Disqus - Latest Comments for zacharye

Re: Get Spotify in the U.S.

zacharye — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:26:03 -0000

Yes, a proxy should work ok -- and the OP suggests that a VPN service will
work 100%, of course, though there is a fee associated with VPN services. If
you find Spotify useful though, VPN is cheap enough.

If my connection dies, I'll give both options a try and report my findings.

Re: Get Spotify in the U.S.

zacharye — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:56:03 -0000

Very true, though some suggest they've used it for more than 2 weeks without
a problem. If it dies though, a simple proxy app will bring it back to life
until Spotify can manage to launch in the US.

Re: Get Spotify in the U.S.

zacharye — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:23:26 -0000

My pleasure, of course

Re: On Writing: Hacking Your Brain

zacharye — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:48:29 -0000

I'll pre-order the hard cover.

Re: The Editor Dillemma

zacharye — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:53:18 -0000

So - an Awesome Highlighter type service with a karma system perhaps? Readers could highlight an error or typo and if it gets xx up-votes the correction would be applied? iiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting.

Re: The Editor Dillemma

zacharye — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:22:09 -0000

I did a few searches to no avail but +/- 6 months ago someone posted on Hacker News about a web app they made that would certainly be of interest to you. You paste any text into a box and it analyzed it for both spelling and grammar. After a few short tests I was very impressed but still managed to lose the URL somewhere down the line. Corrected posts by the way, will have none of the slop you mention above as a problem with editing in Word.

Perhaps someone with better HN juju or a better memory can chime in.

Re: Boxee Invites

zacharye — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:08:20 -0000

Just a quick thanks Fred. Your post about Boxee piqued my interest and I managed to get an invite without bothering you. The app and UI are very unique and show a lot of promise. Once Hulu content searching is implemented, I could definitely see Boxee seeing heavy use from me.

Re: Gizmodo’s call against the Beta is right on!

zacharye — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:47:06 -0000

Yeah it looks like I should have broken my "no reading Gizmodo posts" rule before jumping to conclusions. ;)

I do stand by my initial response though. Holding back a product, hardware or software, means you're not making money on that product. Support is getting cheaper as is everything else and companies can't afford to leave sales at the door on account of development.

As for the linked article, I still haven't read it but I did skim it. To use the iPhone 3G as an example was just a horrible, horrible idea. Delay its release for software fixes? For real? Tons of people reported early issues with it, some major such as reception. Did those reports dissuade any substantial number of people from purchasing one? Of course they didn't. Did those issues result in escalated support costs for Apple and/or AT&T? Probably, but certainly not anything close to iPhone 3G profits during that time period. A low single-digit percentage of that figure at best would be my guess.

It's a very interesting topic for discussion, but the end result will always be the same - cash rules.

Re: Gizmodo’s call against the Beta is right on!

zacharye — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:14:24 -0000

...and the lost revenue. Beta is here to stay - look at Google.

Re: Facebook Epic Email Fail - Loses Settings

zacharye — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:28:23 -0000

Yessir. I stopped getting notifications in my BlackBerry app about 2 weeks ago. Finally logged in yesterday and found that everything was set to off. Seeing as I hate Facebook I didn't really care, but they definitely screwed the pooch for all the addicts out there...

EDIT: Oh, and I still haven't received any notification by email or on my page that they screwed up. Awesome policy fellas.

Re: A 500 quid Blackberry Bold and it can’t actually make phone calls

zacharye — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:57:44 -0000

Sorry to hear of your problems but I've had one for a few months with no problems whatsoever. In fact of the many, many people I know with a Bold, this is the first I'm hearing of an issue like this. Sounds much more like a carrier issue than a handset issue, especially considering the same thing is happening on another handset.

Re: The Hype Machine

zacharye — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:18:50 -0000

Really? I think what's great about it is that it's basically ALL music blogs
- wrapped up into one, much more usable package...

Re: File Destructor

zacharye — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:36:09 -0000

Test

Re: Whiner Jerkins All Hands Meeting Powerpoint Revealed

zacharye — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:36:26 -0000

Thank you for making my month. Simply, amazing.

Re: Favtape

zacharye — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:04:54 -0000

Totally ;)

Re: A SWOT Analysis On America

zacharye — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:44:09 -0000

Three cheers for Disqus' new comment reblogging. Definitely would have missed this one but it was a great read. Claim your profile and point us to your blog, Krassen!

Re: The iPhone Crapp Store? - RussellBeattie.com

zacharye — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:22:07 -0000

You're absolutely right Russ. It's perfectly responsible to make uneducated blanket statements about people's work as opposed to posting something of substance. How self-righteous and nonsensical of me to think otherwise. After all, there was a question mark in the title.

With all of those handsets Nokia makes, the quality has to be really varied...

Re: The iPhone Crapp Store? - RussellBeattie.com

zacharye — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:10:06 -0000

Not for nothing, but to say "From the descriptions of most of them, I'd say there's a ton of unmitigated crud flowing into the App Store right now" is pretty irresponsible. Aren't you a developer? You're declaring other people's work to be "crud" without even testing it yourself. I liken this to me writing a post about how "Mowser is crap" using a three-sentence description of Mowser as my source. No; I would visit the site, play with it for an hour or so, test the functionality and then reach a conclusion. Of course the subject of something being good or bad is entirely subjective but I personally would have preferred an educated assessment as opposed to a blind rant.

Beyond that, a good number of iPhone developers are flying solo with English as a second or third language. They're not marketing guys and they can't afford to hire someone to polish their copy. Perhaps some of them didn't efficiently express themselves in those product descriptions you're citing as your source for determining apps to be crud. Cut a guy a break.

Re: louisgray.com: So, By "Overnight" You Mean Something Else Entirely?

zacharye — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:19:36 -0000

Sorry to hear about your experience but Overnightprints.com is a business like any other and they make mistakes. I've placed three orders with them over the years, two of which were over night orders. Both were shipped the day my order was placed and both arrived on time. The third arrived two days ahead of schedule. Their stuff is decent quality (for the price) and I based on my experience I would probably recommend them to someone in a rush or on a very tight budget...

Re: SiMo, a Retrospective

zacharye — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:53:02 -0000

Thanks so much for the kind words Mike - much appreciated! I'll keep on blogging with the hope that I get pulled back in by Symbian as soon as possible...

Re: Psiloc Looking for Emoroom Beta Testers

zacharye — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:10:14 -0000

Hey Alex, your emails are likely getting stopped by our spam blockers. Can you try sending from a public account (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc)? If you don't have an account with any of these services let me know and I'll shoot you a note from my gmail account so you can respond with your info.

Re: SiMo, a Retrospective

zacharye — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:31:40 -0000

Thanks for the kind words! Well, right now my daily carrier is a BlackBerry Bold but rest assured that has nothing to do with shutting down the blog. The decision to close SiMo was made about a month ago actually. I also still have an N95-4 and an E71, though I'll likely ditch the E71 since the Bold renders it pretty useless...

Re: Nokia Kills N96 Before It’s Born?

zacharye — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:06:26 -0000

I've tried to stay away from this conversation but I'll throw in my $0.02 now...

AAS is a fantastic resource and Steve is as good as they come in terms of authorities on S60 but the the statement quoted above is subjective. It all relates to personal usage. What are "power hungry activities" and what is "a full day"?

If Steve is listening to music with the default player, browsing the web and using the default email client over 3G, etc he will certainly experience better battery life than someone who often streams Slingbox and internet radio over WiFi, uses SEVEN for email, Nokia Maps often for navigation, etc.

Personally, I was not impressed at all with the battery when I tested the N96. I found that it didn't even last as long as my N95 8GB which is a handset that is already bordering on unusable battery life. After about 5 hours of SEVEN email, some live video streaming, web browsing, talking, etc I was down to 3 bars on the N96 and had to use it sparingly. By the time I got home a few hours later I was getting battery low messages. Unacceptable, for my personal usage.

Re: SiMo, a Retrospective

zacharye — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:26:53 -0000

Thanks for the kind words Stefan. Good luck with your new endeavor - Nokia certainly has its work cut out for it if it hopes to remain competitive in the smartphone market but the good news is that it's in a hell of a position to turn things around on the innovation front.

Re: SiMo, a Retrospective

zacharye — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:07:02 -0000

Thanks Eric - I'm glad to hear you say that! When I started the blog, that was a very big reason. I found tons of blogs that recycled each other's news but very few that went deep into individual applications in order to show customers the many, many possibilities that apps might afford them.

As I'm sure you've noticed however, I haven't had time to create in depth posts like I have in the past and that was another reason for closing this blog - no time to create the kind of posts I wanted to create. Hopefully someone out there will pick up the slack. ;)