Sulka's Game

Google Analytics Mobile Carrier tracking inconsistency

2010-02-06T19:32:01Z

Small FYI for anyone using Google Analytics. GA recently launched a new exciting mobile tracking feature. Now, the carrier is apparently detected based on the IP number of the device when the tracking hit was made. Unfortunately, this means devices using WiFi are detected to be operated by whomever owns the hot spot you're using at the moment. Noticed this when checking a tracker that's only been accessed by myself, and I can see my iPhone being listed under a couple carriers, but none of those is Sonera, who has exclusive rights to iPhone in Finland.

I can't see how else Google could detect the carriers though, so I guess the same data quality issue will be present in all carrier trackers, unless they specifically discard data from sessions happening over WiFi.

iPad really wants to live in the cloud

2010-02-05T21:40:29Z

Looking at everything I know about the iPad, there's a piece missing from the puzzle: will iPad require a computer host to work to the full extent? Is it Apple's vision that a host will be required in the future?

I'm fairly sure Apple is working hard already the break iPad free from the USB syncing. After all, as long a you need a computer in addition to an iPad, it's just an accessory to a computer, and not a computing device in it's own right. iPhone is an amazing device, but downright crippled unless you plug the USB onto your computer (of which you can only use one at a time as the lord and master of the phone) pretty often.

About a year ago, I saw a video (from the CEO of Finnish Microsoft, no less) that depicted Microsoft's vision of where they want to be with data synchronization. The video depicted a building site where a happy construction manager managed the project on a tablet device. The dude then went on to have the tablet accidentally crushed by a bulldozer, but, no worry! He just borrowed another tablet, signed in with his Live account and lo and behold, his desktop appeared as it was, with all data intact.

I think that's where Apple would like to be with iPad.

No going home to synchronize the device with your computer after purchase.

The way it should work is, you walk into the Apple Store, pick up your iPad, sign in with your Apple ID, and start listening to your music collection. Or editing your iWork documents and checking your email. It's that simple.

If there's a reason Apple bought Lala, or invest a billion bucks in a data warehouse in N.C., I think that's the reason.

And I hope it is, since that's the only way they can make iPad the mom and pap computer people are touting all over the web. I have a couple relatives I wouldn't mind switch over to use the iPad, but if they need to maintain a computer in addition to the pad, that's a lost cause. Cupertino, I hope you agree.

When platform goes bad

2010-01-29T07:19:22Z

Seems there's some trouble brewing at Facebook. I've no idea if this is specific to Finland in some way, but Facebook Connect has been going up and down for the past two weeks so I'm failing to authenticate using the feature and AJAX calls on my stream are failing to load.

I'm now trying to add a new email address to my account, and when I click the link on the verification email sent to my new address, register.facebook.com drops the connection on loading the confirmation page. I actually did get the page to load once, but the confirmation failed to be registered.

WatchMouse's API status claims Facebook's authentication API has been fairly stable, but I suspect the login API they're monitoring is not telling the actual truth.

I've had other people complain to me about this, so I know it's not just me.

For all I know, this could of course be some server that's gone bad in Facebook's cluster, which they're using for Finns. If I had to make a guess, this is caused by Facebook rolling out backend tech related to their upcoming changes, and something's gone wrong.

What this has caused though, is that my trust in Facebook's ability to maintain a platform stable enough to rely on as a business has been severely damaged. I was on my way to becoming a full time envangelist of the platform, but given my problems as a user, I'm not so sure anymore.

Notes on iPad

2010-01-28T10:42:57Z

So, iPad.

I'm definitely getting one immediately, and I can see the family ending up with two pretty quick after first device, if it works like I expect. One for me, one for home. Some observations, some of which I can't remember reading elsewhere. For other analysis on the device, I recommend reading Daring Fireball.

Kids

My daughter (1.5 years old) knows how to use the iPhone, as the pointing metaphor used in touch interfaces is the natural thing for her to do. I know she'll be able to use iPad immediately, and will absolutely love it.

Having said that, the biggest deterrent for content she likes will be the lack of Flash support on the device. Ideally this will mean there'll be a gold rush for kid content on the device, but I'm not sure devs will realize this. Time will show.

Flash

Aside from not having access to Poisson Rouge, the only Flash-based products that I can think of right now that I'll be missing are Habbo, and the video service from the Finnish National Broadcasting company YLE. Youtube now supports HTML5 video and seems to have an awesome native app, so they're covered.

Vast majority of Flash in the web is just poorly written ads, and I'm more than happy that the device doesn't run that crap. In fact, I have both an ad blocker as well as Click2Flash installed, and I've noticed there's no more than one or two Flash objects that I bump to daily, which I actively want to see.

So, I personally can't see lack of Flash as such a huge blocker. Time to be glad I'm not addicted to Farmville, I guess.

Charging

The charger outputs 10 watts. The battery has 10 hour lifespan at 25 watt-hour capacity. The interesting bit here is that charging the battery from empty to 100% will take 2.5 hours, or one quarter of the time you can use the device for in one charge.

This is a very, very long charge time compared to laptops. For the sake of reference, the 15" MacBook Pro has a 7 houts of life on 73-watt-hour batter, chargeable with a 85 watt charger, for about an hour's charge time.

What this will end up meaning is that if you're an active user of iPad and forget to put the device to charge in the evening, you're screwed the next day if you don't get an extended charging break.

Oh, and, you can forget about charging the device using the USB port on the computer. AFAIK Apple adheres to the 500 miliwatt spec on USB, meaning the charge time over regular USB would be 50 hours, so that's not an option.

Interestingly Apple doesn't disclose the wattage of the iPhone battery.

iPad Camera Connection Kit

Apple didn't particularly highlight the fact that they'll be selling an USB adapter and a memory card reader that allows you to download images from your camera to the device. This capability might not sound that huge, but if performance of the adapter is good, this is a killer feature for many people in itself.

Again, for a sake of reference, the Jobo GIGA Vu image tank with 40GB capacity is selling on Amazon for $460. If you get the features of this device by bundling the iPad with an adapter that costs a few bucks, the Jobo guys are screwed.

The one thing I can't verify is if I can tag photos I've downloaded. I'm really, really hoping Apple has given me meta-data editing capabilities in the device or at least enabled development of such apps, as I believe the touchscreen will allow for very efficient data entry. I totally hate the UI for meta-data editing in all photo management interfaces I've seen this far, and I have almost 100k images waiting for tagging.

A Finn convicted of WoW account theft

2009-10-29T13:30:25Z

Thought this might be an interesting precedent: A Finnish man was just convicted in in Finland of World of Warcraft account theft, and has to pay 4000 euros in compensation to the victim of the account theft. The really interesting bit is, the compensation sum was calculated based on the market value of the account if bought from the open market. I've no idea what the repercussions of this are on the longer run - if my account is now worth a couple thousand, could I sue Blizzard if I lost access due to their fault?

I can't find any English language news bits on this, will link if I do.

News at YLE, Taloussanomat in Finnish.

2009-10-26T13:31:01Z

Vili Lehdonvirta's Virtual Consumption PhD thesis is finally out. The VERN posting about the thesis links to a PDF version, so go get it!

The other side of iTunes Store

2009-10-15T17:03:07Z

Apple's been getting so much crap recently about problems with developer service with iTunes that I just had to share this bit of customer service I got as a customer of the store.

I sent the following two days ago to Apple's iTunes support:

Hi!

I just had iTunes 9 ask me to reauthorize my computer after an update and was surprised that iTunes claims I have 5 computers authorized. I'm currently using 3 authorized computers total, and I know I lost 1 authorization a few years ago when I sent my Powerbook for service and the replaced motherboard caused the authorization to disappear. However I'm at loss as to where the 1 additional authorization has gone, and it's a bit scary that I'm up to the max with just 3 machines running iTunes.

I tried an old workaround of trying to deauthorize the computer a couple times after the authorization to see if the count would have gone down, but that didn't help.

I wonder if you can see how many of the authorizations have been used recently? I'd at least assume you might be able to notice the authorization destroyed by Apple service hasn't been used for years, and clean that up from my count.

Thanks, Sulka

and got the following reply after a couple hours:

Dear Sulka,

I understand you are needing the computers on your account to be de-authorized. My name is XXX and I am more than happy to work with you until everything has been resolved to your satisfaction.

I have deauthorized all computers associated with your iTunes Store account. You can now reauthorize the computers that you intend to use.

... snip couple links to support articles ...

In the future, if you find you have reached 5 authorizations due to system upgrades, you can reset your authorization count by clicking "Deauthorize All" on the Edit Account Information screen. Keep in mind that you can only use this feature once a year. The button will not appear if you have less than 5 authorized computers or if you have used this option within the last 12 months.

I hope this helps you. If you need further assistance or have any questions, feel free to reply to this email and I will be happy to assist. It was a pleasure assisting you Sulka. We here at the iTunes Store appreciate your business.

Sincerely, XXX,  iTunes Store Customer Support

My expectation based on dealing with customer support of most companies was that I'd maybe get a reply a day or two later, and that I'd have to fight to get any computers deauthorized. I was slightly stunned that the issue got resolved in a couple hours and just happily went to sign in on a couple of the machines I use with my iTunes library.

Now, the real kicker was the following letter I got today:

Dear Sulka,

This is XXX, with a follow-up. I haven't heard from you and wanted to make sure that your request was handled to your satisfaction. You've truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and as such I don't want to leave you without any type of resolution, so if you do not respond, I will be closing this request. I hope that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store and would like to thank you for being such a wonderful member of our family. If you find yourself with any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to send me an email.

Have a wonderful day!

This is the most adorable response I've ever got from a customer service representative, ever. Yes, it certainly goes a bit over the top telling me how wonderful I am, but I have to confess it made me warm and fuzzy inside. The contrast to the passive-aggressive letters some CS reps are sending that tell me to f*** off with my problem is just so mind-blowing that I just had to blog this. And I can assure the rep will be getting a 5/5 rating when the followup request comes in.

(CS representative name censored.)

EyeTV iPhone application - a quick review

2009-10-11T18:21:50Z

Elgato released an EyeTV application update (3.2) and an iPhone application about a week ago. I've been trying it out a bit, so here's a mini-review.

The promise of the new app is that you can watch live TV (and your recordings) on your iPhone anywhere. This is pretty cool and is definitely something I'd have used, especially when I was abroad, had this been available earlier.

The way the app works is that it connects back to your home Mac and streams the video from the Mac to your iPhone over the Internet. If you watch live TV, your mac transcodes the stream to h.264 on the fly and sends it to the phone. If you have the Elgato Turbo h.264 HD USB stick, the encoding uses the stick, and is supposedly much faster. I have the stick and haven't tried how slow it'd be without the stick, so I have no idea what the difference really is.

Now, how does it work in practice? Unfortunately, not very well. The problems and gripes I've encountered this far are:

The video quality on the phone is sometimes ok, sometimes just terrible. I can't see myself ever watching anything that looks as bad as this. Most of the video is just pixelated jumble. I converted a nature documentary over and when viewing the clip, it took me several seconds to recognize the blob square blocks on my screen was a whale. Here's a screenshot from the app showing a frame where you might be able to recognize something (see all the nice tropical fish? This is pretty far from the original HD production.):

Occasionally, but often enough to be annoying, the application complains it doesn't support the video format of the stream from the EyeTV app. Restarting the EyeTV application on the Mac seems to fix this, but this is exactly the workaround that I can't do when I want to watch something on the phone.

The problems that haunt dual-tuner EyeTV setups rise to another level with the iPhone app. The issues seem to stem from EyeTV not checking what each tuner is doing when it needs a channel for recording. Typically this means that if you're watching something on EyeTV, instead of using the idle tuner for recording a show, it chooses to record the show on the tuner you were using to watch TV on. With the iPhone app, if you're watching something on the TV and a family member wants to watch TV, EyeTV seems to always hijack the tuner that's being used for watching (and not the idle tuner) and changes the channel to whatever was selected on the iPhone. And I bet scheduling recordings using the iPhone app breaks the dual-tuner scheduling in new interesting ways, as if the existing breakage isn't bad enough.

If you want to watch a recording, you have to pre-convert it. No, even if you can watch live TV, you cannot transcode recordings on the fly. The rationale for this that was given on the Elgato forums is that the dev team wanted the recordings to support fast forward (which can apparently only be supported if the video is pre-converted?) but I still don't see this as a sensible requirement. Converting my whole library of ~800 GB of recordings is not feasible due to the amount of time and storage space required so effectively I can't watch my recordings. To make things worse, you can't even request a recording to be converted from the app - you have to do this by clicking a checkbox in the EyeTV app on the Mac.

No support for video over 3G. Even if the connection is fast enough. I can't see the sense in this, given I get much better quality video from YouTube over 3G than what the Elgato app gives me over WLAN. Further, my 3G downstream speed is most of the time guaranteed to be faster than my home ADSL's upstream speed, so this just doesn't make any sense.

The application doesn't work as a remote. I'd have assumed this is the very first thing they'd implemented, but, sadly, this is not the case. I'd have shelled the 3.99 just for the remote without the blink of an eye, and instead the dev team seems to have seen fit to develop something that's taken them at least 10x the effort, and doesn't really work.

DVB subtitling isn't supported. This isn't surprising since the only support EyeTV has for DVB subtitling is that you can watch it when viewing TV. Exporting clips that have subtitles? No go. This means I can't watch about a thirds of the content I'd be interested in using the app, since those programs are in languages where I need the subtitles.

None of the views in the app that show you tons of items, such as the list of recordings or the tv guide, have search.

So... My verdict for the 1.0 release is - it just doesn't work. There's one thing that does (maybe) work and it's that you can schedule recordings when you're not at the Mac. This is very valuable if it does indeed work, but I'm assuming you can't manage things like recording schedule conflicts or being out of recording space using iPhone, so I'm assuming this will be only 50% usable. I'm sure the first fixed version will be much improved but I'm not holding my breath on some aspects listed above, since those issues have been unaddressed for years.

Edit: added a picture. And, having to add a couple kind words: the app looks very polished and clearly a lot of work has been put into it. Most my problems with the application seem to be in the Elgato core technologies, which need fixing, and not in the iPhone app as such.

My 15 minutes of fame

2009-09-29T18:57:54Z

WoW.com sort of picked my WoW guild for their 15 Minutes of Fame series and I was featured as a WoW player. I guess the interview turned out well, and it even includes criticism of the game! Gasp! :D

HP 3570c scanner software for Leopard and Snow Leopard

2009-08-30T10:36:45Z

HP doesn't officially support 3570c on OS X 10.5 nor 10.6, but I've found the software is installable once you work around bugs in the driver installer. The software is prone to crashes, but tends to do it's job on my machine the next try after the crash.

DISCLAIMER! WARNING! Installing unsupported software on your Mac can cause severe problems. Please do not follow these instructions. They worked for me, but might not work for you.

1) Download this: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software5/COL10835/sj-31472-2/COL10835a.dmg
2) Mount DMG
3) Right Click the Installer and select Show Package Contents
4) Navigate to Contents/MacOS/Sub Installers
5) First install the "HP Scanjet 3500", "HP Scanjet Scanner - Common" and the "HP Scan Pro" packages
6) Go to /System/Library/Extensions and delete "hpPlugInInit.kext" (why does a scanner want to install a kernel extension which isn't even needed, is beyond me)
7) Do not restart your computer immediately, as OS X rebuilds your kernel
8) Done, use the HP Scan Pro application Hewlett-Packard folder under Applications

With this method, in addition to working in both Leopards, you don't get any of the useless crap the standard installer wants to put on your computer. Snow Leo will probably prompt you to install Rosetta during the installation.The only reason I'm keeping the HP is that it still works for the little scanning I'm ever doing, so I can't justify getting a new one (from some company that is not HP). I guess I might have been happier if the install hadn't worked for Snow Leo.

Interesting small economic change in WoW patch 3.2

2009-08-19T12:57:54Z

The latest big patch in WoW (3.2) implemented a change which has interesting (albeit probably small) virtual economic implications:

Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.

Prior to this, most of the better items looted from dungeons were bound on pickup, meaning the item never became part of the trade economy of the game. With the new change, you can actually loot items and barter on the item after returning from the dungeon.

From economic perspective this is a small thing, but I'm sure some users will start to take advantage of this at least in PUGs that use Need Before Greed, as you can now not only ninjaloot the item, but also blackmail someone who'd wanted the drop for more than the resale value of the item. Of course that won't win you any friends but I can't see that stopping people from abusing the system.

Viral marketing ad of the day

2009-08-19T08:06:44Z

At 2.4 million watchers in YouTube, I think someone in Samsung's marketing knows how to do their job. Maybe it's just my inner nerd but this made me wish I could afford some SSD's. :D

CCP FPS MMO, cool!

2009-08-18T17:51:52Z

As reported by Lum, CCP is putting out an a console-based FPS MMO which is tied into Eve, both thematically, as well intertwined game mechanics. Gamasutra has some more details. This is very cool, and if the interaction mechanisms between Eve and Dust 514 (what an odd name?) are even remotely well done, I think it'll be a smash success.

One detail I'm extremely interested to get to know more about is how the economic tie-ins are going to work. Gamasutra's report states "Players in the PC MMO can "fund mercenaries and give them goals" in the console title" which indicates you can transfer ISK between Eve and Dust. What strikes me as potentially complicated is how you balance the two, given some parties in Eve can transfer megabucks, while in an FPS it doesn't necessarily make sense to make players have more cash than necessary to handle the dude you're playing. An obvious design workaround to this would be that you need to equip whole squads of troops with your money (burns more cash) and not get to play any personified individuals during the game, but lack of personified avatars would reduce the amount of emotional attachment to the game.

Anyway, good job CCP - hope you'll do fine with the game.

You need to see this film

2009-04-21T10:50:42Z

The Finnish national broadcasting company YLE recently broadcasted Rip! A remix manifesto. What an excellent, inspirational film! I think everyone on the planet should see this film before it's too late. In the spirit of the film, the makers have put the entire film online to be viewed and remixed.

Intro embedded here - view it now and check the rest on the websites linked above.

EU Telecoms Package

2009-04-21T08:14:22Z

It seems that EU is about to vote on directives that might change some Internet access policies quite fundamentally. Most of the changes sound like things that have already been shot down local legislation level, so the lobbying corporations are now trying to pass the legislation through as directives.

Perhaps the scariest part of the proposal is that it gives ISPs open rights to change Internet connections to whitelist content available to users. Yes, not blacklisting inappropriate content, but whitelist a pre-defined set of services you're allowed to use. If this goes through and becomes the norm, we can kiss the Internet goodbye, especially given that the text in the directives that tries to guarantee citizens' right to create and distribute content have apparently been removed.

Some people are calling this trying to change the whole of Internet into operating on the classic TV broadcast model, where ISPs will start to offer you content packages similar to TV channel packages, where you have to pre-order websites you want to access. Sounds pretty scary.

There's more information available here, and I recommend you write and call your MEP, contact information of whom is available here. I'm ashamed to see the Finnish MEPs are in favor of the legislation, so time to contact them.

Atlassian 555

2009-04-21T07:24:52Z

Atlassian software has a great deal available for 5 days - you can get a 5 person license to Jira and Confluence for $5!

I have experience of both products and think Jira is a grea issue tracker, and Confluence is a great enterprise wiki product. Both have their weak points (maybe biggest one being the fact the software is so flexible you can really shoot yourself in the foot by taking the customization too far), but I don't think there's better products in their class in the market. Even better, Atlassian folks are very pleasant to deal with and they're one of the most open companies in their communication to the customers, which I respect a great deal.

Best of all, the money made with the offer goes to charity! So, go get your licenses now!

Beyond Game Design: Nine steps toward creating better videogames

2009-04-07T08:36:27Z

Amazon just dropped me a new book, called Beyond Game Design: Nine steps towards creating better videogames. Based on my quick reading of the book, it looks like a good reference on the current industry thinking of how games ought to be constructed. So unless you're one of the designer types who reads everything available on games (as Richard Bartle discusses on page 119 of the book) and want an update on game design, I recommend you get a copy.

Of note, the fist chapter of the book, Understanding Emotions by Nicole Lazzarro which discusses the role of User Experience Design vs Player Experience Design seems to a useful tool when discussing design prioritization in the future.

Looking at the bleeding edge of game design research, Jesper Juul argued in this year's GDC just a few weeks ago that the classic flow model presented in page 13 is actually not correct. He had data to support that instead of keeping players in the flow channel all the time, good games make players fail occasionally, which in turn leads to players enjoying the game more. His slides are available online, so go read those too. :)

Travelling to GDC from abroad? Registered for ESTA yet?

2009-03-15T16:37:18Z

It seems some (most?) people traveling to GDC from abroad haven't actually heard about ESTA, or Electronic System for Travel Authorization. It's a new system where people travelling to US need to register on the web as incoming visitors prior to travel. There's some scaremongering on the site that if you don't do this 72 hours before flying in, it cannot be guaranteed that you'll be let onto the plane.

So, if you haven't already done it, go sign up for ESTA right now. Have your passport handy, you'll need your passport number and issuance dates.

And even though this effectively duplicates one of the paper forms you've filled on the plane in the past, you still need to fill it in, even with this system in place. Getting into US is starting to be an interesting challenge! I wonder what's the next change. :)

Born too late

2009-02-13T20:55:33Z

Boing Boing has an awesome post pointing to Coppakids, a blog that contains kids' explanations on why they should be allowed to register after a COPPA age check has stopped them.

I've seen a bunch of similar messages, as sent by players as their parents, demanding their banned accounts are restored. The writing style of kids pretending to be their parents is very recognizable. A sure sign is when the writer tries to establish his/her authority in a manner that'd never be used by an adult. One very memorable email that got immediately flagged as being from the player himself started with, guess what, "I am the father of my son." I don't have the text at hand, but the rest was as believable as the start. :)

5D mark II drops frames when recording video

2009-02-10T12:28:51Z

I've been meaning to write about the 5D mark II (which I've had for about 1.5 months now) for a while but given the amount of information in the web already, it's seemed somewhat pointless. However I have to rant a bit now, given the video mode on the camera was detected to have yet another fault. It drops frames, resulting in jerky movement.

Here's how the video mode in 5DmII works: the camera is in full auto mode while shooting video. The user can compensate the exposure to under- or overexpose, but you can't change the frame exposure time, aperture or sensitivity. (You can sort of work around this by fiddling the exposure compensation and pointing the camera here and there + locking exposure, but that workaround is not a real solution.) For some reason, the camera seems to sometimes make rational choices on the exposure, and sometimes prefer to use extremely high sensitivities even in bright light, resulting in noise.

Now, I noticed the video from the camera occasionally jerks a bit, but assumed it was my computer occasionally dropping frames due to the fact the 1080P footage from the camera is extremely CPU intensive to decompress. Turns out this is not a playback problem, but a fault in the camera. What's happening is, whenever you're recording video, if the camera changes the aperture, it skips 2-3 frames, and replaces those skipped frames in video stream with copies of the last frame recorded.

Reproducing this is very simple. If you have a variable aperture zoom lens, just change zoom in and out during capture of a moving subject, and check the footage frame by frame. For constant aperture lenses, find a spot that has dark and brightly lit spots that are bright enough that the camera has to change aperture when shooting (hint, point the camera out the window, then back in), record a clip while alternating pointing the camera to these spots, and check the footage. You can see the aperture being used during the video capture by depressing the shutter button halfway down. On my footage, I'm consistently getting four duplicated frames in a row when the aperture changes, making these clips useless.

The workaround is to always remember to lock the exposure with the * button prior to starting to record video.

With this issue in mind, I have a couple questions in mind. What's the point of having the camera work in forced full auto mode by default, if that mode produces jerky video footage? Why on earth can't I select the aperture manually, especially if the manual selection would prevent this from happening? Can a camera even be marketed to record video, if the camera regularly drops frames?

The most infuriating part about this that Canon still uses an old world communication policy, whereby they effectively don't talk to their customers. The web is chock full of angry commentary about all the issues and lack of features on the video capture, and there's no word whatsoever from Canon on whether anything related to the video will actually be changed.

Until this issue is fixed and the manual controls on the video are released as a software upgrade to the camera, I have to recommend anyone considering to use the camera to record video forgets about it. Sad, really.