What Up Derek?

I remember a long time ago, about 3 to 4 years, when I was very young and naive. Strolling through life without a care. I had a PSP, living away from home (at Cole’s), working at Michael’s. Does it get any better?!

One thing I can recall about that time was a lot of my heroes in tech were talking about this movie being made; Serenity. “Serenity”? What the hell is this “Serenity”. Months passed without another thought on the subject. Eventually it hit theatres. I recalled all the talk about it on TWIT and other various podcasts. I figured I should check it out, but didn’t place too much concern on it. A couple weeks and I still hadn’t seen it. It came down to the last day, and I was trying to make it to a showing, but fate had other plans for me. I ended up missing it, but at the time I wasn’t too disappointed. Critics were giving it bad reviews and it was out of theatres so fast I had figured it was a flop.

About a year goes by and I decide to rent it on an off chance after reading some more about Serenity and Firefly. Needless to say it blew me away. It was one of if not the best sci-fi flicks I have ever seen! I loved every second of that film. I got the Firefly series the next day and watched it through in a few days.

Getting introduced to this universe has been great. It was so easy to become close with the characters (as it is with any of Joss Whedon’s creations). It’s fun following the actors around and to see them in other projects (Castles, Chuck…). While I dig them in these other projects they’ll always be Mal, or Jane or River to me.

I was inspired to write about my little history with the show and movie because I get to make up for my gross mistake. I get to see Serenity on the big screen! It’s one of my favorite things about living in Boston. Every once in a while the Coolidge Corner Theathre has a midnight screening of Serenity! So while the show is canceled and the studios have moved on, it’s great to see such a strong community can still keep this great series alive.

maniacalrage:

A little over a week and a half ago, Google blocked Ego from getting XML reports from Analytics. Every user’s GA widgets stopped working (they started reporting all zeros). I panicked, tried to figure out how to get around this problem, and eventually talked to Google and they helped me solve it (I can’t say exactly how yet, but nevertheless Ego now has as close to “official” GA support as there can be in 3rd-party app). I submitted the update to Apple. Now, of course, I wait.

And what does waiting mean? As I’ve said before, it means tons of email a day and tons of bad reviews. It means answering the same question (“My GA widgets all report zero… what gives??”) 20 times a day. It means watching negative reviews pour in. Here are some excerpts from lovely recent reviews:

I feel this app was misrepresented.

Pretty disappointing.

Its best feature is junked. Don’t represent your product as doing something it can’t.

But my favorite part of this whole experience is that there’s no way for me to respond to reviews as the app creator. So I can’t go in and say, “Hey, by the way, version 1.3 fixes all this and we’re just waiting on Apple’s ridiculously slow and convoluted approval process!” I just sit by and watch.

Or, even worse, I try to help via support and get punished for it. When the GA thing started happening, someone created a support thread on Get Satisfaction about the issue. Awesome, that’s exactly why I have GS set up. A bunch of people me-too’d it, and added comments. I responded with updates and then, after I submitted version 1.3, marked it as solved with a simple statement that 1.3 fixed it and was awaiting approval. I also created 3 company announcements saying the same thing.

But that wasn’t enough for a user who came to GS, didn’t read anything, and posted a new support thread about the same issue. So I marked it as solved, said it was a duplicate of a previous thread, and that it was fixed in 1.3. The user responded with a comment:

Oh, I’m supposed to read all the other support requests marked “this problem is resolved?” Sorry. It’s still not resolved for me.

Apparently they didn’t understand that “solved” was a relative term. Yes, sure, it’s not solved for you right now, but my resolution was pretty clear—it’s solved in the version Apple is looking at. JUST HOLD TIGHT. I thought this was enough. But no.

I wake up this morning to find that user has submitted the following review in the iTunes Store:

I bought this because it claimed to support GA. It worked for me one time the day I bought it and hasn’t worked since. I posted to their support forum and was berated for not reading this long and confusing thread about how it is supposed to be working, or it will work again soon, or something. I feel like the software developer did a poor job building and testing this, and now they’re willing to blame the users for their own mistakes.

This kind of thing continually reinforces something I’ve thought about a lot since the App store was released, which sounds horrible to say but it might be true: Apple is creating an ecosystem of the kind of customers I don’t want. With the ridiculous approval process leaving bugfixes to take over a week to show up, with prices being driven down to nothing by farting apps… it just feels hostile to me. While I have plenty of great customers who have been raving about the app, all it takes is one little issue and it all comes crashing down.

I’m far more likely to get 15 one-star reviews when something goes wrong than I am to get 15 five-star reviews when everything goes right. Perhaps it’s just frustration speaking here, but when Apple ties my hands behind my back and lets users punch me publicly in the face without allowing me to at least respond back, it’s hard to get excited about building an app.

Sorry to hear he’s having such a hard time. It’s a really great app, and it’s a disappointment that trolls are trash talking it.

Just signed up for the iphone developer program. I know I will run in to the same issues, but what are you going to do? The price to play the game, but hopefully it will be worth it.

Going to file a bug report with radar to help with the cause!

heyheyrain:

I intended on finishing my bridal gown today, but it was so nice out! It is finally spring, and everyone was instantly happier. I put the lining in, finished the petal skirt, and put the zipper in, but the zipper was sticking, and split. So over cheap invisible zippers. Tomorrow I am going to Winmil just for a regular zipper, and I think after this, i’ll be done pretty soon. It is coming out great, and I can’t wait to finish.

Happy spring!

Rain’s gown is coming along great. It looks really wonderful; hopefully she posts pictures soon.

Sneak peek!!!

dalasverdugo:

joewengert:

Omegle is a chat site that picks another user at random and lets you have a one-on-one anonymous chat with a complete stranger.

I have spent too much time doing this today.

——

Stranger: hi
You: YOU HAVE SELECTED A TEXT BASED ADVENTURE
You: you are in a warehouse
You: do you want to turn on the lights or look in the boxes?
Stranger: look in the boxes
You: you have looked in the boxes
You: you are still in a warehouse
You: do you want to turn on the lights or look in the boxes?
Stranger: turn on the lights
You: you have turned on the lights
You: you are still in a warehouse
You: do you want to turn off the lights or look in the boxes?
Stranger: I already looked in the boxes and turned on the lights
You: INVALID ENTRY
You: do you want to turn off the lights or look in the boxes?
Stranger: look in the boxes
You: you have looked in the boxes
You: you are still in a warehouse
You: do you want to turn off the lights or look in the boxes?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

hahaha.