The Brooks Review

It’s been a while since I wrote an iPad Productivity Report, but here we are with a fresh set of characters. Some big things have been going on in iPad world from rumored new device sizes, to software releases and announcements. Let’s dive into it all.

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It has been a while since I’ve reviewed a knife which is made to be an everyday carry blade. The reason has been simple: I found the Chris Reeve’s Small Sebenza 21, and it is perfect. I do mean that, I’ve been using that knife a lot, and it really is perfect. But based on some very strong reviews I picked up this Massdrop collaboration the ‘Gent’ to see how it stacks up.

The Gent is (as far as I can tell) “produced” by Massdrop, designed by Ferrum Forge, and made by WE Knives in China. It’s basically super weird, so from here on out ‘Gent’ is what we are calling this knife, but do know there’s some stuff around how it got made.

The long and short of this knife: had I found this before the Small Sebenza, I would have crowned this the perfect knife. And given the price, it would not be absurd to make the argument that it is a better everyday knife than the Small Sebenza — as much as it pains me to write that.

Continue reading: Massdrop x Ferrum Forge Gent

Down the rabbit hole we go.

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Last year, a friend mentioned that he thought it would be fun if myself, a mutual friend, and all our kids went camping. That’s 3 dads, and 5 kids, this year from 4 to 8 years of age. All of us have varying levels of camping experience, and we all brought along a ton of gear. I made a short video about this last year, this year I’ve decided to write up some thoughts on the highlights of the gear I took, and some items we needed.

Continue reading: Camping With Kids – Gear Thoughts, Season 2

It’s no secret that I love the iPad and think most of the world can easily get by with it as their only computer. However, most of the world doesn’t agree, and none of this is to say it isn’t without its challenges. Having said that, today I am going to look at the sorry state of iPad office apps, and why in the hell anyone would by a Chromebook over an iPad.

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Lurk around the knife subreddits enough and you will start to see a ton of custom knives — typically these are one offs which someone made for themselves. One day I saw this knife, which originally was a concept, then it was brought up as potentially a production blade. This knife then made its way to Kickstarter before being available for everyone.

The thing about this knife is that it’s not like anything else out there. They label it “microblade” for a reason: the cutting edge is 1.5”. That’s about half of the length of a standard sized everyday carry knife. Further, the entire package, weighs just one ounce. It is very small.

The WESN Microblade is truly a unique knife.

Continue reading: WESN Microblade Review

It would be rather hard for anyone who regularly reads tech sites, or looks at the App Store, to not know about “mindfulness” and the general trend of meditation. A year ago, with stress mounting in my life, I took to mindfulness meditation settling on the app Calm to help me with it. Though I was never able to build a daily habit, I regularly meditated 3-4 times a week.

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A lot of what I write about here revolves around my search for finding better things to carry on a daily basis. When I started working from home, I thought it would alleviate a lot of the needs for carrying, but it actually made my struggle worse.

When you don’t work from home, you tend to leave your house with the notion that you will be gone for the entire work day. This allows you to grab a bag, and slightly overpack, while having little guilt about doing so. That’s certainly how I approached it, and how most approach it given the “EDC” setups I see online.

Continue reading: My Current Everyday Carry

I have my gently used Filson Tablet Briefcase for sale. This is no longer produced by Filson and while you can still find some retailers selling them, they are getting harder to find. Only reason I am selling it is because I tend to use backpacks over shoulder bags, and I don’t want to part with my Filson Original Briefcase. Color is Otter Green, the best Filson color. My Review.

Yours for $130 shipped, only to US shipping addresses. First to pay gets it. SOLD

Continue reading: For Sale: Filson Tablet Briefcase (SOLD)

Members might recall, last year that I took a car camping trip with a group consisting of 3 dads, and 5 kids. I made a video for that, which showed the absurd amount of gear I alone packed. We are coming up on the second year for this trip, and as such I have been going through a bunch of my gear to get it ready to go.

With that in mind, and the summer upon us, it is highly likely that many of you are going to end up getting out of the house and this might necessitate some new gear. That’s what this post is about: the gear we buy for summer fun. I’ll be running through some of my favorite gear, and some thoughts I have on gear I am considering.

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A bit ago Triple Aught Design released the Transport Wallet, which is the companies take on a wallet for travel and adventure. I had seen the wallet walked through on Instagram, and at only $35 I decided to buy it right away when they came out. There’s a few stand out features which sold me on the wallet:

1. Hidden pocket and slots for lockpicks.
2. A way to store small amounts of cash.
3. Quick access pocket for the credit card you normally use.
4. Harder to get to storage for everything else.

The idea of this wallet, or rather the concept of it, is quite interesting. Everything is in a secure spot, but the stuff you need often is readily accessible in an almost one handed manner. However my biggest concern going into this wallet was that I would instantly find it too large.

Continue reading: Triple Aught Design Transport Wallet

Going down the rabbit hole a bit this week. Talking about what makes good iPad software, what it would take to get me to switch back to Apple Watch, and a note that I checked a bag when traveling. Dunkin’ Donuts talk too.

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A year ago I was confronted with something I thought would be really fun, but which turned out to be exceedingly frustrating. I needed a backpack for my daughter who was entering kindergarten. I suspect most parents go to Target and let their kid pick something they like, but there’s simply no way I was going to buy my daughter something that wasn’t high quality.

Since GORUCK no longer makes the Kid Ruck (and they go on EBay for absurd money) I set out researching to find a full-size (all the backpacks she had prior were not full-size, and I define that by “can fit a binder in it”), well made, backpack for my daughter. I hated almost every recommendation that I saw.

Continue reading: Backpacks for Kids

A few big thoughts on WWDC announcements, Overall I’m pretty happy.

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Great overview at The Sweet Setup by Josh Ginter, of a very important new update to Things for iPad. With this update, Things is unequivocally the best task manager you can get. If you are using something else, you’re wasting your time — and isn’t that what you are trying to avoid with your task manager?

Continue reading: Things Controlled by Keyboard