The Brooks Review

Month: March 2011

  • Lenovo Joins Tablet War With LePad

    Kathrin Hille for the Financial Times, reporting on the new Lenovo ‘LePad’ tablet:

    Lenovo’s focus on China, which will make it a late-comer in other markets, is expected to be the group’s biggest strength. “When it comes to tablets, what matters is software, not hardware,” said Mr Yang. “Lenovo’s strength is that they have a Chinese interface and Chinese applications.”

    Now the tablet has a stupid name and will not impress American’s (we tend to shun things that sound overtly French). That said the strategy is smart, the price is comparable to the iPad and somebody at Lenovo actually ‘gets’ the most important thing about tablets: software and interface. I am blown away by how smart of a play these seems to be — even going into China first where they stand to have a better chance of success is smart.

    Color me impressed.

  • The powerful, mystical Spotlight. On steroids.

    Some great tips on how to make Spotlight a little more useful. I love tools like Launchbar, but sometimes you just need to search system files and see lists — that’s when I start with Spotlight.

  • The Secret to Comfortable Typing on Your iPad

    So very true.

  • The Cosmonaut

    I have huge respect for the guys behind the Glif, but I don’t think this new dry-erase marker style iPad stylus will be useful. The simple fact is that iOS is not and has never been designed for use with a stylus. To make such a tool work you need the right software and there just isn’t software (perhaps even hardware) that can support the most fundamental uniqueness of drawing: pressure sensitivity.

  • Adding Other People’s TextExpander Snippets

    Brett Terpstra is the man when it comes to TextExpander — he is certainly at guru level bordering on achieving Buddha zen with the tool. He has shared a bunch of his snippets for us to add to our TextExpander libraries. Here is how you add them.

    And don’t forget you can add the pre-defined snippets as well. I love the pre-defined “Accented Words” (which accents characters for you, without you having to remember how to do this) and the “Internet Productivity” one that allows you to shorten a link with bit.ly.

  • Cultured Code & OTA Syncing

    Jürgen for Cultured Code on the state of OTA syncing in the still popular Things app:

    I’m sure the question on the mind of many readers is: when will I be able to play with Things cloud sync first-hand? As it happens, the integration of cloud sync with the Mac version is a little further ahead of its counterparts on iOS. We have therefore decided to start with a beta of Mac-to-Mac sync first.

    I can’t make this stuff up. Cultured Code needs to get a clue. Mac users aren’t the ones that need OTA syncing — iOS + Mac users are. This should be pretty obvious.

    The best part though is this bit:

    iOS devices will join the fun once we are confident with everything server-side.

    Which, given Cultured Code’s track record isn’t very reassuring.

    [Updated: 3.28.11 at 1:39 PM]

    So yeah, I guest their servers aren’t that “confident” yet:

    Due to high demand, we’re experiencing intermittent server downtime – thanks for your patience.

  • How to set post slugs from within WordPress’ iOS apps

    This trick is nothing short of amazing for iPad WordPress bloggers. Previously I had been creating the post and saving it as a draft, then going to the backend in Safari and editing the slug — obviously this is far better.

  • Shawn Blanc on “The Value of Twitter”

    Shawn Blanc in response to my “Twi$$er” ((The title of which has really been messing with Twitter itself and how it tries to pickup stupid things when you use a “$”. It has been quite funny to see how Twitter is screwing with this title.)) article, has this to say about Twitter in a footnote about his own article on the subject:

    It’s an article observing what Twitter as a company sees as their most important goals, and how, in some ways, nobility and ubiquity have become of higher value than profitability.

    Sure, I can see that argument — but there is no value in a service that dies next year because they can’t afford to keep running it. I highly doubt the U.S. government, or any other, see the “value” in Twitter to the point that they would “bail” Twitter out.

    Though Shawn knows that Twitter needs money to keep going, he also adds this to the discussion:

    It would be regrettable if those who cannot pay were locked out from using one of the most powerful tools for global communication and information sharing there has ever been. The NPR writer adds that “Twitter purposefully allows everyone access because information — both good and bad — should be allowed to flow freely.”

    I agree with that general notion — I truly do — but it is a heavily flawed view. The mail system is vital, yet it costs money to send a letter. The phone is crucial to the world, twice over, yet it costs money to place a phone call. The Internet is perhaps the most vital communication tool yet conceived by man, yet it costs money to gain access too. Power and water are also vital and, thus, we pay for them as well. Don’t forget that you must already pay to get on the Internet before you can even get to Twitter.

    I agree with Shawn that it would be ideal for Twitter to remain free and thus “open” for anyone to use. But, I don’t think it is viable and therefore I would rather pay for Twitter and subsequently exclude users — especially when the alternative would be Twitter going away.

    This is a great take by Shawn and I really do agree with it — I just don’t think it is possible and the reason I don’t think it is possible is stated clearly by Shawn:

    However, Twitter is not trying to answer the question of who would or would not stay and pay. They are trying to find a business model that will support those who cannot pay so even more of them will sign up.

    I think the tried and true method to support people who can’t pay is, and always has been, for those who can pay to subsidize that cost. Whether by making food stamps and shelter available this has been the U.S. way for quite some time. What I am saying is that as stupid as the “Pro” account model is — it very clearly subsidizes the cost for most ‘non-paying’ users.

    I think what everyone is forgetting is that Twitter isn’t trying to make the service free so those who can’t pay will continue to use Twitter, but they are trying to make it free for everyone — that way there is no room for competition.

  • Quick Takes on Five (Perhaps, Three) Apps #6

    Thanks for all the great suggestions last week, I will be checking a lot of them out. There also were some great ideas for me to do follow-up on some of these apps and I will try to do that every once and a while.

    Everyday (iPhone)

    Everyday is a photo app, but one where you take a picture of yourself everyday and the app will make a little movie out of it so you can see how your physical appearance changes over time. I have been taking pictures of myself for over a year now, but I had been using Photobooth, which means that I miss some days here and there. Everyday is great because it will shoot you a push reminder AND it helps you line up your pictures so that the movie will look even better. I really dig it.

    DaisyDisk (Mac OS X)

    DaisyDisk is a dead simple way to see what is eating all the space on your Mac’s hard drive. I used the tool recently to find 20GBs of wasted space that I reclaimed. It is a great tool and presents the data in a view pretty looking view. I like to have tools like this around so that I can check in from time to time on what is taking up space on my SSD.

    QR Code Reader and Scanner (iOS)

    I don’t really care at all about QR codes and have never felt the need to scan one — that is until REI sent me some dividend stuff and there was a QR code on it. Now I felt that I had to check that out. I knew that finding a good QR code app might be a challenge, so I downloaded a bunch (only free ones, because after all this is a stupid technology). Here’s the thing, this app is fast and works as advertised — so I don’t know what there is to complain about. Oh wait, I though of something: The name of the app is “…” on the homescreen which is just stupid of a developer to do.

    Be sure to check out more installments that actually have five apps in them: here.

  • CareerExcuse.com

    From the FAQ of this website that will be your fake reference for your fake company or residence:

    Is misinformation on a resume illegal?
    No, Since a resume is not a legal document, it is not illegal to misrepresent on a resume.

    Actually, it’s called Fraud.

    Which, according to dictionary.com, is:

    deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.

    So yeah…

  • “Open”

    MG Siegler on Google’s use of the term “open” when referring to Android:

    And in that context, being “more” open is like being “kind of ” pregnant.

  • Dear Twitter

    David Humphrey on why Twitter should charge it’s users:

    Watching you flail and fail with business models is depressing, when the one obvious one is being completely rejected.  I’m an adult. I have a job; and I use Twitter for my job.  I’d pay for this because it’s a useful part of my online experience.

    Needless to say I completely agree.

  • The B&B Podcast Episode 5

    Shawn and I spend the entire episode talking about some of the cool apps that we use on our Macs for getting all of our stuff done. Things like TextExpander, Droplr, Shortwave and others.

    This episode is sponsored by the very awesome Instacast.

  • The Audacity of Getting Paid

    Christopher Bowns:

    First, making money is easy: you must have the sheer audacity to charge for a product. Pinboard.in turned profitable in week one. Minecraft’s early sales helped bootstrap its development, and the developer has staffed up and found office space in the past six months to work on new features and new games.

    You actually need to ad the whole post because it is fantastic and exactly what I have been talking about.

  • Amazon’s Android Appstore

    MG Siegler:

    If you touch the screen in the wrong place — whoops — you just bought an app. Of course, this is assuming you have one-click purchasing turned on.

    Sounds like a swell experience.

  • Why Jumpcut Is Better Than LaunchBar

    Dr. Drang makes the case for using Jumpcut over LaunchBar when it comes to clipboard history. Looks interesting, but slower than LaunchBar, even with the implied advantages that the Doctor points out.

    What are you guys using for clipboard histories?

  • Miniot iPad 2 Cover

    This cover blows my mind, there isn’t much on the site for it, but check out the video TUAW has.

  • Quote of the Day: James Shelley

    “It gives me pause: what would my life look like if the whole world judged me only by the worst choice I ever made?”

  • Allow Yourself a Sick Day

    Elliot Jay Stocks speaking to all freelancers and self-employed people:

    So I think that we should all take more time off, and when we’re feeling rough, we should accept that nothing good is going to come of it, and just let ourselves be sick; because being ill is inevitable.

    Since graduating from college in 2005 I have not had a single boss — I have always done my own thing. If you ask my wife she will be the first to tell you that I never take time off. There is always the pressure looming over my head that if I stop working, I stop getting money — and that’s not good. I made a vow that this year I would take more than 4 days away from the office to really enjoy my life.

    So far so good, I even took a couple of sick days already this year and I feel better than ever about that work/life balance stuff.

  • Markdown OS X Services

    Watts Martin has some great tips for creating Markdown services in OS X. Personally I use FastScripts to do a lot of this same stuff, but Automator is free and already on your Mac.