Greg In The Desert

I do not yet own Aquarium Strip Ease. I like the concept, use water test strips and compare them to the colors in the app. The app will explain what steps are need to improve water quality and presumably keep a log.

Based on the screen shots, I think the app could use a little more polish and could look more like a standard iPhone app. I would also like to have a similar app with full aquarium tracking functionality. I have bought and deleted a fair share of iPhone apps, I will wait and see what other reviews think.

Aquarium – Strip Ease 1.0 is $1.99 on the iTunes store.

This version of Aquarium – Strip Ease supports API® 5 in 1 Test Strips, and Mardel® 5 in 1 Test Strips.

If you use a different type of strip and would like to use it with Aquarium – Strip Ease you contact us using the special email address found within the app we will work with you to include your strip in the next version.

Strip Ease is an easy way to read aquarium test strips. Simply dip your strip in your aquarium then match the colors on the strip with the color pads on your iPhone and find out quickly what your water condition is.

Features:
• API® 5 in 1 Test Strip Comparison
• Mardel® 5 in 1 Test Strip Comparison
• Fresh and Salt Water Testing
• Stores Water Test History
• Email Test Results and Test History

API® is a registered trademark of Mars Fishcare North America, Inc. and is in no way associated with Aquarium – Strip Ease or Key Lime 314, LLC.

Mardel® is a registered trademark of Sentry AQ and is in no way associated with Aquarium – Strip Ease or Key Lime 314, LLC.

Back in April of 2007,I complained about Acquisition’s product registration. The issue is that Acquisition activation failed. The developer, Dave Watanabe, responded to my email saying that my activation code was pirated and offered no recourse. The problem with Acquisition’s product activation scheme is it relied completely on a email address to activate. If a email address is public, it doesn’t take much to guess by just trying out random emails of known mac users.

Dave may have not offered any further response to my emails, but he did eventually address the issue. In October I received the following email (yes, a little late):

Acquisition 2, a major new release of Acquisition, is due for release in the coming days. Along with this major release, new activation codes are being created for license verification. Since you qualify for complimentary upgrades to major releases, your code is included below.

Included was a new code that did not rely on my email address. Once again I can use Acquisition. Still, the whole ordeal put a sour taste in my mouth. I use Tranmission for my bittorrent needs and don’t have much use for Acquisition unless there’s something very obscure I’m looking for.

Want to get updates to this site via email? It’s now possible thanks to feedburner.

The Fish Bowl blog has a entry about David Watanabe’s production activation issue with the Newsfire RSS reader. After reinstalling MacOS X on his MacBook, product activation said his email address was no longer valid and Watanabe suggested it was used for piracy.

Sounds familiar. In Febuary I reinstalled MacOS and tried to reactivate Acquisition (also made by Dave Watanabe), and I got the same kind of message. I could not activate the product with my email. I emailed Dave and he asked for my paypal trasaction ID. He then came back with this response.

Your license has been pretty clearly used by software pirates. David.

It’s Not clear to me! I purchased Acquisition in 2003, only ever used it on two computers and I never shared my email with anyone. I replied and said this isn’t possible and must be a mistake, but I didn’t get any more responses from Dave. A little research (various comments at MacUpdate) indicates that I’m not the only one that has had the activation problem with Acquisition.

Clearly, legitimate users are getting lost in the noise of piracy. Dave’s product activation scheme is flawed. People interested in pirating his software only need a email address to activate a item. It doesn’t take nearly as much effort to target users who have said they use his software, or just guess vs. issuing a serial number. Instead Dave chooses to insult his customers by calling them pirates.

Update 18 April 2007: Look at Dave Watanabe has a blog entry yesterday and attempts to justify his activation scheme.

simple cooperation and open dialog are usually enough to fix those situations… Are anti-piracy mechanisms bad for the user? Of course not. The honest user should never have an issue and the dishonest users are kept from ruining a project.

Bullhockey on both of those points. I am a honest user and Dave wasn’t willing to talk to me.

Everyone knew this was coming sooner or later, but it still is a pain.

From: mail@flickr.com
Subject: [Flickr] Update for Old Skool members
Date: January 30, 2007 5:24:26 PM MST
Reply-To: mail@flickr.com

Dear Old Skool Account-Holding Flickr Member,

On March 15th we’ll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.

We’re making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in — like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at: http://go.yahoo.com.

95% of your fellow Flickrites already use this system and their experience is just the same as yours is now, except they sign in on a different page. It’s easy to switch: it takes about a minute if you already have a Yahoo! ID and about five minutes if you don’t.

You can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you’ll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, start at this page:

http://flickr.com/account/associate/

Nothing else on your account or experience of Flickr changes: you can continue to have your FlickrMail and notifications sent to any email address at any domain and your screenname will remain the same.

Complete details and answers to most common questions are available here:

http://flickr.com/help/signin/

Thanks for your patience and understanding – and even bigger thanks for your continued support of Flickr: if you’re reading this, you’ve been around for a while and that means a lot to us!

Warmest regards,

- The Flickreenos