Not the best pose, but it was a cool looking shot so I though that it was worth the post! Shot with Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 100mm Macro L Lens at f/8.
Apple's Fights The Good Fight: Decides To Aid The Opposition in "Bloatwar"
Fresh off my post yesterday regarding the looming war between telecoms and publishers, Apple decided yesterday to allow iPhone and iPad users install ad-blocking software on their devices running iOS 9.
If publishers weren't completely serious about their ad-clutter, they should be now; but for many it might be too late, and they will have to look into the mirror and realize they have no one to blame but themselves. As I wrote in this earlier post, content site like diply have been over-advertising on their site, and have ruined the user experience for many of the those that use their site for media consumption. These sites deserved to be punished for their abuses, but unfortunately they will not be the only victim of this blocking.
Collateral Damage
The real losers in this war will ultimately be the surfer or the content consumer. Thousands of legitimate, valuable, & responsible publishers will suffer at the hand of these ad-blockers. Websites like 9to5mac.com depend on ad revenue to operate, and with out this revenue - quality sites like this might cease operations. “If you go to a site, and you’re blocking their ads, then you’re not giving that site any reason to be in existence,” says Seth Weintraub, operator of 9to5mac.com. “I don't hate the companies that are doing it or the users that do, but people are hurting the sites they are enjoying.” That stinks for us!
Hope Is Not Lost
As the war goes on there are emerging companies that are giving consumers a way to fight back against irresponsible publishers and advertisers while allowing responsible parties to continue "block" free. For example, blockers like AdBlock Plus are allowing ads to remain unblocked if they meet certain standards. Also, many have teamed up with Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit that allows advertisers to opt in to a "Do Not Track" list that certifies them as responsible when it comes to advertising and privacy (tracking). Essentially, this means that if you are a publisher, and you are responsible with your advertising, you will be able able to show ads and more importantly monetize them. That's a win for us!
Please Save My Mobile Surfing Experience!
A recently article on TechCrunch titled "Begun, The Mobile Ad-Blocking Wars Have" describes an upcoming war between telecom companies and the advertising industry. In addition to the real costs to telecoms, its also critical for advertisers to recognize and understand how this war can effect our ad campaigns. While it’s important to understand this effect, it more important that we actively seek to punish those publishers who are “bloatwaring" their sites. We are doing them - in the words of Donald Trump - a “HUGE" favor.
What’s The Problem?
The problem comes down to bandwidth and the cost associated with providing access to users. Telecoms are constantly investing billions of dollars to upgrade and expand their infrastructure to compete with each other and ultimately deliver service to its customers, and mobile ads and their tracking software are using this bandwidth. In fact, mobile applications or mobile websites can ping an antenna up to 50 times a minute in a process called background signaling. The telecoms are paying for this. Therefore, we the customers are paying for this. This is on top of the fact that ad clutter already reduces the effectiveness of your ad and can degrade your brand.
The Rise of Mobile Ad Blockers
Desktop ad-blocking software has been around for awhile. It’s one of the things that users love about Google Chrome. In fact, the AdBlock add-on from Chrome has been downloaded over 10,000,000 times and has over 151,000 reviews. It’s not the people hate ads, but it’s that people hate bloatware - and its getting worse. From new PC’s to content websites, bloatware is effecting the way you use the internet. As the migration of internet usage from desktop to mobile continues increase, telecoms and users both are seeking out services like AdBlock Plus and TrustGo to extend these experience boosting services to their mobile devices.
Please Save My Mobile Surfing Experience
Recent offenses include the over use of ads on user generated content site like diply.com. You're scrolling through your Facebook feed on your iPhone 6 Plus, and you see an interesting post on the “Craziest Sports Accidents of All Time” and you click on it. It opens up the content from diply inside of our Facebook app and it freezes as you scroll down. There are 20 photos listed on the headline and it shows 2 content photos per page and at least 6 different ads. So if I wanted to look at the photos, which I no longer will since I closed the app because of the poor user experience, I would have seen 20 pictures and no less than 120 ads. Give me a break!
As John Gruber (Apple Guru) stated on his blog, "Advertising should have minimal effect on page load times and device battery life. Advertising should be respectful of the user’s time, attention, and battery life. The industry has gluttonously gone the other way."
What Can Buyers Do?
Don’t buy ads on sites that are “bloated.” Contact your DSP or your programmatic ad buyer and explain to them that you are concerned with the quality of your ad buys. There are hundreds of millions of ad impressions available so even if you blacklisted 100 of the largest bloatware offenders, there are millions of impressions still available for you to buy. If you aren’t sure of the sites to start with, start here. In reality, your spend is a drop in the pond, and it likely will not make a difference to the publisher, but its just good marketing to avoid these sites (see Ad Clutter Reduces Effectiveness, Degrades Brands).
Final Thoughts
In reality, the root of the problem will not be fixed, and we will attack the problem much like we did with desktop sites. Telecoms and end users will use ad-blocking software to cut back on the ads, and advertisers will think of creative new formats or messages to stand out in the crowd. Content sites will rise and fall, and many more will come to the market with their ad clutter and the prospect of making thousands of dollars from these ads....
I don't hate ads, and I do realize they pay for many of the services I use today, I just hate when they ruin my experience.
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/please-save-my-mobile-surfing-experience-luke-stokebrand-mba?trk=prof-post
How to disable WIFI on your Cox supplied Netgear Router (CG3000D)
You'll notice that if you try to login to the administrative web GUI for your Netgear Cox router there is not a tab that lets you uncheck "Enable Wireless Radio". You have to use a hidden settings page on the router to disable this setting. The URL for the page is as follows:
http://##ROUTERADDRESS##/Rg802dot11BasicCfg.asp
use the IP address of your router where it says ##ROUTERADDRESS##. This might look something like this:
http://192.168.0.1/Rg802dot11BasicCfg.asp
On this page you will see a check box checked for "Enable Wireless Radio." Uncheck this box and hit APPLY below and your wireless will be disabled on this router and you are free to use a 3rd party wireless router of your choosing such as a ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router.
NOTE: Unchecking the "Enable SSID Broadcast" does not disable the WIFI. It only prevents the SSID from being broadcasted.
Cannot login to Cisco Call Manager After Firefox Update
After performing the last Cisco CallManager update we were unable to login into Cisco Call Manager 8.5 via the web interface. When we attempt to login we received the following message:
Secure Connection Failed An error occurred during a connection to YOUR IP. SSL received a weak ephemeral Diffie-Hellman key in Server Key Exchange handshake message.
(Error code: ssl_error_weak_server_ephemeral_dh_key)
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. * Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
The Cause:
Since the 30th of June of 2015, Mozilla Firefox doesn't support connections to a server with weak Diffie-Hellman ciphers anymore (Mozilla Release Notes:)
The Resolution:
Perform at your own risk. Accidental adjustment may effect Firefox's performance. To fix type about:config in your Firefox web browser, in the address bar. Change the next settings with the next values:
security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_128_sha=false
security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_256_sha=false
The values should be true by default. Click on them to change to "false."
That's it! You should now be able to login to Cisco Call Manager.