Note the shirt icon: How many game splash screens do you know of that have a direct link to an online store? Devs. start taking notes…

Paid vs Zombies

From a technical polish standpoint, I’m marveled and intrigued. As gamer, I’m enjoying myself but I’m not thrilled with the freemium aspects of the game.

Plants Vs Zombies 2 is the most complex freemium game that I’ve toyed with to date, and warrants a study in obfuscation as the opportunity to pay is rarely more than a screen away. Even during gameplay, players can spend real world dollars for in game currency.

To unlock in game functionality, prepare to plunk down money

In the words of Ron Burgundy, “Well, that escalated quickly”. For $19.94, you can unlock all the tower, excuse me, plant types in Plants vs Zombies 2. If that were it, I wouldn’t have much to write about, but I’m touching the tip of the iceberg…

The Store isn’t the only place to buy things…

First thing to understand is the store is not the only place to spend real world cash for in game content, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Players can purchase from the store screen:

• Coins
• Plants,
• Upgrades
• Bundles (Which are combinations of the previous three items).

Bundles are combos of coin and in-game items

Virtual Currency is nothing new to gaming, and in this aspect Plants vs Zombies 2 doesn’t break the model.

Plants and Upgrades are fairly straight forward, if you buy a plant, you can use that plant type during gameplay and the same principal applies to upgrades.

Impulse Agency

Coins use what a strategy that I’d like to call impulse agency. Coins probably are one of the least enticing purchases from the store but easily the most nefarious as they also can be purchased during gameplay. Purchasing coins ahead of time isn’t something that most people would care to do. When they arrive at a tense moment of gaming, they suddenly have more value, hence a higher chance impulse purchase. This phenomena is impulse agency, a situation that increases the likelihood of an impulse buy.

Coins are earned by completing levels and during gameplay as randomly and infrequently Zombies drop coins. In the first Plants vs Zombies, coins allowed you to purchase in-game content but have been relegated to purchasing plant food and in game super moves that allow the player to quickly rid the screen of zombies. Each instance is a single use item that functions as a temporary “Super charge”, either for the player or for one’s plants during gameplay.  Also, like coins, Plant Food is earned during gameplay, but plant food doesn’t carry over between levels, making it completely fleeting. If a player buys  two plant foods, and proceeds to not use them, the player will not be redeemed for not using plant food, nor will the player be able to stockpile them. 

 At 1000 coins a pop, $2.99 would only allow a player to get 5 additional plant foods and roughly the same super moves, where as $9.99 lets a player purchase 20 additional plant foods. 

The impulse agency occurs when the player is in the heat of battle. The player, in order to defeat the zombie horde, needs an extra “oomph”. If the player hasn’t saved up many coins from playing the game, the player can at anytime purchase more coins. The impulse buy has been greatly increased in this situation. That said, I will give the developers some credit, most levels can be beaten without using any coins without too much difficulty, but the temptation always looms to use the coins, and coins can be earned.

To illustrate my point, the #1 and #2 purchased items in Plants vs Zombies are 5000 coins for $2.99 and 20000 coins for $9.99. These are repeatable purchases with infinite potential, where as the #3 purchased item, the Snow Pea plant, can only be purchased once.

Thinking Outside the Store

The coins aren’t the only item that exists outside the store button. From the game, there are other purchases that arise.  After completing levels, players are sometimes presented with in-game adverts for in-game content.

The adverts appear as full screen banner ads, generally asking the player to “Rate Us” on the App Store or “Like us on FaceBook”. 

Plants vs Zombies 2 isn’t the first iOS title to beg for reviews and likes, but it has more flair than most games do. Whether this level of intrusion  is more conducive to getting positive reviews and likes, only EA knows.

The banner adverts do more than just advertise FaceBook and App Store Reviews. Occasionally these banners advertise one-time “deals” that require an impulse buy, “Get the Jalapeño 33% for $1.99”.

Sale banners entice the players to act now

Plants vs Zombie 2 uses a dual system as a methodology to paceplayers progression, keys and stars. Keys are earned randomly and infrequently by killing zombies and used to unlock portions of a map. Stars are collected via completing levels and challenges, and used to unlock new maps. 

For the impatient there’s even ways to skip earning stars and keys, effectively by-passing the game’s forced grinding.

Gamers can skip ahead levels buy using BUY NOW.

Probably the first company to massage the Freemium model effectively was NimbleBits, makers of Pocket Frogs, Tiny Tower and Nimble Quest, each game using a time delay for in-game content that could be sped up by in-game currency, which the user could generate in the game or pay real world money for.

Like previous iOS Plants vs Zombies 2 follows variant of this model, most of the content isn’t blocked by a paywall or time delay, instead simply requires the player to perform in-game feats to progress. This grinding means hours of gameplay. Plants vs Zombies 2 isn’t the first either to use this model, but it’s refined it to an art. As of writing this, Plants vs Zombies is the top free app and #17 top grossing app. It’ll be interesting to see if it can compete with SuperCell, the current reigning champs of Freemium, with titles like Clash of the Clans and Hay Day. EA already has had practice with The Simpsons: Tapped Out which as of writing this, managed to rank #9 in top grossing apps, and The Sims: Freeplay which dates back to 2011, and still ranks in the top 100 top grossing apps.

Plants vs Zombies 2 also reminds you that you can always skip ahead, and even requires you to (sneakily) to click the icon to warp to a new map once even though you will not be able to purchase it without paying money at that time. Its done so smoothly, that most players won’t even pick up on it, as the in-game characters ask you to visit the new “gate” that’s opened.

 EA “reminds” customers that content can be purchased, as when this particular advert is triggered, the player will not have enough star points to unlock the next level. 

Outside The Store: The Real World

Lastly there’s the Plants vs Zombies 2 has one last way it can monetize  players, a merchandise store. The merchandise store  is exactly what it sounds like: a place where real world physical goods can be bought.

Offering plush toys has become a new norm with games like Portal, Angry Birds, and Whale Trail.

Monetizing real world items means building a property that players feel connected enough to want to extend to their their actual lives. Angry Birds has successfully transformed itself from a game to brand. Plants vs Zombies already feels like the player is being nickel and dimed at every turn, I’m interested if EA is missing an opportunity to hide behind PopCap and transfer the game to a brand.

The Freemium balancing act

There’s a fine line to be walked in the new Freemium world, where In-App Purchases (IAP) are the new world order.

Its a tricky balance: too much for free and you’ll never see a cent, too much for pay and you’ll drive away most of the market. Much can be learned in the study of Plants vs Zombies 2, “rate us” banners are far from news in the iOS world,

In the race to the bottom, $.99 the entrance fee is too much and the consumer now expects access for free. As developers we’re partially to blame, setting the bar too low.

Plants vs Zombies is the most heavily monetized gaming experience I can name to date, on any platform. Most cash generators like Clash of the Clans only have one or two purchasable unit, like Gems or with Hay Day, Diamonds and Coins. Plants vs Zombies is the multi-headed hydra.

My personal preference if I must go freemium is a pay-once model, like FiftyThree studios and their absolutely gorgeous app, Paper. $6.99 unlocks all the brushes and $1.99 for the mixer. The entire app is unlocked for a very reasonable $9.98.  My satisfaction with the purchase remains high, a year later whereas I regret breaking down and spending money on Knights of Pen & Paper for in-game currency.

The more I’m exposed to Freemium’s insidious tactics, the more I resentment I feel for my brethren. John Moltz offers a differing opinion…

I am currently making my way slowly and carefully through my first freemium game: Plants vs. Zombies 2. I’m not opposed to spending maybe $10 on it. In a world where desktop games cost up to $60 and console games maybe $40, it seems like a good mobile game should be at least worth that much. So far I’ve spent nothing.

If you’re not the addictive type, freemium games can be played without getting screwed. Just like with gambling, though, decide how much you want to lose and leave the rest of your money at home.

- John Moltz, A very mild defense of in-app purchases

TL;DR

Plants vs Zombies 2 lets players purchase in-game content in a variety of ways, using an effective mix of unlockables, skips, in-game currency, as well as real-world items from its online store.

Plants vs Zombies 2 also uses banner advertisements to advertise its own content with flash sales, and allows players to purchase items not sold directly in the store, such as by-passing requirements to progress in the game. 

While none of these strategies are original to only Plants vs Zombies 2, its mix of strategies surely one of the most complex and multi-layered.  Plants vs Zombies 2 can easily be played without spending a cent but attempts to entice players to go the extra mile. 

App Developers looking at freemium should study this game closely.

macdailynews:

“Apple has begun showing the teaser video for the upcoming Mac Pro in movie theaters across the nation. First shown at WWDC during the initial debut of the Mac Pro, the video shows the sleek black curves of the product from multiple angles,” Juli Clover…

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A rather unusual move. The Mac Pro price wise has always existed several ticks outside of the standard deviation for the average user. The Mac Pro has become a PR campaign for Apple and dare I say, a flagship. Its a drastic reversal from the increasingly modular and portable computing experience.

Even I, the ardent desktop user, recognize that I’m in a very small minority of power user. I’m not sure if Apple is trying to shout loudly, “can’t innovate my ass” or “we’re still the choice of pros”. It’ll be interesting to see reactions from laypersons…

Here’s a tip that I appreciated…

shaneo:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts

+

Finder

Library

Command+Shit+L

Do that now.

— Enjoy

Above: Keyboard Preferences after configuration

This tip is for my power users. If memory serves me right, OS X used to have a key command to the Library folder. The average user probably won’t have much use but anyone installing fonts, looking over installer logs or installing audio plugins regularly will want this. 

As I previously mentioned, the user library in OS X 10.7-10.8 is hidden by default.

By default Lion and Mountain Lion hide the user Library folder, in all previous versions of OS X, this was accessible by the user.  Punch in the following terminal command to unhide it. Its also not a bad idea to leave it unhidden as you may need access to it in the future when cleaning out OS X.

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

I originally posted this review on Amazon.com, but I’ve chosen to repost it as its lost in fray.  

The legend of Monoprice

Monoprice is a white label brand, or least wants us desperately to believe that it is. In reality, the Monoprice machine works on economies of scale, sourcing cheap Asian electronics and creating products from them, which is what many major electronics firms do. Some of said products use the same components found in more reputable brands. This strategy has worked well in the cable market and soon ventured into microphones, monitors, and headphones. 

Monoprice has a small legion of loyal fans, who all feel empowered by their prowess as consumers, usually professing Monoprice’s much cheaper product is better than <insert well known brand>. In the case of XLR cabling, this wasn’t too far from the truth. I bought an XLR cable after my cheap Guitar Center cable started to pick up errant radio signals due to improper shielding. For the price I paid, which was about roughly the same as Guitar Center, I got a heavier duty cable. The cognizant paradox is had I ponied the cash up the for a reputable cable to begin with, I would have never had to chance on Monoprice after failing at my first gamble buying a cheap mic cable and spent the same amount of money in the end. Not all of Monoprice’s products are winners, I learned this on my second purchase of 1/8 inch cables for my car, which broke much faster than the Fred Meyer no-brand cables that died after years.

Monoprice is the counter-brand, brand of electronics. It’s counter-marketing marketing scheme, runs the gambit of selling  less expensive copies/rip offs of products already on the market. There’s a self-effacing nature to the brand that desires to unbrand its products with uncreative names, spartan information, plain packaging. However, this nihilism is only skin deep, as Monoprice really does care about itself as brand and warmly embraces positive feedback by touting proudly on its own website customer reviews and seems to gleefully encourage its comparisons to name-brand despite itself being a name-brand by simply making this comparison. I could go on to pontificate about the greater ironies of our consumeristic culture but what you’re undoubtedly here for is a review.

Quick Forward

 I’m a headphone junkie. I’ve owned a lot of headphones in my life, Beyerdyanmic, Sennheiser, Grado, Sony, Klipsch, Etymotic, Beats, Jay’s, Numark, Apple, JVC, earbuds and cans alike. For the sake of this review I’ll list my current roster: Beyerdynamic DT-990s (preferred cans), Klipsch X10s (my office earbuds), Klipsch S4, Sony PS3 Wireless (for gaming) my old Beats Tour (I bought when they first arrived not realizing the gimmicky nature), and occasionally the Numark RED WAVE DJs for my Numark NS7s. Basically, I’ve owned a lot of headphones. 

The Monoprice 8323s spiked my interest, at $20ish, they’re a bit hard to resist. Reviews exclaim how wonderful they are with users professing them sounding better (insert brand) at fraction of the price. Looking to replace my absolutely disappointing Numark Red WAVEs, I decided to take a bite.

 If they were simply better than my worst set of headphones, then it’d be a victory. 

Sound:

Are they as good as professed? Nope.

I’m not trying to rain the parade but quite frankly they aren’t as good as the classic Sony V6s, which are two things: arguably of the best closed ear headphones made for under $80 and clearly what Monoprice was styling the headphones after. 

They simply lack the articulation. The highs are slightly shrill, and upper mids seem somewhat absent. The bass is strong, slightly boomy, lower mids seem to drown out the upper mids. The stereo articulation present but slightly diminished by the mids. 

Sonically, they’ll feel a bit lost.  They remind somewhat of the Beats soundscape of punchy and absent sound. Perhaps I’m spoiled but I wasn’t enthralled by what I was hearing but I wasn’t completely offended. 

It seems silly to compare these to headphones costing 3x as much right? I’d say yes except a lot of reviews are. What they sound like is a budget pair of headphones.

Design:

The actual physical design of the headphones actually better than average. They may not be the sturdiest headphones made but they feature a separated cable (Even both my pairs of Beyerdynamic DT-990s lack this, and my Grados did as well). The top of the headband features mild padding, DT-990s these are not but they’re more comfy than the average pair of cans. While they lack the full rotation of the cups like my Numark RED Waves, I’ve never found much value in the the ability to fully rotate the speakers when DJing or otherwise. They fold nicely for storage as well. They’re not as sturdy as the more expensive Numark Red Waves, but you could buy 2-3x of these headphones (depending on where you buy them) for the price of one pair of Numark Red WAVES.

Monoprice gets kudos for including two 1/8 inch cables, a short lightweight cable ideal for portable music, and heavier duty, longer cable, suited for home/gaming, and they included a ¼ inch adapter, which I’m always happy to have more of.

Comfort:

This can be summed up as good but not great. They’re more comfortable than the Numark RED Waves, Grado SR-80s, and maybe Sony V6s by just a hair but its hard for them to top larger cans that go over-the-ear. Headphone and earbud ergonomics  in the past ten years have really improved, so while they deserve kudos, even at $20, its not surprising.

Final Thoughts:

I’m not terribly impressed by these headphones. If I had to guess a price, I’d of hazarded about $15-$40 range.

 They’re much much much better than my $50 Numark RED WAVES, which is a pretty low bar. However, shouldn’t be considered a marker of what $50 headphones are like. My other $50 headphones I own, the Klipsch S4s (earbuds) are superior to  the Numark and Monoprice headphones.   Apple’s redesigned earbuds that have been shipping since the iPhone 5 cost $30 stand alone. When compared to the Monoprice, there’s a world of difference between the two: The Apple earbuds sound considerably better. Usually, large cans have an inherent soundstage advantage simply due to the raw physics of the larger transducers, so it’s telling these get trounced by the slightly more expensive Apple earbuds.

The build quality was a little better than expected, and the extra cabling was nice. I’d really be interested to see what Monoprice could serve up if they decided to release a $50 pair of cans. My gut tells me its space Monoprice isn’t ready to enter… yet. They’re better than my current DJ headphones, but not by a wide margin. If you’re looking to pay no more than $20, there are some Koss headphones that are in the same ballpark for performance.

These are not the steal that legions of Monoprice fans profess, however they are a decent pair of headphones at a low price point. I don’t regret buying them but these aren’t my primary or even secondary headphones. 

Strangely, the best analogy I could think of is In-and-Out Burger, a chain that many people obsess over and revel in its mediocrity. The two times in my life I had it, I wasn’t offended but I failed to understand what was the big deal, even at the price point. As someone who doesn’t eat fast food, I’d of rather paid the few extra dollars and gotten a better burger and better experience. This sums up my feelings towards Monoprice.

Remember:

You get what you pay for.

Shannon entropy is based on the average probability that a given string of bits will occur in a particular type of digital file. In a general-purpose communications system, that’s the right type of entropy to use, because the characteristics of the data traffic will quickly converge to the statistical averages. Although Shannon’s seminal 1948 paper dealt with cryptography, it was primarily concerned with communication, and it used the same measure of entropy in both discussions.

But in cryptography, the real concern isn’t with the average case but with the worst case. A codebreaker needs only one reliable correlation between the encrypted and unencrypted versions of a file in order to begin to deduce further correlations. In the years since Shannon’s paper, information theorists have developed other notions of entropy, some of which give greater weight to improbable outcomes. Those, it turns out, offer a more accurate picture of the problem of codebreaking.

When Médard, Duffy and their students used these alternate measures of entropy, they found that slight deviations from perfect uniformity in source files, which seemed trivial in the light of Shannon entropy, suddenly loomed much larger. The upshot is that a computer turned loose to simply guess correlations between the encrypted and unencrypted versions of a file would make headway much faster than previously expected.

Interesting, hardly a cryptographer myself but encryption is hardly moot, just a little easier to break than previously thought.

JQuery Knobs: A clever and pretty, and they work well on a touch screen…

Rather than turning its next Mac Pro into a big dual-socket affair, Apple is capitalizing on the fact that Ivy Bridge-EP will ship in 12-core configurations, and it’s consolidating the platform into a 9.9-inch-tall cylinder with up to one Xeon E5-2697 V2 CPU. Regardless of whether you love or hate the “wastebasket” design, the system’s specs are very impressive for the volume of space it occupies. -  tomshardware.com

After analyzing the new Xeon’s, Tom’s Hardware’s immediate speculation is the new Mac Pros. I imagine that the new Mac Pro will be offered in several core configs, it also makes sense that Apple would go for a single socket design for space/heat. 

I’m willing to bet we see multiple configurations divided mostly by 6, 8, 12 core CPUs.

Swearing is part of programming and trying to remove it is outright silly… that said, deviantart found out the hard way that an overzealous filters will break their site.

“I just wanted to let you know that the reason why deviantART’s CSS isn’t loading properly for some people is because one of your CSS files has f*** in a stylesheet comment.” - deviantart.com

Let that be a lesson, front end developers don’t get to swear, but the PHP/ASP/Python/SQL back end guys? Swear on….

Easily one of the coolest examples of javascript I’ve seen in some time. Its fluid, responsive and works better than you’d expect. Oh yeah, and its free and has even a video tutorial.

Check it out.

Only if I’d found this two months ago, a nice handy github JQuery Rotate allowing for user rotatable objects, check out the demo on the GitHub Page.

Simply typing “chrome://settings/passwords” into the browser’s address box reveals a comprehensive list of the user’s login details, with any computer user able to click a ‘show’ button to reveal the hidden passwords.

This does not mean that the passwords are stored on the hard drive in plain text, but that they can be made visible in plain text to anyone with access to the user’s computer.

Any individual who can enter a user’s computer log-in (which could be as easy as finding the computer when left unattended) would then be able to copy somebody’s login details for all of their online accounts. - Independent.co.uk 

I’ve always been unnerved that Chrome doesn’t store its Passwords in Apple’s Keychain or at least behind a Google account. I’m surprised this hasn’t been called out before. 

Skeumorphism isn’t dead, and it makes sense in many cases.

Here’s a great example. This nifty project makes an interactive credit card, that auto-detects type based on the starting numbers. It makes for a very easy credit card capture process. 

Go to the URL and test it out.

I’ve been reading the past day practical typography, while not perfect, it’s a pretty solid read and takes some initiative on opinions which I respect.

Excerpt:

If you’re lim­it­ed to sys­tem fonts, con­sult this chart and choose wise­ly. For print, fonts on the A list are al­ways best. For screen dis­play, like pre­sen­ta­tions and web­sites, sys­tem fonts on the A, B, and C lists are fine. They’re also suit­able for shar­ing draft doc­u­ments. But al­ways steer clear of the F list. Fonts plau­si­ble for body text are marked with ★. Others are us­able for spe­cial pur­pos­es (for instance,letterhead).

This chart in­cludes all the com­mon Windows and Mac sys­tem fonts, plus the Microsoft Office fonts. System configurations differ, so not every font will be on your computer.

These rank­ings rep­re­sent a blend of prac­ti­cal and aes­thet­ic con­sid­er­a­tions, not ab­solute mer­it. Some fonts on the F list aren’t bad, they’re just in­apt for pro­fes­sion­al writ­ing. Similarly, some fonts on the A list are not my fa­vorites, but they’re rea­son­ably useful.

The A list: Generally tolerable

Avenir (Mac) ★
Baskerville (Mac) ★
Bell MT ★
Californian FB ★
Calisto MT ★
Century Schoolbook ★
Franklin Gothic ★
Garamond ★
Gill Sans ★
Gill Sans MT ★
Goudy Old Style ★
Hoefler Text ★
Optima ★

The B list: OK in lim­it­ed doses

Agency FB
Big Caslon
Bodoni MT
Book Antiqua ★
Calibri ★
Candara ★
Centaur
Century
Cochin
Constantia
Corbel
Didot
Eras Medium ITC
Futura ★
Geneva
Gloucester MT Extra Cond.
Helvetica ★
Helvetica Neue ★
High Tower Text ★
Modern No. 20
Palatino ★
Perpetua ★
Rockwell
Segoe UI ★
Tw Cen MT ★

The C list: Questionable

Andale Mono
Baskerville Old Face
Berlin Sans FB
Bernard MT Condensed
Britannic Bold
Cambria ★
Castellar
Century Gothic
Consolas
Cooper Black
Copperplate
Copperplate Gothic
Courier
Courier New
Elephant
Engravers MT
Felix Titling
Footlight MT Light
Georgia
Goudy Stout
Haettenschweiler
Impact
Lucida (all styles)
Maiandra GD
Monaco
Niagara Solid & Engraved
Onyx
Plantagenet Cherokee
Poor Richard
Skia
Times New Roman ★
Wide Latin

The F list: Fatal to your credibility

Algerian
American Typewriter
Apple Chancery
Arial (all styles)
Bauhaus 93
Blackadder ITC
Bradley Hand ITC
Broadway
Brush Script MT
Bookman Old Style
Chalkboard
Chiller
Colonna MT
Comic Sans MS
Curlz MT
Edwardian Script ITC
Forte
Freestyle Script
French Script MT
Gabriola
Gigi
Harlow Solid Italic
Harrington
Herculanum
Imprint MT Shadow
Informal Roman
Jokerman
Juice ITC
Kristen ITC
Kunstler Script
Magneto
Marker Felt
Matura MT Script Capitals
Mistral
Monotype Corsiva
OCR A Extended
Old English Text MT
Palace Script MT
Papyrus
Parchment
Playbill
Pristina
Rage Italic
Ravie
Script MT Bold
Snap ITC
Stencil
Showcard Gothic
Tahoma
Tempus Sans ITC
Trebuchet MS
Verdana
Viner Hand ITC
Vivaldi
Vladimir Script
Zapfino

Don’t thank me, go to practicaltypography.com

Time Machine is easily one of the best features of OS X, and if you don't use it, you really really really should. Computers are replaceable; personal data is not. That said, this article isn't to convert the unconverted. Instead, this is for those already using Time Machine.

Time Machine doesn't support backing up to APFS formatted volume (yet) as this is due to change in 10.15 Catalina but Mojave improved the experience of missed backups.

Remember, The more space Time Machine has free, the longer it can keep back up records It may seem crazy to have a year's worth of backups until you're chasing down a PDF you may have deleted anywhere from yesterday to last May.

Tip #1 - Disabling backups of space-wasting folders

Clicking options will reveal a simple interface that allows excluding folders from being backed up.

By default Time Machine backs up EVERYTHING when there are a few folders that should be disabled by default. To disable a folder, locate it and drag it onto the “Exclude these items from backups” window. If you're like me, you may have many drives to exclude.

Backing up your downloads folder is a data waste. For most people, the downloads folder the equivalent to the wild west, and you're apt to constantly decompress zips, nab massive DMGs and delete files from it. Even a deleted file will occupy space on Time Machine until all the snapshots that contain the deleted file are removed from Time Machine itself.

It's best to exclude it.

I've created a quick and dirty list of recommended files to block Time Machine. You'll need access to your ~/Library. Pro tip: When you see ~/ (the tilda represents your user folder, this is common shorthand for your user folder)

By default Lion and Mountain Lion hide the user Library folder, in all previous versions of OS X, this was accessible by the user. Punch in the following terminal command to unhide it. Its also not a bad idea to leave it unhidden as you may need access to it in the future when cleaning out OS X.

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Recommended folders to disable (for all users)

• ~/Library/Caches - (Cache files are prone to change)
• /Library/Caches
• ~/Library/Downloads
• ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications - (These can be redownloaded from iTunes or your iPad/iPhone/iPod and are constantly updated)
• ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApp - (This will not back up games using the Steam Service. Games are subject to frequent updates, and any games can be redownloaded from the steam service. Many games use Steam cloud to back up game saves).
• ~/Documents/Parallels - VMs in the past have been notoriously bad for Time Machine, VMware includes Time Machine functionality. So does Parallels. Follow their instructions if you'd like Time Machine to back up them.
• ~/Applications (Parallels)~
• ~/Dropbox - Dropbox is already in the cloud, no reason to back it up
• ~/Public (Optional: Depends on your network usage habits)
• /Incompatible Software (This will be in the root of your computer after an OS upgrade).

Tip #2 - Deleting useless backups

If you find that you've been backing up for eternity your iTunes Movie collection or some media dump folder, you may want to delete the record.

Locate the folder in question in your finder, then click the time machine icon your dock. This will take you to the folder in Time Machine. In the time machine folder, right-click the folder and select Delete All backups. This may take some time depending on the size and frequency of the backups

Tip: This the nuclear option on Time Machine, when you Delete All Backups, you are erasing any previous record of the file. However, if you do not ignore the folder, the folder will still be backed up in its current state.

Tip #3 - Utilities

As you've probably noticed, Time Machine doesn't provide much in the way of options. Fortunately, there's a fair amount of good Time Machine utilities.

Here's a few I've highlighted. Please note, there are plenty of Time Machine related utilities besides these… MacUpdate.com is a fantastic place to find Mac utilities of all types.

Time Machine Editor - change the backup interval updates (instead of one hour) (free)

BackupLoupe - Allows you to see individual file records, including revisions, when a file was deleted from records and so forth. Only $5 and handy. A must for Time Machine junkies.

Tedium - Allows multi-time machine backups and management for old OSes (10.8+ has multiple drive support)

Back In Time - expensive but allows you to see more clearly how many iterations of a file was backed up, show deleted items and so on.

Tip #4 - Multiple HDs

10.8 added support for multiple Time Machines. Multiple HDs do not work in a manner that you may expect, backups alternate on the hour between drives. The data is neither split between drives nor do the drives backup only portions/locations (Time Machine #1 backs up the boot drive, Time Machine #2 backs up the secondary drive). You'll have two independent Time Machines, not double the space. Time Machine favors large drives.

For the average user needs, it's a little overkill. When selecting a backup drive, go big as your wallet can afford. While you can back up a larger drive with a smaller drive (assuming you're not using all your free space) a good rule is always bigger. As of writing this, a Seagate Backup Plus 4 TB USB 3.0 runs about $130 on Amazon. A drive doesn't need to be dedicated just to backups. You can partition (split) your Hard Drive into two separate volumes, a Time Machine, and Additional Storage.

Tip #5 - Using a networked drive (that isn't a time capsule)

Many routers come with USB ports that allow connection of external HDs. However, Time Machine is semi-restricted. You cannot back up to anything outside of an HFS+ disk, and it doesn't play nicely with non-Time Capsules. However, with a bit of terminal fun, you can use your own NAS storage device. You will want to start with stephenmorley's guide here based on levelofindirection.com. Read the first and check out the second.

You'll need first to enable non-(officially)supported drives and then follow up with creating the sparse bundle manually. After that it's smooth sailing.

Tip #6 - Show Time Capsule on Desktop/Finder Windows

By default, owners of the Time Capsules may notice they no longer see the Time Capsule when it's mounted. Go to your Finder Preferences and check your “Show Connected Servers” and “Show Connected Drives” and you'll see the Time Machine as before.

Tip #7 - Encrypt your backups

From Apple.com

1. Open Time Machine preferences.
2. Click Select Disk or Add or Remove Backup Disk (if you have multiple backup disks).
3. Select your backup disk, then click Remove Disk.
4. Now set up the disk again as an encrypted backup disk. For instructions, see:

Choose a backup disk and set encryption options

Tip #8 Time Machine fails restoring from backup

If a restore fails, fear not. Restores are faster but you will not lose your important files. Check outthe full album here.

Happy backups!

The biggest addition to Android 4.3 is the Multi-User Restricted Profiles feature, which lets you control the usage of apps and other content on a user level. Multiple user profiles were already available in 4.2.2, but the ability to create restrictions has long been requested, so it’s sure to be a big hit.

The people most obviously to benefit from the new profile controls are parents. We saw this in Google’s demo; being logged into a restricted user profile caused an app to behave differently. Specifically, a freemium game showed up without all of the in-app purchasing functionality, which is clearly going to be useful for parents with young children who use the device.

The ability to create restricted user profiles can be useful for businesses and families that share devices.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET)

As well, retail kiosks that use tablets for customer service or as POS systems will be able to make use of the feature. By enabling multiple user profiles, businesses will be able to take advantage of the versatility of tablets by using them in different contexts.

- CNET, Google Android 4.3 is here, and it tastes like Jelly Bean