I've been looking for an iTunes plugin that will post my currently playing tunes to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Surprisingly, there is somewhat of a void in the market for this.
Finally I found Now Playing by Brandon Fuller! What an excellent app.
It does just what I wanted. Publishes your music to Facebook and Twitter, and for $15 it is well worth everything that it does. If, like me, your friends like to know what you are listening to, give it a try, and tell Brandon you heard about it from me.
First, Merry Christmas! Now, my "bah humbug"!
I despise adware. Its not that it is evil, in and of itself. Its just that, well, it is irritating to be exposed to someone's attempt at persuading me that I need to buy something. Look, if I have a need for something, it is quite simple to research the existing products that fulfill that need, decide and make the purchase. Do we really need to put up with the corporate propaganda stream just to use otherwise "free" software?
Since NetNewsWire switched their model to adware, I'd been looking for something to replace it. Why didn't I just pay the fee to remove the ads, you may ask? Because Newsgator doesn't offer that option. Nope, if you want to use NetNewsWire you must eat their adstream while doing it.
I had used Vienna before. It wasn't as polished then, but they have done some great work and now it is, for my needs, every bit as good as NetNewsWire. The fact that it isn't adware made the choice simple. The interface is simple and clean and serves my purposes very well.
Some features:
- Subscribe to Atom/RSS news feeds and podcasts.
- Simple and intuitive user interface with customisable toolbar.
- Built-in tabbed browser.
- Global search of all retrieved articles.
- Automatic detection of newsfeeds on web pages.
- Smart folders for organising related feed articles.
- Custom article display styles.
- Three separate reading layouts.
- Blogging integration.
- Support for downloading enclosures in articles
- Filter the displayed articles.
- Manual reordering of the subscription list.
- Full AppleScript support.
- Localised into several languages.
So if you are tired of being forced to eat ads while reading your RSS feeds, switch to Vienna. You'll be glad you did.
Tags: adware, vienna, netnewswire, newsgator, rss readers, feed readers
If you are getting this error message when trying to use RoR ActiveRecord, there is a simple workaround… read on.
MySQL has a problem with how Rails sends the username and password when initiating the connection through the socket.
A quick fix/workaround is to create a MySQL user without a password. Add it to your database.yml file and restart your Mongrel/Webrick server.
Working on shopping cart abandonment solutions every day allows me to see the best and worst cart designs and everything in between. Here are six tips that I would give to every shopping cart designer to help them stay out of the latter category.
- Remove Obstacles – Remove as many obstacles, and steps, as possible in the process from product selection to order completion. This is pretty general but sometimes it is not so obvious. The concept of a shopping cart is not complex. It should be a mechanism to allow a shopper to select multiple products then purchase them with a single transaction. The process should be as quick and painless as possible for both anonymous and registered shoppers. Think of every click and keypress, selecting product to checkout process, as an obstacle. Remove the ones that are not absolutely necessary.
<li><strong>Enable the Anonymous Shopper</strong> – Don’t require the shopper to register with the site in order to purchase something. If we visit our local drugstore to purchase a birthday card for a relative, does the clerk ask us to register for an account first? Probably not. Many online stores ask the shopper to register for an account before completing their order— and while there are benefits to promoting shopper registration (see next tip), requiring it raises cart abandonment rates.</li>
<li><strong>Empower the Registered Shopper</strong> – Optional user registration is a good thing, but probably not for the reasons most people think. The registration process should first and foremost provide benefits to the shopper, vendor (site owner) benefits are secondary. Make registration appealing by allowing registered users to complete purchases quicker. After all, if a registered user logs in, we already have much of their information and email address. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a> does a great job in this category. Not only do they provide a “one-click” ordering option for registered shoppers, they keep track of the types of things we buy and present cross-sell/up-sell product as we shop. Most brick-and-mortar stores offer a discount if we have a “frequent-shopper” (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining">data-mining</a>) card. E-commerce can do the same thing for registered users.</li>
<li><strong>Streamline the Registration Process</strong> – Make the registration process part of the shopping cart. We are collecting billing and shipping information from the shopper anyway. Ask them if they want to save it so they don’t have to enter it again. If they agree, store their information. The next time they login to purchase we use their information to fill-in billing and shipping details by default, which they can change if desired.</li>
<li><strong>Provide a Persistent Cart</strong> – If the shopper puts items in their cart, closes the browser without completing a purchase, then comes back to the site later, their shopping cart should contain the same items. Cart persistence can be accomplished through the use of persistent cookies. It may also be beneficial to look for the shopping cart id within the <span class="caps">HTTP</span> request itself. In this way we can send an email to the shopper containing a link back to the cart with an embedded cart id. This emailed link can even be used from a different computer or browser that doesn’t contain the cookie.</li>
<li><strong>Collect Email Address First</strong> – Too often anonymous users are asked for their email address last. This is a mistake because the email address is the only “single piece” of information we can use to contact the shopper after they abandon their cart. If we collect email address up front, the shopper may abandon but we can send them an email prompting them to return to complete their purchase. We can even offer them a discount.</li>