Kā barons Tupenbergs mani par krāpnieku noturēja

Posted under Latviski

Kādā brīvā brīvdienas rītā nolēmu beidzot “izrakt” savas uzkrātās Ādažu čipsu paciņas Ādažu čipsu “Mantojuma medības” akcijā.

Pēc piektā rakšanas mēģinājuma pamanīju ka akcijas vietne ir sastingusi, jeb, kā tautā saka, “uzkārusies”.

Vienu vietnes atsvaidzinājumu vēlāk uz ekrāna parādījās augstāk redzamais paziņojums.

Barons Tupenbergs tagad mani uzskata par krāpnieku. Kāds kauns, kāda izgāšanās…

Šķiet, ka akcijas vietnes izstrādātāji ir pārcentušies, vai, drīzāk, noslinkojuši ar drošības pasākumiem akcijas informācijas sistēmā.

Ja sistēma akli nobloķē visas IP adreses, kas rok 5 vai vairāk reizes vienā dienā, līdzīgs liktenis noteikti ir piemeklējis arī daudzus citus “dārgumu meklētājus”.

Varbūt šādā veidā akcijas veidotāji cenšas iegrožot tos, kas mēģina uzminēt čipsu paciņu kodus tās nemaz nenopērkot. Jāsaka, ka šie kodi ir gaužām vienkārši un drīzāk atgādina secīgus sērijas numurs, kuriem izmainās tikai pēdējie pāris cipari.

Tieši tādēļ akcijas noteikumos ir rakstīts, ka laimējošās čipsu paciņas ir jāsaglabā.
Drošības politika, kas paredz banot lietotājus, kas rok vairākas reizes dienā ir lieka un nekoretka, un akcijai nodara vairāk ļaunuma nekā labuma.

Kopumā uzskatu ka “Mantojuma Medības” ir interesanta un Latvijā vēl nebijusi mārketinga akcija. Žēl, ka šādi nelieli, bet nepatīkami trūkumi tai neļaus kļūt par gada labāko reklāmas kampaņu. Vismaz ne manās acīs.

Posted by zelcs on May 18, 2013 — Add a Comment

Jā, es zinu, ka ir tāds “rustēvēnets”!

Posted under Latviski, Politics

Vai tiešām tvnet.lv vajadzēja galvenajā izvēlnē, kā otro svarīgāko, ievietot vēl vienu saiti uz rus.tvnet.lv?

Vai tad nepietika ar valodas izvēlni augšajā kreisajā stūrī?

Vai tad nepietika ar absurdajiem “rustēvēneta” virsrakstiem sānu joslā, par Pugačovām, Galkiniem, Sobčakām un citām apšaubāmām “slavenībām” un notikumiem par kuriem šajā valstī lielākajai daļai iedzīvotāju ir pilnīgi vienalga?

rus.tvnet.lv, protams, šādas prominentas saites uz tvnet.lv nav. Nav ne galvenajā izvēlnē, ne virsrakstu sānu joslā.

Un žēl, ka nav. Vai tad tiešām tvnet.lv vadībai nerūp mūsu lielākā mazākumtautība un tā nevēlas izdaiļot “rus” vietni ar virsrakstiem latviešu valodā, tādējādi mudinot mācīties lasīt valsts valodā?

Posted by zelcs on Apr 10, 2013 — 1 Comment

Why no YouTube ads for Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Turkey, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and many other countries?

Posted under YouTube

If you’re a creative video content provider, or just someone thinking of starting a YouTube channel with plans to monetize it with Google advertising, you should really take a break to read this article, because, if you reside outside of United States or United Kingdom, chances are you may not be able to run ads on your YouTube channel and may never pay off that 1000 dollar camera you were just about to purchase.

While it is true that YouTube-ers that wish to run ads no longer have to meet certain popularity and content criteria and apply for so called “YouTube partnership”, channel monetization feature is limited only to folks with residence (street address) in one of 20-or-so countries listed below. In other words, if you’re not from a supported country, you can not run ads in YouTube.

Some people might suggest workarounds like:

  • Register your channel in someone elses name who lives in one of allowed countries. Sign up for Google AdSense in your own country and link your “foreign” YouTube channel to your local AdSense account to collect your earnings.
  • Fake your location by “changing” your IP with a proxy app like TunnerBear to convince YouTue that you are from US or UK.

I am definitely not one of those people. I do not recommend these “loopholes”, especially the second, which involves lying about your location. If there is any corporation, organisation or entity capable of catching you in online fraud, it must be Google. Lying to Google is almost as difficult as lying to yourself.

Other than risky workarounds that eventually will get you banned from AdSense, there is only one way of getting some revenue out of your YouTube – wait until Google finally launches monetization in your country.

New countries find their way in the list from time to time. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. If your country was just added, you will probably read about that in YouTube’s blog. If it wasn’t – you will need more patience. How much patience, nobody knows, chances are even Google doesn’t. These decisions must depend greatly on different laws and bureaucratic processes in each country and might take indefinite amout of time to resolve, if they can ever be resolved.

Having said that, I still don’t understand why AdSense could relatively quickly be implemented in virtually every civilized country while YouTube ads can not. They are nothing but same AdSense ads, only atached to video content, which happens to be hosted and moderated by Google themselves. How is it so fundamentally different that it requires so much extra legal work, I do not understand.

The community that made YouTube billion dollar business deserves ways of getting rewards for their content and “community” is not limited to 20 countries. YouTube will remain monopoly only as long as its competitors won’t give millions of content providers in “the rest of the world” copelling reasons to host content elsewhere, where they can get paid for their work.

It would be a win-win for both content providers and Google, if they could figure out ways to implement YouTube channel monetizaiton with same international coverage that AdSense has.

I certainly haven’t lost hope, but for now, I will put my video production ideas on hold.

List of supported countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States.

I will try to update this list, as I find out about more countries. Unfortunately, Google does not publish official list anywhere.

Posted by zelcs on Mar 21, 2013 — Add a Comment

Ar skaļruņiem uz 9. maiju!

Posted under Latviski, Politics

Paldies mūsu smaidīgajam mēram Nilam par viņa liberāli demokrātisko lēmumu “antifašistiem” blakus Brīvības pieminekim leģionāru atceres dienā atļaut rīkot tikai nedaudz skaļu un tikai nedaudz nepiedienīgu vēstures lekciju.

Lai arī lekcijas saturs, galvenokārt, bija klaji meli, tomēr, ir pieks par Rīgas domes mūsdienīgo, progresīvo liberālismu un prieks arī par policijas darbu, kas ļāva abiem pasākumiem – leģionāru piemiņas gājienam un antifašistu vēstures stundai – veiksmīgi noritēt līdztekus, vienam otru gandrīz netraucējot.

Nudien, ja pieveram acis un ausis uz kritušo karavīru izzākāšanu un skaļu melīgas propagandas riešanu elektriskā skaļrunī, šis tiešām bija godam aizvadīts piemiņas pasākums, un Brīvības piemineklis uz brīdi, tik tiešām, izskatījās un izklausījās kā visas Latvijas saskaņas centrs.

Diemžēl, 16. marts gadā ir tikai viens, bet vēsture ir dziļš priekšmets, ko nevar nolasīt vienā lekcijā.

Tieši tādēļ, es ceru ka mēs mācīsimies no 2013. gada 16. marta pieredzes un sarīkosim līdzīgu, ar Rīgas domi saskaņotu, vēstures lekciju 9. maijā Uzvaras laukumā. Šoreiz, gan, ar patiesiem faktiem.

Es esmu pilnīgi pārliecināts, ka mūsu saskanīgais Nils noteikti būs konsekvents un šādu pasākumu saskaņos.

Esmu pārliecināts arī par to, ka, tāpat kā pie Brīvības pieminekļa, arī Uzvaras laukumā vēstures skolotāju un viņa tehniku – iekšdedzes ģeneratoru un jaudīgu elektrisko skaļruni – apsargās ducis policistu ar ķiverēm, stekiem un vairogiem, lai, nedod Dievs, kāds nemēģinātu traucēt lekcijas norisi.

Saskaņots pasākums – tā ir svēta lieta.

Posted by zelcs on Mar 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

TheGroxt gets suspended, opens new channel

Posted under Entertainment, YouTube

TheGroxt – the weird YouTuber who “sees things” recently got his account terminated due to “multiple third party claims of copyright infringement”.

This is not very surprising as he did have many videos featuring portions of copyright-protected movies and music videos. These fragments, however could not be mistaken for alternatives to actually watching the movies in cinema or on DVD.

If it wasn’t for the sheer insanity of his videos, you could argue that it was a “fair use” of copyright protected material and YouTube suspension was not justified.

What’s new is that TheGroxt has opened a new channel – TheGroxt1 and several hundred of his most loyal followers have already found him and subscribed to it.

This is, of course, a far cry from the 16000+ subscribers that his original channel had. I wonder how long will it take to build that number back. My bet is that it won’t ever hapen, because, judging from recently uploaded Taylore Swift music video, it doesn’t seem like he learned anything from the suspension.

Posted by zelcs on Mar 21, 2013 — Add a Comment

Madest of YouTube – TheGroxt

Posted under Entertainment

Since Google dropped traffic requirements for YouTube channel ads, I have noticed a wave of new YouTube channels with silly content, often produced only for the sake of AdSense dollar.

The motivation behind some YouTubers, however, I just cannot comprehend – they are enigma for me.

One such enigma is commercial actually symbolize two cooling towers of San Onofre nuclear power plant, which will be involved in a terrorist attack, which will start the third world war, which will be the Great Tribulation as described in Bible.

From butt cheeks to Bible – this is just one example, his videos are full of insane connections and insane conclusions, yet somehow, he always manages to keep a straight face – or stright voice rather, because he never reveals his face.

I find this mad mad channel quite amusing, in fact I have subscribed to him. For all my readers, I suggest you check him out – sometimes something silly as this is just the right kind of entertainment to get you in good mood.

Posted by zelcs on Mar 11, 2013 — Add a Comment

This is why StackOverflow sucks

Posted under Technology

I understand that a large Q&A site like StackOverflow is facing many big problems like duplicate questions, questions that can not be answered objectively or plain rubbish questions coming in large numbers every day.

Obviously, these problems can not be solved by a small staff of administrators. Community moderation is the only way to go – you let long time users with good score to edit, close or delete questions.

Most of the time it works really well and is a win-win for both site owner and moderators. Owner gets free labour, moderators get to satisfy their urge for showing their power over “lesser” users.

This model, however, stops working when some of the mods, like one particular moderator on StackOverflow, proceed to closing a question and deleting it without actually reading it and understanding it.

Today I was asking if there was a forum software that:

  • Is implemented with PHP and MySQL
  • Allows anonymous posting
  • Has extensive HTTP API for listing, adding and deleting threads and posts
  • Has +1/-1 voting for posts

And my question was closed and later deleted because, according to the moderator, it was considered “not well formed” and “not suitable for Q&A format”.

If the moderator had actually red it and had any amount of basic human iteligence (no need to be an expert here), he would understand that it was a very specific, almost “yes or no” type of question.

It was a very well formed and objective question for a concrete answer – either “no, there is no such forum” or “yes and it’s called …”.

Unfortunately due to moderators like this one, my question didn’t get answered, despite the many people on StackOferflow with experience with various PHP forums that could answer it.

Not only did I lose the answer to my question, I also lost much of my faith in StackExchange Q&A network and their operating model in general.

StackOverflow has helped me out many times by providing the briefest and most on-subject answers to my programming questions in Google search. It’s a pity that it hasn’t been as helpful for providing answers to my own questions that haven’t been asked already.

Posted by zelcs on Feb 22, 2013 — 1 Comment

Geekbench Tryout – is this world’s most useless software?

Posted under Uncategorized

At first it seemed like very progressive benchmarking tool – cross platform, popular, maintaned. After downloading the “tryout” version, however, this first impression quickly faded.

First of all – I am not a fan of commercial benchmarking tools. I want bencharks to be free and as wide-spread as possible. On the other hand – I do unserstand that a maintained benchmarking tool with online results pages takes a lot of work and work should always be credited.

The reason why I am so upset about Geekbench is because it simply doesn’t work – after completing the benchmarks I don’t ever see the result.

Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I have been using computer software for many years, believe it or not, and I can’t for the life of me figure out where the heck I can see the actual benchmark score.

It’s like an inept and not very funny prank – you download a benchmark, run it and not get any clue about the result.

Posted by zelcs on Dec 10, 2012 — Add a Comment

Origin fiasco

Posted under Technology

When you hear all this talk of how great cloud services are, how everything in future will be online, omni-present and distributed, you find it hard to believe that such large online service as Electronic Arts Origin content distribution platform can suddenly go offline for several without any warning or explaination.

I just spent some of my hard earned money on one of EA’s games, just to find out, after 5 hour download, that I actually won’t be able to play the damn thing because my Origin account is in “Offline mode” or “can’t do s**t” mode, as I would like to call it.

There no explaination on Origin’s website and there was no prior warning. If this is how Origin operates, all I can do is advise everybody to stay away from this service and download your games from Valve’s Steam instead.

Posted by zelcs on Dec 10, 2012 — Add a Comment

Apple’s bull patents

Posted under Technology

US court recently ruled in favour of Apple Inc in it’s lawsuit against Samsung Electronics, where Apple claimed that Samsung was infringing 8 of Apple’s software and design patents with it’s latest smartphone line.

This verdict resulted in a more than $1b fine and subsequent 7% share price drop for Samsung. Ouch!!!

I was interested to know what exactly where these patents that Samsung was said to be infringing.

Knowing how truly “revolutinary and innovative” Apple’s recent products are, I was expecting these patent definitions to be quite amusing.

And I wasn’t disappointed. After several unsuccessful searches, I finally found this great article that clearly listed each of the 8 patents that, Apple claim, were infringed by the evil “copy-cat” Samsung.

I will go trough the 6 of 8 that were found to be infringed by US court, and share some comments on each:

1. Bounce Back. “Apple’s ’381 patent covers the so-called “bounce back” technology. As you can see in the photo on the right, when you get to the top or bottom of a page on iOS, it will pull down (or up) and then “bounce back” into place.”

This is perhaps the most reasonable of the 6, but, in my opinion, still not worthy a patent. If they care to patent a minor user interface gimmic like this, I wonder how many other patents they have for the whole of iOS UI?

2. Single Scroll, Pinch to Zoom. “The ’915 patent covers the use of a single finger to scroll through a page, as well as using two fingers to zoom in and out.”

Let’s put “single finger scroll” aside for a moment and concentrate on “pinch to zoom”.

Was Apple the first to realize that a human being has more than one finger that can be placed simultaniously on a touchscreen surface? Where they first to realize that you can assign zoom function to two simultanously moving touchscreen inputs? I bet they waren’t. But they for sure were first with enough money to go for a patent.

As for “single finger scroll” – you’ve got to be kidding me…

3. Tap to Zoom. “The ’163 patent allows for users to tap the screen of an iOS device twice in order to zoom in and out.”

What about “tap to scroll”, “tap to toggle”, “tap to highlight”, “tap to delete”, “tap to type”, “tap to anything”?

Again – you’ve got to be kidding me…

4. iPhone Front. “Apple’s D’677 design patent covers the front of the iPhone.”

I’ve got to see this “D677″ in detail. I bet it would provide much amusement. There is exactly nothing original about frontal design of an iPhone.

Is any rectangular shaped smartphone/PDA/tablet device with full size touchscreen infringing on Apples “D677″?

5. iPhone Back. “Apple’s D’087 design patent covers the back of the iPhone.”

Only attribute I can think of that is original and unique about the rear of an iPhone is the Apple logo. I don’t recall Samsung Galaxies having that bitten apple anywhere on their back or front side.

If it’s not the logo then it must be the rectangular shape again. Apple now owns rectangles, you shall pay them if you ever make one.

6. iPhone Home Screen. “The D’305 patent covers the iPhone home screen design.”.

Again – what’s so special about a homescreen that has nothing but a grid of icons? Apple might as well sue every hardware and software company that makes use of icons and graphical user interface.

Microsoft – you’re next!

7. Use of Latin letter “i” in naming a consumer electronics product.

OK, they haven’t gone this far yet, but I wouldn’t be very surprized if they did.

You never know what to expect form Apple. $0.6 trillion dollars buys a lot of patents.

Posted by zelcs on Aug 28, 2012 — Add a Comment