shahid

Instagone

You’ve all heard the news about Instagram, that they’re about to set loose some particularly nasty licence conditions. Many of the users are up in arms, and so they should be.

I’m not surprised. Facebook bought them. Mark Zuckerberg and I don’t share the same view on data privacy. He has what one might call “progressive views”. I stopped using Instagram, sadly, when Facebook bought them. I’ve since started using Facebook again. Hypocrite? No. I just made a simple adjustment. I now behave as if Facebook was a public arena. I post nothing, and say nothing, that I wouldn’t want my worst enemies to repeat.

With the news on the licence terms changing for Instagram, and with the recent improvement of the iPhone Flickr app (it’s not great, but it’s usable), I decided to take some conclusive steps.

I used instaport.me to download all my Instagram pics as a .zip file. This didn’t take long.
I uploaded the files to my Amazon S3 repository for long-term safekeeping.
I backed up my files locally.
I backed the files up to the cloud via CrashPlan.
I uploaded all my photos to Flickr and started to rename them.
I deleted my Instagram account, permanently.

You can find my photos here:

And my Flickr profile here:

Goodbye to an Old Friend

Screen Shot 2012 12 08 at 11 54

I’ve finally had it with Simplenote sync.

I’ve been using Simplenote for several years, and have gladly paid the subscription fee for the Pro version two years running. At $19.99 a year, that’s a lot to pay for an app that doesn’t provide much that the likes of IA Writer doesn’t. The latter doesn’t feature tags, or the brilliant search mechanism that Notational Velocity on the Mac made so popular, but that’s fine. I can still use Notational Velocity with Dropbox sync.

The great thing about Simplenote sync was that it was instant. If you think Dropbox is fast, you haven’t experienced the wonder of making a change on a Mac and knowing that the changes are already on your handheld before you’ve had a chance to pick it up to check.

Right now I’m sitting through a Simlpenote Dropbox duplication sync and watching duplicates of files appear over and over. NVAlt, a popular fork of Notational Velocity, also seems to be having problems with Simplenote sync of late and I think Brett Terpstra has pretty much given up on it. When Michael Schechter of A Better Mess wrote this, I decided to clip it and come back to it later to finally kick the Simplenote habit, which I did today.

Of course, given my “one-more-go” nature, I decided I’d have another look at the Simplenote Dropbox sync to see if I could get it to work. I copied my notes into a new Dropbox folder, pointed Simplenote at it and watched as it duplicated everything religiously and I got notification after notification of files being added to Dropbox. Enough is enough.

So, given the issues with the sync, and given that this was the only real benefit of Simplenote, and despite the fact that my subscription is paid until august 2013, I’m going to have to say a sad goodbye to the longest lived piece of 3rd party software on my iPhone.

Audacity

In times of difficulty, when the environment is brutal, when so many are losing their heads, two paths appear.

The easy path is inward looking, unimaginative and prudent. It’s defensive, apologetic and and appeals to those obsessed with damage limitation. If you take this path, you will probably lose, but at least you reduce the chances of getting hammered.

The hard path is breathtakingly audacious and requires indefatigable courage. Like Liverpool’s second half against Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final; like Sean Murray mortgaging his house to make Joe Danger; like Zlatan Ibrahimovic against England the other night, I choose the hard path, because although I might fall flat on my arse more often than not, one day I will pull off the greatest overhead kick ever scored.

Payback

It was the first time Tony and I were going to Japan. It was special for both of us, for different reasons. Tony was a Japanophile, and my father always wanted to spend a few years of his life there.

We worked for Virgin Interactive, so naturally, we flew Virgin. One of the perks of using a partner company was that your ticket got marked with “SAU” for “Space Available Upgrade”. This meant that whatever the class of travel, if space was available, we’d get upgraded automatically.

While we were waiting to find out if there was any space, Tony and I discussed the Islamic concept of reward. which he was quite interested in, so I explained further.

“For every good action, you get rewarded in the next life seven times over”

“That sounds cool” Tony said, intrigued. “What about this life?”

“Yeah, sometimes this life too, though not always. We’re not meant to do good deeds just to get payback in this life. We do good deeds because it’s right to do good deeds. God offers us up to 700x return on our good deeds in the next life”

We carried on in this vein when a Virgin representative came over, looking rather apologetic.

“I’m sorry guys, but there’s only a single seat in Premium Economy available.”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Tony, I want you to have it”

“No it’s alright, it really should be you Shahid”

“It’s fine Tony. I’ve been upgraded before. This is your first time and we’re going to Japan. You’re taller. I’ll be fine in Economy, it’s actually really good on Virgin”

So Tony got the upgrade and I sat down in the Economy seat. I put my headphones on and was happy. I was comfortable and I felt good that I’d done something for my friend.

As we were about to take off, a stewardess approached me, smiling broadly.

“Mr. Ahmad, we’ve managed to find a space for you with your companion. Would you like to come with me?”

I returned the smile, but not just because I was getting the unexpected upgrade. As I approached Tony, he looked at me quizzically, expecting a question. As I went to sit down next to the newly empty seat next to him, he looked shaken, and I knew why.

“Sometimes Tony, God pays you back pretty quickly”