I apologize if you’ve been inundated with old posts on the site and in your RSS feeds.
Last week a third-party plug-in was causing my Movable Type administration area to crash. In turn, I tried to fix the problem and I made more work for myself than I needed to (It had to do with Twitter Tools and and what I think was a conflict with a Perl module upgrade by my hosting provider). I learned some things. Good news is, the site is running better than ever.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Daily Exhaust is back online.
The main lesson I learned is Movable Type is not getting better with age—at least in my experience with it on a shared-server environment (I’m not the only one). Part of what took me so long to get this site back up was installing and testing multiple dot-releases of Movable Type 5. As of this writing, the latest release is 5.2.2 and it ran exponentially slower than the version I had previously installed, 5.02. Luckily MT includes the install version number in the HTML Head section.
I’m not interested in exporting everything over to WordPress because WordPress doesn’t have static publishing like Movable Type does. Despite the broken links and embedded video objects from the last 7 years, static publishing gives me a complete archive that isn’t contingent on backend server to work.
At the end of the day, Daily Exhaust is about publishing words and images and Movable Type does that well. No it’s not as advanced as platforms like Squarespace (which I use over at The Combustion Chamber), but it doesn’t need to be.

BGR: Teen survey says Apple is done, Surface is cool

“Teens are telling us Apple is done,” Buzz Marketing Group’s Tina Wells told Forbes. “Apple has done a great job of embracing Gen X and older [Millennials], but I don’t think they are connecting with Millennial kids. [They’re] all about Surface tablets/laptops and Galaxy.”

Really?

On my flights across the country this past year my “research” says otherwise, but I’m not a teen anymore, so what do I know?

Techcrunch: Microsoft Launches “Next App Star” Competition For Windows Phone Developers

You know a mobile app store is still young and needs more content when the company behind it still writes its own blog posts when interesting new apps appear in it. With 150,000 apps, the Windows Phone store isn’t actually quite as empty as the Windows 8 store, but Microsoft could sure use some marquee apps for its mobile platform. To get developers and consumers a bit more excited about it, the company is launching its “Windows Phone Next App Star” contest today.

It wasn’t to long after Apple launched their App Store that they were able to brag about having both the best and the most apps. Now in 2013, Microsoft has no such advantage. While 150,000 apps is nothing to scoff at, it means nothing to people already conditioned to seeing over one million apps in Apple’s App Store. “Hey, Windows Phone now has Angry Birds!!!” …who cares?

Parity in apps will help Microsoft, but parity won’t win the war for them.

I’m just curious when the Charade of the Zune Phone will end. Will Microsoft piss away all their cash reserves before they gain a foothold in the smartphone space?

Influencer: Kickstand, inventioned by Joseph Paul Treen, 1930’s

Influenced: Microsoft Surface, 26 October 2012

Microsoft Surface image taken from Anandtech

I’m really liking Head Like An Orange

Over at The Verge, Paul Miller on fitness trackers and the data they capture:

At CES this year, a horde of companies brought devices that track every metric of fitness: steps, runs, weight, heartbeats, skin temperature, air quality, and even how fast you eat. Much of the choice seems to come down to ergonomics (wristband or beltclip?), and color (pink or blue or gray?), but there’s another important distinction that needs attention: does the data this device tracks belong to me, or to the maker?

Miller brings up some great points in this post.

I haven’t thought about this since I started using my Nike FuelBand this past Sunday, but it’s true, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have access to my fitness data so I can back it up or export it to another service. Sure, Nike can keep their proprietary ‘Fuel’ score. But steps? Calories? Those are universal measurements. They’re my measurements.

We’re already seeing Twitter opening up access to users’ tweet archives. I think it’s only a matter of time before fitness trackers do the same.

I smell a Kickstarter opportunity.

via Poorly Drawn Lines

—Sam Flynn, Tron: Legacy

HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica. $499. Wow.

Of course the HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica has a red LED eye. And of course he talks (one of 15 movie quotes, randomly cycled through). But get this: HAL 9000 also responds to your voice. That’s right, say something to HAL longer than 1.2 seconds, and it’ll activate a sound clip. OR, point almost any IR remote at him and press a button for a sound clip.

My birthday isn’t until April.

Can I wait?

via thisisnthappiness

Dr. Paul Jocobs of Qualcomm kicked off CES 2013, along with his Cirque du Lameness. Seriously watch the first 10-15 minutes and try not feel embarrassed for everyone on stage.

Qualcomm is a company that makes products, and they revealed their newest one, the Snapdragon processor:

Doesn’t command the same level of attention of a new iPad, does it?

The whole keynote felt like a bizarro dream. There were actors on stage dressed like raggedy hipsters, then they showed a Disney-esque animated short and then during the middle of the CEO talking about Microsoft, Steve Ballmer bum-rushes the stage and starts babbling about Windows 8 and their keyboards, then Guillermo del Toro comes on stage to talk about how he loves the Snapdragon chip. Then Big Bird comes on stage….

All these things actually happened.

The Verge does a lot of great things. Their site design is awesome (done by Code and Theory), they have some great reporting and tech scoops, but man, their product reviews can be real shit.

Take their latest review for the new Surface Pro by Microsoft. midway through:

It’s a great notebook computer that beats out the competition in a number of ways, but it’s also still all about compromise.

And then the very next sentence, at the beginning of the next paragraph:

Like the Surface RT before it, the Surface Pro isn’t the perfect notebook or the perfect tablet. It’s still difficult to use this device on your lap and the screen angle isn’t adjustable. It’s also a 16:9 tablet so using this device in portrait is comical. You could say these are obvious flaws in the product, but if you’re willing to forgive both of them for a portable power house with beautifully engineered hardware then the Surface Pro isn’t going to disappoint.

[Or said in another context: If you’re willing to forgive this car for its horrible proportions, awkward steering and bad weight balance for a beautiful paint job and solid chassis, then this hot rod won’t disappoint.]

Man up and take a stand on the gadgets you review.

Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

—Soundgarden

Ponder that for a second.

This statistic is from September 2012, but I’m posting it because I’m not sure I caught it when it was first announced.

It’s also worth noting today is the iPhone’s 6th Birthday (via).

I’m trying to remember what Steve Ballmer said about the iPhone when it was first announced….. Oh yeah! Now I remember.

So Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance at Qualcomm’s demonstration at CES.

Is it me, or is he looking more and more like Lex Luther?

He’s definitely a destructive force to his own company.

Update: Here’s a video of Luther in action. He definitely still has the original cheesy Ballmer in him.