I’ve done a ton of traveling this year, and put together this compilation of some footage I shot from my iPhone.
Includes select footage from: Ultra Music Festival/Winter Music Conference in Miami (+ Above & Beyond’s Show/Deadmau5/+ more), Beijing, Seoul Korea, Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto Japan, and Burning Man.
Check it out.
There’s a really annoying problem with Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), and it’s that once you get files there it’s equally inconvenient to delete them.
Luckily, finally, there is a way to wipe out an entire bucket of stuff without using any third-party software.
Edit the bucket’s properties, and select the “Lifecycle” tab. Create a blank rule, with a 1 day expiration date. A warning will appear when you save, stating that this “blank” rule will apply to all files.
Within the time you specify (in our case … 1 day), all items in the bucket will be purged automatically and the bucket can be removed. Phew!
I Like B-sides was a project I ran publicly from February 2009, until today. It was quite unique, in that it found “b-side” tracks from your favorite artists. — In other words, songs that you wouldn’t hear about in the top charts would be shown, as long as they were trending above average for each particular artist. It also separately alerted you to songs in your music library that were good, but ignored in the event of having an entire album downloaded for just a track or two in particular that you liked.
There was a lot of magic involved in the algorithm, and people liked it. The service was a hit and was written up in Lifehacker, on CNet, + others popular spots.
Nearly 4 years later, during routine system migrations today, I decided to pull the site down finally. It was still getting traffic, but hadn’t been updated. As we move to a more mobile and “Cloud-like” infrastructure in our lives, I felt that uploading a zipped copy of one’s iTunes Library’s XML file seemed a bit frivolous, and that it was time for something better to come along in its place.
The technology might make a comeback in another form, as the code has certainly not been erased from my system. However, I Like B-sides is now a legacy, and we’ll see where things go from there. :)
Thanks for giving it attention all of these years!
OK, so if you’re like me, you actually take the time to manage your music collection and keep the tags/artwork in order on each of your tracks.
Managing this got a little bit easier with iTunes Match and iCloud because all of your devices and computers stay in sync, including your Ratings and Play Counts for each track. — However, back when I used iTunes to buy music (until about 2008, when better competitors came along) … I never realized that these tracks would come back to haunt me later on as duplicates offered via iCloud! What a messy music library I had… with Play Counts getting spread out, and files getting duplicated locally.
Since I’d converted many of these past purchases to non-DRM formats (MP3s without restrictions) to play in the car or on other devices, … suddenly, there were duplicates everywhere.
I’d been fretting on how much time it’d take to go through and clear out these duplicates… until last night! I had a “eureka!” moment. I created a “smart playlist” that found songs that were on iCloud, but not located on my computer.
Voilà! By sorting the list by date, I was able to confirm that all of the songs were from years ago, and by using the Option+Delete keyboard combo (to delete songs in the Library using a Playlist) … I was able to remove the ~500 or so duplicate tracks located on iCloud only in one quick action!
Smart playlist settings = Match all conditions with the following rules:
… Then, look at the playlist that is added! I found it helpful to sort the list by “Date Added”, which you can do by showing that column. (Go to “View” menu, then “View Options” to control which columns are visible)
Breathe easy, people. :)
Oh boy! Here we go.
Here are some blurry photos. Ever since iOS 6 came out, we lost Google Maps. However, Google has been rumored to be hard at work on their own replacement!
IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE- Check out my super cool App that just came out for iPhone. Ironically, it’s a map … of Apps, being used nearby! ➡ It’s really cool. And free. Download “App Map”!
It’s coming. It’s in alpha. It’s shown below.
Get excited.
App Map is a project I’ve been working on for the better part of a year. It’s a really awesome way to see what Apps are being used nearby, or what Apps are most popular and actually being used worldwide!
The App is free, and is finally available after a long and challenging approval with Apple. We’ll have an update out soon for the iPhone 5’s 4-inch screen … I promise!
The GUI tries to reflect as many familiar App Store and iOS elements as possible, while still adding a bit of custom flare to keep things original. We’d originally planned on marketing this as an add-on to iOS and the App Store, but it was much easier to keep its appearance and representation as a standalone product for now.
Download it today for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch! (iPhone 3GS/4/4S/5+, iPad, iPod touch)
From the website:
“Ride the subway, walk the dog, or fly somewhere new! App Map shows up to 8 hours of location-based popular App activity, allowing you to discover and download the most useful Apps… wherever life takes you.”
Find out what is actually being used worldwide, + not just downloaded!
…
Hope you like it! It’ll be an interesting platform to build on, for sure. Expect a lot from this idea.
OK, disclaimer: You might lose a couple of things. However, in my experience, I’ve lost nothing. Do this at your own risk. I find it the safest restore procedure to setup new or replacement devices.
Background: I moved recently, and my iPhone was setup to sync with my old computer. So, since I’m now primarily using a MacBook Pro (Retina!) every day, I was met with a problem: How can I get all of my stuff over to a new iPhone? The iPhone 5 is coming out soon, and if you’ve ever had your phone replaced… this is a legitimate problem.
Here is the answer:
1) Before you replace your device, do three things: Make an iCloud backup on your device (using Settings), make an *encrypted* iTunes backup on your computer via USB (by right-clicking your iPhone in the left-hand column of iTunes and selecting “Backup”, you can do this without syncing), and THEN download any Apps/Music/Books to iTunes on the computer you’ll be using from now on if you want them on your device.
Once you’ve done all of this … you’ll have a backup in iCloud (just in case), a backup in iTunes of all of your data/settings, and a copy of all of the content you want on your new device. (Such as the Apps themselves and any of your music that wasn’t on your computer in the first place)
2) Now, here’s where things get tricky. You’ll need to do multiple “restores” of your device to get everything correct.
When you have your new device … do not restore the device from iCloud when setting it up, and instead restore it from iTunes. You can do this the first time you plug into iTunes, by restoring from a previous backup. You should be prompted to do this.
If you’ve synced your device with this particular computer originally, the encrypted backup you made should restore all content nearly exactly and begin syncing your Apps automatically. If it was with a different computer originally, you’ll be minus any content and Apps, but with settings such as your wallpaper, passwords, and Wi-Fi networks.
So, to get everything back the way it was, select all of the Apps, Music, Books, Podcasts, etc. that you want within iTunes and sync them to your device. It may prompt you in saying that it was “synced with another iTunes Library” and that all of your content will be erased. This is OK (you have two backups), and it will simply put all of your Apps onto your phone across multiple home screens.
At this point, DO NOT OPEN ANY OF THE APPS ON YOUR DEVICE YET! The reason for this… is that iTunes, when restoring data from backup, will not overwrite newer files. By opening Apps on your device before you’ve restored their data (again below), you will create new data files within them that will be “more up to date” than your backup. This will prevent their restoration.
If you make the mistake of opening an App… it will not replace your data with the backed up version you’re trying to recover. So, don’t do that!!
3) This is the third and final step. Hopefully. Right-click your device on the left-hand column of iTunes (again), and click “Restore from backup…”. Yes, we’re restoring it again. From the screen that appears, select the backup of your old device that you originally restored from (again), and restore your device again.
What this does is it restores your device and App settings again without removing any of your newly added content, including Apps, Music, Books, etc. — When this is complete, your Apps will still be there (the ones you just synced), but all of your data, App folders + organization, and other settings will be restored, too! Go through the “Settings” App on your phone and test each App out after this to be sure everything is the way you want it. (It should be OK to open your Apps now, as their data should be present from this second restore.)
Now, if you made the mistake of opening an App before this restore had taken place, you will have to reconfigure that particular App from scratch. However, the others (or all of them if you didn’t open any) should be fine based on your backup!
_____________________________________________
Switched devices after switching computers? Just follow these steps and you should be good to go. Furthermore, your device should be configured to sync with your new computer from now on. Hooray!
Keep in mind, that any Music, Apps, or Books you don’t have on this computer that you’re connected to cannot be restored as they don’t exist anywhere except your old device. This content is not backed up. That’s why in Step #1 you need to have this sorted out first within iTunes. There is third-party software available to copy songs and other multimedia from iOS devices. Good luck!
Lately, I’ve noticed there are two kinds of “lazy”:
Lazy (relaxed): Typically, this can be positive and the result of overcoming a large task or enjoying a long weekend/vacation. You’re not in the mood to be wasting time on things that are avoidable and perhaps inefficient. — Not always a bad thing, but such a large attitude change can be the result of a large burst of work, prior stress, and a lack of balance or delegation. (i.e. below, “lazy” form #2)
Lazy (A.D.D.-ing): This kind of lazy is because you’re typically avoiding important tasks or assignments due to fear or time/energy concerns, and cannot focus on them. Sites like Reddit generally burn up this time. — The best approach is to chip away at large tasks in small blocks and overcome the obstacle more gradually. This can also help avoid the first “lazy” state. (above)
There’s nothing wrong with being lazy for positive reasons and personal benefit, but beware that it may be consequential of other inefficiencies in your life! Be efficient instead.
If you’re having trouble doing anything, try exercising for a focus boost afterward or, worst case, a cup of tea for some natural caffeine. However, try to use caffeine sparingly!
As many of you know, Mountain Lion (Apple’s new operating system for the Mac) removed all features for reading RSS feeds. For those of you that aren’t familiar, RSS is a way to syndicate your news and other content automatically to your computer without having to check websites manually.
Normally, I wouldn’t care because I abandoned RSS a long time ago in favor of Twitter, but recently I found myself feverishly checking a few particular websites quite often. While I wasn’t monitoring thousands of great websites anymore outside of Twitter, a few still stayed on my radar. Hence, my need for RSS was reintroduced.
Luckily, there have been a few new developments in the RSS atmosphere since the Mac and iOS App Stores have taken off. One App that caught my eye was Reeder (for Mac and iOS), although I was skeptical to invest in a paid App blindly without first being able to try it. After a few Google searches, though, I discovered that Reeder did indeed have the feature that I wanted: a red number badge count appearing in the dock when a new story is detected! I decided to investigate further, and ended up purchasing the iOS and Mac versions for both at home and on-the-go reading, synced!
I will say that the one disappointing thing about Reeder is the lack of current iPad support at this time of writing. The iPhone version of Reeder does run on the iPad, but everything is quite tiny as the GUI is different. Zooming the GUI to read fullscreen looks terrible. For a reader App, this is a huge oversight.
However, the great thing about Reeder is that it uses Google Reader as its backend. This backend allows everything to stay in sync between all of your devices and computers! I can shuffle through a handful of stories on my iPhone, and then not have to clear the same stories out or mark “as read” on my Mac or iPad later on. This is a huge timesaver when on-the-go or when catching up at home after being out all day!
Before, I would check my favorite social news websites for the latest stories every 15-20 minutes casually. Now, I refrain and remain much more focused on my work. The number badge alerts me only when a new post is actually made! It’s no longer a guessing game. While this technology is not new, being able to split the mass into Twitter blurbs and the pulp directly into my “News Inbox” is great.
When I had made the transition away from RSS before, I was suffering from feed overload. Feed overload is the condition of having so many followed sources simultaneously posting at different intervals that it becomes literally impossible to keep up with the majority of them! … Imagine thousands of articles per day, some being reposts of others, and all of varying levels of quality and relevance, all appearing within the same stream…. Twitter has alleviated this for me with its focus on only the important bits of information within its limit of 140 characters per post. For the few sites I prefer not to miss a single story on, RSS via Reeder is a simple and beautiful solution.
All in all, after leaving RSS behind and migrating the majority of my sources to Twitter, putting a handful of my most frequented sites back into a desktop/mobile client has worked well for me. I’m pretty happy with it! Check it out.
UPDATED 2012/09/29: YouTube icon also available below, by request.
iOS 6 replaces the original Google Maps application that’s been bundled since iOS 1.0 with its own “Apple Maps” software. Google offers a web-based version of Google Maps, but the icon is much worse than the original one from Apple.
Until Google releases a downloadable copy of Google Maps for iPhone, here are some installable web profiles that retain the original icon for Google Maps on iPhone + allow the Web App to run fullscreen.
iPhone: http://uploads.benguild.com/ios6googlemapsicon.mobileconfig
iPad: http://uploads.benguild.com/ios6googlemapsicon_ipad.mobileconfig
FYI, if it asks you for a password, enter your device’s passcode to confirm the install.
In the screenshot below, I tested this on an iPad running iOS 5, but these profiles are designed for iOS 6 only.
The web-based version of Google Maps is far from perfect, but this does allow it to run fullscreen and retain the original icon. Try it out!
UPDATE:
Jordan wrote me an email today and asked for a YouTube icon. Although Google has already gone and released its own actual YouTube App for iOS, I figured… why not?
This restores the original YouTube icon, and creates a web App for it:
iPhone: http://uploads.benguild.com/ios6youtubeicon.mobileconfig
iPad: http://uploads.benguild.com/ios6youtubeicon_ipad.mobileconfig
CDJ’er was a site I started in 2010 to help DJs print track lists for their CD booklets. Each CD usually contained about 10 songs, and making a list for each disc was time consuming.
The site allowed DJs to automatically print labels using iTunes playlists or albums and saved a lot of time. I used it, and it was great!
Nowadays, I don’t really DJ for fun anymore … and also, most DJs have moved to using USB memory sticks with their Pioneer CDJ decks. So, I figured 2012 was a good time to retire the product. :)
So long, CDJ’er!
The Reminders list on iOS is actually pretty good. I’d been using Wunderlist but the service was really unstable (multiple extended downtimes) and their site wasn’t even secured by HTTPS! Unacceptable.
The easiest way to import tasks into the Reminders App is through iCal on your Mac. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, getting tasks from one to the other isn’t exactly automated unless you use an AppleScript (which I’ve put together and provided below) — but, it does the job. However, once you get setup in Reminders with your data, it’s pushed seamlessly between your devices and it feels great!
Apple’s Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8, coming this summer) will have a built-in Reminders App much like the iPhone and iPad. This is what I’m personally holding out for. In the meantime, managing tasks via the iPhone, iPad, and also iCal on the Mac is a more than acceptable solution compared to what I was dealing with before.
To get started, I’m assuming you’ve already created the Reminders lists you want to import tasks into on your iPhone or iPad, and enabled Reminders sync to iCloud on your device(s) and also Calendar sync on your Mac through the iCloud panel in System Preferences. If this is the case, you should see the same Reminders lists on each screen (iPhone/iPad/Mac) when enabling the Reminders column in iCal under the “View” menu. (as mentioned, Mountain Lion will have its own Reminders App)
Now, there is one final preparation for getting your tasks into Reminders: Getting the data out of your existing tasks App! — This may be tricky. However, most Apps offers some method of making this happen. For example, Wunderlist enables you to email an entire task list to someone, so I simply did this but instead of sending it I just copied it into a plain-text file using TextEdit. The key is that it must be a plain text file (you can make it one using the option within the “Format” menu and you must have only 1 task per line with no skipped lines! If you fail to do either, you’ll end up with additional blank or jibberish tasks in your list and that is not helpful!
Also, one fine caveat with this script is that it does not seem to support Unicode characters. This means that anything too outside of the ordinary alphanumeric characterset (such as special punctuation, or Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc. characters) will not render properly and you’ll have to manually fix them. Keep this in mind, but you’re probably 99% OK as long as you use mostly standard English words and punctuation.
Here is the AppleScript. Open the AppleScript editor within your Utilities folder if you’re not familiar!
set theFileContents to (read file “Users:benguild:Downloads:Reminders.txt”) —Change this to the path to your downloaded text file with your tasks in it! (Note the : instead of a / between folders) Or, just name them Reminders.txt and put them in your downloads folder
set theLines to paragraphs of theFileContents
repeat with eachLine in theLines
tell application “iCal”
tell calendar “Reminders” — Change this to your Reminders list name
make new todo at end with properties {summary:eachLine}
end tell
end tell
end repeat
Run this script while modifying each of the paths and task list names as necessary, and the data will be added to the appropriate lists in iCal and automatically synced to iCloud and your devices if setup properly.
A while ago I posted about how Apple does nothing to protect developers from people cloning their application’s name and functionality. This has been a widespread topic since Apps became popular, and the overall response has been “tough luck” as the distributors (Apple, Google) mostly care about the platform boost in having a strong App Store and their own revenues from it … not ‘developer-to-developer’ relations.
Something interesting to consider is that, in the past, Google has always factored the blogosphere and external links as a way of building reputation for websites and helping established developers remain protected against shameless competition, much of which stems from third-world countries. These developers produce cheap copies of another developer’s work, hoping to gain even a small sliver of the market.
Unfortunately, the App Stores place everyone on the same level when selling, throwing any sort of online reputation out the window. It’s a question of application ratings, easily manipulated keywords, and overall download count (driven both externally from web-based links and internally from ‘in store’ discoveries) … to maintain your sales and rankings. Often these rankings themselves are easily manipulated, or suffer a spike or sudden downturn. Due to history not being a factor, it can be seriously difficult to recover from a downturn, even for an established developer.
The great thing about placing everyone on the same level is that it helps smaller developers get a head start, but it also significantly reduces the barriers to entry for scam artists trying to make a quick buck. There are companies literally in business of duplicating Apps, and not innovating. Eventually, the parasites will run out of hosts.
It’s fascinating that these App Stores are powered by the internet, but in some ways seem to completely neglect it and instead expect to survive within their own ecosystem. However, these systems need Google’s rankings as a basis or they will become an absolute, unregulated disaster. With more and more people discovering Apps within the stores themselves, less and less are discovering them via Google and the blogosphere. Ironically, the one thing separating many major Apps from their smaller competitors is a web presence, and the downloads or reputation generated by it. This may be acceptable now, but in the future as the web becomes less of a distribution focus for applications it may become a major issue in separating brands.
Furthermore, being that the systems for ranking applications and driving sales are easily manipulated and gamed, many developers choose to release duplicate Apps with the same functionality to target different keyword combinations and categories. We’ve suffered from this with my business, and so have may others. This further dilutes the system under which everyone receives the same marketing presence, and makes things tremendously more complicated for everyone to manage … including customers who are simply trying to download through the only platform from which they are able.
It is almost disgraceful the state that the App Stores are in based on how many duplicate Apps have turned up both from other developers and even the original developers themselves trying to protect their turf. Honest sellers are almost being penalized for attempting to be ethical and play by the rules, and there’s nothing that they can do considering that it is the only App Store. — Antitrust, anyone?
OK, so it’s not exactly free. And it’s not exactly the same as paying for it either. — But, it does give you tethered internet (“tethering”), and it works on iOS 3, 4, and even iOS 5.0!
First off, you have to be a developer. Being an iOS developer (costs $99/year) lets you run unapproved Apps on your iPhone … such as iProxy, which lets you setup a proxy server for your laptop for free web surfing on-the-go.
If you don’t know what a proxy server is, and you don’t know how to compile Apps for your iPhone, I suggest you don’t bother with this. :)
Steps to get this awesome, open-source, Free App working:
Occasionally, there’s an App that sneaks into the App Store with this code/feature hidden within it, but it’s pretty rare at this point. This approach is way better.
What’s even more ironic, is the $99/year to Apple is cheaper than tethering with AT&T, and it’s a better value if you’re a geek and you like to mess with stuff like this.
The main reason I like this: I don’t actually need tethering, but, it’s handy when I do. I don’t use very much bandwidth, and I’m not willing to sacrifice my unlimited data with AT&T and pay more for tethering on top of that. This is perfect for me. It gives me access to a feature I almost never use.
I just wish it were easier, but if it were, everyone would do it! — Action shot below:
Enjoy, as usual. If you like this, be sure to donate to the guys that built the App.
A few days ago, I made the decision to cancel Netflix, before my account renewed on the 12th … meaning I now have to mail my two remaining movies back within the next 7 days and then, receive no more.
Why would I do this?
The main reason is: movie fatigue. I’m generally pretty busy, and do a lot of different things at once. Whenever Netflix gets setup for me, I’m always excited to start watching the movies. Yet, when the same amount of movies appear on a regular basis, I find myself less excited about finishing them and generally postpone watching.
This also coincides with movies that I’m less excited about watching appearing lower in my queue. After I watch the movies that I really want to see, I wait longer to watch the others. Sometimes for weeks at a time.
Overall, the service is still great, but it’s just not a good value unless you’re constantly refreshing and cleaning your queue of discs you don’t actually want to watch. There are shipping delays, and yet … the streaming service doesn’t have most of the material I’d want to watch in the first place. It’s a lose-lose for me, especially at a fixed monthly-fee.
Why now? When Netflix started, there were no streaming services available. In the future, I’m looking forward to renting movies on iTunes or Amazon for less, and when I actually want them.
If you’re like me, you completely ignore all of your RSS feeds (yet still continue to add more) … and, religiously follow Twitter on a day-to-day basis.
…Why can’t everything just be on Twitter?
This simple tool I’ve built will help you migrate from Google Reader, to a “Twitter-only” setup … by analyzing your feed collection’s exported OPML file, and allowing you to “choose Twitter feeds and follow them in one simple step.” — Cut the fluff!
I’m exhausted after coding this, so hopefully there are no bugs. Check it out!
UPDATE (2011/11/02): Feed folders are now supported! Thanks @nfm.
“If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business. Skills like sales, networking, creativity and comfort with failure.”
Read more at the New York Times.
So, recently I traded a few things into GameStop (mostly old cables and accessories) and used the rewards to buy L.A. Noire for PlayStation 3, which was just under $40 USD and a phenomenal value to the casual gamer. I applaud both Rockstar and Bondi for this title.
I’d planned on trading it into Amazon Trade-In for $15 (they buy used books and video games), but figured I’d try my luck at eBay, one last time. I’d posted about eBay’s new, outrageous fee-struture (~9%) before, and vowed to not use the service anymore unless absolutely necessary. — But, after all, the game was selling for at least $20 on eBay! My copy ended up selling for $21, plus $4 shipping and handling. Great, right?
Well, it didn’t actually end up being much better. Between all of the extra time I had to spend creating my listing, photographing the item, walking to the post office and mailing/addressing the package, chance of a buyer not paying or filing a claim, (etc.) … I only netted an extra $2 from a $21 sale versus a $15 sale.
How is this possible? Amazon pays shipping and insures the package for $100, because all UPS shipments are automatically insured for that much. You print a label, and all you need otherwise is an old Amazon box, and some tape.
By comparison, the eBay auction ended up like this: $21 sale price + $4 shipping = $25.00 net income, - $1.03 in PayPal fees, - $2.25 in eBay Fees, - $2.22 in Shipping (USPS, Slowest speed), - $0.80 Delivery confirmation (required), - $1.80 Insurance (optional, but recommended) … = $16.90 total.
So, after all the extra hassle, I made an extra $2 using eBay. eBay/PayPal made $3, or so. And, instead of the package getting to Amazon next day, it’ll get to the buyer in just under a week. — The choice is yours. Good luck, all! I hope you’ll consider the new fees before selling.
UPDATE (2012/06/28): Finally, Apple has changed their algorithms and most of these results have been pushed to the bottom, thankfully…. http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/29/looks-like-apple-has-changed-its-app-store-algorithm-again/
A new spam-tactic is being used on the iTunes Store to score downloads sourced from your competitor’s predating traffic. That tactic (which is against Apple’s Terms of Service, but extremely difficult to enforce) … is adding trailing punctuation.
It seems the rules only apply specifically to exclamation marks or spacing at this point, but I’m expecting that to change very soon.
Explanation and example: I run a site called Mobile17 (as many of you know), and although we were later to the game than some of our competitors in the App Store, we’ve been in the ringtone making business since 2005. Our Apps were released under the brand “Ringtone Maker” in 2010, and we’ve seen success ever since by utilizing our existing web traffic and also the organic traffic from the iTunes App Store and subsequent press.
Recently, a slew of competition has prompted confusion in the App Store, as our competitors have released similar Apps under similar names using what’s called the “punctuation trick”. Generally, a developer adds a period, plus sign, or even a fake trademark symbol to bypass iTunes’ own algorithm for checking and assuring the App’s name is not already taken. This is why you don’t see 10 “Facebook” Apps on the App Store, aside from trademark issues.
Unfortunately, my complaints to the App Store, so far, have gone like this:
Thank you for contacting iTunes Connect. You cannot use an app name that is substantially similar to an existing app name by adding or removing spaces, exclamation points or other characters. If you see this happening you can use this link to report the issue:
http://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/jumpTo?page=contactUs&contactfaq=rightsinfringement
Of course, I’d asked if this behavior was acceptable. However, being that legal only handles copyright and trademark disputes, I was told that I could only file a DMCA complaint and that was it.
Meanwhile, during the process of trying to sort this out, yet another competitor has released Apps using the trademark sign and other punctuation as a differentiator:
Is Apple about to face a viral outbreak of third-party developers, squatting traffic and App names? Will this soon be a headache for more developers? — I truly hope that they will step in and clean up this trailing punctuation, before it’s too late.
Recently, I’ve tried selling things I don’t need on eBay. I’ve done this off-and-on for the past 10 years, without much change. However, in the past two weeks, selling $800 worth of merchandise has generated a whopping $85 in fees. “How is this possible?”
Turns out— In the past year, eBay has secretly increased their “final value” fees to a whopping…
… 9.0% of the selling price! (link)
Does it stop there? No. There are PayPal fees (additional 3% or more), picture/listing/auction fees, Buy It Now fees, shipping costs, and occasional issues with fraud and non-paying bidders. All this doesn’t even include the time and hassle of selling everything yourself and typing out listings.
I recently tweeted that eBay still charges 15/cents for each picture, as well.
…Is eBay even worth it anymore? Lots of people make their living on eBay, but for the casual seller … I don’t think that anybody can willingly afford this. To put this fee increase into perspective: Using the old fee schedule (from March 2010), I would have only had to pay approximately $35 to sell the same items. The new fees account to at least ~200% more in hidden costs.
“Expect to see fewer people using auction style listings since there is no way to cover the increase in selling fees. More fixed price (immediate purchase) listings will be used and prices will be raised moderately to cover the increased final value fees. New users who don’t notice the hidden final value fees will be shocked when they are billed $35.00 for selling their Playstation 3 (or whatever), have to pay $25.00 in shipping, and another $9.00 in PayPal fees. Suddenly that $300 they got from their sale has dropped down to around $225.” (source)
