Recent Posts

3001

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« Last post by app103 on December 20, 2009, 11:10 PM »

Here is another story passed to me by someone on friendfeed: http://www.hackersfo...aypal-shuts-us-down/

3002

Developer's Corner / “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« Last post by app103 on December 20, 2009, 01:55 PM »

I’m running my Mac indie software business for more than 3 years now. For the first 2.5 years all my sales went through Kagi and later I decided to switch to PayPal. The sales were not high, PayPal worked well and all was good.

This year, me and my partner Kosta decided to do some creative marketing for our application, ImageFramer. We decided to partner with several other developers of graphics software for the Mac and to sell all the software together, as a bundle, for 2 weeks. After months of preparations, negotiations and development, finally, MacGraPhoto bundle was launched on Nov 16.

We, at Apparent Software, were responsible for all the execution of the sale and part of it included handling all the money related issues, such as collecting the payments and distributing to other developers their shares. There were 6 other developers in addition to us. We corresponded over email, sent them a Terms and Conditions document and got their agreement to it by email.

We chose PayPal as our payment processor for several reasons but the main were low fees, the fact that we already knew how to integrate it to the sales backend and that it should be easy to pay them and to affiliates. We used our regular PayPal account, which we used for regular sales. We didn’t expect what happened next.

The launch was successful and we were pleased with how the sales progressed in the first days. Three days into the sale I’ve got a phone call from PayPal and the person on the other side asked me about nature of the spike in account activity. I explained that we had a 2 week sale, a special promotion and it looked like the call went fine.

What happened next and what they put these poor developers through can only be described as a complete nightmare. Paypal has since resolved the issue, but what happened to them could happen to anyone.

http://blog.apparent...paypal-horror-story/

3003

Site/Forum Features / Re: finding my bookmarks for the forum

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2009, 06:02 AM »

3004

Living Room / Re: Would you buy this milk?

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2009, 02:39 PM »

At least it says "5 new" and doesn't mention used, like the Wonder Bread page once did.

3005

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Press

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2009, 09:43 AM »

http://dev.bec.com.eg/wordpress/?p=7340

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N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Press

« Last post by app103 on December 13, 2009, 09:07 AM »

http://www.ghacks.ne...-event-announcement/

3007

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 12, 2009, 04:20 PM »

Zaine, I would like to introduce you to one of the 150 artists that were violated in this wallpaper pack...

Meet "broalex", a photographer that is trying to earn a living from his work.

The zebra image included in this wallpaper pack was never intended to be redistributed, free of charge.

By including it in this pack, not only is he being deprived of proper credit for a fantastic photo, he is also being deprived of an income.

By posting a link to this pack on this forum, you are hurting him and helping to reduce the market value of his photograph.

Sometimes it's easy to not think about how things affect other people, when you have no idea who they are. But once there is a face attached to it, often it becomes easier to understand the truth. Go look at his face and think about it.

3008

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 12, 2009, 04:44 AM »

Maybe, just maybe, I devote a portion of every day attempting to be a better human being than I was yesterday.

Maybe I care more today than I did yesterday. I don't consider that to be the definition of a hypocrite.

And maybe, just maybe, there was an image in that pack that I really liked and wanted to know who the artist was.

Maybe it just all came together, right here.

Maybe that's why I spoke up about all this, in this thread, and let my feelings loose.

3009

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 12, 2009, 04:30 AM »

You give a post from August 2005 as an example of where I was supposed to jump in and say something? I never saw that thread. I didn't join this site till January of 2006.

Maybe I am as angry as I am because of your attitude.

I am not offended by this post. I am offended by you defending it as if the artists have no rights.

Remember something...I am not just a software developer, I am also an artist...one that makes wallpapers. And my daughter is too.

How about I march over to your blog and take 150 posts of yours and republish them somewhere else without credit, just to boost my own popularity and drive traffic to my site? What would be the difference?

It would just be your work that you spend a lot of time and effort on, not the end of the world.

Why don't you make posts with links to warez sites here on DC? What would be the difference?

Over an hour later and this is still spinning in my head and I am still fuming over it. I hate when people treat others as slave labor and do not give them the credit and respect that they not only deserve, but they are entitled to.

And I hate the "everything should be free and nobody should be allowed to profit from their work or have any control over its distribution" mentality. And the "licenses are made to be ignored and it's all ok as long as I don't charge money for it" mentality.

Even when you are nice enough to give it away for free, and nice enough to slap a more than generous CC license on it, it's not good enough for some people.

How is it not theft to go around the internet snagging wallpapers off of a bunch of artists websites, ignoring copyrights, ignoring requirements of a CC license, just to package it all up and stick it on your own site in order to boost your popularity and drive traffic to yourself? In what universe is this right? Certainly not mine!

There is no difference between stealing 150 wallpapers off of assorted artists websites, packaging them up as a collection, and offering them for download on your own site, without permission or credit, just to boost your popularity and gain traffic...and stealing 150 blog articles and republishing them on your own blog without permission or credit, for the same reason. In both cases people are being cheated, violated, disrespected, abused, victimized, and exploited. This is NOT ok! It doesn't matter if you are doing it for free, it's still not ok. It's theft, plain & simple.

It doesn't matter what Microsoft does...150 images were stolen and redistributed, improperly.

It doesn't matter if I never spoke up before today...150 images were stolen and redistributed, improperly.

You know what? It's people like you that make me want to delete everything I have ever made from the internet, all of it, the art, the software, everything...even the stuff I released with a CC license, lest I be exploited and abused like the artists of these wallpapers and everyone thinking that it is somehow ok. Now I understand why my daughter made me take down the bulk of her work from our site. Now I understand why she won't post her best work online any more and keeps it hidden away.

Yes, I am VERY angry. Angry to the point of tears!

3010

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 12, 2009, 02:07 AM »

Well, gee... Lots of sympathy for art thieves from you.

I don't know about you, but I don't like being cheated. And I am being cheated of knowing who the artists are. I have a right to know. And the artists are being cheated of credit and being deprived of traffic to their websites.

No wallpapers are public domain unless the artist is well past dead (70 years past, to be exact) or has deliberately and knowingly placed it in the public domain. If any of the artists from that wallpaper pack is still alive, their rights are being violated, because none of it is in the public domain. (go read your copyright law again and pay attention to this page)

Maybe the original artist has a "May not be reproduced" on their own site...not that they technically need that on it. How would I know when there is no credit given? Maybe it's all CC licensed and I can alter it and improve it and redistribute it myself. Again, how would I know when no credit is given? It might not even have been intended to be free and the artist is selling the wallpaper. Again, how would I know when there is no credit?

And maybe the artist has a paypal button on their site that I might want to click and show my appreciation of their work. But how can I when no credit is given?

Google image search links to the site in which the image was found. That's enough effort to give credit, as far as I am concerned. That kind of credit drives traffic to many artists sites.

I don't care if you give away my copyrighted art for free or charge a fee for it, if I didn't license it for that you are infringing on my rights. Yes it is mine. I created it. I can set whatever terms I want for it. I have a wallpaper site with my works on it. I don't want anyone posting my art on their site. If you want my art you go to my site where I profit from the traffic. You don't like that? Well, tough...it's MY work...not yours. If I authorize you to display it on your desktop, then that is all you can do with it...your desktop...not your website, not someone else's site, not a collection, not a web page background.

And the works that I have CC licensed better have a credit link to my site wherever you use or distribute it or you are violating that license as well.

And I have read the copyright law, and I have sent out DMCA notices a plenty for people that infringe on my rights. I walk the walk, buddy. And I have demanded my links for the CC licensed stuff too. And if you are suggesting that I issue a DMCA notice to this site for their wallpaper collection, then you better read that copyright law page again, because that is for the copyright holder to do. Nobody else is authorized to do it on behalf of the owner unless they have designated that person as an official representative.


How would you feel if someone decided to offer a new free linux distro stripped of the GPL and any credits to the developers? But everything must be free, you say? And as long as you don't charge money for it, it's all ok? As long as everyone else is doing it, it's ok? To hell with anyone's rights to profit from their work? To hell with complying with Creative Commons licenses that require credit? 

3011

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Pre-Release: Page Countster

« Last post by app103 on December 12, 2009, 12:20 AM »

Ya know...I was thinking if we flipped that around we'd get Prinfo ... or even Prinfo Scan? Hm...

-Stoic Joker (December 12, 2009, 12:16 AM)

Google turns up too many results for Prinfo and Prinfo Scan but no results for PrinfoScan, meaning PrinfoScan is a better choice.

3012

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 11, 2009, 10:43 PM »

Never heard this objection to wallpapers. How would you do it other than watermarking them and ruining them? Flikr is the goldmine of all wallpapers and avatars. Doesn't matter to me. I'm just enjoying them, not repackaging and redistributing for profit.

-zridling (December 11, 2009, 03:05 PM)

I like to know whose work I am admiring and I like to visit their site and see if they have more.

And artists deserve full credit!

If it were your art that was being swiped and redistributed without credit, you'd probably understand why this is so wrong.

I have had some of my stuff swiped, cropped, included in a scrap kit, no credit given, and the person that did it had the gall to slap a CC license on my copyrighted work and demand full credit and link to her site if anyone used it.

I have also found my work altered and offered for sale on a stock photo site.

Giving credit on a wallpaper pack is not hard. How about including a text file with entries like this:

file name
artist
URL
license type

If you can't do that and only distribute things you have a legal right/license to distribute, maybe you shouldn't be distributing it at all.

It's like giving out a pack of ebooks and never letting the user know who the authors are, or music without artist names, or software without developer info.

3013

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread

« Last post by app103 on December 11, 2009, 08:43 PM »

Firefox Plugin Idea:
A plugin which shows a panel below the main window which shows all <!-- --> html comments on the current page.

I think it would yield some very interesting discoveries.

A nice bonus feature would scan for curse words in these comments and show a count in red, to aid in finding fun discoveries.

-mouser (November 28, 2009, 06:04 AM)

I am dying to do some coding but I would need some pointers on making this app since I've never done anything of this sort. Kindly tell me what I need to know for making this and how should I go about it.

Regards
Vaibhav

-vaib (December 11, 2009, 01:43 PM)

https://developer.mo...dons_developer_guide

3014

Living Room / Re: Google's Eric Schmidt has a stupid moment on privacy

« Last post by app103 on December 11, 2009, 03:11 AM »

It's not just big corporations and the government we have to worry about. A rubber duck can steal your identity on facebook.

3015

Living Room / Re: 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« Last post by app103 on December 11, 2009, 01:28 AM »

These are some nice wallpapers, but the problem I have with them is that the blog that is offering this download doesn't do anything to credit the original artists responsible for these works, and there is nothing to indicate that the blogger has permission to share them or that he created these himself.

I was able to track down a few of the artists from various watermarks/signatures on some of the images, and it appears that some are Creative Commons licensed and perfectly acceptable to redistribute, but again, the required licensing info and credits are not included in the download.

3016

Living Room / Re: How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?

« Last post by app103 on December 10, 2009, 12:37 PM »

Hmmmmmmm, for super touch-type know-all-the-shortcut-keys people probably the best thing would be a very light-weight headset with laser tracking.  On rare occasions when you want to use the mouse, the tracking would move the mouse pointer to the point you are looking at.  You could wiggle your ears or blnk hard to double-click.

With the electronics so cheap nowadays there may even be something out there.  I know combat pilots have had this laser eye-sight tracking stuff for quite awhile.

-MilesAhead (December 10, 2009, 12:05 PM)

This kind of stuff already exists for the disabled, but it is really expensive.

http://www.enablemar...Eye-Controlled-Input

There is foot controlled input devices, too, and they seem to be much cheaper:

http://www.enablemar...s/Footime-Foot-Mouse

3017

Living Room / Re: How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?

« Last post by app103 on December 10, 2009, 07:29 AM »

I'd like to have back the functionality provided by turbo + F11. (it locks your keyboard till you hit that combo again. great for cleaning or preventing cats from buying nuclear weapons online)

You know what else would be nice? A mini trackball and joystick on the keyboard, that could be used in place of a mouse or switched to "old timers mode" for gaming, instead of using the arrow keys.

And in the far upper right of the keyboard, right in the corner, a mute button that lights up (optionally blinking) when the pc is muted.

And buttons on a multi-media keyboard that work with your default player, instead of whatever player they feel like associating it with. I can't stand those buttons being set for stuff I don't use and no way to change it. On every keyboard I have ever owned, that email key always opened Outlook Express instead of whatever I used for email, IE instead of my default browser, WMP instead of whatever player I used.

Eject button that actually opens an optical drive....and closes it, too.

And how about some adjustable height feet on the bottom, so you can either raise your keyboard higher or change the angle.

A dedicated pen/pencil holder groove at the top!

And all desktop keyboards should be sealed inside, to protect against damage from spills.

3018

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: United States of America

« Last post by app103 on December 09, 2009, 11:22 PM »

Baby Cody is here!

The first thing he wanted to do in the Cherry Blossom Capital of America is go play in a baby cherry tree that sits in front of my house. Unfortunately, we are having some bad weather right now and he is stuck indoors till it passes.

He is helping me straighten up my apartment for the DC get together on Sunday. With his help I was able to make "Music Mountain" look a lot less scary.

And Saturday, he is going to help me make pumpkin bread for Ehtyar. 


I'll post some pics as soon as I have a chance to take some.

3019

Living Room / Re: (Cheap) Holiday Gifts for kids that like to make things

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2009, 11:33 PM »

why dont girls like paper airplanes as much as boys??

-mouser (December 08, 2009, 07:20 PM)

When I was a kid, we had a paper airplane competition in school and everyone was required to participate, regardless of gender, regardless of interest.

We all made our planes and then went outside to the field and the one that went the farthest, won.

The winner was a girl. 


I made a lot of paper airplanes when I was a kid. For me the fun wasn't the folding or even the flying. It was the decorating.

My planes were a work of art!  I would spend the bulk of my plane making time on the details, drawing windows on them with passenger heads. Inside the center fold, if you opened it up you would see the seats and little scenes of things going on inside (including an occasional hijacking scene) 

3020

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you make these text-symbols appear on Windows XP?

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2009, 04:50 AM »

There is a way to get some more of the required unicode language  fonts.

Go here: http://homepage2.nif...305/lib/unicode.html

There is a table with text in a lot of different languages. If you see any of those squares with the numbers in them in that table, then for that language look in the far right column for a black square to click and get the required fonts.

Install them and you should be able to see it the way it was intended.

3021

Living Room / Re: A Chance to Brag/Explain - What is DonationCoder and What Are You Doing Here?

« Last post by app103 on December 08, 2009, 01:49 AM »

About this time 2 years ago I wrote a blog post, promoting NANY 2008, that summed up my thoughts and feelings about what this site is all about: http://cranialsoup.b...008-programming.html

My thoughts and feelings have not changed, except that I would have to add that there are a number of people here that I communicate with every day, and they have become more than mere friends...they are family to me.

And one of my most precious possessions came from this site: The very first dollar I ever earned as a coder. It's framed and hangs on my wall, above my desk, signed by mouser.  That was a major milestone for me and a dream come true, and I don't think I would have reached it, had it not been for this site.

I am a woman of little means and I have struggled for just about everything that I have.

When I found this site I was on dialup. When I couldn't afford the money to buy a router so I could upgrade to DSL, it would have been a lot longer if I had to scratch and save till I could purchase one and order the DSL. A few members of this site chipped in and covered the cost so I wouldn't have to wait.

When my good computer died and I was stuck using a twelve year old slow hunk of junk, a few members chipped in and bought me a motherboard to try to get it running again.

When a cheap low quality web host completely trashed all of my websites with their stupidity, a member stepped forward and demanded that I allow him to host them on his dedicated server...for free. I offered to pay him at least the same amount I was paying for the cheap host, but he sent the money back to me and said he couldn't take it.

When he could no longer host my sites, mouser offered to host them on the DC member server...for free.

I don't know what I would do without this community and the caring people that it is made up of. I certainly would be a whole lot poorer without it, and I am not referring  to money or the things it can buy.

3022

Living Room / Re: Can there be a free Web if no one makes money?

« Last post by app103 on December 04, 2009, 03:22 PM »

Well, for one thing, newspaper advertising is very different than online advertising. Online it is pretty much pay-per-click which means most of the time the ads run for free unless they generate clicks.

In contrast, think of the Sunday paper chock full of sales circulars, where the companies are paying big bucks to have them included in the newspaper, regardless of whether you read them, visit the store, or toss them in the trash.

Online, you can place a free classified ad on Craigslist and get responses. Would you pay for placing one on a newspaper's website, unsure if anyone will ever see it?

And most newspapers, despite the fact they make the bulk of their revenue from advertising, still charge readers for a print subscription, and even single copies will cost you on the newsstand.

3023

Living Room / Google Wants to Speed Up the Web: Launches Its Own DNS Service

« Last post by app103 on December 03, 2009, 12:19 PM »

Google just launched the Google Public DNS. Just like OpenDNS, Google Public DNS will allow users to bypass their ISPs Domain Name Servers (DNS). DNS servers are, in many respects, the backbone of the Internet. DNS allows you to type a domain name like www.senate.gov into a browser instead of a machine-readable IP number like http://156.33.195.33/. Google argues that it wants to give consumers an alternative to their ISPs' DNS services in order to make the Internet "faster, safer and more reliable."

According to Google product manager Prem Ramaswami, the company's engineers have been working to improve DNS over the last few months. Instead of performing DNS lookups on an ISP's DNS server, Google will use its data-center and caching infrastructure to resolve these domain names.

After SPDY (an which augments HTTP), this is Google second major project that touches upon the core infrastructure of the Web.

http://www.readwrite...endns_competitor.php

3024

Living Room / Re: Should Illegal Downloaders Be Cut Off From the Internet?

« Last post by app103 on December 03, 2009, 10:28 AM »

This new tactic of trying to gain the power of kicking suspected file sharers offline without having to prove guilt, is an effort to control the distribution of music and videos, and bring it back into the physical world. If they have their way, they will slowly move everyone offline, accusing anyone they please, in an effort to drive up demand for CD's and take away the demand for digital.

This, if it works and I seriously doubt it will, would eliminate the ability for artists to self publish their music, for their fans to buy it direct, and would return artists and fans back to the days of total dependence on their original physical copy marketing & distribution model, which they have complete control over.

They are attempting to reverse progress and make the internet go away.

They want to return to the days where they were needed by both the artists and fans alike.

I see this as a last ditch effort before their total collapse. They are getting desperate now.

They are releasing less music per year, less quality, losing more sales, blaming piracy, blaming file sharing, blaming the internet itself....and not the real cause for the so-called losses.

I think the plan is once everyone is offline and they make the internet go away, they will begin the process of increasing the number of albums released, insist on better quality, sign up more desperate artists that now have no other way to produce, market, and distribute music, and when more people actually buy the more abundant & better product, they can then say "I told you so" and it would prove their point...still blaming piracy, all along the way, instead of their own mistakes.

It's a plan that is doomed, but in the mean time, we suffer by having to put up with their shenanigans.

3025

Living Room / Re: Should Illegal Downloaders Be Cut Off From the Internet?

« Last post by app103 on December 02, 2009, 09:44 PM »

BTW: I can't but help thinking that there's a much better way to send a message to the RIAA and Hollywood than by making illegal copies of music and movies. Why not "put the boot in" the only place a business can feel pain? Why not give them a kick in their bottom line?

All it would take are two separate but related actions to make things very clear:

• Virtually everyone stops buying music and movies
• Virtually everyone stops "sharing" music and movies

If everybody is as opposed to the antics of the music and movie industry as some claim, it should be a relatively simple matter to organize a near total boycott of all major-label movies and music. Three to six months with ZERO purchases of CDs, DVDs, and tickets to live shows - combined with ZERO "file sharing" - should be more than enough to let them know they need their public more than their public needs them.

It won't be until people are willing demonstrate (to the entertainment industry and the government) that they're prepared to completely walk away from the industry's "product" that their protest will be taken seriously.

-40hz (December 02, 2009, 08:39 PM)

The more people don't buy the more they cry piracy, whether or not the losses are actually due to piracy. If you stop buying, things just get worse. It does not send them any sort of message.

I have embraced the world of free legal CC licensed music, full-heartedly and no longer buy any music produced by any RIAA affiliated label. But I still see what they are doing as a threat to even that independent net-label music I do buy and/or download (legally).

They will not be happy until all music of any type, from any source, generates them an unrestricted income. Free music is their enemy, whether it is the result of artists giving it away themselves or fans sharing it with each other.

They don't like the idea that the artists no longer need them to produce and market their music and they don't like that fans can acquire it, all without their involvement, and without them being able to stick their hand in and rip everyone off from all angles.

The truth is we don't need them any more.

The internet has made it possible to cut an album in your garage, upload it, promote it, sell it, and fans to acquire it without the need for a big corporate middle-man for any part of it from creation to end user.

If your business model was based for so many years on being the only way any artist could create and gain an audience, and the only way people could listen, with you being in full control of it all, to use and abuse in any way you saw fit, to make as much money as you could by cheating both the artists and their fans, wouldn't you see the computer age and the internet as a threat, too?

They are losing the control and this is why they are fighting back, attacking anyone and everyone, in any way they can.