Rusty's blog · Post

Flickr is well known for making changes to its site that users don't like, and keeping these changes despite thousands of complaints. The latest change has been the 'New Photo Experience', which thankfully I have been able to opt out of so far as I found it pretty unusable.

The interesting thing is that today I received a notification about some issues to do with the new photo experience that have been closed (not fixed). They linked to this thread: [Official Thread] Update on the New Photo Experience. In this thread, Flickr states that they have seen a 88% increase in page views on the page.

This makes sense as to why Flickr don't seem to listen their user's views - they are basing their decisions on testing and stats, not comments and user feedback. In my opinion this is actually extremely sensible.

I am very surprised that the new photo experience would result in an 88% increase in page views, given how much I and many others don't like it. But obviously the vast majority of people must like it, just they are not vocal in expressing their support for it.

On eBay there was a fraudulent listing for a 'Nikon 500 mm f/4.0G ED VR AF-S' lens, which eBay didn't remove and ended up selling for £3,801. Unlike most obviously fraudulent listings, this one didn't say contact me on someemail@gmail.com before bidding or for buy it now price or anything like that. But it was obviously fake as it used the same product images as a few previous (also fraudulent) listings have.

I checked the seller's feedback today, and the buyer had left negative feedback with the comment Vendor failed to communicate. Fraud? Well, it's not really fraud if the seller doesn't actually try to defraud you. Very strange behaviour from the seller though, listing a fake item then just not communicating about it when someone tries to buy it.

Also on eBay, I noticed that a US based seller was selling Adobe Production Premium CS5 for a low price. The description was 'Adobe CS5 Production Premium 2x Volume License Includes After Effects CS5'. They stated:

Software and installation code will be delivered on a 16GB USB2.0 Flash Drive. Volume license is non-upgradeable since it is an 'end of life' product that Adobe no longer sells.

I can also supply you with a direct download link from the Adobe website so you can download the software directly from the Adobe site.

Sounds rather dodgy to me, but they had lots of positive feedback for selling these volume licences. I tried to find out a bit more info on volume licences, and found this helpful thread here: Did I just bought an OEM version of the Creative Suite? To quote from that thread:

there is a problem if some "vendor" tries to improperly sell you ... a copy using a serial number purchased under Adobe's Volume Licensing Program meant for many copies within a particular organization (such as a design company) and not for resale.

So it seems that if you buy a volume license copy from an eBay seller (or anyone else), the software will likely work, but it will not be legal. Considering that you could just download a crack / hack of the software, then I am not sure why you pay money to an eBay seller for a volume licence that is just as illegal.