Here are the articles or web sites that I’ve found this week and linked to on my Delicious Bookmarks:

• Flickr, Vimeo integration likely to bolster social ties in iOS 7 >> 9to5Mac
  Flickr and Vimeo are rumoured to be included in iOS 7. Figures, they’re already in OS X.
• Game Hunting in England’s Premier League – NYTimes.com
  The New York Times sends a reporter to some English Premier League games. Insightful.
• America is bad for your health
  starred items / from kottke.org http://kottke.org/
• Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. Amazon vs. Skydrive: Which One Is Fastest? – ReadWrite
  Tests by ReadWrite show Dropbox to be the fastest cloud storage site
• Marissa Mayer announces Yahoo Tumblr acquisition via animated GIF
  Marissa Mayer announces Yahoo Tumblr acquisition via animated GIF
• Company Asks Nutella Superfan To Cease And Desist
  February 5th is the unofficial World Nutella Day, except Ferrero have told the organiser to cease and desist
• Mac malware signed with Apple ID infects activist’s laptop | Ars Technica
  Malware, digitally signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, found on an activist’s laptop
• BBC News – How to hack a nation's infrastructure
  Interesting BBC article about gaining access to CCTV camera feeds and system controllers over the internet

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Links from Delicious for May 25, 2013 originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. Links from Delicious for February 2, 2013
2. Links from Delicious for April 6, 2013

The advertising industry, on the other hand, seems to be engaged in a race to the bottom. I finally got tired of ugly, misleading ads, which in turn were accompanied by tracking code that aggressively monitors your movements on the web.

It’s an opinion that I largely agree with. This may seem hypocritical – after all, I use advertising on my blog. At least, I do for now – I am considering following Ed’s lead and getting rid of the advertising for good.

My income from advertising is drying up

I’ve been carrying advertising from Google Adsense for many years, and October 2005 was probably the high watermark when I earned £175 in one month. Since then, revenue has declined; three years ago £10 a month was typical, and now it’s more like £3 per month. This is despite a brief bump last year when I enabled image-based advertising (as opposed to only text-based) last year.

Hosting this site costs £15 per month so nowadays I’m making a net loss, although it’s one I’m willing to absorb. Blogging has always been a hobby of mine – it’s never been about the money, and I have a day job so the blog doesn’t need to justify itself financially.

As for why the income has gone down, I expect it’s mostly due to falling visitor numbers. Despite my efforts, successive changes to Google’s algorithms have seen this blog’s position in search engine results pages (SERPs) fall, and so less people click through. I could try to encourage people to click on adverts by making them more prominent, but I see that as a hostile move that would be against the interests of the few visitors I have. And, in any case, I tend to attract a more technical audience who probably has ad-blocking software installed. Again, I’m a hypocrite because I myself use Adblock Plus, despite carrying advertising on my own site.

I also have worries about the adverts that do appear on here. Most of the adverts I see on this site are for dating web sites, which doesn’t fit well with the largely technical content of my blog posts. Those that are at least related to computer software tend to be for products that I wouldn’t use or recommend either.

Affiliate links aren’t a cash cow either

About a year ago I belatedly joined Amazon’s Associates programme to earn commission from any clicks from this site. And, so far, I’ve managed to earn a little over £3 in the UK (less than the £5 minimum payout) and $6 in the US. More recently I also signed up to TradeDoubler and LinkShare to get commission for links to iTunes and Apple’s App Stores, which have netted me a mere 20p in Europe and nothing in the US.

Whilst I prefer affiliate links, as they’re less obtrusive and I can control what links I use, they don’t bring in as much money as plain-old banner advertising.

Is it worth just getting rid of it all?

I could follow Ed’s lead and just get rid of all the banner advertising (and just keep the affiliate links). This wouldn’t reduce my income much, but would free up a big chunk of space on the sidebar. It would also give me more flexibility in any re-design and would open the door for a single or double-column layout, instead of the current three columns that I need right now. And there wouldn’t be the visual distraction of a brash advert.

On the other hand, any income is better than no income, and maybe I should be pleased that I’m making any money at all from advertising. I may, however, look into alternatives to Google Adsense – perhaps with smaller and less intrusive adverts.

And there is a third option. I could add a polite request for donations via PayPal (or similar) at the end of every blog post. If one person donated 50p every day, that would cover my hosting bill.

It’s a lot to think about.

Getting rid of advertising originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. Blocking advertising
2. The pros and cons of Adsense image advertising

Enter 4sqwifi. Using data from Foursquare, this app will list nearby places that offer Wifi. Results are shown either as a list (as shown in the screenshot), or on a map. Tapping a location will show a map, along with any passwords that you might need. And there are buttons to check-in on Foursquare, or view the location in Foursquare’s own app.

Unfortunately 4sqwifi is limited to only showing places where Foursquare users have added a tip with information about Wifi – therefore, it’s not a complete list. As you can see from the screenshot the app doesn’t think there are any places which offer free wifi within 700 metres of me, which I know to be wrong, but other Foursquare users have not yet left a tip saying so. As such, 4sqwifi will probably point you towards the more popular places where there are plenty of tips.

However, the app does allow you to add places with Wifi, if they’re not listed. Click the ‘plus’ button, and you can enter the name of the place – it’ll then search Foursquare’s venue database and if there’s a match it’ll let you enter the details. These will then be saved as a tip on Foursquare, and you have the option of tweeting about it.

The app is reasonably straightforward to use. It hasn’t been updated for some time, however, and hasn’t been designed for the iPhone 5 screen. You will also need to sign in to Foursquare to use it – there’s no way to use the app without an account.

Brits may find that using 4sqwifi in tandem with WiFi FastConnecter Hotspot Locator will give them the best chance of finding a wifi hotspot, as it lists all of those provided by The Cloud, many of which are free.

4Sqwifi is free from the App Store. Android users may wish to try the similar VenueSpot app, which works in the same way but doesn’t require a Foursquare account.

App of the Week: 4sqwifi originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

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1. Foursquare – so what is it, exactly?
2. App of the Week: iTunes 12 Days of Christmas

Late last night, Flickr unveiled probably its biggest ever redesign, with a new look for many sections of its web site. It closely follows parent company Yahoo!’s purchase of Tumblr, meaning that Yahoo! now owns two large web sites with an aversion to using the letter ‘e’ in their names.

At the same time, it announced that all free accounts would now get 1 terabyte of storage space for photos, a new Android app was launched and it restructured its paid-for accounts.

Flickr’s re-design

After years of only minor, evolutionary changes, for the first time Flickr has made big changes to most of the site. The bar at the top of all Flickr pages is now black, and photo pages now have black backgrounds (which arguably makes more sense for photographs). Photos now take up almost all of the screen by default.

The metadata which was displayed alongside the photo is now shoved down to the bottom; a change I’m not 100% happy with as only the photo’s name and first line of the description are shown in the first screenful. The action buttons are also bottom-right of the photos now, rather than the top, and maps are gone completely.

Photostream pages have changed quite a bit. Flickr has borrowed the ‘cover photo’ idea from Facebook and Google+, so you can select one of your images to appear at the top. And your photos are displayed using the justified view that was rolled out on the Contacts page last year, and in the iOS app. The ability to change how your photostream looks has, unfortunately, been removed, although you can click an ‘Edit’ button on your own photostream to get this back for the purpose of changing photo titles and descriptions.

On the whole I like the new look. Putting photos front and centre is the right thing to do and I like the justified view in photostreams. However, I do think that users should be able to control the layout of their photostreams as before, and I think Flickr should make the photos a little smaller to show off more of the image meta data at the bottom.

More storage space

By offering a whole terabyte of space for free, Flickr is putting itself way ahead of its rivals. This compares very favourably with Google+ Photos, launched last week as the new name for Picasa Web Albums, which offers 5 gigabytes that is shared with Google Drive. It’s also a big step up from the previous free offering which limited uploads to 100 megabytes per month.

Now, individual photos can be as large as 200 megabytes, and all users can upload 1080p high definition videos of up to three minutes long.

New Android app

Last year Flickr thoroughly rebuilt its iOS app (my review) which brought massive improvements to it. Now it’s the turn of the Android app. Most of the early reviews of the new version are really positive, bar those from people unable to log in.

The iOS app is currently only designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch – as yet there’s no iPad version. I’m hoping this will come in future.

New paid-for accounts structure

Previously, there were two levels – free, and ‘Pro’ accounts. I’ve had a Pro account for over 8 years now and considered it to be a good investment – $48 for two years, or $2 per month.

Now, there’s free, ‘ad-free’ and ‘Doublr’. The ‘ad-free’ account simply removes all of the advertising on flickr.com whilst you are logged in, and ‘Doublr’ bumps your storage to two terabytes. However, these both cost significantly more than the old Pro account – ‘ad-free’ is $49.99 for one year and ‘Doublr’ is a whopping $499.99 per year.

Pro accounts will still be around for existing subscribers, and we’ll be able to renew them if we want to keep them (hopefully at the same cost). But they’re not open to new users, despite being a better deal than either of the two new paid accounts: Pro users will still have unlimited storage, and access to statistics for their photos which doesn’t seem to be available for anyone else. We will, however, lose the ‘pro’ badge next to our usernames.

I’m definitely glad I still have my Pro account as I wouldn’t subscribe to either of the new paid-for tiers. $50 per year is a lot to simply remove advertising, especially if you already have AdBlock Plus installed. And I’m never going to need more than a terabyte of space. But I don’t want to store over 3000 photos on a free service.

Mixed reactions

‘We’d really like it if it was more like Facebook’ – said no @flickr user, ever.

— James Whatley (@Whatleydude) May 21, 2013

Predictably the new changes haven’t been universally accepted. The feedback thread on the official forum runs to almost 8000 posts with many negative comments. Flickr users are notoriously fickle and there was a big backlash a few years ago when users were forced to merge their standalone Flickr accounts with a Yahoo! account, following its acquisition.

Of course, there have also been many complaints over the years that Yahoo! has left Flickr to stagnate – even I wondered this only 12 months ago. Hopefully those people will now be happy that Flickr is finally receiving the attention it deserves.

Some of the issues raised have been to do with bugs on the site since the redesign, but this is to be expected with such a big change and I’m sure the kinks will be ironed out. However, I do hope they will re-instate some of the removed features like mini-maps.

I’m pleased that Flickr is finally being seen by Yahoo! as a priority, particularly as the announcement was timed to coincide with the Tumblr acquisition for maximum publicity. The changes will be controversial but the fact that they’re happening at all is encouraging.

Flickr’s biggest ever redesign originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. App.net goes Freemium
2. A present from Flickr

Two factor authentication wp.me/p1BkSe-2xO

— Neil Turner (@nrturner) May 19, 2013

If you can’t see the full tweet linked above, click here for an image version.

Twitter have enabled ‘Twitter Cards‘ for this site. So, when a link to one of my blog posts is tweeted, it includes a brief summary of the blog post – the title, first paragraph and accompanying image. It also includes my name and Twitter handle.

Twitter Cards are supported by Twitter’s official mobile apps, TweetDeck, the Twitter web site and where tweets are embedded on other sites, but I’m not currently aware of any third-party Twitter clients that support Cards.

If you want to enable Twitter Cards on your blog, here’s what to do.

Add the metadata to your pages

There are a number of different types of Twitter Card, but for blog posts, you will want the ‘Summary Card‘. The information page lists the meta tags that you need to add to your web pages, however, if you are using WordPress, you can automate this with a plugin. I’m using the Twitter Cards Meta plugin for this, but you can also use the WordPress SEO plugin as well. If you have both installed, make sure that ‘Add Twitter Card meta data’ is unticked in the Social tab of WordPress SEO’s settings.

Validate your Twitter Cards

Next, use the Card Validator to make sure your cards are looking okay. Annoying, the Card Validator only works properly in WebKit-based browsers – i.e. Apple Safari and Google Chrome. Firefox and Internet Explorer users will not be able to see live previews.

Apply and wait

Once you’re happy, click the ‘Validate and Apply’ button and enter the URL of a page on your site where cards have been enabled. Follow the instructions, and then you will be able to submit your site to Twitter for approval. Approval of your site takes around six weeks; if you are successful, Twitter will send you an email, and then your blog’s URLs will automatically start showing Twitter Cards.

Remember that you do need to have a Twitter account in order to apply for approval; however, this does mean that your Twitter handle will show up the Twitter Cards so this could be a good way to get more followers.

Twitter Cards – how to add them to your blog originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. Announcing new blog posts on Twitter
2. Memory cards – indestructable?

Back in August I wrote about how to enable two factor authentication across many web sites. Well, at the time, this was Google, Yahoo!, Facebook and Battle.net, although Dropbox was working on it.

I’ve now updated that blog post. Dropbox has now launched two factor authentication, and I’ve been able to add Microsoft, Apple, WordPress and App.net to that list. Which means that most of the big sites that lots of people use support it, and means that geeks like me who don’t mind the extra step should be able to keep our accounts more secure.

There are, however, a couple of notable absences:

Twitter

Twitter is actually quite lax for security. By default, you can instigate a password reset for someone by simply entering their username (which is public); you have to go into your settings to force Twitter to require your email address or phone number. And the stakes are high – the ‘Syrian Electronic Army’ has been hacking many Twitter accounts lately, including the Associated Press which caused a brief stock market wobble. Although their attack method seems to be simple social engineering tactics.

Evernote

Evernote had a major security breach in March, which saw every users passwords being reset. I seem to recall Evernote stating that two factor authentication was on the cards, in case such a thing happened again, but there haven’t been any updates since.

I hope that Evernote and Twitter follow the leads of others and improve the security of their accounts soon. There are people with a lot of time and reputation invested in their user accounts who can’t afford to lose them.

Two factor authentication originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. OAuth and two-factor authentication
2. 2-Factor authentication on Google

Here are the articles or web sites that I’ve found this week and linked to on my Delicious Bookmarks:

• Welcome to Google Island
  ‘Welcome to Google Island’, a ‘what if’ short story
• Everything Apple Needs to Introduce at WWDC to Appease the Internet — carpeaqua by Justin Williams
  The 50 things Apple needs to announce at WWDC to appease the internet. (No pressure, of course)
• Cover Story: Daft Punk | Features | Pitchfork
  This Pitchfork interview with Daft Punk is worth looking at for the awesome HTML5 effects
• BBC News – Isle of Man gay couple refused rental agreement
  A gay couple on the Isle of Man were refused a rental agreement for a house because of their sexual orientation
• BBC News – Pre-exam breakfasts sent to schools to boost results
  10,000 free breakfasts are being provided to schoolchildren taking exams to help them concentrate

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Links from Delicious for May 18, 2013 originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. Links from Delicious for March 2, 2013
2. Links from Delicious for February 16, 2013

Many web sites let you represent yourself using a profile picture, or avatar, as well as your username or real name. Last year I decided to change all of my avatars to one default picture of me (this photo of me wearing a fez). This got very repetitive after a while as there doesn’t seem to be a way to mass-update avatars on lots of different web sites.

There are a couple of minor workarounds. You can use IFTTT to synchronise your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures with this recipe. It’s one-way, though – you have to update your Facebook avatar to then have your Twitter avatar changed.

And there’s Gravatar, which aims to be a ‘Globally Recognised Avatar’ and is supported by many sites, including this one. But not all sites use it, and it’s a shame that some don’t have a ‘just use my Gravatar’ option rather than inviting you to upload an image.

This means that I would still have to manually change my Flickr, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google, app.net, Instagram, Foursquare, Pinterest and last.fm avatars, plus those on any forums I’ve registered on and any other sites that I’ve forgotten. In fact, despite me merging my Microsoft and Skype accounts, the two still seem to have separate avatars.

It would be nice if someone could create a site that would be able to automatically update your avatar on multiple sites, or at least offer a landing page with quick links to the relevant settings pages to update them. And, if being able to change your avatar is something that these sites include in their APIs, it would be nice if IFTTT supported them like it does with Facebook and Twitter. But for now, if you want to have an image change, there’s a lot of work involved.

Automatically updating avatars originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. Gravatar!
2. More avatars

Note: I am an Amazon Associate and receive commission for referrals.

Amazon is in the news again, as it only paid £2.4 million in tax in the UK last year, on sales of £4.3 billion. This is only slightly up on the £1.8 million it paid last year – something I mentioned in my Boycotting Google blog post in December. It means that Amazon effectively paid less than 0.1% tax, and it actually received government grants totally £2.5 million so it effectively paid nothing.

What Amazon doing is not illegal. ‘Avoiding’ tax by exploiting loopholes (as opposed to ‘evading’ tax) may be seen as morally wrong, but it isn’t illegal. Most of Amazon’s business is channelled through Luxembourg where the rate of corporation tax is lower – around 22%, rather than 28% in the UK (according to taxrates.cc). Other companies like Google and Apple channel their profits through Ireland, where the corporation tax rate is only 12.5%.

I don’t want to defend Amazon but I do have a couple of issues with how the news has been reported. Firstly, £2.4 million is still a lot of money, and far more than what most people will see in their lifetime. I’m pleased that the article states this as a percentage but it would be nice if stated what the normal corporation tax rate is.

Secondly, what would be better is if someone could calculate what Amazon should be paying if it was a wholly UK-based operation. I’m assuming it should be around £1 billion, which would be a nice windfall for the exchequer.

Of course, none of the loopholes that Amazon, and others, are using should be allowed. The government are making the right noises but more needs to be done. It’s not fair that big, multi-national companies can get out of paying their taxes when smaller have to pay.

Amazon’s UK tax avoidance originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

Related posts:

1. The problem with tax avoidance
2. Boycotting Google

Sometimes the best apps are the least complicated ones, and Subtitles is one such app. It does one thing, and it does it very simply: it finds closed caption subtitles for your video files.

The main window is shaped like a clapperboard. Drag and drop your video files onto it, and Subtitles will search OpenSubtitles.org for a match. If it is successful, then it will create a .srt SubRip file in the same folder as your video file with the same file name. Many media players like VLC will detect the .srt file when you open video files in them, and so the closed captions should automatically appear when you play the file.

And that’s basically it – there’s no fancy extra features, just a plain, simple app. You can, however, use the Preferences to manage with languages you would like the closed captions to use, and you can select both a primary and secondary language if you want more than one.

Subtitles doesn’t modify the original video file in anyway. Whilst modern video file container formats, like Matroska and MP4, can support closed captions within the video file itself, older ones like AVI weren’t designed to. Subtitles therefore keeps it simple by using a separate file for the subtitles, but, if you wish, you can use a tool like mkvmerge to combine them.

Subtitles is free. It was designed for Mac OS X, but there is a ported version for Windows available as well.

App of the Week: Subtitles originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner

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1. App of the Week: Handbrake
2. App of the Week: The Unarchiver