Quick hit

You no longer support what?

So, trying to use the Sony box the other night on the bedroom TV. Click the Youtube app, and a somewhat startling message comes up, to the effect that "Google no longer supports the YouTube app on this device."

What.The.Brick?

This is a SONY streaming box. I was not aware that Google could decide to stop "supporting" an app for YouTube (which it owns) and therefore cause my Sony streaming box to became a brick as far as use for watching YouTube. 

Thanks a lot Google.

Is this some strategic competition move? I know there's already a lot of shenanigans when it comes to Google and Amazon and streaming and apps on different devices (can't use the Amazon app on my iPhone to stream to Chromecast on the living room TV, for example).

I'll post more if I find out anything, other than, "too bad Mr. Consumer, thanks for playing."

A sitemap generator

A quick shout-out to a free online website site map generator:

https://xmlsitemapgenerator.org

I did a quick Google search, found this site and tried it. In no time I had a nice HTML-based sitemap page of a company website, which was just what I needed. No signup required. I'm going to dig into the code while I prune the sitemap a bit. I'll post any additional findings.

Tid Bits

Pushing a driver to disable counterfeit chips. Again:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ftdi-abuses-windows-update-pushing-driver-that-breaks-counterfeit-chips/

An interesting strategy. The article doesn't like it.

Musings

A designer has strong feelings about Muse — it's wonderful, the sites using it look cool, it's easy to use. I suspected there was more to it. And there is. I gathered some criticisms, which are along the line I expected (make messy code) and more far-reaching (will ruin developers and the web by ignoring standards, accessibility, and responsive design.)

A designer who's not thrilled:

compassdesigns.net/adobe-muse-youre-not-helping/
Excerpt:
What kinds of sites can you build with a static tool like Muse these days? Only the very simplest and most basic sites, the 5-page mom-and-pop sites that are nothing more than, well, the tri-fold brochure in electronic format. And what happens when the client wants to update the site on their own? Presumably they can, if they own their own copy of Muse… but would the print designer allow them to have full editing rights to the site? The client is frustrated because everyone else they know can edit their own website, so why do they have to go through the designer for everything? Muse is blamed for making a bad tool.

Discussion at Designers Talk:
http://www.designerstalk.com/forums/web-design/64498-adobe-muse-thoughts.html

Discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/2rge23/what_are_your_thoughts_on_adobe_muse/
An excerpt: The problem: The underlying code it generates is a psycho mess! It will be a horrible experience if you ever have to customize the code by hand. You can never use this if there is a development team involved. If you think your Muse created web page will be handed over to another developer, or will need to be hand edited for ANY reason...then stay away from Muse. I use Muse from time to time for one off pages that I do not need to hand edit (it is fast).

Sneaky? Deceptive? Dumb? All of the above

Why does Amazon show me movies on its Free-with-Prime movie page that are not free-with-Prime movies. Could it be because they want you, me and everybody to sign up for Prime, and they don't care what kind of deceptive advertising they use to do it? No, that couldn't be it. It must be a mistake in their page-display code, right? Right.

Here's what happened. Let's say I was home, and I really wanted to see a particular movie, and so I searched to see if the movie was available on Amazon's streaming service. Now let's say I checked the free-with-Prime movies and saw the movie I was looking for. Would you assume then that the movie you wanted was available free with Prime? Of course you would. But you might well be wrong.

It's pretty clear that Amazon was slapping an image of the movie I wanted on the free-with-Prime teaser page. But if you dig deep enough, you find out that the particular movie I wanted actually is not free with Prime. (It's free through Amazon if you have a subscription to a particular pay-movie cable channel, actually).

I don't care how the code works that puts movie posters on the page. Don't show me an image of any movie as a come-on to joining Prime if that movie is not going to be available on Prime once I join.

I do have to say, however, that I didn't get screen captures of the pages that I was searching, and I can't now reproduce exactly what I was seeing then. Maybe Amazon just confused me with images of one movie on a regular purchase page, not a free-with-Prime page — but that's what it seemed like at the time. And as I said, the movie (Maleficent) is free if you have a Starz! subscription and sign into that on the Amazon movies page.

Amazon has had some other complaints about their Prime marketing. Specifically, the UK Advertising Standards Authority charged Amazon with misleading direct mail advertising that touted a free Prime trial, because Amazon automatically bills you after 30 days if you don't cancel the service.

I like that the UK agency was enforcing the idea that "free" can't mean "not free unless you cancel a service you didn't know you had signed up to pay for."

Watchdog bans misleading Amazon Prime 'free trial' ad