Not too long ago I wrote in a post (How can we take back our privacy?) about the option of expiring our online data, and now some Germans decided to provide software called “X-pire!”, which expires images after a period of time. Still not solving the problem of saving the image and re-posting it, but “a journey of a thousand miles” and so on and so forth :)
Dindy One Month After Turning Free
Sometimes you have to experience something to really learn a lesson. I heard before about the Hershey’s Kiss experiment and the vast difference between dirt cheap and free, but I had to see it with my own eyes.
Before Dindy was free it cost 0.80 USD and I had around one download per day for a little over a year. Now, after making it free, Dindy gets downloaded 50 times every day. So in one month it went up from 366 to 1924 downloads with 784 active installs (40%.) Dindy’s rating remains around the same (4.25 out of 5), which is good.
Users are offering good enhancements and I’m trying to keep them happy. In the past I refused to do reply-to-SMS in Dindy because Google removed SMS capturing and reading from the API in the first Android release and, for some strange reason, never brought it back. So while it’s still possible to read SMS messages programmatically there’s no official support and applications using it may break at any time. Now that Dindy is free I don’t mind adding it and the next update will probably have reply-to-SMS (the texter will get a message telling him/her to call in order to make the phone wake up from silent.)
I put up a donation button on Dindy’s website but so far I got no donations. I’m still considering a donation button inside the app.
I’m Wrong. You’re Wrong. Everybody’s Wrong
Following the latest xkcd strip I went on to read the list of common misconceptions on Wikipedia. Just pick a subject and enjoy waving your beliefs goodbye.
And because it’s on Wikipedia it must be true, right?
Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Un Escorpion Perfumado
The December release. Wonderful.
(This post contains an embedded player. If you’re using an RSS reader you might not be able to see it)
How Can We Take Back Our Privacy?
Privacy has become a huge issue. We get free (or cheap) and useful services in return for information about us and the potential uses of this information are becoming more frightening over time. If you don’t have anything to hide you might think this is OK, but what if someday someone will make use of the information you shared to do something you don’t approve of? The problem is that you can’t take it back. You can’t have your information withdrawn to get your privacy again, not even if you give up on the services that you got in return.
So I’ve been wondering if there’s a way, without legal assistance, to create a software mechanism that would allow us to take back our privacy. For example, let’s say I decide to close my Google account. I would like then all the data Google has on me to become undecipherable to them or to anyone else.
Unfortunately my thoughts on this led me to realize that this is a lot like DRM, which has failed miserably so far as people find the keys required to decipher the information eventually. But I’m still wondering whether this could work somehow.
Idea: “Messages For Me”
This is an old school web 1.0 idea I had over the weekend. It’s very simple: let’s say you want to leave a message for someone, anonymously or not. You go into the website, put in the person’s email address and the message. The person doesn’t receive any notification about this, and can only see his/her messages if they go to the website and enter their email address. That’s it.
What is it good for? With all the connectivity among people and now that every website has “social” features, there’s no way for a simple “message in a bottle” kind of a gesture in today’s Internet.
Like I said… old school.
Education Is The Antidote To War
Just sharing an idea from one of my favorite authors. Move along. Nothing to see :)
You Know You’ve Been Using Your Smartphone For A While When…
…. it takes you a second to realize you have to physically press down a resistive touchscreen to get a response.
(either that or I’m just getting old)
Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group – ใฉใใใใใพใใฆ
I’ve been a fan of The Mars Volta for quite some time now. While waiting for their upcoming (6th studio) album, I listen to one of Omar Rodriguez Lopez (The Mars Volta’s dictator) albums. Rodriguez Lopez has been releasing many (free to listen) albums lately, that are very different in style and sound. The latest one, which I really like, is a live recording called ใฉใใใใใพใใฆ (“You’re Welcome” in Japanese).
(This post contains an embedded player. If youโre using an RSS reader you might not be able to see it)
Dindy Is Now Free
After over a year of selling Dindy, without much success, I finally made it free. In that year 366 people downloaded Dindy, 105 (28%) kept it on their device, 74 cancelled their order (to get the refund) and 187 paid for it and later on uninstalled it without getting their money back.
Dindy’s rating in the market is 4.26/5, which is pretty good. I hope it will keep this rating now that it’s free. Well, first it has to be downloaded :) I want to see what will come out of it. If it will be popular, I’ll add the option to donate money.