Hey, everyone. It's overcast and 37 degrees this morning in the mountains. Although this is much better than snow or ice, and I'm grateful, the brief departure of spring is a bit of a drag. The old-timers (gee, guess this now includes me) will probably call this 'dogwood winter' because it will cause the dogwoods to bloom. A bit later we'll have 'blackberry winter' which will motivate the blackberries to do their yearly thing. The frost killed my Easter flowers but we still have some of the yellow forsynthias.
I like to go to the court house in the summer and see the old guys sitting on the tailgates of their trucks selling veggies they have grown. People stop and chat about everything, and nothing, and it somehow gives me a peaceful, easy feeling. Sounds like an Eagles song. I could sure enjoy some 'home grown' tomatoes right now. They taste a heck of a lot different than hot house tomatoes, don't they?
Oh, the blog title is about an invention I'd like to see. I try to limit my daily intake of coffee to 4 cups. This is in the hopes of being less crabby. (Not working as you will see shortly) I figure that Apple should invent a Smart Cup that will keep up with refills and light up the appropriate number on the side of the cup. When I saw the big, flashing 4 I'd know it was time to quit. Restaurants would love them because they could have an automatic cut-off so people wouldn't hang about and drink 20 cups while they are on a surveillance detail. In bars, the Smart Cup could cut off a patron who had 'one too many'.
I had a few thoughts about app store problems. As you know there are some things in some of the apps which have drawn the ire of people. Stuff like this:
1. In-app purchases for weapons, upgrades, health. My personal un-favorite is the scam where you buy the ability that enables you to skip a difficult level. After scathing reviews they have decided you can use it more than once, but only once an hour. There is more than one game that has tried this so I deleted the name of the game.
2. App updates. Updates are necessary and great. Now, however, there are unscrupulous people who use updates in ways that are shady. For instance, I bought a game. Paid games should never, ever, have adds. This company issued an update which put adds on the game I had bought. That was the sole purpose of the update, so now, rather than hit the button that downloads all updates, I have to review each one. Thanks, crooks.
3. Yesterday I downloaded a free game called Contract Killer. Sure, it had adds, which is cool with a freebie. There were in-app purchases which I am cautious about. This morning when I opened my I-Pad there was a box on screen from the game that stated my character was refreshed and ready to play. ???
I just deleted the game.
4. Some of the games try to get you to go to their web site for stuff. I don't do this, though I'm sure the majority of them would be fine. I confine my transactions to the appstore, because it's regulated.
5. There are some games that can not be beaten without buying some sort of in-app purchase.
There are other things going on which are part of the evolution of a new technology. The brilliant concept of an app store is now being copied by Amazon, Android and others. Several months ago I did a blog post called Why Didn't We Do That?, in which I dealt with the app store subject. If anyone from Amazon had read that blog they would have had their app store up and running a lot sooner. (This blog was in January, I just looked it up. If you want to read it, just go down the column to the right.)
By the way, if you would like to make your I-Pad impervious to unwanted purchases, here's the recipe:
1. Go to Settings.
2. Go to General.
3. Go to Restrictions.
4.Put in a 4 digit code that you can remember. Unless you are like me and have vowed never to use in-app purchases.
5.Go to in-app purchase and click to 'off'.
People tell me that this is not necessary now that Apple requires your password before these types of buys. So, do what you please. As I have mentioned before, Apple did this because little kids ran up bills for their parents of several hundred dollars on a Smurfs game. How is this type of thing superior to robbing a liquor store?
Sorry about the tirade. On a related subject you can go to the settings page on your I-Pad and turn off things like 'location services' that track where you are at when you take pictures and things of this sort. You can also opt out of things like 'game notifications' and stuff that allows your I-Pad to talk to game developers about how often you play what games and other invasive types of things. I don't like this sort of stuff. Why should my I-Pad have an intimate relationship with someone in another state? Many people are cool with all this stuff and that's great. But we should know about it without some elderly guy telling us about it on a blog. Some of these things run down your battery sooner than is needful. I don't need to be notified when I've 'earned a badge'. When I'm not on-line I sometimes go to the settings page and tap 'WIFi', then turn it off. This is a bit of a pain to mess with and I don't recommend it. Oh, it's not hard to do and takes seconds. It's just inconvenient. In answer to your question, yeah I'm a paranoid, hermit type of guy.
Having an I-Pad has been fun for a lot of reasons, especially because it's like having a ring side seat to a baby technology and watching things evolve. It's the same thing with the ebook industry. There are few rules and no established game plan. After Smashwords and others have pioneered the field, now we are seeing people like Amazon and Barnes and Noble open up their own e-publishing sites. There are people downloading free ebooks from sites and then selling them on their own sites. Is that wild? I have to admire their innovation, if not their honesty. In traditional publishing circles there are independent auditors that see to it that authors get paid for books sold. Is there any auditing going on for ebooks sold? I don't know. For the moment, things are a bit blurred for a non geek trying to catch up to a geek world. If you'd like to share the ride, drop in to the author's green retreat as often as you like. I guarantee there will never be an in-app purchase. I'm CE Wills.
I like to go to the court house in the summer and see the old guys sitting on the tailgates of their trucks selling veggies they have grown. People stop and chat about everything, and nothing, and it somehow gives me a peaceful, easy feeling. Sounds like an Eagles song. I could sure enjoy some 'home grown' tomatoes right now. They taste a heck of a lot different than hot house tomatoes, don't they?
Oh, the blog title is about an invention I'd like to see. I try to limit my daily intake of coffee to 4 cups. This is in the hopes of being less crabby. (Not working as you will see shortly) I figure that Apple should invent a Smart Cup that will keep up with refills and light up the appropriate number on the side of the cup. When I saw the big, flashing 4 I'd know it was time to quit. Restaurants would love them because they could have an automatic cut-off so people wouldn't hang about and drink 20 cups while they are on a surveillance detail. In bars, the Smart Cup could cut off a patron who had 'one too many'.
I had a few thoughts about app store problems. As you know there are some things in some of the apps which have drawn the ire of people. Stuff like this:
1. In-app purchases for weapons, upgrades, health. My personal un-favorite is the scam where you buy the ability that enables you to skip a difficult level. After scathing reviews they have decided you can use it more than once, but only once an hour. There is more than one game that has tried this so I deleted the name of the game.
2. App updates. Updates are necessary and great. Now, however, there are unscrupulous people who use updates in ways that are shady. For instance, I bought a game. Paid games should never, ever, have adds. This company issued an update which put adds on the game I had bought. That was the sole purpose of the update, so now, rather than hit the button that downloads all updates, I have to review each one. Thanks, crooks.
3. Yesterday I downloaded a free game called Contract Killer. Sure, it had adds, which is cool with a freebie. There were in-app purchases which I am cautious about. This morning when I opened my I-Pad there was a box on screen from the game that stated my character was refreshed and ready to play. ???
I just deleted the game.
4. Some of the games try to get you to go to their web site for stuff. I don't do this, though I'm sure the majority of them would be fine. I confine my transactions to the appstore, because it's regulated.
5. There are some games that can not be beaten without buying some sort of in-app purchase.
There are other things going on which are part of the evolution of a new technology. The brilliant concept of an app store is now being copied by Amazon, Android and others. Several months ago I did a blog post called Why Didn't We Do That?, in which I dealt with the app store subject. If anyone from Amazon had read that blog they would have had their app store up and running a lot sooner. (This blog was in January, I just looked it up. If you want to read it, just go down the column to the right.)
By the way, if you would like to make your I-Pad impervious to unwanted purchases, here's the recipe:
1. Go to Settings.
2. Go to General.
3. Go to Restrictions.
4.Put in a 4 digit code that you can remember. Unless you are like me and have vowed never to use in-app purchases.
5.Go to in-app purchase and click to 'off'.
People tell me that this is not necessary now that Apple requires your password before these types of buys. So, do what you please. As I have mentioned before, Apple did this because little kids ran up bills for their parents of several hundred dollars on a Smurfs game. How is this type of thing superior to robbing a liquor store?
Sorry about the tirade. On a related subject you can go to the settings page on your I-Pad and turn off things like 'location services' that track where you are at when you take pictures and things of this sort. You can also opt out of things like 'game notifications' and stuff that allows your I-Pad to talk to game developers about how often you play what games and other invasive types of things. I don't like this sort of stuff. Why should my I-Pad have an intimate relationship with someone in another state? Many people are cool with all this stuff and that's great. But we should know about it without some elderly guy telling us about it on a blog. Some of these things run down your battery sooner than is needful. I don't need to be notified when I've 'earned a badge'. When I'm not on-line I sometimes go to the settings page and tap 'WIFi', then turn it off. This is a bit of a pain to mess with and I don't recommend it. Oh, it's not hard to do and takes seconds. It's just inconvenient. In answer to your question, yeah I'm a paranoid, hermit type of guy.
Having an I-Pad has been fun for a lot of reasons, especially because it's like having a ring side seat to a baby technology and watching things evolve. It's the same thing with the ebook industry. There are few rules and no established game plan. After Smashwords and others have pioneered the field, now we are seeing people like Amazon and Barnes and Noble open up their own e-publishing sites. There are people downloading free ebooks from sites and then selling them on their own sites. Is that wild? I have to admire their innovation, if not their honesty. In traditional publishing circles there are independent auditors that see to it that authors get paid for books sold. Is there any auditing going on for ebooks sold? I don't know. For the moment, things are a bit blurred for a non geek trying to catch up to a geek world. If you'd like to share the ride, drop in to the author's green retreat as often as you like. I guarantee there will never be an in-app purchase. I'm CE Wills.
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