Here are key metrics from past 4 months (click for a larger image):

Most of the downloads are from Amazon App Store. I figured out how to rank high enough when people search for ‘YouTube kids’ there. Right now Safe Vision app is number 12 in search results.

Right now I’m working on improving activation rate. Currently around 30% of people that install the app watch at least 10 videos on the same or the next day. This means that many people decide that the app is not good enough and do not let their children to use it to watch YouTube videos.

I did some user testing and it looks like many parents get stuck during setup. They try to use search, see that all results are locked but don’t know how to unlock them. I’m going to improve initial user experience and make it easy to unlock channels.

I did 10-day Vipassana meditation course in July 2012. Meditation centre was located in Woori Yallock – small town near Melbourne.

First of all, my notion of meditation was shattered there. In my mind, meditation was sitting quietly and relaxing, something like this:

Well you do sit quietly but it is not relaxing at all, at least not in Vipassana meditation. It is hard work. It is simple but not easy at all.

What helped me is that I decided to allow myself to be a newbie. I said to myself: “It’s OK to do it poorly it the beginning”.

There were about 40 students total. Men and women were living in separate areas.

Talking to each other was not allowed. Many people told me that this would be very hard for them. However I didn’t find it difficult at all. Maybe this is because I was not a very sociable person.

Also there was no Internet, no TV, no radio, no phones, no visitors. I handed in my mobile phone in the beginning of the course for safe keeping. There was no communication with outside world at all.

We didn’t read anything. There were no writing materials. Actually I missed pen and paper during the first half of the course. I was getting so many excellent ideas during meditation and I wanted to write them down so that I don’t forget them.

We were spending a lot of time meditating. Here is typical timetable:

Getting up at 4 am in the morning was hard for me. In the beginning I was walking during rest times but later on I was trying to get as much sleep as possible. Walking, by the way, is the only form of exercising allowed.

We had breakfast and lunch but no dinner. Instead of dinner we had two pieces of fruit and tea. Somehow I didn’t miss dinners and wasn’t particularly hungry in evenings. The food was delicious, I liked it very much. Oh, and it was all vegetarian.

Meditating itself wasn’t in complete silence. In the beginning and the end of each session there was chanting played as recording. I found it strange at first but with time grew to almost like it.

I would never associate meditation with pain. Yet initially I experienced a lot of pain and discomfort. Sitting without moving for long time becomes painful. Later on I found out that in fact you can change posture from time to time. So I didn’t have to go through all this suffering. Oh well, I still think it was beneficial for me.

The main idea of Vipassana meditation is observe different sensation on your body while maintaining “perfect equanimity”. You try to be aware of your body.

In the evening the teacher discourse was given. This was recordings of S.N. Goenka, a leading teacher of Vipassana meditation. This is where theory behind the meditation was given.
At the start of the course management strongly recommended me to listen to discourse in my first language (Russian). I was glad I agreed because the material was quite thick. It was hard for me to follow it even in Russian. My English was definitely not good enough to follow discourse in English.

The theory included subatomic parts, vibrations and future lives which was hard to swallow for me raised in atheistic Soviet Union.

On day 8 I finally became aware of my leg. It was fascinating – it felt like my leg lit up with sensations like a Christmas tree. Immediately after that I was able to get a flow of subtle sensations which felt incredible. I can compare it to the opening sequence from Universal Studios logo:

I felt ecstatic after that and couldn’t stop smiling 🙂 I must admit that I couldn’t get that flow again since then.

Surprisingly I got many revelations about my life during last days of the course. I realized how misguided I was in many aspects of my life. I understood why I behaved in certain ways.

On the last day I felt very happy and was eager to talk to fellow students. I think everybody else felt blissful.

Overall the course was great. I strongly recommend it to everyone. What I like about Vipassana meditation is that it helps everyone, regardless of their religion, race, age and background.

It is hard, sometimes even gruelling but it is very beneficial. I think it’s like a boot camp for your mind. You can find more about it at Vipassana website.

Far Manager has two keyboard shortcuts to copy file name to clipboard:

• Ctrl+Ins copies selected file name
• Alt+Shift+Ins copies full path to selected file

These shortcuts also work if multiple files are selected which is great for creating batch renames.

Let’s say file name contains spaces. In this case Far Manager adds quotes around file name. Supposedly this saves time if you construct some command line somewhere. Personally I find this totally unnecessary. I can add quotes myself, thank you very much.

Here’s how to disable this behaviour:

1. Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Far2\System
2. Create QuotedName as DWORD value
3. Set it to 1

Official documentation for this feature is a bit obscure:

File or folder names, containing characters specified in rule  34,  will
be quoted when inserted into the editor/command line or the clipboard.
The key "System/QuotedName" of DWORD type controls this behaviour.
Bits:
  0 - if set then file or folder names will be quoted inserted into
      the editor/command line.
  1 - if set then file or folder names will be quoted inserted into
      the clipboard.
The default value = 0xFFFFFFFF (quote file or folders names).

I think you need to be a developer to understand this.

Note two similar shortcuts:

• Ctrl+Enter copies selected file name to command line
• Ctrl+F copies full path

For this auto-quoting is actually useful, therefore I set QuotedName to 1, not 0.

Sometimes I need find address on Melway site. Most of the time, I already have address in electronic form. I don’t need to type, just copy and paste.

The problem is I need to enter address parts separately on Melways site: street number, street name and suburb:

For example, if I have 235 Russell St Melbourne I need to copy and paste 235 first (click-Ctrl+C-switch-click-Ctrl+V), then Russell St (switch-click-Ctrl+C-switch-click-Ctrl+V) and finally Melbourne (switch-click-Ctrl+C-switch-click-Ctrl+V-down-down-Enter).

If I can save 30 seconds of my time why not to do it? Introducing:

Melway address lookup

It has just one field for address. Now all I need to do is to copy address (click-Ctrl+C), paste it (switch-click-Ctrl+V) and press Ctrl+Enter. Done.

New Post Charges Booklet is online on Australia Post web site.

Oddly enough, postage rates for parcels inside Australia didn’t change at all.

International rates have increased by about 3%. It used to cost you $58.50 to send 2 kg parcel to United Kingdom by Air Mail before. Now it costs $60.35.

Summary

Local rates didn’t change. International rates increased insignificantly.

Australia Post has increased its rates in September 2007. If you open Post Charges Booklet (pdf) you can see these changes:

Distance charge has increased for most destinations by 5 or 10 cents per kilogram. International rates for parcels didn’t change.

Summary: rates have increased slightly. Next rate increase will be in March 2008.

The first stop for calculating shipping costs is official Postage Calculator on Australia Post web site.

It’s very easy to use: select “Parcels within Australia”, enter your postcode, destination postcode and package weight. Very handy.