It is curious that on this page, Apple says "Watch the film to learn more" and "Watch the announcement film" whereas they always use the term "video" (or "movie" where appropriate) everywhere else in all their messaging, as far as I've noticed. I wonder what they're thinking?
PayPal is horrible, both as a merchant and a customer. In every single way possible. From APIs to service, to explanations to everything. It's time for someone else to take their place and everyone stop using PayPal.
The term “App Store” wasn’t a thing until Marc Benioff creates it, abandoning the mark to Apple in 2008 when he and Steve Jobs discusses it (Benioff gave App Store to Apple and Salesforce used the more enterprise-sounding AppExchange.) The only reason that phrase became “generic” is because Apple made it into a household name. It wasn’t like people were using App Store in conversation until Apple’s App Store became a thing. Claiming it’s generic is a weak argument because that term as a description of a store used to sell computer programs didn’t happen until Benioff and Apple. You didn’t get “bullied”: you were using a phrase that had a valid trademark issued, knowing good and well that it was an Apple trademark. And, at the time of the trademark filing, it was anything but generic. It wasn’t like the term “Coffee Shop” which has been in common use for a very long time. App Store has a very specific meaning: it referred to Apple’s App Store, that others have attempted to use it doesn’t make it less novel. It was novel at the time of filing. It would be like trying to challenge the copyright on Kleenex or Chlorox: names that are in very common use, but common use arguments don’t work retroactively, which is what you seemed to have been arguing: “App Store is in common use so I should be able to use it.” It came into common use after Apple trademarked it, that doesn’t weaken the original filing. You could have used Application Shop, App Shop, App Emporium — a myriad of options. Instead, you specifically wanted Apple’s mark because Apple had done the work to legitimize the term so you wouldn’t have had to. You weren’t bullied: the trademark is valid and you infringed it. That it’s being challenged now is of no consequence— the mark is still, at present, valid.
I remember this. You have the link change names every time you refresh the page. I couldn't believe that app store was something they wanted to copyright. It's literally short for Application Store. I always thought if you had someone sell your product on dedicated hardware it might work, but then that's a ton of overhead. :/
Amahi | Front End, Design and RoR full-stack |Contract | REMOTE | https://www.amahi.org
Looking for help in implementing wizard-style functionality (maybe a small SPA) to existing RoR app. Also, help with modernization existing open source RoR app. message jobs at domain
I started playing tennis and I loved it. It's non-contact, you have to be thinking all the time and it's outside (often in the sun). I am happy when I play (or even watch) tennis.
Then (warning, plug ahead) I started a D3.js project (to keep skills fresh) to visualize data about tennis strings and rackets[1] to understand them better, ...
... which devolved in keeping my rackets/strings on that same app, which later open to others ...
... which devolved in starting a flex tennis league in my region (SF Bay Area)[2], ...
... which devolved into starting a small business to automate tedious and time consuming tasks at small racket-sport shops (and maybe others in the future)[3].
I'm so happy with projects that get a life of their own!
Watching comedy and writing comedy also makes me happy.
Microsoft did the same thing way back with CPUID .. when it was Intel, it worked well. Otherwise (AMD, Transmeta), they would use very inefficient operations instead of SSE (IIRC), slowing down benchmarks that used media (like players, etc) and Photoshop. This is from a distant life in the past, but I think it was not limited to use of SSE.
I relied on this "light" publishing for a few things and I'm quite pissed off. I did not notice any notification on this.
To me, this should be done very very visibly and with tons of warnings. I used it to communicate screenshots with details, etc. Now all links are broken and I'm SOL with no viable solution to changing those links from documents, bugs, etc., etc.
Oh, they definitely notified their users. There were emails and warnings in the UI, it was very visible. Really, you can't blame Dropbox there.
However, one can still blame Dropbox for the change itself. I used this on several occasions, including hosting archives for academic publications. No way in hell I can change those links. Maybe that wasn't a wise choice, but at that time it looked like a good way: The link did not give a clue about my identity, making peer review easier, and DB being a well-funded and known internet company those links were surely meant to work forever, cool URLs don't change is something they had to know. Boy was I wrong.
There was an email in mid December 2016, another one at the beginning of March 2017, and if I remember correctly, one even before that. I'm not even a Pro user.
Confirming, I got mail on Dec 16 and Mar 03 notifying me of this. (Pro User, they renewed my account automatically on Dec 01, which annoyed me somewhat... "Here' we're taken your payment, but failed to mention to you we were announcing in two weeks the removal of the most useful bit to you from the service you're paying for! Have a nice day!"
> Maybe that wasn't a wise choice, but at that time it looked like a good way: The link did not give a clue about my identity, making peer review easier, and DB being a well-funded and known internet company those links were surely meant to work forever, cool URLs don't change is something they had to know. Boy was I wrong.
I also fell into the trap (back when I had an active Dropbox account) of using the Public folder and sharing links from there. At some point along the way, Dropbox started allowing one to share single files from any private folder without exposing the rest of the folder to the audience, and I started using that method instead. Still, even if I had stayed with Dropbox I probably would have some orphaned /Public links out there somewhere, thanks to this change.
I think we both could have avoided that trap by setting up a small storage VPS with a provider like Digital Ocean or Vultr and installing a document management system. It would still be fairly anonymous; a truly determined detective could find the owner but it would likely require a subpoena, which Dropbox would have been vulnerable to as well.
> I think we both could have avoided that trap by setting up a small storage VPS with a provider like Digital Ocean or Vultr and installing a document management system.
That can break though. And admittedly, I didn't want to have costs for this, especially not re-occuring, being a student at the time. I could have asked my university/IT to take care of this, but that would have meant bureaucracy and a long waiting time, time I did not have.
I wasn't even an active DB user at that time anymore, having moved away when Condoleezza Rice joined. But the way they are handling this I only get more convinced that was the right choice. It is one thing removing functionality, it is another breaking links. At least they should have a way to manually share files, and let them have the exact same link they had before. But I guess that is only of interest for people with an interest in technology, a demographic DB is not interested in anymore.
Even worse: the new "shared links" do not work for hotlinking photos, which is the only use I had for them. I understand Dropbox may not like this kind of traffic, but it still sucks they removed the functionality.
Anecdotally speaking, also didn't get any notifications about this.
I have an email about the new ToS 12/28, and a research survey request on 12/11, plus the regular login emails I receive, but absolutely nothing about this over the last few months.
I also just checked, and my public folder has been downgraded to a regular one, so I am part of the post-2012 signups.
I am a Dropbox Plus user. I never received any emails. I just checked and the email address that dropbox has is correct. This change breaks the links to PDFs of some papers and posters that I presented at scientific meetings a few years ago. I didn't expect the links to last forever, but it's still a shame.
They probably should have had some warning on the app itself when putting or sharing files from that folder.
It's a free service, so my bad for using it without a good backup, but I had used programs for a long long time that produce screenshots with one keystroke and copy the URL to the clipboard, saving time.
I figured this was relatively low overhead for them and a popular feature, so they would keep it. Lesson learned ..
I got (and noticed the email), but putting notification in the app or website would have most likely gone completely unnoticed for me. The nice thing about Dropbox (for me) is that it vanishes completely to me. It's just another folder on my Macs that "magically" has the same stuff everywhere, and in my phone/tablets I pretty much exclusively use it's other-app-integration. I can't remember the last time I opened the Dropbox app or visited the site.
I got a notification about ToS change on Dec 21st, but it doesn't mention any features going away, mostly changes to which profile information will be displayed in various situations.
Looking over the past 6 months, I don't have anything else but "Hey, you added a new device to Dropbox!"
Nope - only the business plan - my Pro Plan (which they rebilled two weeks before announcing this change) has also just broken all its public folder links...)
