JasonW informs me that Coffin Dodgers is actually being pirated (as opposed to being listed on sites that don’t actually have it). It’s here if you’re interested, although the download links try to get you to sign up for things you don’t need and install things you don’t want.
The book is also available legally on Amazon, of course. Only 99p!
Unscrupulous app developers are in the news again today, with parents suffering “bill shock” when the kids buy expensive in-game items without the parents’ permission. There’s a setting in iOS that makes such things possible even if you don’t share your password with your kids, and it’s a good idea to change it.
It’s in Settings > General > Restrictions > Allowed Content (I’m assuming you’ve already used Restrictions to set some parental controls; if not, you need to click Enable Restrictions in here). By default In-App Purchases are enabled, and where it says Require Password, the default is 15 minutes. What that means is that if you enter your password to download a free app, the password is then stored for fifteen minutes – and during that period apps can sell expensive in-app purchases without asking for the password. Some kid-targeted apps are well aware of that.
The simplest thing to do is to disable in-app purchases altogether, but if you don’t want to do that then you really ought to change the Require Password setting.
This is just lovely. One of AMOK’s stand-out tracks stripped down to a single voice and piano.
(From ITV’s Jonathan Ross show, May 2013)
A fun wee thing I did for Techradar: ten digital-age dodos.
Paul Carr of NSFWCorp on the problem with some paywalls:
Porous paywalls for journalism make as much sense as a coffee shop giving free lattes to anyone who comes in just twice a week but then charging fifty dollars a cup on the third visit. That’s a hell of a loyalty scheme, and a great way to encourage people to settle for just a couple of free cups of coffee rather than drinking more and having to pay.
Me on Techradar, writing about real world retailers’ troubles.
In recent months we’ve seen lots of big names go belly up, citing too-high rates, rents and parking charges, as well as Amazon’s tax avoidance and dodgy downloads. There’s no doubt that it’s tough out there, and of course every retail job loss is a tragedy for the people put out of work.
But it’d help if some businesses’ strategy for combating the internet threat wasn’t “deliver the most miserable shopping experience imaginable”.
I blogged about an Eels gig seven years ago, and not much has changed: I still love Eels and I hate gigs. Last night’s show was a belter, although if you hadn’t heard the new album you’d be a bit lost: E’s gone for a garagey, three-guitar line-up this time around and the set was heavy on the new stuff (although there was time for some superb covers: Itchycoo Park and Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well). If you’re seeing them on this tour, just one bit of advice: don’t head out when the house lights go up.
Apple’s Phil Schiller slags off Samsung, so of course Apple is doomed. Me at Techradar:
You see exactly the same in music (“Our album’s going to be so much better than theirs“), and in boxing (“I am really good at punching people, and he isn’t”), and in supermarkets (“We’re cheaper than them, and our food isn’t made of horse!”).
Some parents let their kids use apps. Everybody panic! Me, at Techradar:
My daughter’s been using gadgets since she was two. Kids’ ebooks from the likes of Oliver Jeffers and Nosy Crow are wonderful things. We’re using apps such as Mathboard to help her learn arithmetic. We have dozens of great apps for kids that enable her to do arty, crafty things without getting paint, glue or glitter on the dogs. We use Google Image Search to find pictures of things she wants to know about. She records her own voiceovers for talking books.
It’s part of a wider mix that involves stacks of books, real-world arts and crafts, day trips to interesting places, nightly question and answer sessions and lots of conversations, and if from time to time she wants to watch Fairly Odd Parents on Netflix when I’m making the dinner then that’s fine by me.
Traditional publishers promise quality: you can be sure that when you buy a real book it’ll be properly edited. Increasingly I’m finding that isn’t the case. For example, I’m reading the current Peter Robinson paperback (Watching The Dark) and there are jarring typos and comma abuse that really shouldn’t have made it through the editing process.
This is a real sentence:
The place was busy, a popular destination for the post work crowd on a Friday, but a lot of people liked to stand at the bar and relax, so they found a quiet round, copper-topped table looking out onto the market square, which was in that in-between period after work, so few shoppers were around, but after play, so the young revellers hadn’t arrived yet.