The Brooks Review

Month: November 2011

  • Apple Releases iTunes 10.5.1/iTunes Match

    *Finally* ((Also iTunes Match is pretty great but takes a long time to upload all your music too. I’d suggest waiting a couple of days for the overload to slow down.))

  • [SPONSOR] Textastic

    Who says the iPad is only for consumption? Textastic brings the power of a desktop text, code, and markup editor to the iPad.

    Textastic supports syntax highlighting of more than 80 languages, and if that’s not enough, you can extend it with TextMate-compatible syntax definitions and themes.

    The visual find and replace feature and the list of function and class names let you quickly navigate documents. A cursor navigation wheel simplifies text selection and the extra row of keys above the keyboard makes it easy to type common programming characters.

    As you create, you can preview HTML and Markdown files locally. Once you’re done, connect to (S)FTP and WebDAV servers as well as Dropbox. It even includes a built-in WebDAV server that allows you to quickly transfer files to your iPad wirelessly from your Mac or PC.

    Textastic for iPad is just $9.99 and is [available on the App Store](http://click.syndicateads.net/2011/11/Textastic/brooksreview.html).

  • Explaining the Failure of Color

    Danielle Sacks reporting on Bill Nguyen the founder of the ill-fated-still-hoping Color:
    >Nguyen steamrolls over the suggestion. “I don’t ever listen to any of it,” he grins. “I mean, I literally don’t think there’s anything to be learned from other people’s stuff.”

    I stopped reading once I read this line, the entire article up to this point is a fascinating look at someone who just threw shit at a wall and didn’t wait to see what stuck. It really dumb founds me.

    Then I read the above quote, and I couldn’t take anymore.

    Gee, I wonder why Color failed…

  • Ten Reasons Why Porn on Planes Is a Bad Idea

    And I only needed one reason.

  • ‘In Defense of the Stylus’

    Devin Coldewey thinks the Stylus is still a good option and will forever live on and they we have completely short-changed it:
    >That was a long and winding rationalization for a perhaps irrational love of the stylus. But I firmly believe that its days are not done. Its weaknesses became a problem before its strengths were given a chance to shine. The stylus is as ageless as the wedge, the wheel, the projectile. We’ve reinvented all these multiple times. When technology catches up yet again to the pen, the pen will be ready.

    Actually he is right and just doesn’t know it — we have just ‘reinvented’ the stylus, now it’s just our finger. Don’t see those going away anytime soon.

    All of his explanations for why the stylus is better:

    1. Romans used them.
    2. It amplifies your input.
    3. Dampens your input.
    4. You can see what’s under it.

    The first argument is just stupid. The second and third seem to be at odds with each other. The fourth is patently false because you cannot, in fact, see under it unless the stylus is clear — though to be fair I understand the point, but the point is more of a UI issues than anything else.

    There are two reasons that I can think of for why a stylus is better:

    1. Writing hand-written notes.
    2. Drawing precision things.

    The first is just a limitation of my expertise — I learned how to write by hand with a pencil. Will today’s youth have this problem if they learn to write with a finger on the iPad?

    The second is a limitation of software — because we have all seen fantastic, realistic, drawings made on an iPad and iPhone.

    It maybe too soon to declare the stylus is dead, we should wait another week.

  • Ice Cream Sandwich Face Unlock Feature Compromised

    Remember when Android touted the new ‘face unlock’ feature of Android? Remember that they said it couldn’t be unlocked by using a photo of someone?

    Well turns out you can use a photo, on another Android device no less, to unlock the phone.

    Be sure to look at [Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/12/giving-them-credit) for some nice claim chowder on this one.

    [via DF]

  • Cloak VPN

    I have been using Cloak in beta for a while now and I think it is a really nice VPN service. Their menubar tool allows fast access to privatizing your internet session — as well as a nifty feature that automatically will turn it on when you are not on a secure network.

    I haven’t used it a ton, but when I have needed it the service just worked and worked very easily. Their plans are pretty reasonable, including a nice free plan that only limits you to two hours a month.

    They also [just released their iPhone app](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cloak/id473835722) — which makes using VPN on iOS just as easy as their app for your Mac.

  • Doxie

    My thanks to Doxie for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. I am pumped to get my hands on one of these new scanners, they look killer.

    They almost look magic, at the least may be the best scanner to stash at my house.

    Be sure to order yours now.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 34: Old and Unread

    >Shawn and Ben talk about the Jawbone UP and Shawn’s usage of it over the past week, angry people who are on the Internet, distractions while working, email management and email bankruptcy, the lack of a logo on Ben’s site, and various other things.

  • Veterans Day

    To all those who served, and those that continue to serve, I thank you.

  • ‘If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong’

    Cal Newport:
    >If you’re chronically stressed and up late working, you’re doing something wrong.

    A fascinating look at how the “elite” achieve their success.

  • Steam User Database Compromised

    Gabe in an email to users:
    >We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

    *Oops.* At least it wasn’t because someone left a laptop somewhere.

  • Groupon Is Like an Unregulated Check Cashing Company

    The Womply Team about Groupon:

    >Instead of taking a cut of a consumer’s future paycheck in return for upfront cash, Groupon takes a cut of a merchant’s future revenue. Merchants miss out on this revenue because they serve hundreds or thousands of customers at a steep discount (typically at a point well below their marginal cost of serving that customer).

    This argument is not a perfect fit, but it is a very interesting take on the Groupon business model.

  • Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

    Asus has pulled off something amazing here, because this device looks like both a knock off of an iPad and a knock off of an MacBook Air — in one device. Kudos.

  • Quote of the Day: John Gruber

    “If we never let go of old technology, we’d be buried in complexity and crushed by outdated crap.”

  • Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you’ll be fired

    Don Reisinger:
    >Citing industry sources, The Wall Street Journal reported today that Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, along with his top executives, decided last year as they were preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) that they had given out too much stock to employees. But rather than accept that reality, the executives reportedly tried a different tactic: demand employees give back not-yet-vested stock or face termination.

    >In order to determine which employees would be asked to give stock back, Pincus and his executives tried to pinpoint workers whose contributions to Zynga–in the execs’ eyes–didn’t necessarily justify the potential cash windfall they could receive when the company went public, the Journal claims.

    I mean, what do you expect from company that gives us FarmVille?

  • Apple Releases iOS 5.0.1 to Address Battery Life Issues

    The beta I am on substantially improved the battery life on my iPhone 4S. Go get it.

  • ‘An O.K. Decision’

    Claire Cain Miller, reporting for the New York Times, on Google CEO Larry Page’s management style:
    >“It’s much more of a style like Steve Jobs than the three-headed monster that Google was,” said a former Google executive who has spoken with current executives about the changes and spoke anonymously to preserve business relationships. “When Eric was there, you’d walk into a product meeting or a senior staff meeting, and everyone got to weigh in on every decision. Larry is much more willing to make an O.K. decision and make it now, rather than a perfect decision later.”

    I’m not a Steve Jobs expert, but I feel pretty confident saying that he didn’t make decisions that he thought were just “O.K.” — he preferred to try and make the perfect decision, even if that meant waiting. That much is pretty clear from reading just a handful of chapters in his new biography.

    So Page has decided that any decision is better than no decision — good luck with that.

  • ‘The Asus MacBook Air, Sort of’

    Marco Arment on the state of the PC industry:
    >It’s sad, really, that the state-of-the-art in the PC world is attempting to copy Apple.

    What’s more sad as that these same companies also need to be bribed by interested parties (Intel) before they even attempt to copy Apple. There’s a huge market for a well designed PC — regardless of how you feel about Windows.

  • Dave Winer: ‘I Deleted My Facebook Account’

    Dave Winer on deleting his Facebook account:
    >Bottom-line: I know from experience that it’s bad to depend on a for-profit company to give me a free service that is supposed to not feel like it’s free.