Mike Cohen

U CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER NAO!

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I Can Has Cheezburger ad free 1.5.1 (actually 1.5.2, which I replaced while 1.5.1 was still in review) is now ready for sale. The free version, which I submitted at the same time, is still in review, although the old version 1.5 is available again.

You can download ICHC (ad-free) here, or if you prefer the free version, download it here.

New features in this version:

  • Shake to shuffle
  • Movies show web page immediately instead of click to play graphic
  • Action sheet no longer shows ‘save to photos’ for movies
  • Can now email images rather than just links in OS 3.0
  • Allows you to log into ICHC (pro version only)
  • Supports movies from Viddler at FAILblog and other sites

Note that not all Viddler movies are playable; the person who created it has to specifically enable downloading for it to work.

App Store Tip

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If you remove an application from sale, updating it does NOT automatically make it available again. You need to go to “manage your applications” in iTunes Connect, click on “Edit information”, go to the pricing tab, and select any stores you want to sell it in. After you save changes, it will show up as ‘ready for sale’ on your application page. You can also do this without updating the application or if it’s still in review. This is hidden in the FAQ.

I made both I Can Has Cheezburger (ad free) 1.5.2 and ICHC ad supported 1.5 (v1.5.2 is still in review) available a few hours ago. It still hasn’t appeared yet, but hopefully they should be available before too long.

U CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER! (almost?)

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I just got an email from Apple saying that I Can Has Cheezburger (ad free) is ready for sale. Nothing about the free version, which I submitted at the same time.

However, as of 11PM (3 hours after I received the email), it still shows ‘removed by developer’. Something is badly screwed up. I had pulled the previous version while waiting for this update to be approved, but it changed from ‘in review’ to ‘removed by developer’ rather than being ‘available for sale’.

Unexpected additional time

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For anyone who hasn’t kept up with my saga, I got a call from Apple Monday telling me exactly how I should rate ICHC and what changes I should make to the description. I did everything exactly as they requested and resubmitted it.

Today, I got the following email from the app store reviewer:

Dear Mike,

Your application, I Can Has Cheezburger (Ad Free) 1.5.1, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

Building a community site with Google Apps

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Several years ago I set up a community site for my condo using Drupal. Not too many people used it and eventually it was overrun with spam. The discussion forums were used for personal attacks & name calling. I finally got tired of dealing with the spam and cleaning up the forum, so I shut it down. Recently a few people started noticing it was down and wanted it back.

I didn’t want to keep using Drupal, since it’s unfamiliar for most people and can be difficult to maintain. I looked at Joomla, but it seemed a lot less flexible and even more difficult to maintain. Finally, I decided the best solution was to use Google Apps.

If you’re using Dreamhost, it’s very easy to set up your domain to use Google Apps; You simply click a checkbox in the domain setting.

The major features we wanted for our site are a calendar to post events, a place to post announcements, and documents for residents & potential residents to view & download. Google Apps can do all of those things very nicely. It’s a lot easier for staff & board members to simply upload a document rather than compose a post in Drupal.

New Peter Gabriel album (sort of)

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Somehow I missed this one, but last year Peter Gabriel released an album called Big Blue Ball. It’s not really a Peter Gabriel album; it’s a Peter Gabriel project involving lots of musicians from around the world including Sinead O’Connor, Deep Forest, Natacha Atlas, Papa Wemba, Marta Sebestyen, Billy Cobham, Hossam Ramzy, Jah Wobble, and many others. Peter Gabriel provides his own vocals in many of the songs. If you like Peter Gabriel & world music, buy this album NOW! Read more about the Big Blue Ball project here.

ICHC 1.5.2 resubmitted

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This morning I got a very nice call from an app store reviewer at Apple telling me that I needed to remove the wording from the application descriptions which said that Apple requires a 17+ rating, and also how I should adjust the rating so it will be 17+.

After that call I readjusted the rating so it now specifies “frequent/intense crude humor” & “frequent/intense mature themes”, which gives it a 17+ rating as required. Since a 17+ rating can’t be avoided, I re-submitted my original 1.5.2 version without the “g-rated” filter. Hopefully this version won’t be delayed much longer.

The movie studios have their heads up their ass

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Via Macatron – Unleash Your Mac:

Movie piracy is a problem, but it’s not as huge of a problem as music piracy was this past decade. While certainly the size of the movie files and the need for fast broadband connections to get them in a reasonable amount of time plays into it somewhat, also helping is the fact that there are some fairly decent ways to get movies quickly, for a pretty fair price these days. And now Hollywood is apparently trying to change that.

The studios are starting to rally around a horrible new idea: Keeping new releases out of Redbox and more importantly, Netflix for 30 days. Let me repeat that: They think Netflix shouldn’t be able to ship many new movies to you until 30 days after they’re released on DVD.

Now, this doesn’t appear to be set in stone yet for Netflix, as the studios are said to be currently negotiating this with the company, but it is what the studios want. And the strategy is going forward with Redbox, which recently filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox over the same issue. And now, with Universal and Warner Brothers getting on board, another lawsuit seems likely.

And in a move that couldn’t be less surprising, Blockbuster is on the wrong side of this. Despite the company having a strategy to do a massive roll-out of kiosks like the ones Redbox has, it is all in favor of the 30-day window, based on comments CEO Jim Keyes made during its Q2 earnings call.

Here’s a revolutionary idea: let people buy movies as soon as they’re released and make it as easy as possible for people to buy movies legally. As Apple proved with the iTunes Store, if you make it easy enough to buy music (or movies) legally and keep the price as low as possible, there will be less reason to pirate music & movies. The majority of people will do whatever is easiest, as long as the price is reasonable.

Sure it will reduce the studios profit margins, but it will mean less piracy and more legal sales. They’ll have to learn to streamline their operation and reduce their distribution costs so they could still make a good profit.

Why I switched to CrashPlan

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For a long time I’ve been using a Drobo connected to my Airport Extreme base station as a backup drive for Time Machine. I know it’s not a supported configuration, but it’s a lot more practical than having to keep an external drive plugged in to my MacBook Pro, which I often move around so I can work in different rooms. There is no good reason it shouldn’t work the same way a Time Capsule does. I don’t like the Time Capsule because it uses a single drive and can’t be expanded like the Drobo.

It works most of the time, but after a while it gets very slow and once in a while it corrupts my backup sparse image. After using it for several months, a single backup often takes longer than a day and if I put my MacBook Pro to sleep when it’s preparing or finishing a backup, that backup fails. The last few times it took over a week to successfully complete a single backup.

After my backup image got completely trashed and couldn’t be repaired, I decided to look for other backup options. CrashPlan is the best backup solution I’ve found for several reasons. Like Time Machine, CrashPlan runs continuously in the background. CrashPlan maintains multiple versions of files and can restore a particular version.

Unlike many other backup programs such as Mozy which are tied to a particular online service, CrashPlan gives you several options for backing up. In addition to CrashPlan’s own CrashPlan Central online backup service, you can back up to any folder (including a mounted server volume such as my Drobo) or another computer running CrashPlan. You can also invite friends to back up to your computer or back up to a friend’s computer. You can even back up to multiple destinations at the same time.

After trying it for a few days, I upgraded to CrashPlan+, which backs up continuously instead of once a day. I’m still on my 30-day free trial of CrashPlan Central, but I will probably opt for their $100/year family plan, which will let me back up multiple computers.