New stable version of Add all to Watch Later (V 1.5)

Another update! But this time it is a minor one, sort of. (also the first post on this blog about this app!)

I always wanted to post this app on GitHub, but due to the inclusion of ads I was reticent to do so (you need to provide a personal identifier, others could have published it without ads [no, I don't believe this either, but still] or I don't know. So, I removed the ads and the app is now available on GitHub for anyone to review! Feel free to suggest changes with pull requests, I know someday they will come, hopefully.
The other changes are just some tweaks, updated urls to this blog and small bug fixes I found. Nothing big, more like an 'application revision'. 

As with the previous post, I didn't notify about the beta version due to no beta testers registered :( but there were a beta, and no bugs were found by Play Store so here it is as stable.

What will be next? I don't know, but from now, here is the changelog: 

V 1.5
- Updated link to blog page & privacy policy.
- Better messages from blacklist videos.
- Removed Ads, app size reduced.
- [Now the app code is available on Github! Check the description for the link]

New stable version of Average Data Usage Widget (V 1.4)

It's good to be back. This is a small update I wanted to make since a while. Now the progress bars widget display how much your usage is when >100% instead of simply stopping at 100. Android widgets are one of the worst elements to work with, and the control the developer has over them is incredibly limited (this is the reason I didn't implement themes yet) and although I wanted to make it better this is all I can do until I find a better way. Still not so bad, I'm happy with the result.

You may also noticed that I didn't published a post about a beta version first. The truth is that I did published a beta (it is useful because the developer console tests the versions on real devices for incompatibilities and displays errors and issues that some devices could have) but since there are no beta testers I opted not to post about it this time. The application file is the same too so it would be a copy/paste without extra info. No big changes so it shouldn't break anything.

Anyway, here is the changelog:

V 1.4
- Increased precision of the progress bars
- When the usage is >100%, the progress bar shows how much instead of stop at 100.

About monetization

I've been researching lately about the ad-revenue world and the different services. I've learn that not only you need to provide a lot of personal information, which I'm reticent to provide, but that almost all services have bad reputation, or require a paid domain, or other requirements that rejects your application. This sure is a difficult world, and I'm not the right person to enter it yet unless I find something that I find acceptable.

I also tried donation services to provide an alternative link to give me donations, but again the amount of personal details you need to provide is just crazy, and although I understand why they need it, the information is often confusing or misleading (ok, here is my address, will you show it publicly? Yes? No? Please answer me). I still have the donation app I published some months ago, and it wasn't that bad to set up, but if you are looking for alternatives I can not think of other than send me a steam or e-shop keycode for a video game (it's a joke but...not a bad idea. I like puzzle, rhythm and adventure games, just saying).

The worst of all is that, although this research teaches you a lot and I recommend anyone on a similar situation to try, it is keeping me from doing what I like most: programming useful apps and tools.
So from now I'll forget about all this monetization and go back to programming, while researching from time to time, even if I earn nothing from it (at least until I really start needing the money). Perhaps in the future you see ads in this blog or perhaps I find a good way to accept donations, but I'm sure that the next post (I hope posts) will be about apps, and not the blog.

Also, if you want to give me a suggestion, tip or something you think that can help me, my email is at the bottom.

Unmonetized blog

That was fast!
Apparently AdSense doesn't like my traffic, it seems they prefer more ad-intrusive blogs, so ads are disabled.

I activated the ads to learn, to see first hand the world of ad-revenue, and I do learned a lot. I learned that AdSense is not a good option for small developers like me, so now I need to learn where to find another alternative more suitable for my situation (also, if you are planning to use AdSense with Blogger, perhaps you should reconsider and/or change every setting you can. Default options are not a good idea!). I also learned some useful things about internet traffic that I'm sure will help me in the future. But most importantly I learned that being humble and polite doesn't help you, instead it seems to do the opposite.
Still, I won't let this let down me (Or is it "I won't let down me this"? Maybe "I won't this let down me"? Ouch, this sentence is a tricky one! ). I still have a lot to learn and I'll always be humble, polite and considered. I just need to find a place where those characteristics are important and not a handicap.

Soooo it's research time! (Which means less time for app updates unfortunately, but don't worry. I won't abandon them :)

New stable version of Open in WhatsApp (V 1.14.2)

As I said, this version comes a bit later than usual. Sorry about that. It should be available now (or in a few hours, Play Store takes a bit of time to update). Finally Portuguese users will have a correct translation.

The beta version didn't show any crash or bug in the past days, so it is a perfect version or almost nobody tested it. Probably a bit of both, there are always unexpected bugs with some devices (and not caused by my app but that somehow the report is sent as if it is, probably internal crash while using the app) that non of the 604 devices with the beta version reported. Good news I guess, but I'm always cautious about other unknown bugs, and although I could use the rollout feature, as I said before I didn't like it much.

So, unless something really bad happens and a quick fix is needed (or a new translation is sent) this version will probably stay more than usual too, but don't worry, I have some features planned for future versions.

The changelog is the same one as the beta:

V 1.14.2
- Added Portuguese-Brazil translation. Many thanks to Richard Anderson (Hirai RCD)!
- Message instead of crash if FAQ can't be opened

Monetized blog

As you probably notice, now this blog is monetized (with AdSense). Blogger has a 'press here to place ads' button, which is pretty handy, and so I clicked it a few months ago. They are not enabled immediately, AdSense need to review the site first, and since it has some requirements (an important one is that the site must be 6 months old or more) they weren't active until now.

What does this mean for you? Well...now you will see ads here, and so I'll earn a bit of money for my developer work, which is fine. I hope they are not very intrusive. In fact, although almost all settings are set to the default ones (so I guess they are ok), I changed some of them because they were awfully obtrusive:

- By default, ads are shown on the lateral bar (top and bottom of the page in mobile) and also between posts. The lateral bar is fine in my opinion, they don't distract (and in mobile they disappear as soon as you start scrolling). But placing them between posts is, again in my opinion, an awful decision because you can mistakenly think an ad is a post, and that should never happen (if you click on an ad you should know you are clicking on an ad). That's the reason I changed it to shown on the lateral bar only.

- The other recommended setting is to place 'dynamic size' ads, which means that 'the ad size will be adapted to the screen size'. This sounds like the better option, if you have a big screen a small ad can be missed, and if you have a small screen a big ad is just wrong. So dynamic size seems fine...except it is not. I discovered that the ads were shown almost always in the 'big' size, and although in desktop mode (lateral bar) it doesn't really matter, while browsing on a mobile device the ads occupied around 40% of the screen size! Inconceivable. I quickly changed them to the minimum-height one in the horizontal types (half banner 234x60), I hope they are not very small on big screens.

And that is all. Ads are an important part of the internet life nowadays, but they are often used wrong. My opinion on ads is: Ads are useful, they allow you to discover new and interesting things that otherwise will probably be unnoticed, however they must follow three rules:
1) You need to know what is an ad and what is not.
2) They can't interfere in the normal use of the service you are using.
3) If you click on an ad is because you decided to click the ad by yourself (because you found it useful) and not because you 'missed the X button', clicked on another unrelated thing, or anything else.

I know my decisions will probably reduce the amount of money I'll get, but I'm ok if that means I'm providing a better service.

Any questions/concerns/suggestions about this? You can say so in the comments or send me an email.

New beta version of Open in WhatsApp (V 1.14.2 beta1)

Another beta? Again? Yes!
I received a translation for Portuguese-Brazil from Richard Anderson (Hirai RCD) [Thank you! and remember anyone can send me translations, check the FAQ]. Previous Portuguese locale is now set as Portuguese-Portugal. I also discovered that I had mistakenly set the Play Store translation to Portuguese-Brazil instead of Portuguese-Portugal, so Brazilian people got an incorrect translation and Portuguese people didn't got any. I'm very sorry about that, and now it should be fixed so both languages should be displayed correctly.

Nothing more, really, just a small tweak to detect this new locale-variant cases and a fix for a crash if the faq can't be opened (is people using devices without a browser? is that possible??). Anyway, this update will probably be in beta for a few days more than usual for personal reasons, let's see if this will allow more beta users to try it. The 'rollout' test wasn't very effective, I guess it is not useful for small apps like this one. I won't use it again unless I find it more useful for another different purpose.

The current changelog is:

V 1.14.2
- Added Portuguese-Brazil translation. Many thanks to Richard Anderson (Hirai RCD)!
- Message instead of crash if FAQ can't be opened