This fixes the removal of my favorite Mail.app feature. Though I am experiencing the deleted message re-appearing problem, but it is a small price to pay to get this excellent feature back.
Category: Links
-
Google Wallet Opens for (limited) Business
David Sarno:
>The app, which will be released as a downloadable “over the air” update, is available only to Sprint wireless customers — and of those, only owners of the Sprint Nexus S 4G smartphone.and later:
>The other problem is that NFC-enabled credit card terminals are still relatively rare — though they are now deployed at hundreds of thousands of locations, credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard have tens of millions of locations worldwide.
Not a good way to get a service going: offer it only to a very select few, in select locations — neither of which may actually overlap.
-
Instagram v2.0
Instagram announcing a major update:
>See the world through Instagram’s stunning effects before you even snap a photo. Simply select a filter, hold the camera up to the scene and see the world through Instagram’s visual effects. We’ve re-written your favorite Instagram filters to be over 200x faster so even after having taken a photo, switching between them takes no time at all.
Also much higher resolution images. Instagram remains one of my favorite new social networks. (New icon sucks though.)
-
Amazon Item of the Week: Western Digital Elements 3 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Just picked up one of these drives ((With Prime same day shipping for $3.99, which was crazy awesome.)) to replace my current “media” drive. It feels cheap, but who carries around an external drive? The drive looks decent and the light is in the back. There is no power switch (bonus) and even better: unlike other Western Digital drives this one does **not** have the crapware installed on it that you have to struggle to remove.
*Editors Note: This is a new feature and the links are affiliate links — I point you to something neat, if you buy it I get some cash. Enjoy*
-
Dosh: Warranty
Following [my review](https://brooksreview.net/2011/09/dosh/) I decided that I would try to return the wallet to Dosh, here’s what I found out from Dosh’s site:
>What if I don’t like what I ordered?
>No problem. If this occurs we will gladly refund the cost of the purchase once the products have been returned to us, provided the items are returned in original and unused condition and within 21 days of receipt of the shipment. All returns will be credited to the original credit card used, shipping and handling costs are not refundable.
Now this is fully shame on me, I should have read this prior to ordering. This FAQ still doesn’t say for sure that they won’t take back items and I was a bit pissed so I emailed them this:
>I received my Dosh 6-Card and I simply do not like it. I see that you don’t
take back used items, but how is one supposed to determine if they like
something or not (such as a wallet) without using it?>Lame.
I received a response this morning that only rubbed salt in the wound. From Dani Thai at Dosh:
>I’m sorry to hear that you do not like your Dosh wallet. I’m sorry we cannot
take back a used item – The product loses its retail value once it has been
used. It’s a universal policy that most retailers have.The last line is a blatant lie, but what ever.
Return policies like this tell you everything you need to know about the product being sold: the company does not stand behind the product. I know better now.
-
Qwikster Cometh
Jonathan Poritsky:
>Netflix doesn’t want consumers to associate its name with plastic discs anymore.
I think given all the Netflix stuff coming out, the above statement is just about all we know for certain right now. Poritsky is spot on. It would have been vastly easier for Netflix to position the streaming side (from day one) as a separate business — they never did.
Netflix seems to have had the fear all along of someone/something coming along and doing to them what they did to Blockbuster and other video stores. Not only are they aware of this, but they have proven that they are fighting against it — preemptively.
I am not sure that some of the assumptions Poritsky makes about the Netflix services of the future will hold true — especially his fears about just how separate the services will be.
Personally I think this is step one for Netflix’s exit from the shipping plastic media business.
What Hastings can now do and say is:
– Look at the financials for Qwikster now that it is separate from Netflix, Qwikster loses money every day.
– Given that we can’t afford to keep it open.
– We aren’t closing Netflix, just this Qwikster thing.Basically, right at the point when the consumer recognizes the distinction between the two services (12 months?) they shut Qwikster down. Thus, they are not removing a feature, just killing a struggling business — who can blame them for that?
-
Americans and Text Messaging
Aaron Smith for Pew Internet and American Life Project:
>Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day—that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month—and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).
I find that crazy. I know people love texting, but I have never been a fan. In other news, or non-news:
>Heavy text users are much more likely to prefer texting to talking.
So there’s that.
-
Fusion and Carbon Ads Bundle
Worth it for just two of the apps, let alone all 10…
-
Only Enterprise and Developers Can Bypass Windows Store for Metro Apps
Jon Brodkin:
>Metro apps, on the other hand, will be “Distributed through the Windows Store. Apps must pass certification so that users download and try apps with confidence in their safety and privacy. Side-loading is available for enterprises and developers.”
The more information that comes out about Metro, the less I believe Microsoft is the company behind it.
-
Cracking OS X Lion Passwords
Basically there is an exploit that allows any user with physical access to your machine to change a user password without needing to know the old password. A couple things to note:
1. It is my understanding that you need to be able to get your hands on Terminal. Thus a locked computer would not be vulnerable. ((Now, whether you could do this from a recovery partition and the danger to FileVault 2 users, that I don’t know.))
2. Far more scary is that typing in your password to grant privileges to applications could result in a malicious application executing this command. Mac App Store to the rescue?Very interesting and one commenter pointed out this is likely related to the LDAP security issue that was making the rounds a bit ago.
-
Qwikster
Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix:
>So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.
A nice post by Hastings to clarify what is going on, but Qwikster is a horrible name. But this cheered me up:
>The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.
With Starz leaving Netflix in 2012 it looked as though the streaming catalog is set to dwindle. Perhaps given this statement Netflix has found another (more direct?) way of obtaining content — let’s hope so.
-
Customer Culture
Marco Arment wondering about the same hurdle that I foresee Microsoft having with Windows 8 and Metro:
>The question isn’t whether Metro will be good: it probably will be. And that’s a huge accomplishment for Microsoft that they should be commended for.>But how will their customers react?
The fear I have is that Microsoft will have created this great thing that is shunned by their core user base, thus allowing the “I told you so” crowd to take back over at the company. The fact that Metro got past that crowd already is nothing short of a miracle.
-
The B&B Podcast – Episode 27: Makers and Managers
This go around Shawn and I focus on scheduling your time and responding to emails. We also follow up on popping popcorn and trying to pop coffee beans (not really).
-
Automatic Time Tracking for Your Mac
I want to thank Timing App for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. It’s a killer app for figuring out just how much time you wasted creating that spreadsheet that no one else bothered to look at. While I don’t need to track my time — I love to track my time so that I get a sense of just what I spend my life doing.
Let’s just say that Safari is winning for holding down the top spot of biggest time usage right now…
It is a really great app and at least worth your time to check out. It’s in the Mac App Store where it is 50% off for a limited time only.
-
Sitting and Standing
A Cornell University study:
>So the key is to build movement variety into the normal workday.
Very interesting to read, the key thing that the report says is that you need to move around. While I love standing at work, I also move frequently while at work and sit for long periods to and from work (and after work hours). Ideally I would like an adjustable desk, but I think not having an adjustable desk actually makes me move quite a bit more.
[via Daring Fireball] -
The Four Themes
Paul Thurrott on CEO Steve Ballmer’s thoughts at the BUILD conference:
>The four themes for Microsoft are new hardware form factors, which include slates and convertible tablets, of course, but also the new Ultrabook PC; cloud services; and new application scenarios that provide new opportunities for developers. “Each and every one of these things is shifting our direction, what we’re doing, what we’re trying to accomplish,” Ballmer said, “and each and every one of them, I think, has incredible opportunities not just for us, but for every developer in the world.”So in other words Microsoft is “shifting” to build: iPads; what used to be called Tablets, but are just those funky jobbers with rotating screens that weigh ten pounds; “of course” MacBook Airs; iCloud/Google/Amazon; App Store.
*Innovative.*
That’s not to say this isn’t a good strategy for Microsoft, but honestly it is the *only* strategy for them — so why put these things into such silly categories?
This bit from Thurrott cracked me up, if for no other reason than the passive jealousy the statement holds:
>And of course, PCs are just kicking the bejesus out of tablets, despite reports to the contrary: Apple might sell 35 million iPads this year, and it gets a lot of press for that. But there will be over 10 times as many PCs sold in the same time period, and while growth is comparatively slow—as it would be for such a mature product—it’s still a growing market.
-
Flight Card
This app makes me want to fly somewhere — man is it beautiful looking.
-
Groupon Getaways Aren’t the Deal They Seem to Be
Rocky Agrawal has a great post about Groupon Getaways that ties nicely in with [what I wrote yesterday](https://brooksreview.net/2011/09/death-spiral/). According to Agrawal:
>The reason that regular Groupons are so generous is that merchants are sold on the line that they can do the first deal at a loss and you will become a repeat customer. Hotels don’t buy that. To a hotel revenue manager, you’re a head in a bed. Not only must your head be profitable for a given night, it must be maximally profitable. If there’s a big convention in town and rooms are selling for $500 a night, you won’t be able to use that Groupon voucher that you bought for $100 a night. -
Release Day Economics
Uniform Motion details what they get to keep from various different methods of distributing their music:
>That being said, it costs us 35 EUR/year to keep an album on iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon (105 EUR per year for all 3 of our albums!) so we don’t make any money until 24 people have bought a digital copy of the album on iTunes, or 150 single songs, or if we get tens of thousands of listens on Spotify! In most cases, it’s actually more economically viable not to sell the music at all.It’s a pretty amazing break down.