• Presentation
  • Helvetica Neue. Because no other font comes close.
  • A streamlined and less boxy design.
  • Removal of side bar. Most of its functionality will be merged into the footer, and the search into the header.
• Content:
  • More frequent posts, as I attempt to kill my fear of sucking by doing so more often.
  • More focus on iPhone and Mac development.
  • Less focus on Windows development, since I don’t have to do it anymore.

I’ve set the limit to 90 days, which seems like approximately three times the usual limit. That should be plenty.

To me, sidebars with lots of internal links are a sign of pretentiousness and inflated ego. And that’s pretty much it.

I’m going to use my own blog as an example. Let’s pretend it was written by a guy named Steve (this isn’t imagination) who is not me (and this part is):

If I was visiting Steve’s blog for the first time, I’m probably there because someone linked me to a specific article on it. Or maybe I found something with a Google search. If I like what I see, maybe I’ll read a couple extra articles. Maybe I’ll click the subscribe link. Maybe I’ll post some venom-filled, ignorant accusations in the comments.¹

But being able to view all the posts Steve made in February 2005? Utterly without value. I just don’t care. I’m never going to click that link and say to myself “Gosh, I wonder what this Steve guy posted on February 26, 2005?” Not gonna happen. I may search for a specific topic such as Palm, if I think Steve may have written on the topic and I’m interested in what Steve had to say. That’s what the search tool is for, after all.

See all that crap beside your blog? Just cut it out. We don’t care.

I’ll admit my current appearance doesn’t do this. View this post as an apology for the cluttered sidebar of the current theme. I’ll work on it. I wasn’t interested in putting effort into the theme I had, and the Kubrick theme is just too “whoops, I didn’t set up my blog yet” in appearance. This was just my pick for “what looks the least like ass?” on short notice.

1. Okay, I won’t do that.

I installed WordPress 2.7 this morning before coming to work. It’s a great upgrade. I want to love the new UI, but I feel it would be the same as loving someone because they finally stopped beating me.

WordPress 2.7′s administration UI is a breath of fresh air. Want to make a new post? One click. From any page in it. Common actions in general are one click away. It feels awesome. It even looks classy.

Anyway, if you use WordPress: Get the upgrade. Run, don’t walk. Save yourself grief.

Unfortunately, AdSense isn’t going to do it.

I added AdSense on October 20, 2007. On November 7, 2007 it broke $1. On November 21, 2007 it broke $2. On November 24, 2007 it broke $3. On December 5, 2007 it broke $4 and hit $4.26. It hasn’t moved again since. That’s over two months.

I wondered at first if I’d broken something. I refreshed all the AdSense code, and even expanded the number of ads I was serving. Nothing. Since December 5, 2007 I haven’t seen a penny.

Oh, sure, maybe it will get better, but it isn’t going to get that much better. Maybe I could reasonably expect to see a hundred dollars by the time my boy wants higher education (he’s nine months old now), but I don’t think it’s worth looking at the ads (and their ever-decreasing quality) until then.

And so it comes time to bid AdSense farewell. It was a compromise that simply wasn’t worth it, but I’d like to think I learned something from the experience. Although other than AdSense doesn’t work, I’m not sure what that would be.

Consider:

• Hardware usually gets faster or cheaper. Sometimes both.
• The Xserve price hasn’t dropped like a stone.
• It’s been 4-5 months since the last Xserve was last updated.

Put it another way: Unless it was radically cheaper wouldn’t Apple have just left the old one on the market if the new one wasn’t faster?

I have my problems with MacWorld¹, and I think they’ve fallen some from their glory days, but incidents like this just show how far they’d need to fall to catch up with everyone else. In this case, MacWorld at least used one of Apple’s claims to quantify the increase in their headline, and even attributed it to Apple (Apple: New Xserve twice as fast as predecessor). Not so with hundreds of other news sites.

1. Chief among them their horrible new software, which in addition to being ugly ate my login to the point that I can’t create a new one.

Or maybe spammers just really like posts that mention Indiana Jones.

1. This is clever in the clever monkeys sense. But not more intelligent, obviously.

• Hidden Mac OS X settings
• What software should learn from Mike Holmes: Always level.
• Does a duck’s quack echo? (or: Who makes up this crap, anyway?)
• How to demotivate your team using everyday office furniture.

So here’s how I got a free Dr. Pepper:

• Run DreamHost referral ads. This took me a few minutes to set up. It has earned me about $8 over the last few years. It would have earned me more, but I’m a secondary referral to someone who doesn’t have an account anymore.¹ Anyway, this would buy me about 16 cans of Dr. Pepper, except that it was applied to my Dreamhost bill automatically. That’s just as well — 16 cans? I’d probably go into a diabetic shock.²
• Run AdSense ads. This took me a few hours to set up. So far, I’ve earned about $0.54. I could buy a Dr. Pepper with that money, except that I need to reach $100 before I can cash out. I figure that will be some time in 2036.
• Tell stories for quarters. So far, I’ve only done this once. “Buy me a Dr. Pepper, and I will tell you a tale of government beauracratic incompetence and disorganization that spans three years.” He nodded, waved me at his horde of change, and I bought my Dr. Pepper. It took about 3.5 minutes to tell the story.³

So far, telling stories has got me the best ROI⁴. So I’m officially announcing⁵ that I will from this time forward earn my Dr. Pepper money by telling tales of woe at bus stops. Wish me luck!

Update: mx informs me that Google sends out cheques once a year. If true, that’d mean I’m probably a few months away from another free Dr. Pepper. Oh, the sweet, carbonated rapture!

1. Thanks a lot, Tim.
2. Ahem. Proudly hosted by Dreamhost. Host your dreams today!
3. To be honest, this reminded me a bit of Smaug.
4. That’s return on investment for you non-technical people.
5. As in, announcing but not doing.

He explains:

The disdain here isn’t for the unfortunate unwashed who have to suffer through Windows because they’re so clueless — it’s a snide shot at the other computers you own, or of your family’s other machines around the house, or of the computers of the peers you work with.

I’m with you here; I could see how someone could feel this way. I don’t; at the icon size I usually use, it’s just a blue blur. But still, I can imagine someone might feel that way. But then Anil loses me:

(Thanks to Joerg for the image.)

Why? Because if Anil couldn’t get the image on his own, it’s because he’s either not running Leopard or not running SMB servers. Either way, these aren’t his feelings, because he hasn’t actually had the experience of seeing the icon representing the computers he described. This posting isn’t based on him seeing it and being so offended by it that he had to post. No, it’s based on him going out and looking for trouble.

So who does feel that deeply, personally insulted and offended by the icon?