprised to have made a decent product.
I’m looking your way Steve Ballmer. ↩︎
Nicholas Carr:
“Facebook was not originally created to be a company,” writes Mark Zuckerberg at the start of his letter to would-be shareholders in the company’s IPO filing. “It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.”
Hosanna!
A pretty funny piece that examines how that statement from Zuckerberg jives with reality.
(via: Kontra)
Randy Murray:
But I fear that it is a mix of hyperbole, cultural differences, and yes, some worker abuses. Apple appears to be doing the right things to improve conditions, but that cannot overcome the differences in culture and economic realities. I suspect, from first hand accounts I’ve heard, that things are not nearly as dire as the press is painting them.
Murray adds an anecdotal perspective regarding factory conditions in China.
Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web:
You can’t put the tablet genie back in the bottle, keeping it safely ensconced in its own category. Tablets are PCs, get over it.
Panzarino offers some compelling reasons why the iPad should be grouped with PCs. More importantly, he takes aim at the arguments used by those who disagree.
The iPad is dinged for not having a “full keyboard.” Neither do netbooks and yet those are counted. The iPad is dinged for being consumption-only. Netbooks can’t run every program that desktops can, yet they are counted. Even that aside, authors write, musicians create music, and artists draw on the iPad. It is a content creation tool. The fact is that the incumbent PC manufacturers don’t want to count the iPad because they are getting their asses kicked in the market.
Just think about the name, personal computer. That implies a computer with personal appeal - a tool to accomplish the tasks that are relevant to the user. As Panzarino says:
In fact, with its intimate touch interface and expandable input options, the iPad could easily be considered the most personal computer ever created.
It is evident that consumers are rapidly shifting their ideas about personal computing. My thoughts are summed up in a previous post:
I think that times have evolved, computing needs have transformed, and the vision of Steve Jobs’s “post-PC” world is in play. In that world, Jobs said that the PC was being demoted to just another device - a tool to do certain tasks that are relevant to a user at that time. We are in that world. I think the iPad is simply another computing device - the same as a desktop computer or phone.
In other words, a PC is now a broad category. The form-factors contained within merely differentiates the location and purpose of use.
This video will test one’s ability to cover the children’s ears while simultaneously laughing.
This blog has existed for awhile, but I never really dedicated myself to posting regularly. That changed recently and I would like to share my new workflow.
A big reason for the site’s stagnation was that the process of publishing was pretty cumbersome. In the past I used a self-installed version of WordPress on a HostMonster shared-hosting plan. That setup was less than ideal:
All of this isn’t to bash WordPress or HostMonster. I think both offer really great tools that work for most people. I just felt it was time to move to something new.
For the new setup, my needs were speed and portability. Initially, I found a great solution proposed by Brent Simmons to make a blog that only served static files. Such a blog is lovingly referred to as baked. The impetus is that server load is greatly reduced when only dishing out static text files as compared with database-intensive systems like WordPress.
The baked system was presented as a generic idea, so it took a post on practical implementation by Matt Gemmell to convince me. Gemmell chose to go with Octopress for his backend. I opted instead for Second Crack, a static-blogging engine recently released by Instapaper creator, Marco Arment. More on that decision in a bit.
Changing hosting plans also aided the goal of speed. Gemmell previously suggested Linode3 for hosting. A request to Marco for preferences yielded the same. I was sold and decided to start with their basic plan, which has proven adequate. I setup the server using Ubuntu with a basic LAMP stack. Site load times are certainly faster. The true test will occur whenever the blog gets a quick spike in traffic.
Second Crack is described as a “static-blogging engine using Markdown-formatted text files as input.” The idea for Second Crack was first publicly discussed on Marco’s podcast, Build & Analyze. Less than a year later, the public alpha was released via GitHub. After a few days of setup and testing, I switched this site’s backend to Second Crack.
There are certainly numerous static-blogging engines out there, so why Second Crack? I have been an Instapaper customer for several years. During that time, Marco’s dedication to a user-first experience led to an implicit trust. When he first described the idea of Second Crack, I was immediately interested.
Beyond that, I shared Marco’s desire for a system that wouldn’t force social media crap on the user - like commenting systems or link-backs. I wanted a simple tool that allowed me to locally own my content, serve and sync it remotely, and not worry about some database losing it. I also wanted the ability to easily control the site’s design via simple static includes of CSS or Javascript. Second Crack easily met those standards.
My original goals included portability. Since files were written in Markdown, I could write posts in plain text without having to worry about correctly formatting HTML code. Plain text also meant that I could use an almost limitless number of editors.
In order to migrate to Second Crack, I needed a way to transfer content from the WordPress database to static Markdown files. The first step was to use the WordPress export feature, which created a large XML file. Next, the XML file had to be parsed and written in the correct format. The biggest concern was maintaining the linked-post format used on this site. To do this in WordPress required me to store the external link in a custom meta tag. Unfortunately, most migration scripts didn’t handle meta tags.
I originally tried a script recommended by Gemmell. I was able to hack the code and make it work. Even then, the format wasn’t exactly what I needed and I found it too complex for my needs. I decided to write my own solution. I forked a Gist on GitHub that was close. I rewrote the code specifically for Second Crack. My migration script can be found here. Hopefully it will serve as a clear starting point for you.
I won’t recreate the installation steps here. Those can be found in the “README” file. The idea is that you’re web server owns a local copy of the blog in the form of a simple file directory. Second Crack has an updater script that can run either on a schedule via crontab or, as I chose, continuously using inotify-tools.
When the updater detects that you have created a new post or edited an older post in the directory, the corresponding static HTML files are written to your website. The best part is that only altered files are rewritten. Some baked solutions require the entire site to be republished. Depending on the size of your blog, that could be time-consuming.
While Dropbox syncing isn’t required, it is certainly recommended. Again, I won’t go through the installation steps here. Basically, your server runs a Dropbox client. Second Crack is then pointed to your Dropbox folder, which contains your blog’s file directory. This is where the magic lives.
With this setup enabled, I can use any Dropbox-enabled text editor to publish my site. For instance, on my iPhone I can create a post in the blog’s directory. When I save it, the file is synced with Dropbox and downloaded to the server. The Second Crack updater detects the change and publishes the post immediately. I can do the same from my iPad, laptop, or desktop. This truly allows me to write content anywhere.
Another perk is that I can create a post in the drafts folder. Every time I save the draft, it will be immediately available to check in a browser. This allows me to see exactly how the post will look when rendered. Second Crack also contains an optional bookmarklet that grabs text and links from pages you want to write about and stores them in your drafts folder.
In short, the Dropbox sync is highly recommended. It allows you to store a local copy of your site and publish from anywhere. More importantly, it is blazing fast. How fast? Check out this video that shows Marco using the bookmarklet, editing the draft in Dropbox, and then publishing.
To recap, I switched from WordPress on a shared hosting plan to a static-file system on Linode. I chose Second Crack to serve as my blogging engine. It is fast, reliable, and gives me the speed and portability that I desire. More importantly, Second Crack is a system that gets out of your way. When I used WordPress, the editing system always made me groan and I was aware of the platform. With Second Crack, I am only focused on writing content. The rest is “magic”. It just works.
Should you use it? That depends on your familiarity with Unix and how comfortable you are with administering a server. Second Crack certainly isn’t for everyone. You should also remember that Second Crack is still considered an alpha release. If you read this post and weren’t scared away, then give it a try.
Marco created an awesome system that makes blogging fun and easy, gave it away for free, and continues its development. I have tried to repay the favor by taking an active interest in bug fixes and feature development. If you give Second Crack a try, I would encourage you to do the same. Open source projects are always better when a community takes an interest in its development.
If you end up using Second Crack, I would love to hear about your experience. If you have questions about this post, or any general feedback, hit me up on Twitter.
To use the linked-post format (the title is an external link), I had to store a custom meta field. The WordPress iOS app didn’t support custom fields, which made it unusable. ↩︎
The slowness wasn’t helped by being hosted on the cheapest shared plan. ↩︎
Linode offers virtual private server (VPS) hosting. You get the freedom of configuring and deploying your own server without the costs associated with traditional dedicated servers. If you are interested, sign up with this link and I will get $20 toward my plan. ↩︎
