No more ads, no more trackers

You might have noticed that I changed the design of this site a month or so ago. As part of the process, I also eliminated advertising.

That’s the culmination of a transformation that’s been going on since last year, when I removed the Google Analytics code from this site. I shut down my Google AdSense account and removed the code serving ads from the network I was previously part of.

With those changes, there are no longer any web trackers on this site. I do have the Stats widget (part of the WordPress Jetpack add-in), which counts site visitors and helps me determine which posts are most popular and which search terms visitors used when coming here via search engines. It doesn’t gather any additional information about visitors, as far as I know.

I have nothing but respect for the people who run my former ad network, Federated Media. They’re professionals of the first order.

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.

So for now, at least, this site is free. If you want to support my work, I hope you’ll buy my books. I occasionally also recommend products here, from online merchants I trust. Those recommendations might include affiliate links. If they do, I include a disclosure as part of the post. (The link to Amazon.com at the beginning of this paragraph is an affiliate link, in fact.)

Ad-supported business models are becoming increasingly less tenable for small publishers like me. And the advertising industry is getting worse, much worse, in the way it tracks us.

I don’t have any answers for fixing the Internet. But at least in this one small plot of online real estate, I can make a statement.

Pre-order Office 2013 Inside Out

We’ve finished reviewing the final page proofs of Microsoft® Office Inside Out: 2013 Edition and the book is off to the printer. Our team did an amazing job, and if you use Office 2013 (either as a perpetual license, a volume license, or part of an Office 365 subscription), I’m confident you’ll find some good and useful stuff here.

It’s available for pre-order from Amazon now, for $29.00, which is 47% off the full retail price. And when you get the paperback you get the e-book version for free, in your choice of PDF, Kindle, EPUB, or other standard, DRM-free formats.

Amazon.com pre-order

Microsoft® Office Inside Out: 2013 Edition

The book has full coverage of the five core applications in Office 2013: Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with additional material on Access, Publisher, and Lync. We also explain the difference between Office 2013 and Office 365 and help you decide which edition is the right one for you.

Disclosure: I make a small commission when you purchase through the Amazon affiliate links on this page.

Have I mentioned lately that I hate configuring networks?

Ah, the joys of manually configuring Linux servers. If you tried to reach this site over the weekend and got a 404, that’s because I needed to do some manual tweaks in the httpd.conf file for my Apache server. Yay, open source!

The server that runs this site is migrating to new IP addresses this week, so I got to play network engineer over the weekend. Everything should be working OK now. If you see any problems, please leave a comment here, or use the Contact Me form to send me a private note.

“iTunes is the best Windows app ever written”

Of all the things Steve Jobs ever said, this one has to be the most mind-boggling.

That was 2003. We’ve had 10 years to realize just how horribly, awfully wrong that statement was.

Even more comedy gold in that vintage article:

During his presentation, Jobs used Apple’s IChat instant messaging to talk with celebrities around the world, including Mick Jagger, Dr. Dre, and Bono–who drew the largest reaction from the crowd.

“It is a very cool thing for musicians and music,” Bono said in a video. “I want you to know that we appreciate it. Making Apple a crossroads for all kinds of artistic endeavors. That’s why I’m here to kiss the corporate ass. I don’t kiss everybody’s.”

Also, it was a BFD that Apple was partnering with … wait for it … AOL and Pepsi.

Happy Birthday to Lucy

The annual ritual of canine humiliation.

Doesn’t seem possible she’s five years old.

Photo credit: Judy Bott

First public preview of Windows “Blue” scheduled for late June

There’s almost an apologetic tone in this open letter from Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green:

We know people choose Windows because it’s important to their lives and their businesses. They trust and rely on Windows for serious productivity and more and more serious fun. We are proud to keep evolving Windows in way that brings forward over 25 years of computing and create the platform for tomorrow. As with every radical change, learning is a process. We are getting smarter every day about how to help people learn and make the most of their devices. From work in Windows, to online content, as well materials and demos at retail we are constantly improving and moving forward.

And also confirmation of something we pretty much knew already:

At the WIRED Business Conference I announced we’d share the first public preview of what we are calling internally Windows “Blue” in late June timed with the Build conference. It’s an update to Windows 8 and builds on our vision of modern computing. An OS that lets apps work seamlessly together and put the things you care most about right at your fingertips. We are excited to share the next steps in this vision soon.

I’ll be there. Very curious to see what’s on deck. It’s more than just a Start button.

Sold…

Update: Sold, to the man in Stillwater, Oklahoma! Thanks for the responses, folks.

I’m swapping out some hardware, and my 15-month-old Samsung Ultrabook is looking for a new home.

It’s a Series 9 (NP900X3A), with the following specs:

Intel Core i5-2467M @1.60 GHz, 4GB DDR3 System Memory
128 GB Solid State Drive
Display: 13.3″ SuperBright Plus widescreen display, 1366×768 (not a touchscreen)
Intel® HD Graphics 3000
Dimensions: 12.9″ x 8.9″ (D) x 0.62″ ~ 0.64″ (H)
Weight: 2.88 pounds
Backlit keyboard

The system has a three-year manufacturer’s warranty and is in excellent working condition. It was originally purchased from the Microsoft Store, and I’ve upgraded it to Windows 8 Pro, with all the latest updates (including support for Windows 8 gestures on the trackpad).

This model typically sells on eBay for around $500 and up. At Amazon, asking prices for this model in good condition are in the $700-800 range. Hit the contact page and make me an offer or ask a question.

Remember that big whoop-de-do over Xbox requiring an “always on” connection?

Never mind.

Microsoft: Next Xbox will work even when your Internet doesn’t

According to an internal Microsoft e-mail sent to all full-time employees working on the next Xbox, “Durango [the codename for the next Xbox] is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today’s Internet.” It continues, “There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.”

Playing a Blu-ray disc? Watching live TV without an Internet connection? Very interesting.

“They’re design guidelines, not laws”

Arturo Toledo argues, “Don’t call it Metro, call it Good Design.”

A few days ago, Facebook announced the release of a new Windows Phone app (Beta). The app does not use the typical out-of-the-box controls i.e. Panorama, Pivot or Page that have “traditionally” given Windows Phone it’s particular flavor and perhaps even differentiation from iOS and Android design languages. The release of the Beta sparked a range of comments, some in support, some against the design aspects of this app. To be clear, the ones that support the app (me included) are not saying that this is the best ever possible app of all times… We are simply celebrating the fact that a major industry player like Facebook is pushing what I’ll call Metro, to the next generation.

If you’re interested in the challenges of designing apps in the Modern era, this post contains lots of food for thought.

Deadline Crunch Mode

Apple’s iOS 7 Team in Deadline Crunch Mode, Adding Engineers:

Sources who declined to be named because they are forbidden to talk publicly about Apple’s plans tell AllThingsD that the company has been “borrowing” engineers from the OS X 10.9 team as part of an effort to double down on iOS 7. “Yes, yes — it’s essentially a repeat of the iPhone/Leopard scenario,” one source said, referring to Apple’s 2007 decision to pull engineers from OS X 10.5 to work on iPhone. “Not as much of a fire drill, though. It will ship on time.”

In my experience, the end result of this sort of last-minute scramble is usually a mess.

Perhaps someone can send a few copies of The Mythical Man-Month to Cupertino, with a Post-it note on the page that explains Brooks’ Law: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”