A few weeks ago, I got back into gear and continued the process of redesigning this site. The redesign includes both cosmetic and structural changes. While dozens of changes need to be made, I’ve started with the most basic and most important – the individual entry format.
My primary goal is to make Daily Exhaust a great reading experience. Most sites don’t work this way. This applies to amateur blogs to professional blogs to news sites by multi-national corporations.
We’re all familar with layouts similar to this:

You’ve got a entry body area that may or may not be at an optimal size for readability and then over on the righthand side, a bunch of shit having nothing to do with the entry you’re reading. If you’re lucky enough to scroll past these billboards during your reading journey, you inevitably encounter the eternal sidebar deadspace, the U.S. Route 50 of websites.
I need a better driving, excuse me, reading experience on Daily Exhaust. I want people to enjoy coming here, not merely endure a sub-optimal reading layout because they like the content.
So in my world, when you’re reading, it’s the only thing in your view:

Look to the left, look to the right… it’s all related to the entry. In this case, when you look to the right, it’s the meta content related to the entry. Time stamp. Category. Keywords. No ads. No sub navigation. No dead space, just open space.
Yes, I’m not directly monetizing this site (aside from self-promotion) yet, so I have the luxury of creating any format I choose. Regardless, it’s possible to scale the current format in a way that still favors the reader while making me money. Down the road, if I do include ads on the page, I plan to do so either within designated space between posts, or in actual entries themselves. I look forward to having these types of problems.
Moving forward, there’ll be many more changes but won’t change is a focus on readability.

My wife bought me a Kindle when it first came out. While I’m an early adopter of new technologies, gadgets and services (or at the very least, keeping a close eye on the more intriguing ones), I wasn’t anxious to get one. I had the same beef with DRM on books as I did with music. Information wants to be free, etc, etc… you know the deal. I thought it looked like a well thought out product (and product ecosystem), but it wasn’t for me. It would be another year before Apple would announce an end to copy-protection on their music, but it had also been a year since Steve Jobs posted his Thoughts On Music on Apple.com. So I was mentally primed for a DRM-free (music) future. Then the Kindle comes along with their copy-protected media and we’re back to square one. I wasn’t naive to think they’d use open file formats, but I was still bummed. Now let’s fast forward 2 years to today. I still have my first gen Kindle and I still use it somewhat often although I usually prefer to use the Kindle app on my iPhone, especially during my day-to-day commuting on the Manhattan subway. But my Kindle still can’t do two things that are important when I read – scribbling down notes and flipping pages. These actions were important while I read the new book by Steve Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From.

On Noting

Some might look disapprovingly at image above, with all those crude lines and chicken scratch writing, but for me, being able to underline chunks of text, scribble notes and circle words I want to look up later opens up a deeper level of comprehension into the book I’m reading. Of course this method can be adapted with an e-reader by simply pairing it with a physical notebook, but it’s a little more effort and not well-spent effort. I’m not a psychologist but something about physically interacting with a book takes reading beyond simple consumption. It becomes a form of creation. By the time you reach the end of your book you’re not left with the same pages you started with. No, no … these are my pages now. Sure, the author is making his points, but I’m deciding which ones are important. Once I’ve read through and made sufficient notes I can begin the fun game of flipping back and reading over the passages I marked up.

On Flipping

This might seem like a minor point, but the fact that I can’t easily flip between pages on a Kindle is a huge frustration. No, this doesn’t mean I’m not able to remember what I’ve read, but sometimes I want to reread passages. Great books, like great movies, are meant to be read over and over (unless you’re satisfied watching a Kubrick movie once). I’m completely confident this technological limitation of e-books will be resolved but until then, my thumbs rule.

On Flying

This is more my beef with the airline industry than with e-books, but it’s relevant to this post. If we’re going to live comfortably/efficiently/normally in the 21st century, we need to start adapting our procedures to technologies and devices our generation is creating. Gadgets like iPods, iPads and Kindles are useless if I’m not allowed to use them during takeoff and landing. I’m waiting to hear of a plane that went down because 5 or 20 or 50 Kindles or iPhones were on during takeoff. It’s very likely many people never turn off their devices when they’re instructed anyway (not me of course). So to recap, I’m not giving up on technology. I love technology. I love tinkering, hacking and experimenting with new gadgets, but I encourage everyone to grab a printed version of the next great book you read. Don’t be afraid to get dirty and really make it yours.

Apparently I’m 3 years late on this, but I was watching an old episode of Top Gear on my DVR the other night and I found out that the touchscreen display for the Nissan GT-R was designed by Polyphony Digital, otherwise known as the folks who do a lot of the design for the Gran Turismo video game franchise.

Here’s some shots of the display graphics (video here):

We’ve talked for years about the influence of video games across various industries. Well, that influence is here and it’s here and it’s not going away.

From army training ‘tools’ to automobile display graphics, video games and real life are working on common ground.

It’s amazing how often we will silently live with things we know are built or designed wrong. Today I’m speaking about something that might seem trivial to some, but bugs the shit of out me – webmail message navigation.
Can we come to a agreement on what wording we use when navigating through email archives? I try to keep to my one ‘main’ email account for the majority of my email communicating, but occasionally I have to dip into my other ‘alternate’ accounts. Each one of these accounts has a different way of navigating back to older emails and forward to newer emails.
Below are screenshots from the 3 main applications I use – GMail, YahooGroups & SquirrelMail:

GMail

Newer & Older – there’s no sitting, blinking and pondering where these 2 links are taking me. Simple clear English for simple navigating. Thank you Google.

Yahoo Groups

Newer & Older – Awesome, Google must have taken pointers from Yahoo. Too bad these 2 links are only on the Messages List page. 🙁

Next and Prev – What happened to Older and Newer? Now what the f#ck to I pick? Turns out Next takes me to newer messages and Prev takes me to older ones. Too bad they’re in the reverse order as GMail.

SquirrelMail

Previous & Next – Ahhh, only through using SquirrelMail for years to I know that Previous will actually take me to newer messages and Next will take me to older messages.

Like the elevator, the Unites States Post Office has to be reinvented because it sucks. Every single one of them.
I been to enough of them enough times to know something is very wrong with them. The constant long lines, the delays. As you sit and slowly come to a boil with the other customers in line you can start to see very clearly how both customers and postal employees can ‘go postal‘.
If you’re ever in the unfortunate situation where you have to go to the United States Post Office, do yourself a favor and bring a PSP, book or yo-yo for entertainment while you wait in postal purgatory for your turn.