The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • A Winter Wallpaper

    I put together this quick wallpaper/background image last week for myself, thought I would share it with everyone. I am not big on decorations so it is very subtle.

    Enjoy.

  • “You’re either with us, or you’re with WikiLeaks”

    Marc A. Thiessen:

    WikiLeaks represents a new and unprecedented cyber threat that cannot be ignored or wished away. Just as terrorism allows small groups of individuals to wreak destruction on a scale that was once the province of nation-states, information technology allows small actors such as Julian Assange to wreak previously unimagined destruction on U.S. national security through cyberspace. This is a threat that requires aU.S. response. Hillary Clinton is right – WikiLeaks has attacked America.

    A piss-poor analysis. I don’t like Assange, and I don’t agree with the way he is conducting WikiLeaks. That said I don’t think that it should be attacked and shut down, this is freedom in its rawest form. I don’t know where I am really on this issue, but I do know that I can’t agree with Thiessen on this.

  • Air-Powered Star Trek Door [Video]

    I want this, I really want this.

  • Google Chrome OS gets detailed

    Nilay Patel:

    Overall, Chrome OS is very much a modern riff on the “thin client” idea from the 90s — an idea that Eric Schmidt himself pioneered while at Sun. Indeed, Schmidt took the stage at the event to explicitly draw the connection, saying that “our instincts were right 20 years ago, but we didn’t have the tools or technology.” That’s a pretty wild statement — and now Google has to deliver.

    I don’t get it. Can some please, in no uncertain terms, explain to me why you would want this over an iPad or Android Tablet?

  • Cameron Moll on Tumblrs Downtime

    Cameron Moll:

    While we don’t pay services such as Tumblr and Twitter in monetary means, we do pay them in usage, not to mention attention given to any revenue-generating services (i.e. ads or sponsored items). This usage and attention is what attracts the huge sums of investment dollars these kinds of companies acquire. In the end, if our attention and usage cannot be “paid” to these free services, it’s likely we’ll pay them elsewhere.

    A great way to look at the relationship Tumblr has with its users.

  • Motorola Android Tablet

    Jaroslav Stekl:

    Additionally, Engadget, whose editor-in-chief was sitting at the event, noticed that the tablet has no buttons at all, for better or for worse.

    I don’t know about the no buttons route, there needs to be at least one button that performs the action to get back to the home screen, or you could call it ESC if you prefer.

  • One Month in Here Is How I Feel About the MacBook Air

    Over the past week or so I have been getting a bunch of questions from readers asking how I am liking the MacBook Air now that I have been using it for a lot longer. ((Since Oct 26th, 2010)) It has been over a month now that I have used the MacBook Air as my primary machine, and one thing is for sure: it is the best upgrade over the MacBook Pro that I could have made. Yes, I consider it an upgrade.

    With the way I use the MacBook Air the speed is a wash with my old MacBook Pro, but the hardware is immensely lighter and smaller. I use the MacBook Air more than I ever used the MacBook Pro outside of work. I like to think of the MacBook Air as everything I needed in the MacBook Pro, just in a smaller, lighter, cooler package. ((Both temperature and looks wise.)) It hasn’t failed me yet.

    Here are my thoughts about the MacBook Air to date

    • It is hands down the best Mac I have ever owned. Before this I had owned two Macs that I loved dearly my 12” Powerbook and my 1st generation Mac Pro. I loved both of those machines immensely, but this Air is something else. The Powerbook never felt fast, it felt quick, but not fast – but the size was very nice. The Mac Pro felt massively fast, but was just about the biggest, heaviest computer I have ever owned. The MacBook Air feels like their love child.
    • See this post from MG Siegler – I agree with him.
    • I love typing on this machine more than I did on my old 12” PowerBook which is really saying a lot. I talked about this in my review of the Air, but this is the best typing experience I have ever had on a laptop. The taper is very, very nice.
    • I have missed having a 15-inch screen exactly 0 times. Screen size was one of my biggest concerns in switching to the Air, I have been using a screen size of 15-inches or greater for the past 2.5 years, so I worried that moving down to a 13-inch screen would be far too restricting to be productive. I have found though that the high resolution of the Air’s 13-inch screen has yet to make me miss the 15-inch screen I used to have. There are a few apps that feel cramped, mostly apps in Adobe’s creative suite with all the dialogs that need to be on screen. This of course can all be mitigated if you have an external monitor.
    • I have yet to run into any speed or RAM limitations, actually this machine feels faster in some respects. Let’s face it, most of us don’t spend our days using all the processing power of our Macs. No,most of us I suspect spend most of our time on the Web and in Email programs. I have a MacBook Pro that I can use if I need it (my wife’s), but guess what, I have yet to even consider wanting to use it. This machine is snappy thanks to the SSD, I can’t say this machine ever feels slow.
    • Another big concern was photo editing, and aside from a touch slower exports those concerns are unfounded in both Aperture and Lightroom. Lightroom feels much faster doing adjustments, while Aperture seems to export much faster. Honestly if exporting is the only thing that I noticed to be slow, then this machine really is not slow at all. Exporting is always slow, and thankfully something that can be done while you make a cocktail. ((Or just drink a nice Scotch.))
    • I still am amazed at how light this computer is, it doesn’t seem possible. If you have ever picked up the Kindle then you know the sensation I am talking about, it just doesn’t seem possible that it is that light. Same goes for the Air and it certainly is not a bad thing.
    • The battery is perfect – I might like another hour, but that is just being greedy. I don’t even pack the charger in my laptop bag when I go away for the weekend, instead I leave it in my suitcase, because I only will need to charge the Air once while I am away (usually). In fact between the iPhone, iPad and Air I only charged my Air twice while I was away during Thanksgiving (from Wed – Sunday).
    • The speakers, well, they leave something to be desired. Really, Apple had to skimp on some aspect so they had something to improve upon the next time around right? The speakers are just fine for watching web videos, but they really suck for music. I have been looking into getting some speakers for my desk for the first time in a few years, though probably I will end up with some nice headphones instead.
    • The one USB port on each side confuses me every time and really messes with how my desk is setup. It is a little annoying to have to stretch cables around the computer just to be able to plug things in. I doubt there is a real solution for this, and there is no way that just one USB port would suffice.
    • I don’t think I will ever get used to how thin the machine is, especially on the front edge of it. Next time you see one in the store (Apple or otherwise) take a second to close the lid and pick it up. The weight and thinness of the machine will blow you away. When you open back up the lid feel how thin the top lid is, that will really blow you away, still amazes me.
    • I needed the optical drive the other day to install Office 2008. I used remote disc over Wi-Fi and the install speed seemed just fine to me, in fact I rather like doing the remote disc deal so I don’t have to hear the drive in my MacBook Air. That actually was the only time that I needed an optical drive and I doubt that I will need it again for quite a while.

    In case you missed it you can read my full review here.

  • Tumblr’s Explanation of Downtime

    David Karp on the Tumblr staff blog:

    While you might feel like you’ve gotten used to seeing errors on Tumblr recently, know that this is absolutely unacceptable to our team, and unacceptable for a platform determined to be the best place in the world for your creative expression.

    Might and feel are two words that I would not have used. Perhaps he should have phrased it: “I know we have been down a lot lately.” Don’t push off the blame on your customers, they “feel” like Tumblr has been down a lot lately because it HAS been down a lot lately.

    Secondly there really is no explanation here and that is truly disappointing, dive into the details and show some transparency, because frankly your product is not good enough to give Apple explanations for problems.

    If you agree reblog this post from Patrick Rhone.

  • Making Something Ugly into Something Pretty

    This is an extension that makes Google Reader look more like Reeder, and it is mighty pretty.

  • Appointment Reminder: A New Way to Annoy Your Clients

    From the web site:

    Then your life just got better: we’ve just released Appointment Reminder, a new service which makes automatic phone, text message, and email appointment reminders to your clients on your behalf.

    Basically it calls your clients to remind them of an appointment thus conveying to your clients that you otherwise would expect them to not be competent enough to show without a reminder.

  • Reuters Best Photos of 2010

    2010 is not over, so it bugs me that they are saying no better photos can be made before the year is out, that said these are some great shots (journalistic shots mostly).

    [via Coudal]

  • 60 Apps a Year, Only Six Paid on Average

    Dan Sabbagh on the iPad as a newspaper savior:

    This is a seductive looking number – as long, that is, as people spend their time using their iPads for reading. It’s well in excess, say, of the combined average daily sale of the upmarket press – just over 2 million Monday to Saturday. But the problem is – for those who dare take their iPad out on the way to work – is that an iPad is not newspaper with moving words. Screen Digest, again, reckon that the average owner downloads about 60 apps a year, of which all but six are free. That certainly leaves room to buy an iPad newspaper, but will it leave time to read it when there is all that other stuff to play with?

    People only pay for 6 apps a year on average, how do they practice such restraint?

  • TSA: Still Jackasses

    Stacey Armato:

    I then begged him to read the TSA rules I had printed out. He read the first form which stated that medical liquids can have alternate screening (no x-ray). He was quick to say “well this isn’t a medical liquid!” So I had him read the second form which says breast milk is to be treated like a medical liquid. He then says, “well, not today.” I started balling all over again once he said that.

    This needs to stop, what ridiculous behavior.

    [via DF]

  • Tumblr DOWN For 13 Hours And Counting

    It was funny at hour 3 for me, then I started feeling bad for its users from hours 5-10. Now though this is getting funny-sad again. Where is Marco Arment when Tumblr needs him…

  • Things Android has that iOS Needs

    After spending a good amount of time with the Samsung Galaxy Tab there are a few things that Android has that I wish iOS devices had. Right now I think the best mobile platform you can get is iOS, whether it be a Touch, iPad, iPhone you really can’t go wrong. I do however see some obvious things from Android that would elevate iOS to the next level.

    Mobile Hotspot

    It irks me to no end that you can’t use an iOS device as a Wi-Fi hotspot to share the web connection. Yes you can tether the iPhone via USB, but who carries an iPod cable with them? I was able to turn the tab into a sweet little hotspot that acted much like the MiFi, without having to carry the MiFi.

    I don’t even care if AT&T charges me $20 a month to use this, I really don’t – just let me do it already.

    A mobile hotspot is not something that many non-technical people are probably clamoring for, but I would be willing to bet that just about everyone would use it at some point. As a society we have simply become to dependent on Internet access to function at a high level, if we have Internet on our phone would it not make sense to share that with our other devices?

    Home Screen Customizations

    I am not talking about organizing icons, or changing the background. I want some sort of widgets that I can put on the home screen, it’s not for everyone, but it would be a great option to have my home screen be able to show:

    • Search bar
    • Weather icon with real time weather info
    • Apps

    Others might like it to show more, but I just want to be able to search right away, that extra swipe is annoying. The grid layout of App icons is nice, but real time info without having to open an app is so essential that I am constantly irritated by the lack of it on the iOS home screens.

    Keyboard Apps

    I don’t want Swype on iOS, I think it is silly – I do want developers to be able to hack the keyboard so that you can set custom layouts across the OS. That would be sweet. If I could get the keyboard that is used in Writer in Mail I would be one happy camper.

    There are so many people out there that have mocked up variants of iOS keyboards, especially for the iPad and I would love to be able to try some of them out. Having to go to the ‘third’ layer of keyboards just to get to the “>” keys is very annoying.

    I highly doubt Apple will ever allow this though, so I am going to stop before I get too excited about the possibilities.

    Notifications

    Oh man are notifications bad in iOS. What is really bad though are the meaningless icon badges that apps use. Gee thanks Twitter, but does that mean I have 2 new mentions, tweets, or DMs to read – oh and on which account? For the record Androids implementation sucks too. I have not tried WebOS’s but I hear it is nice, though it may be dead. ((Prove me wrong HP.))

    I say do away with all icon badges, and work on a system wide notification system that is informational to use, otherwise whats the point of notifying me? The push notification system sucks to, no way of dismissing the message when the screen is locked without getting sent straight to the App. Also have you ever had more than one of these pop-up because that is just the most helpful thing ever, isn’t it?

    Multi-Tasking

    Ok iOS does a better job managing RAM than Android, but Android does a better job letting apps do stuff in the background. I want the best of both worlds, and I need it today.

    I love OmniFocus because it has OTA sync, what I don’t love is that if I don’t open OmniFocus on my iPad or iPhone after I ‘finish’ tasks a reminder will still pop up. I would love for it to be able to sync in the background at regular intervals (perhaps in the future push syncing). In fact I would love that for Instapaper and plenty of other apps too.

    I think many people would like that.

    Android and iOS

    Android is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, iOS is better but still not perfect. We can only hope that Apple is working on bringing over the strengths in Android/WebOS/Windows Phone 7 to make iOS that much better.

  • 23 Devices My iPhone Has Replaced

    Very interesting list and I would bet it will only grow as the iOS platform matures.

  • Paul Graham on Tablets

    Paul Graham:

    The iPhone isn’t so much a phone as a replacement for a phone. That’s an important distinction, because it’s an early instance of what will become a common pattern. Many if not most of the special-purpose objects around us are going to be replaced by apps running on tablets.

    He basically argues that tablets, such as iPhones/iPads, are going to be replacing a great many things in our lives and that is rather hard to argue with.

  • Gruber on the Future of Mac OS X

    John Gruber for Macworld:

    It’s the heaviness of the Mac that allows iOS to remain light.

    Great insight.

  • “Shawn Blanc’s 2010 Professional Gift Guide for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving Writer in Your Life”

    Nice round up of some items that I haven’ seen on many other sites this year. Be sure to check out the one I put together as well, you can check that out here.

  • Reeder and the Keyboard

    Shawn Blanc on Reeder for the Mac’s use of keyboard shortcuts:

    While the interface design of Reeder for Mac is gorgeous and polished, it seems as if each level of hierarchy stands a bit isolated. It is easy to navigate within the subscriptions list, it’s easy to navigate within a list of items, and the individual item view is big and clear. But getting between one level to another is not so simple (unless you’re using the mouse).

    I can’t say that I disagree with Shawn here, NetNewsWire (the only other OS X RSS reader that is worth a damn) does a great job of implementing keyboard shortcuts. Quite a few of you contacted me one way or another and your basic question was when I would be reviewing Reeder. The answer is not until it is a shipping 1.0 release, I just don’t think it is all that fair to review a product that came out less than a week ago, too much changes too fast.

    I can’t fault Shawn for writing about this, and I agree it needs some work. That said the first update to Reeder since its public release has added more keyboard functionality. It seems that it is coming, but we can’t expect so much so fast.

    Having said that Shawn hits some good points about the awkwardness of some of the iOS details of the app coming over to OS X.