The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • Got to Love Facebook Commenters

    Facebook posted the linked note about their downtime that lasted 2.5 hours for some (gasp!) – the best part though are the comments (on Facebook I always find the comments to be the best part). Here are some choice ones:

    Apparently people 814 liked that Facebook went down:
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.48.16 AM.png

    The zigging and zagging:
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.48.02 AM.png

    It really effected me:
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.48.10 AM.png
    The I didn’t read/understand the post guy:
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.48.30 AM.png
    He wants some free cash, and who can blame him?:
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.48.51 AM.png
    The sane one (kinda):
    Screen shot 2010-09-24 at 8.49.32 AM.png

    Sometimes (most of the time) I amuse myself.

  • Andrew Sendonaris on Moving to a Mac

    Sendonaris lists a bunch of little things that he did not expect to annoy him upon getting a MacBook Pro, this tidbit though is by far the funniest (to me):

    There is no equivalent of MS Paint. There is Paintbrush, which you can download for free, but it does not have all the features of MS Paint.

    Wow, when was the last time you heard someone say “it does not have all the features of MS Paint”?

  • Floating Nuclear Power Plants

    Sounds harmless, just throw these things out in the Arctic Ocean – no problem, afterall:

    “We can guarantee the safety of our units one hundred per cent, all risks are absolutely ruled out,” says Mr Zavyalov.

    [via Kotkke]

  • Another Way to Think About Facebook’s Worth

    Mathew Ingram on the Facebook valuation:

    In reality, of course, every economist knows that things are only worth what people will pay for them, and since no one has actually paid $33 billion for Facebook, we shouldn’t really say that it is worth that much, or that Zuckerberg is worth $6.9 billion. But then, no one has paid $165 billion for Google either.

    Very true, but what I really take issue with is saying that Zuckerberg is worth $7 billion because of it – you are only worth what you have in liquid assets (obviously a matter of opinion). Facebook is anything but liquid.

  • David Heinemeier Hansson: Facebook is not worth $33,000,000,000 [UPDATED]

    David Heinemeier Hansson:

    Facebook has been around for seven years. It has 500 million users. If you can’t figure out how to make money off half a billion people in seven years, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re unlikely to ever do.

    Now this was all fun and games until somebody promised the Newark schools $100 million in stock based on the fantasy valuation of his under-profiting company. But now it’s real. They’re selling the skin before they shot the bear or peeing their pants to get to the hut or whatever you want to call it. It’s just not good, alright?

    In the end it’s the kids that get hurt.

    [Updated: 9/23/10 at 2:44 PM] Just to be clear I don’t think Facebook is worth this much money. A business (or any other good really) is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it. I don’t see people lining up to buy Facebook.

  • Something That Scrolls Worse than Flash on a Mac

    This HP Slate video should be all the proof you need that Windows does not make a good touch interface.

    [via Daring Fireball]

  • Contxts – Mobile Sms Business Cards

    Very neat service.

    [via Swiss Miss]

  • Seven-Inch Tablets Are Just Plain Wrong

    There have been a lot of rumors and rampant speculation about the possibility of Apple shipping a seven-inch version of the iPad. We ((that is everyone not at Apple in the super secret iPad division)) know nothing, except that Samsung (with the Samsung Galaxy Tab) is going with seven-inches and various other Android based tablets seem destined to be the same size.

    This small size sounds great if you think about it, surely it will be lighter and more portable. Seven inches is a huge difference though, you lose almost 3 inches off the iPad size and for what? Well you get a smaller device that still doesn’t fit in your pocket and doesn’t have the screen real estate to be really great.

    The problem isn’t that tap zones become much smaller, the problem is the onscreen keyboards get much smaller. I can’t type on the iPad keyboard in it’s portrait orientation, it is too small to try and touch type, and far too large to comfortably thumb type. That leaves an awkward and slow hunt and peck method of typing portrait orientation. Everything changes though in landscape orientation, all of a sudden I get a large keyboard that I can touch type with, using about 8 fingers (still too small for pinkies). The iPad keyboard in landscape view is truly the best soft-keyboard I have ever used, and it is quite usable at that.

    A seven-inch tablet though, well that would be a massively smaller keyboard in landscape orientation. So much so that I would guess it would be faster thumb typing in the portrait view than it would be trying to cram 3 fingers on the landscape keyboard. Now this of course is pure speculation on my part as I have yet to use a tablet with a seven-inch screen, but here are some things I do know for sure:

    • From the edge of the furthest keys my MacBook Pro keyboard is about 10.75” long.
    • From the edge of the furthest keys on the iPad (landscape) it is about 7.75” long.
    • The Samsung Galaxy Tab looks to be 7.48” long and assuming 0.5” for a bezel that leaves only 6.48” for the keyboard (Source)
    • The a 6.5” keyboard is only 0.6” wider than the iPad keyboard in Portrait

    At seven-inches then, the scale of the device to the size of a normal adult hand is just wrong. With a seven inch screen it will be far from comfortable to type on. Just take a look at this picture from Endgadget and tell me that you think that keyboard is big enough to type with both hands? In fact I bet you will run into the same problems that you would with the iPads portrait keyboard – you just won’t want to use it.

    Everybody who doesn’t have an iPad squawks that iPads are for content consumption only, not for creation, often implying: you silly goose. Everybody who owns an iPad knows that this line of thinking is a load of crap. Yet it would seem these companies ((Samsung, Dell, possibly RIM)) making seven inch tablets don’t own an iPad because they are making devices sized for content consumption only – when there is a lot of people using iPads for content creation instead. ((Though in fairness content consumption still rules the roost for now.))

    A seven inch tablet is not for content creation any more than an iPhone is – sure it’s possible, but only if you are a masochist. Q: Why would you limit your device from the start by making it too small? A: Because you bought into the hype that the iPad is a Kindle competitor, not a netbook killer.

  • ‘Get With the Program’

    Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg talking to invective about the iPhone on Verizon and their 4G network:

    Hopefully, at some point Apple will get with the program.

    Right, because Apple is the one off course, not the fabled wireless industry.

  • Quote of the Day: Resources

    The cliché is “People are your most valuable resource”. I would argue they are your only resource. Computers, desks, building, data centers… Whatever. All of those other tools only support your one and only resource: your people. –Michael Lopp

  • Review: Writer.

    A while back I saw on Twitter that Oliver Reichenstein over at Information Architects was working on a new writing app for the iPad. That was right around the time e iPad came out, so it has been a while now. Since then we have had Simplenote which has gone from good to great.

    This morning met me with some real joy when I saw that iA had released their long waited writing app caller ‘Writer.’ pretty neat and at $5 I said why not and purchased it. Little did I know it is not compatible with iOS 4.2 beta 1 which I have installed on my iPad.

    In fairness the only thing that doesn’t work is auto scrolling and scrolling at all in the ‘focus’ mode pain. Making the app annoying to use but not impossible.

    The Only Thing You Need to Know

    Doing a full review of Writers features would be a rather boring affair, it is a text editor that is full screen and syncs with your Dropbox. Simple enough. The one thing though that really truly sets Writer apart is the font that it uses.

    The font is not Helvetica, it is not Georgia, the font is called Nitti Light and it is monospaced. Nitti Light is the best looking font I have seen rendered on the iPad to date. It is this font that makes Writer so good to use, in fact it is not just the font but the sizing, margins and line heights that have been chosen for it.

    Using Writer feels like using an app where the developer spent 90% of his time making sure that the text looks just perfect on the screen – and they nailed it. If you love typography, or if you just love readable sharp looking fonts then you are really going to want to give Writer a try.

    The Problems

    Due to Writers incompatibility with iOS 4.2 beta I can’t really tell what is a problem as a whole or what is just a problem due to the beta iOS. One thing that I can say for sure though is that the syncing speed leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike with Simplenote you can’t just ‘close’ the app and know for sure that all the changes were synced back, it seems to me that you have to hit the sync button to get the changes to push back up, or at the very least wait a while.

    This is probably something that can be fixed in future updates, but right now it is an annoyance that I have with an otherwise very good writing app.

    Smoking Apples’ Milind Alvares has a more detailed review here.

  • ‘The first step to fixing the Android Marketplace has nothing to do with the Android Marketplace’

    Kevin Fox on Android phones:

    When a phone ships with kitchen sink apps and those with overlapping or unclear functionality, the user feels like they’re using someone else’s tool and, yes, they can add to it and customize it, but a large portion of users will still feel there are places inside their own phone that are fuzzy to them because they either don’t have a use for the functionality or simply don’t understand it.

    [via DF]

  • AngelGate

    What a great summary by Matthew Ingram on GigaOm – all we know is that some rich people met and talked about stuff, and when Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch) showed up they didn’t say ‘hi’, even though they are his friends. Somebody is getting un-friended on the Facebook machine later.

  • Apple’s outrageous share of the mobile industry’s profits

    So Apple sells only 17 million of the 600+ million phones sold in total. Yet they take 39% of the total industry profits. That is insane to say the least.

  • Information Architects’ Writer for iPad

    I have been waiting for this for quite a while now. Information Architects:

    The key to good writing is not that magical glass of Bordeaux, the right kind of tobacco or that groovy background music. The key is focus. What you need to write well is a spartan setting that allows you to fully concentrate on your text and nothing but your text. Many professional writers use SimpleText or Textedit because these are the only writing programs that are totally distraction free. But text editors are not perfect. That’s why we made Writer.

    Purchased. Note: If you are on the iOS 4.2 beta scrolling will not work in ‘focus mode’. This is a major bummer, but understandable.

  • Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz Makes No Sense

    Read the linked to quotes for Bartz. How the hell is she a CEO and an even bigger question I guess is how the hell the Board at Yahoo! thinks she is going to turn the company around? She be-littles the executives that have left, she blames users for lack of success, and calls Twitter over priced. Unless she is paying Yahoo! to work for them, she is the over priced one.

  • Why HDR on the iPhone Is a Good Thing and How to Use It

    What is HDR photography? It is a defined as:

    a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. ((Wikipedia))

    In terms that really make sense though you use your camera to take on average 3 pictures each is taken at different exposures. One at a normal exposure, what you would expect to get when you take a normal picture. Then one over and one under exposed. Essential you have one normal picture, one brighter picture and one darker picture. Using digital tools you then overlay these three images taking the best of each to create one composite image as the final.

    HDR however has gotten a pretty bad rap online as many people have been using tools like Photomatix to ‘over process’ their images, resulting in a fantasy land look to them as you can see below:

    HDR 1

    Source

    HDR 2

    Source

    This over processing has lead to many people writing off HDR as nothing but a fad. This over processing is a fad, but HDR is not – HDR is a serious tool that can help make a picture that looks more like what the human eye actually sees. This technique is widely used in Real Estate photography as seen in these examples:

    HDR 3

    Source

    HDR 4

    Source

    Where without the use of HDR you would need to have ample strobe (flash) lighting to be able to get something other than bright white in the windows.

    Now that we can see what HDR really does when used correctly we can get a much better sense as to when we should be using it.

    HDR on Your iPhone

    There are a couple things to note about using HDR on your iPhone so let me just run through those really quickly:

    • The implementation is not perfect.
    • You can’t edit the processing.
    • It takes longer between shots.

    With those three things in mind we can move forward with HDR on the iPhone. The default setup for the iPhone is to ask you after taking your first HDR picture if you would like to save the original image as well as the HDR image. For most I recommend leaving this option on, you get the ‘normal’ exposed image and the HDR version both saved on your phone. The time between shots suffers a significant delay when HDR mode is on, often taking about 6 seconds between the time you take a picture and the time you can take another image. ((With HDR off it takes on average, less than 2 seconds.))

    There are two criterion that you really should be looking to see if you meet before you think about using HDR:

    1. Is the background of the image going to be brighter than the foreground? For instance is it bright and sunny out, and you have someone standing in front of a window? Then typically the window would either show blue sky and the person would be a silhouette or the person will look great with a bright white background (this is called a blown out background).
    2. Nothing important should be moving. Remember you are taking three pictures in rapid succession, so if your subject or things in the background are moving you are going to get ghosting (which looks like this and this.)

    So HDR is best used for things that are not moving (real estate, landscape, a posed portrait).

    Personally I leave HDR on at all times, I know I get the normal image with the added benefit of just maybe getting an even better version from HDR. Here are some examples of images I have got using HDR, with the normal exposure comparison.

    husky.png

    husky_hdr.png

    office.png

    office_hdr.png

    vase.png

    vase_hdr.png

    wedding.png

    wedding_hdr.png

    conf.png

    conf_hdr.png

    As you can see I have not had a chance to take many shots, but what I have taken has on average been better with HDR on.

  • Egg, Face

    MG Siegler:

    The San Francisco Business Times recently began a project to document wireless dead zones in the Bay Area. It’s a good idea; they have a simple form any user can fill out to give the address of the dead zone, explain it a bit if they choose, and name their service provider. So far, they’ve accumulated quite a bit of data — over 500 data points. The best part? As far as I can tell, every single one of the dead zones is on AT&T’s network.

  • The Most Used

    The weather is starting to turn sour here in Seattle, so it is the time of year when we baton down the hatches, pull out our REI clothing and get ready to spend lots of time inside. I would be lying if I said I didn’t already spend lots of time inside, but such is life in the modern workplace. This whole concept of being inside, got me to thinking about the software tools I use on a regular basis. So for the past week I have been vaguely monitoring what software I used the most on each device – the results of which are pretty interesting.

    Note: I did not include any utilities that are always running like Dropbox or Baseapp.

    MacBook Pro

    I am breaking out a couple of different computers because I use them very differently. On my MacBook Pro the app that I use the most by far is Safari. I really thought that it was going to be something like Marsedit, but Safari really leads the charge here. So much of what I do on my MacBook Pro for both work and hobbies is web based that I really can’t live without Safari.

    A few weeks back I tried to make a permanent switch to Google Chrome, but I just find the UI ugly – I can’t stand it. The browser seems faster that Safari but the fit and finish is just not there and based on how most Google products look I doubt it will ever be there.

    Runners Up (in order): Mail, Transmit, MarsEdit, NetNewsWire.

    iPhone 4

    Twitter for iPhone is by far, hands down the single most used app on my iPhone. Nothing else even comes close, not the phone or text message client. I could probably remove everything from my home screen and dock except Twitter and I would rarely scroll to another page.

    Runners Up (in order): Mail, OmniFocus, Ego, Simplenote, MLB At Bat, Camera.

    iPad

    This was by far the hardest to judge, I use four of the apps almost the same amount. After a lot of thinking I have to crown the winner as Reeder. Not only is it the app that I find myself using the most when I am away from my Mac, but it is also one of the best apps for the iPad. Reeder if you don’t know is hands down the best RSS feed reader that a person can have, on any platform. ((until they come out with a Mac client, perhaps.))

    Runners Up (in order): Instapaper, OmniFocus, Twitter for iPad, Simplenote, Mail.

    Mac mini

    I have what one day may be a collectors item, an original circa 2005 Mac mini G4. Oh yeah PowerPC baby. This is the upgraded 1.4 whatever ghz model. I have only had to replace the HD once in it and it has been in 24/7 use since I purchased it. Today it is attached to our TV in the living room and servers as a media hub as well as a Bit-Torrent monster. By far the most used app is Transmission the best bit-torrent app I have ever come across. (Of course I only do legal things with Bit-torrent).

    Runners Up (in order): VLC, I don’t really use any other apps on it.

    Some Thoughts

    I did this little monitoring activity with the goal of trying to figure out how I use things. The ultimate goal then is trying to determine if I have the right equipment for what I do. I have for quite some time now wanted to get a separate computer at my office so that I no longer have to lug my MacBook Pro to and from work, but I have been unsure whether I should get a iMac or Mac mini for the office (I already have a 24” Cinema display at work). In the end I know that I can’t go wrong with either choice but I think I am leaning towards purchasing an iMac.

    One thing that did not show up is that when I use my MacBook Pro at home I am almost always using it for photo editing. This type of work truly demands a large screen. Based on that I think that buying a smaller iMac for my office and taking the monitor home to use with my MacBook pro there. Of course this all costs money which means things will have to wait a bit.

  • Facebook Has Quietly Implemented A De-Facto Follow Feature

    From what I can gather (not being a Facebook user) you can no longer simply ignore someone, as MG Siegler states:

    Previously, you could either Confirm or Ignore (deny) a request. Now, Ignore has been replaced by “Not Now”. This new option takes some of the pressure off you having to reject people as it instead moves them into a state of limbo, where they’re neither accepted nor rejected.

    This sounds minute but as Siegler explains this basically makes you have to take additional steps to either reject or block a person. Thus they are basically getting your public newsfeed information all along. The real problem is not the extra steps, but that they are not easy to find which really will leave a lot of users confused. Add to that the fact that this seems to be a way of making everyone friends and I am really glad I am no longer on Facebook.