Month: June 2011
Member Content:
Newsletter:
-
Downgrading Skype and Silver Lake to ‘Evil’
Some more information has come to light about Skype firing executives before the Microsoft acquisition completes — all of this makes every involved party (on the Skype side) sound pretty terrible.
-
[SPONSOR] Hoban Cards
Elegance is not stopping every two seconds to spell out your email to people that want to connect with you as you are trying to get out the door. Elegance is handing out a minimal, unique card. A calling card from Hoban Cards is all about elegance. Each calling card is hand printed on a…
-
Dropbox Breach: Fewer Than 100 Accounts Affected, but One Person Actively Exploited Security Hole
Jason Kincaid: >First, the good news: the scale of the attack affected “fewer than a hundred accounts” out of Dropbox’s 25 million total users. But according to the letter, those accounts were all accessed by a single individual. In other words, these weren’t accidental logins due to typos — someone discovered the hole and actively…
-
Some 1Password Follow-up
I kind of had a feeling that [this post yesterday](http://brooksreview.net/2011/06/jb-password/) would ruffle some feathers, but I never shy away from posting something I feel strongly about. A lot of the responses that I received revolved around these arguments: 1. Not using something doesn’t make you an idiot. 2. You can make secure passwords without 1Password.…
-
Truer Words
Justin Blanton laying the smack down: >While on the topic, if you’re not using 1Password (or similar)—and you can afford it—then you’re an idiot. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but there just isn’t any excuse. No excuse.
-
The B&B Podcast – Episode 16: Our Longest Episode Ever
>Shawn and Ben discuss backing up, wireless networking speeds and the celebration of keeping an iPhone for more than a year. They also touch on iPhone 5 rumors, the Nokia N9, HP Touchpad and Shawn’s struggle to find a good Netflix app. Big thanks to our sponsors: [Pulp](http://acrylicapps.com/pulp/mac/) and [InVision](http://invisionapp.com/).
-
Tweed
A big thanks to [LithiumCorp](http://lithiumcorp.com/) for sponsoring this weeks’ RSS feed to promote their great iPad app: Tweed. Tweed is part of a new class of apps that I am starting to see trickling out, that take something we are all very familiar with (in this case Twitter) and transform the way we use the…
-
Verizon LTE MiFi Benchmarks
Bare Feats: >However, the LTE MiFi not only maintained essentially the same download speeds but the upload speed jumped to 11,974Kbps — or faster than the Comcast 50Mbps cable upload speed in our lab! From the sounds of it, this is one hell of a mobile broadband device.
-
Screenstagram
Great new screensaver: >Screenstagram displays photos from Instagram. It can show you your friends’ photos or photos from the Instagram popular feed, which contains highly rated photos from across the Instagram community.
-
The ‘Mobile’ Web
One thing that really bugs me is when I encounter an ‘mobile optimized’ website on my iPhone/iPad. I hate these sites because they are akin to going into a Ferrari dealership to see a Ferrari and instead only getting to see a Mercedes, that some guy traded in — you feel screwed over. What’s more…
-
FTC to Serve Google With Subpoenas in Broad Antitrust Probe
Thomas Catan: >The new inquiry, by contrast, will examine fundamental issues relating to Google’s core search-advertising business, said people familiar with the matter. The business is the source of most of Google’s revenue. The issues include whether Google—which accounts for around two-thirds of Internet searches in the U.S. and more abroad—unfairly channels users to its…
-
The Eleventh App
David Barnard responding to [this post](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2959-ten-apps-is-all-i-need) from David Heinemeier Hansson: >If we took a poll of all iOS users and asked for a list of the eleven absolutely essential, can’t live without apps I bet we’d end up with at least a thousand different types of apps. He makes a great point that adds to…
-
Nevada Passes Law Authorizing Driverless Cars
I imagine that one could devise a pretty clever self-driving car that, under normal circumstances, is better than many drivers I see on the road. What I can’t imagine is that mixing these cars with the erratic drivers that are *currently* on the road would be good at all. The problem isn’t that the driver…
-
The FBI Stole an Instapaper Server in an Unrelated Raid
Marco Arment: >So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all of Instapaper’s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and as far as I know, this is completely out of my control. [This](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/f-b-i-seizes-web-servers-knocking-sites-offline/) whole [mess](http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/department-of-justice-disrupts-international-cybercrime-rings-distributing-scareware) is crazy to try and wrap your head around. Likely the only way that Marco ever gets…
-
Stephen Elop Unveils Nokia’s First Windows Phone Device
Tom Warren on what is rumored to be the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 device: > The design of the device appears to be identical to the recently announced Nokia N9, powered by MeeGo. Surprise!
-
Walt Mossberg’s Samsung Series 5 Google Chromebook Review
Walt Mossberg: >The Chromebook starts up almost instantly—in 10 to 15 seconds in my tests—much more quickly than most Windows machines. This is partly because it’s really just a big Web browser. In my tests, Apple’s MacBook Air started just about as quickly, but it costs twice as much. He neglects to mention that the…
-
More Apple Patents
Nilay Patel laying the smack down: >So Apple got yet another patent granted today, and now there’s yet another media firestorm over whether it means Cupertino will be able to sue every other phone manufacturer out of business, or at least out of the business of making multitouch devices. And, as usual, most of the…
-
David Heinemeier Hansson On Third Party Apps for Mobile
David Heinemeier Hansson commenting on the Nokia N9 and the apps he needs to make a phone useful: >But the established wisdom now is that you cannot win without hundreds of thousands of apps. I have to disagree, DHH is arguing that if you get the core apps right (for him those are: Safari, Camera,…
-
RIM Becoming Too Radioactive to Takeover
I have no clue why anyone would want to take over RIM — it surely would make the stock drop of whatever company acquires them. Ed Sutherland reporting on RIM’s woes of late: >Once worth $83 billion, the Waterloo, Ontario BlackBerry maker has slid to around $15 billion Yikes, if I was the board I…