Disqus - Latest Comments for pauljacobson

Re: Happy New Year - Linux Journal is Alive!

pauljacobson — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 10:51:14 -0000

I'm pretty new to Linux Journal (I arrived in time to see v1.0's demise). Great news that I'll have a chance to become better acquainted going forward.

As far as revenue models go, I've always liked the Ars Technica model. It's ad supported for non-subscribers, and offers subscribers a very reasonably priced option with no ads, full RSS feeds (compared to truncated feeds for non-subscribers), and other format benefits.

I think I pay Ars $5 a month and I'm happy to do it.

Re: Using Npm Scripts as a Build Tool

pauljacobson — Sun, 24 Dec 2017 13:40:18 -0000

Can you not speed up some of the processes by running them in parallel? For example, in these two:

```
"concat:js": "mkdir -p dist/js && concat -o dist/js/scripts.js assets/js/test1.js assets/js/test2.js",
"concat": "npm run concat:css && npm run concat:js",
```

What if you use single `&` instead of `&&`? Wouldn't that run the various commands in parallel, instead of in sequence when you use `&&`?

Re: The 2017 State Of B2B Lead Nurturing

pauljacobson — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 06:19:36 -0000

This is exactly what I need for some research I'm doing! Thanks.

Re: Medium lays off one-third of its employees

pauljacobson — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 07:30:10 -0000

Apologies, I only noticed this post after I published my post earlier. I updated my post to link to yours.

Re: Justin Spratt to join Uber in top role

pauljacobson — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 04:58:49 -0000

Very nice development and richly deserved. I have huge respect for Spratt and wish him even more success.

Re: Are you paying to keep your WordPress site up to date?

pauljacobson — Sat, 28 May 2016 14:44:20 -0000

I take it that cost is primarily billable time for the service provider?

Re: Do we still have the music in us?

pauljacobson — Mon, 23 May 2016 00:08:51 -0000

A very belated happy birthday Kevin!

Re: Are you paying to keep your WordPress site up to date?

pauljacobson — Mon, 23 May 2016 00:07:45 -0000

I think it really depends on how much firms are being asked to pay. This is a space that is definitely ripe for exploitation. I can see unscrupulous support services companies ripping unsuspecting firms off with ridiculous prices. Lawyers are often not particularly tech savvy and wouldn't realise that WordPress has the ability to many of its updates automatically.

I agree with you but where there is a savvy person in the firm who can differentiate between the excess charges and the necessary, though reasonable, charges.

Re: Should you publish on Medium… or only on your blog?

pauljacobson — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 04:51:11 -0000

Like you ultimately said, it isn't a binary choice. You can publish on your own site and Medium (Medium staff basically said as much in their response to Dave Winer recently). I'm not convinced that Medium outranking your own site in Google Search is necessarily a reason to stop publishing on Medium but it can be a problem, I imagine. Overall, it is still a very interesting platform to publish on but I'm not giving up my personal blog. That remains my primary space. As it should.

Re: How the Apple Watch Is Re-Inventing Marketing

pauljacobson — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 03:29:32 -0000

I think there is huge potential for Apple Watch and other wearables but the challenge is going to be minimizing unwanted interruptions. It's very personal and there is way too much opportunity to interrupt people. It could become the new pop-up advertising analogue.

Re: Welcome to This is Dave

pauljacobson — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 01:50:25 -0000

No, no need. I was just curious. It's a very nice feature.

Re: Welcome to This is Dave

pauljacobson — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 04:36:46 -0000

Love the blog, Dave! I am also super envious of the Twitter widget in your sidebar. Theme feature or WP plugin?

Re: The emotional power of color

pauljacobson — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 08:49:16 -0000

I love this stuff. These little psychological tips make a huge difference to user experience and even though they are designed to influence behavior, they do improve the overall experience.

Re: Is Twitter becoming less important?

pauljacobson — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 03:33:38 -0000

I'm not sure, Kevin. Twitter is definitely still an important platform but it seems to have stalled in recent years. I don't know what they should do (Chris Sacca has some interesting suggestions: http://lowercasecapital.com... but I'm not sure about its trend towards emulating the Facebook News Feed. The privacy model is very different and tweaking Twitter to look like a public Facebook (while, ironically, Facebook tries to reinvent itself, in part, to look like Twitter) isn't really appealing to me.

I guess we will have to see how this plays out over the next couple years. I am very interested to see where this new relationship with Google goes. Could Google buy Twitter one day? Could be interesting.

Re: The power of Internet is about the network, the interaction

pauljacobson — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 03:00:35 -0000

Good reminder about the networking benefits of the Internet. It's easy to slip into marketing mode online and forget about making real connections.

Re: Your Content Engagement is Begging: Stop Using Stock Photos | Roojoom Blog

pauljacobson — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 05:27:53 -0000

Among my many talents is photography. Kitsch stock photos make my inner photographer. Please read this post and stop using bad stock photos. Think of the children. Or something.

On a related note, the Vince Vaughn stock photos are brilliant parodies of the many, terrible, business stock photos lesser marketers have used for years. Those are ok.

Re: 5 Ways to know: What can your competitors websites teach you?

pauljacobson — Thu, 14 May 2015 02:54:58 -0000

I often see too much temptation to clone what a competitor is doing just because it is doing something. Sure, follow best practices but also innovate.

Re: The Measure Of Character In The Information Age

pauljacobson — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 01:29:29 -0000

I like this post and wrote a response on my site (I never know if trackbacks actually work these days). On one hand I agree with you Mike and Mike and on the other hand I think we tend towards expecting each other to be these flawless beings and never to say stupid stuff. We're human and we do stupid things. I am definitely in that category and I've written some remarkably poorly conceived stuff in my time and while that can be understandably harmful to us and the people we focus on, we also need to ease up with our expectations.

Re: Don’t Ever Use EEZI MOVE Removals

pauljacobson — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 04:08:43 -0000

Fark, what a mess! There were so many opportunities for them to just do the right thing, get paid and leave with a happier customer. It was almost as if they specifically wanted to take the toughest route.

Re: Yes, you CAN cancel your cellphone contract

pauljacobson — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 04:05:57 -0000

Hi Mike, apologies for not responding to you. What happened with your contract? Did you come right? As for what you could do, you insist on more reasonable charges and keep escalating until you get to someone who is reasonable. It is tricky, though, as consumers we are at a distinct disadvantage.

Re: We have to understand the right to privacy before we can protect it

pauljacobson — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 02:56:32 -0000

Thanks for sharing these links. They are terrific resources.

Re: Web•Tech•Law - Legal Notes - Is WhatsApp violating your privacy rights?

pauljacobson — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 04:50:40 -0000

It isn't necessarily a privacy violation if they don't use that location information in a way you have not approved of in the privacy policy. If you choose to send media to someone and you do so knowing you have enabled the geo-location feature, you are consenting to that. It largely comes down to WhatsApp informing you what personal information it is using and how.

Re: Using Netflix is South Africa is illegal

pauljacobson — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:17:43 -0000

Hey AG

I think the penalty would likely be having your account cancelled. I suppose there is a risk that you could be sued too.

You ask good questions and these sorts of questions highlight why this is such a frustrating issue. It just doesn't make much sense for consumers.

Re: Using Netflix is South Africa is illegal

pauljacobson — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 01:24:48 -0000

Hi AG

Thanks for your questions and comments. Let me know if this feedback helps clarify the issues for you.

Exclusivity is pretty commonplace and you see it whenever there is limited content availability in different regions. In theory there is no reason why content shouldn't be available everywhere but we see restrictions on ebook, music, TV series and movie availability in SA and the only explanation I can think of (aside from censorship which shouldn't be happening much) is exclusive or restrictive licensing arrangements between content owners and local distributors/providers.

The fact that we see DVDs for certain movies or TV shows in our stores and not downloads through something like the iTunes store is evidence of these restrictive licensing arrangements in the sense that DVDs are not a threat to DSTV which has the option of making movies and TV series available through its service first (hypothetically). I see content availability restrictions as having more to do with protecting local distribution channels (physical media stores and the businesses built to support them) than any particular reason why we shouldn't be able to buy movies and TV series that become available in the USA, for example.

Geographical restrictions are a pretty clear indication of exclusivity arrangements or, at the very least, restrictive licensing arrangements.

When it comes to the legalities, it is essentially the following: a copyright owner has certain exclusive rights over its content which include making copies, selling it and more. The only way others may exercise those rights is with permission and permission is granted through licenses. The permissions can be complex and nuanced and could set pretty much any restrictions.

In the case of Netflix content, Netflix users are granted a license that includes restrictions on who can access the service and from which locations. Those are conditions that apply to the permissions users are granted by the copyright owners via Netflix (which possibly has a license which it can sub-license to users). If you exercise rights the copyright owner has without permission (and this includes ignoring conditions which attach to those permissions) then you are infringing the copyright owner's copyright which is, in turn, a violation of copyright legislation and is unlawful.

There is a contractual element but it also incorporates a lawfulness element and, ironically, the fact that you are paying for the content doesn't affect the legalities or contractual compliance (unless the contract says that paying for the content fixes other non-compliance issues).

Re: Using Netflix is South Africa is illegal

pauljacobson — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 07:30:34 -0000

"Pirates" is also a heavily loaded term the entertainment industry uses which isn't really appropriate as a description for what people who don't pay are doing. It's basically psychological warfare on consumers.