The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • In What May Be the Greatest Move by Seattle

    Chris Legeros reporting for Kiro 7 News in Seattle:

    “Yellow pages” publishers may sue the city of Seattle, because of an ordinance that passed Monday. The ordinance requires yellow pages publishers to be licensed, penalizes publishers up to $125 per book if they’re delivered to people who don’t want them and requires the industry to pay for recycling all the paper it distributes.

    and later on:

    Yellow pages publishers also believe the ordinance is a violation of their right to free speech and they are considering a lawsuit to challenge it.

    Let me respond by saying good job to Seattle as these books are a huge waste and secondly to the above complaining about a violation to their rights: I am sure spammers feel the same way, you guys should get together and have a conference or something.

  • Quick Blog Notes

    If you haven’t already be sure to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed in your feed reader of choice (mine is Google Reader on the Mac and Reeder Apps on iOS device) the RSS feed can be found here. [https://brooksreview.net/feed/]

    If you are too new age for RSS feeds and you prefer Twitter I can help you out there too as Brooks Review can be found on Twitter: @brooksreview and if you are so inclined you can follow me on Twitter: @benjaminbrooks

    As mentioned on the Suggested Reading page you can check out my Instapaper starred items by joining Instapaper and adding my starred items (username: Benbrooks) and if you don’t already know how to do that see the instructions here.

    Last be sure to drop me a note either on Twitter or via email if you disagree with or agree too much with anything I say.

    Thanks for reading.

  • Pepsi Throwback Is Here To Stay… For Now

    I don’t normally talk about health related things, but this is such great news I felt I needed to share it. I used to be a Pepsi addict on a 4-6can a day schedule. My wife has changed that and now I only drink a few cans a week (for the better). Pepsi Throwback though is amazing, it has no high fructose corn syrup (which if you didn’t know already is very bad for you) and instead uses cane sugar to sweeten it.

    The end result is a much better tasting soda pop. I know a few places in the Seattle-Tacoma area that you can regularly find Pepsi Throwback, but until now it was a seasonal item. This is really great news – soda pop is still not good for you, but cane sugar is much better for you than high fructose corn syrup.

    (Plus the retro styling on the cans is much better than the current looking cans – carrying a fashionable soda can is important to some.)

  • New Site Feature: Suggested Reading

    Just published a new page called ‘Suggested Reading’ where I am pulling my latest five starred items from Instapaper into the page. You can click on them to see what I find worthy of reading.

    To do this I am using Bill Israel’s excellent ‘Give Me Stuff I Starred’ javascript. Go get that here.

  • “Deleted” Facebook photos still not deleted

    Jacqui Cheng for Ars Technica following-up about how fast/well Facebook deletes its old photos:

    It seems we haven’t quite found the limits of that “limited amount of time” just yet—after all, 16 months is quite a while.

    So 16-months after Ars deleted some photos from Facebook you can still access them if you have the direct link to that image file (which is easy enough to get). This is just absurd – if you aren’t going to delete the photo then don’t tell the user that they can delete it, instead say something like ‘archive’.

  • App Hall of Fame

    Very neat listing of 12 ‘Hall of Fame’ apps as voted by a fairly large group of people. I agree with every single selection on the initial list – with exception of one.

    I cannot agree that Evernote is of Hall of Fame quality. I know a lot of people use it, but it is just not that great in my opinion. Though a bunch of people say it is, so I guess I am in the minority on this one.

  • Windows Phone 7 – Phones

    Engadget has a nice listing of all the new Windows Phone 7 phones announced today – for my money I would go with the HTC 7 Trophy, not that I am leaving iOS.

    Also, what is up with the names of these things? They. Are. Terrible.

  • The Importance of a Well-Designed iPhone App Icon

    Not only is he right about just how important it is to have a good looking iOS app icon, I would stress that more people need to make app icons that are not blue. There are other colors out there (or so I am told, my home screen just looks like a blue pool of water).

    [via MacStories]

  • 1 Useful Apple iPad Tip

    Mashable’s Amy-Mae Elliott posted up 10 tips/tricks for iPad users, most of are very basic, but I had no clue that the iPad did this:

    The spacebar will create as many spaces as there are fingers on it, so one finger will produce one space, two fingers two spaces and so on.

    Clever.

  • Did Microsoft Just Pull a Don Draper?

    Over the weekend I posted about the Angry Birds icon appearance on the Windows Phone 7 website. It turned out that the developer of Angry Birds (Rovio Mobile) has yet to commit to building a Windows Phone 7 version of their popular game. At the time I thought nothing of this, then after watching the latest episode of AMC’s Mad Men (Season 4 Episode 12) and seeing this post by John Gruber where he stated:

    (I’ll bet five bucks that it’s the same story with that Tap Tap Revenge icon, too.)

    All of a sudden with Don Draper fresh in my mind it hit me – this is something Draper would do. As Peggy Olsen said in this last episode of Mad Men (I am paraphrasing big time here) “If you don’t like what people are saying, change the conversation” which isn’t this exactly what Microsoft did by posting apps that have not fully committed to developing for their new Windows Phone 7 platform?

    This seems like a classic marketing move to me, they (Microsoft) didn’t have some of the popular app developers from the iOS/Android world lined up so instead they just faked it. Instead of trying to persuade Rovio to get on board Microsoft just decided to pretend like these guys were already on board.

    In doing this Microsoft shifted the pressure from Windows Phone 7 to the developers – a dick move to be sure, but it might just pay of in spades for them. Think about it from Rovio Mobile’s point of view, they were not convinced that they should develop for Windows Phone 7 and then this happens and a ton of people start talking to them about how they want to see Angry Birds on Windows Phone 7. That amount of pressure would probably convince a lot of developers to go ahead with plans to make a Windows Phone 7 version.

    Now I am not saying that Rovio will make Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7, nor am I saying that they should. After this weekend though, I would guess, that the pressure to make a Windows Phone 7 version is at the very least 100x greater than it was before this all happened.

  • Patrick Rhone’s iPad Life

    Please welcome Patrick Rhone, best known for Minimal Mac Patrick was kind enough to take the time to talk iPads with me.

    Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?

    I’m likely best known these days as a Writer and Curator at Minimal Mac, where you will find original writing, links, quotes, photos and submissions around the theme of minimalist practices in the area of technology. An idea I often refer to as ÒenoughÓ.

    I also am the proprietor of Machine Methods a firm that assists individuals and micro-businesses get the best out of technology.

    What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?

    I knew I wanted one immediately. I was an Apple Newton user for many years. In fact, I used one as my main mobile machine for most of those. I knew the iPad was the next logical (and long awaited) progression of that idea. As someone who’s job is often highly mobile, anything I can do to reduce that load is a welcome one.

    Which model did you order and why?

    I bought the WiFi only 64GB model. I knew this would become my main mobile machine for the next couple of years so I did not want to have to worry about running out of space. As for 3G, well, in every case I might need it I have my iPhone with me and it is better suited for that kind of task, so I saw no need. In hindsight, I don’t use it for much onboard media (music so I likely could have sufficed with the 32GB model.

    How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?

    As said, I use it for my main mobile machine. When I’m out and about, or even away from my desk at home, I’m on my iPad. Lots of email, browsing, writing, reading, etc. I do take the Apple Wireless Keyboard with me if I know I’m going to be doing a ton of typing (like now, for instance).

    Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?

    I do 95% of all of my writing on the iPad in Simplenote, which syncs with Notational Velocity on the desktop. It is a fantastic app. Instapaper for reading is equally fantastic. In fact, if those were the only two third party apps on my iPad I would probably be just fine. Reeder is used for my RSS feeds. I use Ego, less to see my stats but more to keep track of my multiple Tumblr based sites. Also, Mail.app and Safari get a ton of play. Twitterrific gets more than it should. Don’t even get me started on Angry Birds.

    Which app is your favorite?

    That would be a hard choice between Instapaper and Simplenote. If forced, under penalty of death, Simplenote would likely win. I am a writer after all.

    Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?

    I’m a big fan of Waterfield Design stuff. I have the iPad Ultimate SleeveCase slid into my in my larger briefbag. I also have the Keyboard Sleeve for the wireless keyboard.

    What features do you want to see in a future iPad?

    The retina display will be very nice once it happens. Otherwise, it really is a near perfect device for me. I can’t think of anything else right now.

    Thanks again to Patrick for taking the time to give us a little insight into his iPad life. Be sure to follow him on Twitter he is @patrickrhone.

    More iPad Life

    To see more people’s iPad Lives take a look here.

  • QoTD: Marco Arment

    “I love Mac OS, especially because of the respect Apple shows for my time and attention.”
    –Marco Arment

  • No Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7?

    So Microsoft out up the Angry Birds icon on the Windows Phone 7 site and Rovio the guys that make Angry Birds tweeted this:

    We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version. Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission.

    Comical.

  • Google <3's Carriers

    MG Siegler with a great translation of Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin talking about how Google could sell an unlocked phone again:

    Translation: we have to figure out how to do this without pissing off our carrier partners.

  • Don’t Have a Mobile Theme Please

    As a WordPress veteran of 4 years or so I constantly check out any post that says things like “10 must have WordPress plugins” or “Tips for WordPress Users”. One thing that seems constant on these lists over the past year or two has been the recommendation to install a WordPress Plugin called “WP-Touch”. This plugin reformats the CSS on your WordPress blog to be “optimized” for the iPhone and other mobile devices. WP-Touch has a huge following and a ton of people use it – but that doesn’t make it good.

    I am anything but a designer and I too have dabbled in using these plugins. In the end I usually always turn them off, not because they don’t work, rather because they are down right ugly and make the user experience suffer on your site. There is nothing more annoying to me than to be out on my iPhone and hit a link to a blog and be greeted with the WP-Touch theme.

    Perhaps I am alone in this thinking, but I think it looks terrible. Instead why not just make sure that your site works on the iPhone in it’s ‘normal’ state? The iPhone (and all iOS devices for that matter) is designed to work with the web the way it is, not for the web to reconfigure itself to work with the device.

    In fact I know I am not alone, just take a look at what Ethan Marcotte on A List Apart had to say on the matter of responsive web design. Now he is not talking specifically about the same thing, what he does show though is that you can make a site that looks and acts very similar on all devices. That just may be the key to making blogs more iPhone sized ready – but in the end is it really so hard to double tap of the body of text you want to read?

    When a new plugin called PadPressed came out, purporting to take your WordPress blog and make it look like a native iPad app, I went out and bought it and installed it. Today if you view this site on your iPad you won’t see that plugin. It is no longer active or even on my server.

    I removed PadPressed not because it was a bad plugin, but because the user experience of the plugin was massively flawed. It looked great, beautiful even to my eyes, but interaction with it and trying to use it to actually read this blogs content was less than ideal. In the end I will stick with this very simple design on the site, readable on all devices.

    So I urge everyone with a WordPress blog to turn off your mobile themes – get rid of WP-Touch. If you want to change the look and feel of your site when the screen size shrinks then do so – but respect the user experience because WP-Touch is just ugly:

    4704129590_69535a3154_o.png(Source WP-Touch)

  • On the Slow Mac Posts

    This morning I saw two posts in my RSS feed, both about speeding up your Mac if you think it is running slow.

    Post #1 from Cult of Mac (Wired) was terrible and useless. Post #2 from The Next Web was slightly better, but still not all that great, especially for savvy Mac users.

    So I submit to you the main reason your Mac is running slow: you don’t have an SSD hard drive.

    Yes it is that simple.

    Get this one (highly recommended) or if you are more budget conscience I hear these offer a great compromise(I have never tested one though).

    Once you go SSD you don’t go back.

  • When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

    Honestly Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz needs to just keep her mouth shut, just take a look at some of these quotes from her recent interview with USAToday.

    Q: Who’s your biggest single competitor?

    A: Facebook — not today, but they could be. If they keep going, they will have the vault of information on everybody in the world, and that’s valuable.

    Or to translate, let me not answer your actual question and give you a foreshadowing answer that means nothing.

    On Yahoo’s advertising push:

    Too much of the advertising (on the Internet) is static and feels old-fashioned. So we like to work with the advertisers to say, “Let’s kind of get in there and mix it up. Let’s get people jolted awake again.”

    One of my favorites: Purina Puppy Chow has a little puppy walking across the top of the screen. I sit there like an idiot because it’s cute, and I happen to like puppies. It drags the bowl.

    She is right there is not enough moving, blinking, loud Flash ads on the web – clearly we need more puppies.

    When interviewer David Lieberman says that Yahoo makes him do to much work by him having to click a button that says “don’t show me this again” Bartz responds:

    Oh, excuse me, please. You are getting a lot of value. This is not like a free lunch here. We just opened a data center in Buffalo, and in its first phase it has 50,000 servers. That is not cheap. So the very fact that you get all this great information is part of the deal.

    Are you fucking serious?

    Also this patently untrue statement:

    If you want to run an ad on the iPad, it has to be approved by Apple

    Or you can just have an ad in a webpage – but you know they don’t allow Flash so cute puppies are out.

    Then I stopped reading this after I saw this gem:

    Q: In January you gave yourself a B-minus for the first year. How about this year?

    A: I’m off the grading thing. I’m just going to declare that we are pass-fail, and I pass.

    How does she still have a job? Oh she passed, never mind.

    [via Aol/TechCrunch]

  • Happy Cog Rethinks Blog Comments

    Zeldman:

    Kids today are more likely to respond to a blog post on Twitter than in the article’s comments section; so we’ve collocated our comments on Twitter. Share a tweet-length response here, and, with your permission, it will go there. If you are moved to respond with more than 140 characters, post the response on your website, and it will show up here. Clever, these Americans.

    A pretty neat idea, it will be interesting to see how this plays out long term.

  • Google Inside™

    Because paying $1900 and making me replace my TV is exactly what I want to do. But hey, there is Google Inside right?

  • Sony Squeezes 16.4 Megapixels onto Camera-Phone Chip

    All I can say is this is really insane. If the sample pics provided are real-world pictures then this is one damn impressive feat by Sony.