Gaming the Apple Lists – Fast track to fame!

I just had a good laugh at Tech Crunch’s article Want To Top Apple’s All-Time Top Paid Apps List? Sell A Ton Of Apps — Or Do This.

I make the most of the appshopper.com lists of new, popular and free apps and have had a couple of “wins” where an app I’ve put on my wish list is free for a limited time. I figured they were going for the word-of-mouth promotion and given how many kids we know who have access to an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad the word does get out and I get presented with the app store all ready to download some new (invariably ghastly iMobster type thing) app to install once I put in my much protected password.

Getting anywhere on the list of the paid apps is fantastic for the app developers and I’d never questioned how those lists were constucted. I’d figured Apple knew how much money was changing hands and basing it on that – makes sense right?

If, however, they are counting downloads alone then the system is hugely flawed. Go free for a day, week or even month and a half way decent app will be installed a huge number of times – if only because it won’t be free later and it might just be worth it.

I don’t have a vested interest in Apple getting it right, but now that the secret is out it’ll be worth keeping an eye on appshopper, free app of the day etc to see

• Who is desperate to get up the ranks
• What you can “score” for free that you might otherwise have paid for!

Westfield kick their shoppers in the guts!

The weather is gloomy so my boy has taken advantage of it and cajoled me into taking him with some friends to Yogi Bear. We bought our tickets online and parked in a reasonably inconvenient area because I didn’t want to waste time looking for a park and its no bother to walk. 

I was astounded to see that Wilsons parking have been given a contract to enforce parking restrictions. Where I was parked is limited to 90 minutes (less than a movie) and closer parks got a generous 240 minutes.

If you want longer you have to plead your case to Customer Services at their newly relocated desk. The woman I talked to gave me a flyer and a complaint form and told me that extensions would be given if you could show you had made significant purchases.

I have a young daughter who wants to go to the mall with her friends and objects that I feel I should be there too. Given the unreasonable parking situation and the $3/ hour internet at Starbucks it looks likely she’ll get her independence more quickly than I’d planned.

Facebook Profiles – cute while they last

I was impressed by Mashable’s article on customising facebook profiles and used the Schweppes tool to customise mine. I wasn’t hugely committed to it, didn’t have a great photo to use but thought it would be fun for a while.

I got it set up using Firefox and it looked lovely until I decided to show my sister in law and she uses IE. The images were all out of line and I looked like I’d had a severe stroke or palsy. Since then one of my lovely nieces has started tagging the Xmas family photos – and I appear in some.

Unless I stop facebook doing what it does maintaining my profile will be a full time job. However one of the things I liked about facebook was the uniformity. The content and character of the user stands out on page because the garishness that consumed MySpace is gone. With that in mind, perhaps its 1 point facebook, nil to the modifiers.

Kim Schmitz makes his prescence felt!

Auckland is a fairly big city with over 1 million residents but by international standards it doesn’t compare with London, New York or even Sydney. New Years Eve is a party night but not for public partying – private parties, night clubs and restaurants. We have the Sky Tower which is part of the city’s casino and they put on a fireworks display at midnight. Its the same every year but if we’re close enough we watch because its all part of the event.

This year Kim Schmitz (aka Kim DotCom) livened things up with a competing fireworks display. From my home they appeared side by side and his display totally outclassed the Casinos.

I don’t know what statement he was trying to make – a farewell, or that he’s here to stay? Time will tell, in the meantime, “thanks, it was amazing”.

 

A daily post – do able?

Gawd, don’t even know if anyone would want to hear my daily whine, oops, sorry blog. I don’t even update facebook that often!

Check out http://dailypost.wordpress.com/ for details of their challenge. I doubt there is any reward other than filling the net with more drivel but it may be interesting!

2011 starts for me in 5 and a half hours. So – lets get this moving!

Gangs hit the NZ recruitment trail (Killer Beez vs Bloods)

My source for this is reliable… and if this is for real then it’s pretty scary. Especially when there’s the Chinese Lantern Festival on and there will be more people than usual out and about in town. The good news is that the weather is foul so maybe those events will be quiet. Not good for the festival organisers though

Was at a meeting this morning when one of the people from the Ministry of Social Developement stood up with a special announcement, namely that the Bloods gang of South Auckland are doing a recruitment drive this weekend. The police have information that the Bloods are upset with the amount of media and general notoriety of the rival Killer Beez gang, and so have planned the recruitment drive to bolster numbers and gain some attention for themselves. The way the gang works is that prospective members must prove themselves by completing an initiation task.

Apparently, this Saturday night that will involve groups of prospective gang members driving around in cars with the headlights off, with the intention that anyone who flashes their lights back at them will be chased and at the conclusion of said chase will receive a vicious beating. The take home message was not to flash your lights at anyone driving with their lights off on Saturday night. This is supposed to be happening all over the city between the North Shore and Franklin.

According to the source, the police are reluctant to release this information to the general media until either late in the piece or not at all, for fears that the gang will just change their tactic or dates, making it completely unpredictable. I find this all a little hard to believe, but likewise will not be flashing my lights at anyone on Saturday night. Seems a small and logical precaution to take on the off chance that there is any truth behind the murmurings.

Anger at bike trail

The latest from the Westmere fun police – y’know, sometimes it’s nice to go for a small ride locally.

A dispute has erupted between residents and a mountain bike group over land at Western Springs.

The Underground Trailblazers have admitted they’re taking the law into their own hands by building trails in inner-city Auckland.

They say they’re fed up with years of nothing being done for urban mountain bikers.

But residents say the cyclists are wrecking parkland and trees and should be stopped.

One reserve neighbour who doesn’t want to be named because she fears reprisals, says they are causing damage.

“This is parkland and they build bridges and cut bike trails through the area, which is an area of ecological significance.

“You can’t do that – it’s illegal.”

The Auckland City Harbour News reported the Underground Trailblazers’ plans to make their own bike trails after becoming fed up with a lack of Auckland City Council action last December.

They made a 250-metre trail at the West View Rod end of the Western Springs, building a small bridge over a stream. It was later removed by the council.

The resident, who is giving a presentation at the Western Bays Community Board tonight, says the land has been “hijacked”.

She says the council should step in and make the group get resource consent like everybody else.

“They’re being paid to do a job and they’re not doing it

“If you speed you get a ticket and if you chop into a tree you should get a ticket

“They don’t have resource consent but everybody else has to.”

Underground Trailblazers spokesman Peter Stoneham says the group is not damaging the land.

Members are encouraged to respect native plants and trees and choose areas that are underused.

“We are taking the law into our own hands but we have been liaising with the council.

“We are taking the path of least resistance through the bush and we’ve never cut a tree down.”

Council parks officer Graham Marchant says he’s frustrated by the mountain bikers.

“They’re there under sufferance.

“We can’t fence the public off from getting in there.

“We don’t like it but what can you do about it? It’s a free country.”

Mr Marchant says he is waiting for Mr Stoneham to reply to a letter sent this month asking him to move the track because of health and safety concerns for pedestrians.

Mr Marchant says the council is investigating “various options” for a mountain bike trail, including Western Springs.

“We’re treading a careful line.

“Once they have a dedicated trail they should be a problem of the past.”

What do you think? Comments below or email the newspaper at edcl@snl.co.nz

The newspaper didn’t provide an online copy – so I’ve provided it here!

Just let the phone ring, dammit!

I bought a new Panasonic cordless phone for my Mother at the weekend, charged it up and started working through setting it up.

The phone comes with 20 different ringtones but not one of them resembles an old fashioned phone ring!

It’s bad enough on mobile phones and I can understand that there is a whole industry around selling ringtones but on these cordless phones that’s not an option.

Ridiculous!

What price would you put on your 20s?

We were chatting yesterday about the young girls, frequently teens, who get pregnant deliberately. The common feeling in the group was that the social welfare payments were making young girls see motherhood as a career option and that the kids were poorly raised, and communally raised, with the responsibility being frequently handed over to elders.

It got me to thinking, what price would I put on the experiences I had as a teenager and in my 20s (given that my first child was born when I was safely in my 30s).

The Tamagottchi that wouldn’t die

Having missed the Matchmaker when she appeared my daughter has been left with a Tamagotchi that can’t work and is decidedly post menopausal. We’re used to a steady turnover of “tamas” with each lasting about a week before they disappear leaving their offspring behind.

So, it seems incredibly unfair that she’s now left with this old crone (26 days when pictured, now 28). I’ve offered to “kill it” or to hit reset but euthanasia doesn’t come easy to the younger generation. Instead she gets to walk through the town and she stops and cries outside her old work. So much for retirement being the golden years!

I guess we’ll sit and wait for the inevitable and hope it’s sometime soon.