The Brooks Review

Month: September 2011

  • Screens — Smart VNC

    I want to extend a big thanks to Luc Vandal of Edovia for sponsoring the RSS feed this week, he’s been a great supporter of TBR and of other quality sites. His apps are some of the best out there.

    Screens is one of the more frequently used apps that I have on my iPad — it’s just beautiful and dead simple to use. When I need it, I need it. I have tried five or six other VNC/Screen-sharing clients and none can match Screens.

    I just got Screens up and running on my Mac — same great experience. Screen sharing isn’t for everyone, but if you use need it, then you really should be using Screens.

  • That Stuff I Share on Your Site Is Not the “Story of My Life”

    Frederic Lardinois commenting on Facebook’s new timeline feature:

    >If you really feel the need to share everything you do on Facebook and you think that that’s a good representation of your life, you seriously need to get out and try living your life a bit harder. We never share everything, we never want everybody else to know everything we do and often enough, we’d rather forget stuff than keep a precise record of it.

    It’s no secret that I loathe Facebook, that said I think the points that Lardinois makes are very fair. I mean when I go to hang out with friends I rarely bring a stack of magazine and newspaper articles that I read…

  • HP’s CEO Revolving Door Will Hurt It in the Long Run

    Dean Takahashi has an excellent take on the HP mess:

    >Now what is Whitman going to do? Hire all the fired WebOS people back?

    You should read the entire article.

  • A Business Insider Retrospective

    Marco Arment on Business Insider’s practice of linking to everything they can:
    >But what offends me even more than rewriting my titles and burying my links is how their layout so strongly implies that I’m a Business Insider writer and I endorse my name and writing being splattered all over their site:

    Same thing happened to me and they too wanted me to “syndicate” my posts. What annoys me the absolute most though is [this](http://www.businessinsider.com/author/ben-brooks) — drives me nuts. When they first linked to one of my posts they “reprinted” most of it — it took me several emails to get it down to what you currently see.

  • Hip-Checked

    John Gruber [reminded](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/22/cringely-apotheker-whitman) us all that Robert X. Cringley [called Whitman’s hip-check to Apotheker a while back](http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/why-leo-apotheker-will-be-fired-from-hewlett-packard/):

    >She’ll eventually get around to hip-checking Apotheker and taking his job.

    This is a terrible move by HP in every respect. It shows a clear lack of direction, strategy, vision, and control.

    I would guess that when Apotheker took the job of CEO 11 months ago, he did so by laying out a clear plan of action for HP to the Board. My guess was that this past month was him finally implementing the public side of those plans — his plan was the IBM plan, ditch hardware and consumer businesses and flock to enterprise and consulting.

    Mark Hurd is/was a product guy and he steered HP towards consumer products. He wanted WebOS so that he had a weapon to use against Apple and Google in the hot mobile sector.

    Leo Apotheker is/was an enterprise software guy, he used a slow WebOS start to kill the most consumer friendly products HP makes. Next he spent billions to bring in an enterprise company few had heard of and publicly announced his plans for reshaping HP.

    Enter Meg Whitman.

    Regardless of Whitman’s plans for the future of HP, instating her as CEO shows a complete lack of direction by the Board of HP. Hurd no doubt kept the Board in the loop about his strategy and plans — he may well have still been in power had allegations not been slung his way — and the Board approved his consumer oriented plan. They agreed with his direction.

    Upon Hurd’s ouster the Board hired Apotheker, full well knowing that his plans were the complete opposite of Hurd’s. They consented knowing that massive changes that were about to come forth — they reversed direction and hopped on the Apotheker train.

    Hurd, unlike Apotheker, was fired over ethical concerns. Apotheker, however, was fired for implementing the plan that the Board approved — that’s a big difference.

    Meg Whitman is and was on the Board during all of this. HP’s board is a clusterfuck of stupid and that includes Whitman — who is now President and CEO.

    ### Indecision

    When I was learning how to drive the hardest thing for me was deciding when to slam on the brakes versus when to speed up to make it through a light that had just changed to yellow. My Dad (who taught me to drive) told me this:

    >What ever you do, make a decision and stick with it. Indecision in this moment will kill you.

    That’s exactly what has been going on at HP since Hurd left: indecision and it has been killing the company. This is not the CEO’s fault, it’s the fault of the Board — who for better or worse is now also the CEO.

    HP didn’t give WebOS a chance, the moment it soured they killed it. Likewise they didn’t give Apotheker a chance to transform the company, the moment the stock faltered, they rounded up a scapegoat.

    For the past year HP has looked like a dog being tempted on opposite sides of the room by two treats. Constantly rushing back and forth so as to not lose either of the treats, but never actually getting either of the treats.

    The real question for Whitman now: can she actually get HP to stick to a plan — any plan — for more than a year?

    Is HP capable of making a decision — any decision — and sticking with it, for better or worse?

  • Netflix Split to Set Up Amazon Streaming Merger?

    Larry Dignan on why Netflix had to split out the DVD business before an Amazon acquisition would be likely:
    >The tax issue is that an acquisition of Netflix’s DVD business would give Amazon more sales taxes to collect.

    You know what Amazon is 100% opposed to paying: sales tax. This idea isn’t as far fetched as the headline makes it seem, now Netflix may not have decided that Amazon is the suitor when they did this — but damn would an Amazon acquisition make a ton of sense.

    Such an acquisition does a few things for a service like Netflix:

    1. Better and faster infrastructure for serving a larger base and scaling.
    2. Access to millions of credit cards.
    3. Gives the streaming service leverage over studios — Amazon has to sell a disproportionate amount of the DVDs which they could easily threaten to stop if studios don’t play nice on streaming.

    I really like the prospect of Amazon buying Netflix.

  • Color Recasts Itself as a Facebook Photo and Video App

    Jenna Wortham:
    >The primary reason Color fell flat on its face after it was released, its creators say, was because there weren’t enough people using it to make it interesting enough to revisit on a regular basis.

    Chicken and egg problem here. Apps like Color rely on mass usage to be interesting to users, but users won’t become users if a service isn’t interesting when they sign up.

    An app has 30 seconds from the time I launch it to interest me, otherwise I move right on.

    I gave Color 5 minutes, all of which were spent on trying to figure out what the hell the app was all about.

  • Quote of the Day: Mike Rundle

    “Color reinvents itself as Facebook photo browser. Nice pivot, idiots.”

  • Oracle-Google Damages Claims May Be Higher Than Ever

    Florian Mueller:
    >As always, let’s not forget that damages are only a “B” outcome for Oracle. The “A” outcome for Oracle is a permanent injunction, which would enable it to extract from Google whatever royalties it can command in a situation in which Android might otherwise go down the tubes. In that scenario, court-ordered damages for past infringement would become only a small part of the overall consideration.

    This statement is actually quite amazing. The judges, media and Mueller all seem to believe that Oracle has a real case here. So what if — *what if* — Oracle’s judgement against Google is so cost prohibitive that Google has no choice but to build a new version of Android that does not infringe on Java patents, or any other patents?

    That is, what if Google must pull Android for at minimum 12 months? Who grabs that market share? Apple? Microsoft? RIM?

  • A Quick Guide to Common Miscapitalizations of Tech Names

    Complete with a TextExpander bundle for you to download.

  • Schmidt Admits Google Monopoly in Senate Hearing

    A great breakdown of Eric Schmidt’s Senate hearing by Paul Thurrott. What’s interesting isn’t that Schmidt admitted Google is probably a monopoly, but that he sounds like he is saying: “Yes we are a monopoly, but remember we are **not** evil.”

    As if to say it is OK for Google to be a monopoly. I don’t know if that his just how is statements sound, or if that is actually what Schmidt thinks. If I had to guess I would say it is the latter.

  • Whitman Expected to Get HP CEO Nod After Markets Close (And Not for the Interim Either)

    Title says it all. HP’s board [should be fired](http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/09/21/hewlett-packard-worst-board-ever/?mod=e2tw) if this is true — terrible move.

  • Meticulous

    Circa 2006 I was a huge proponent of computing with dual display setups. I often used my MacBook Pro with the lid open and an external display attached. A multiple monitors setup is supposed to make you more productive and efficient on your computer, but does it truly do as it claims?

    The problem with dual displays is that they are pretty lame to use, your options for positioning are either to position them so that when you look straight ahead you see the seam between the two monitors, not ideal. Secondarily you could position your dual displays so that one monitor is directly in front of you with the second off to the side — this creates the additional problem of your second monitor now being less useful and quite often unused.

    At some point in 2008-9 I started just using one display — this only after I measured my use of the second display finding that I rarely used it.

    Since that time I have held the opinion that one, large, monitor is the best action to take in the name of productivity.

    Now I am even questioning just how large of a monitor you need.

    Trent Walton has an [interesting post on the matter](http://trentwalton.com/2011/09/20/unitasking/), you should pop over and read it, but here’s his main point:

    >I noticed something interesting the day I was confined to just 13” of screen space. Even though I couldn’t see everything I needed to operate and reference at once, I became more focused. Only seeing one window at a time enabled me to mentally hunker down on the task at hand. My actions felt purposeful; my decisions, deliberate. Surprisingly, my productivity didn’t suffer.

    I too have noticed that on my Air. For about a month I have been debating and failing to pull the trigger on a monitor for my home. Monetary concerns are certainly a factor, but the bigger factor is that I quite like just having the small screen.

    So as I stare at this 24″ Apple LED Cinema Display as I am typing this post, I can’t help but wonder: what if I ditched it for just my MacBook Air screen?

    I’m not certain my productivity would suffer at all, in fact, I am writing this post in full screen mode — so no change there.

    I can think of just a handful of tasks that would be slightly more cumbersome, but as [Walton says](http://trentwalton.com/2011/09/20/unitasking/):

    >I did slow down, but also experienced a calm efficiency[…]

    Meticulous. That’s one thing that I am never really described as, but something that I greatly admire and respect. If you watch the excellent TV Series “Breaking Bad”, the character Gustavo “Gus” Fring is, perhaps, one of the most meticulous people on Television.

    Every time he removes his jacket you watch as he carefully folds it, rests in, and smoothes it (watch [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgJt82h4zBg) starting at the 1:30 mark to see what I mean). Everything action that Gus takes is meticulous and I love it.

    So, I am going to give it a go. For at least the next week my largest computing screen will be thirteen inches. My goal isn’t that I will instantly be more meticulous, my goal is that I will be instantly less distracted.

  • Bing Bleeding Billions

    MG Siegler on the Microsoft “Online Services” loss:
    >Microsoft’s real problem here is that in order to beat Google in search, they can’t just be better — they have to be *exponentially* better to get people to switch. And I’m just not sure that’s possible.

    That’s a great point and is best shown in how the iPhone took over the cellphone world. In 2007 the iPhone wasn’t just better than every other phone, it was better in the way that Excel is better than a solar powered calculator. That’s what Bing needs to be to Google and I think Siegler is right — it’s probably not possible.

  • HP Board Said to Weigh Ousting Apotheker as CEO

    Aaron Ricadela and Carol Hymowitz reporting for Bloomberg on rumors that current HP CEO Leo Apotheker is on his way out:
    >Whitman, who joined Hewlett-Packard’s board in January after a failed bid to become California’s governor last year, had a mixed record at EBay. As CEO for a decade, she took the company public and pioneered online commerce for small businesses. Yet she also failed to halt a slowdown in revenue growth and overpaid for Skype Technologies SA after a three-way bidding war with Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.

    She wouldn’t be my pick to run any company, here’s a [better post about Whitman from a New York Times blog post in 2008](http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/going-going-gone-meg-whitman-leaves-ebay/) that states two important things:

    #### 1
    >There has also long been grumbling that Ms. Whitman made eBay too corporate, taking it too far from its countercultural roots. The old eBay had a lot of Mr. Omidyar’s personality — eBay’s quirky, colorful logo, its designer once told me, was intended to have “a little bit of the ponytail about it.”

    and:

    #### 2
    >It’s difficult to quarrel with Ms. Whitman’s financial success over the past decade. EBay went from $4 million in annual revenue in to nearly $ 8 billion today. The stock has risen 5,600 percent, and Ms. Whitman herself became a billionaire along the way, ranked # 261 on Forbes’ 2007 list of the wealthiest Americans.

    Remember that was written in 2008. The first item, the corporate culture, is exactly what HP does not need. The second, the financial success, that is what HP needs. From everything I have read about Whitman, she is not the one to run HP — even on an interim basis. Again from what I know she is the ‘adult supervision’ type, not the innovative turn this ship around type.

  • How to Return the “Bounce Message” Feature to OS X Lion Mail

    This fixes the removal of my favorite Mail.app feature. Though I am experiencing the deleted message re-appearing problem, but it is a small price to pay to get this excellent feature back.

  • Google Wallet Opens for (limited) Business

    David Sarno:
    >The app, which will be released as a downloadable “over the air” update, is available only to Sprint wireless customers — and of those, only owners of the Sprint Nexus S 4G smartphone.

    and later:

    >The other problem is that NFC-enabled credit card terminals are still relatively rare — though they are now deployed at hundreds of thousands of locations, credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard have tens of millions of locations worldwide.

    Not a good way to get a service going: offer it only to a very select few, in select locations — neither of which may actually overlap.

  • Instagram v2.0

    Instagram announcing a major update:

    >See the world through Instagram’s stunning effects before you even snap a photo. Simply select a filter, hold the camera up to the scene and see the world through Instagram’s visual effects. We’ve re-written your favorite Instagram filters to be over 200x faster so even after having taken a photo, switching between them takes no time at all.

    Also much higher resolution images. Instagram remains one of my favorite new social networks. (New icon sucks though.)

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Western Digital Elements 3 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

    Just picked up one of these drives ((With Prime same day shipping for $3.99, which was crazy awesome.)) to replace my current “media” drive. It feels cheap, but who carries around an external drive? The drive looks decent and the light is in the back. There is no power switch (bonus) and even better: unlike other Western Digital drives this one does **not** have the crapware installed on it that you have to struggle to remove.

    *Editors Note: This is a new feature and the links are affiliate links — I point you to something neat, if you buy it I get some cash. Enjoy*

  • Dosh: Warranty

    Following [my review](https://brooksreview.net/2011/09/dosh/) I decided that I would try to return the wallet to Dosh, here’s what I found out from Dosh’s site:

    >What if I don’t like what I ordered?

    >No problem. If this occurs we will gladly refund the cost of the purchase once the products have been returned to us, provided the items are returned in original and unused condition and within 21 days of receipt of the shipment. All returns will be credited to the original credit card used, shipping and handling costs are not refundable.

    Now this is fully shame on me, I should have read this prior to ordering. This FAQ still doesn’t say for sure that they won’t take back items and I was a bit pissed so I emailed them this:

    >I received my Dosh 6-Card and I simply do not like it. I see that you don’t
    take back used items, but how is one supposed to determine if they like
    something or not (such as a wallet) without using it?

    >Lame.

    I received a response this morning that only rubbed salt in the wound. From Dani Thai at Dosh:

    >I’m sorry to hear that you do not like your Dosh wallet. I’m sorry we cannot
    take back a used item – The product loses its retail value once it has been
    used. It’s a universal policy that most retailers have.

    The last line is a blatant lie, but what ever.

    Return policies like this tell you everything you need to know about the product being sold: the company does not stand behind the product. I know better now.