The Brooks Review

Year: 2012

  • Saturday Night Live’s Verizon Ad

    A perfect parody of Verizon’s ads. (Flash required, sorry.)

  • The Flip Side of the DuckDuckGo Bandwagon

    Jonathan Christopher on his less than stellar DuckDuckGo experience:
    >I’m about 3 weeks in and so far I’d rate DuckDuckGo about a 7 out of 10. The search takes longer, and results are not what I expect. I often find myself hitting the 5th or 6th link instead of the first I found very common when using Google.

    His complaint isn’t uncommon. I have had a lot of people switch to DuckDuckGo as a result of my comments about it here — personally I love it — but it *is* slower than Google.

    I, however, have not had less relevant results — in fact I think the results on DuckDuckGo are of a far higher quality than what I get out of Google.

  • ‘Why I Use DuckDuckGo, and You Should Too’

    Clif Reeder:
    >The way that DDG does this is by trading off text directives for GUI/mouse interactions. Assuming you can type faster than move and click a cursor, this is a big difference. To me, its like the difference between using Vim and a GUI based text editor.

  • Your Email is Not Secure

    Max Masnick, arguing that Google reading your emails should be the least of your concerns:

    >Email is simply not secure. Messages are not secure in transit: the protocol used for sending email (SMTP) does not require encrypted connections, so it could easily be intercepted by a third party as travels over the internet. You also have no guarantees about the security of a recipient’s email client or server.

    He makes great points, not to mention that there’s nothing stopping the recipient from posting your email on thier blog. However I don’t think that all the other security risks associated with email should make you dismiss the privacy invasion you grant Google when you use Gmail.

  • Some Thoughts on the Jawbone Era

    A while back I needed a new bluetooth headset, so I decided to purchase the [Jawbone Era](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004K1EDG2/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20) (affiliate link). In fact I ended up purchasing two of these headsets after my first one took a ride through the laundry.

    [](http://c276381.r81.cf1.rackcdn.com/era-1.jpg)

    While I like this headset quite a bit, there are four issues with it that I find quite annoying and that I only really became annoyed by recently.

    ### 1. Comfort

    Jawbone gives you a plethora of options for wearing the headset, including an over the ear loop. Here’s the problem though, with exception to the over the ear loop, the headset becomes very uncomfortable after about 30 minutes of wear.

    If I wear a smaller ear piece it is comfortable, but the headset doesn’t stay in my ear. If I wear the correct size it stays in my ear, but my ear ends up aching 30 minutes later.

    The over the ear band is simply not an option because:

    – It conflicts with my sunglasses. Yes I live in Seattle, but clouds can be quite bright.
    – It is more difficult to put on — meaning I need to keep the headset on my ear while in my car or fumble about every time I want to make or receive a phone call. This is not something I ever want to do.

    The SoundID headset that this Jawbone replaced was perfectly comfortable, so I know it is possible to have a headset that fits my ear comfortable — it’s just not the Era.

    ### 2. Bluetooth Connectivity

    I keep my iPhone 4S in the car door pocket, which is low and left of my body. There is actually a special little felt lined area for it there — this is the best place to keep my phone. I wear my bluetooth headset on my right ear, as these types of things tend not to stay in my left ear.

    The distance from my ear to the iPhone is about three feet.

    At that distance the audio gets a bit crackly. However if I move the phone three feet away on my right side, perfect audio. Even at 6 feet.

    I have found that the Jawbone doesn’t like to have to maneuver around your body and instead it just sounds like crap. This is really annoying for me, but people on the other end of the call rarely get the crackling sounds — so it’s not a total waste.

    I think, though, we should be past this bit of annoyance by now.

    ### 3. Motion Sensing Buttons

    The Era has this feature that you can turn on (when you mess about with it on your computer) that can set the headset to answer a call if you shake it twice. It sounded neat in the beginning, but it has turned out to be the worst feature I have ever seen.

    Here’s the common scenario:

    – My phone rings.
    – I grab the Era from the center console where it was sitting.
    – I lift it to my ear, and secure it in place.
    – I press the answer button.
    – I hear the other person.
    – Then the phone hangs up on the call.

    What actually happened is that somewhere along the line I shook the Era twice and it initiated the call answering. What the hell? Then when I pressed the button on the Era to answer the call — well — I actually was ending the call.

    Lame.

    You can turn this non-sense off, but you need your computer to do it. This is the single worst feature, but not the worst problem with the Era.

    ### 4. The Worst Button in the World

    The absolute worst part of the Era is the call/end button on the back of the device. It feels like complete crap. The stroke of the button is so shallow that you can hardly tell if you pressed it and forget about a firm and even “click” because most of the time you won’t even notice one.

    Therefore: I never know if I have actually pressed the button or not.

    [](http://c276381.r81.cf1.rackcdn.com/era-2.jpg)

    Just really horrible design and lack of care and attention to the one part of the device that all users are going to be interacting with. I find this button inexcusable.

    ### Wrap-Up

    I didn’t really state any of the good on this headset, so let me state it now: the noise canceling is phenomenal and the audio quality is very good (provided your phone is one the same side of your body as the headset). The battery life is OK (about 3-4 days on one charge left on in my car 24/7 and used about 30 minutes a day).

    Even with all the bad, and the very little good, this is the best bluetooth headset I have tried — which says more about the industry as a whole.

    For a device that many states require a driver to use, if they want to talk on the phone while driving, it is pretty amazing how crappy most of the bluetooth headset offerings are.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 46: BlackBerry Withdrawal

    >Shawn and Ben talk about cellphone fanboy rankings in Kansas City, iPad 3 rumors, and Ben’s ideas about the model that Kickstarter is using (Shawn brings some rationality into that discussion).

    Thanks to our excellent sponsors: [Doxie Go](http://www.getdoxie.com/a/bbpodcast_feb12.php) and [Jumpchart](https://www.jumpchart.com/).

  • It’s About Trust and Apple Broke It

    [Craig Grannell responding to the idea/ragae that Apple should have prevented Path from uploading a users address book](http://reverttosaved.com/2012/02/10/blame-apple-part-3463-it-shouldnt-allow-devs-to-be-naughty/):
    >But more to the point, why should Apple become a watchdog for the less-than-moral behaviour of some developers? Just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should.

    What I think we all have to keep in mind here is the concept of trust and more specifically who is asking for our trust. Apple isn’t saying that we should trust developers, quite the contrary, because of the review process Apple is saying that we actually *shouldn’t* trust developers.

    What Apple is telling iOS (and now with the Mac App Store, OS X) users is that they can and *should* trust Apple. And therefore they can trust everything in the App Stores because those apps have been vetted by Apple.

    And we are supposed to trust Apple.

    There is no doubt in my mind that developers should go out of their way to gain user trust and there are some developers that are absolutely trustworthy. While there are certainly developers that can be trusted, and developers that can not be trusted, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

    If you live and play in the Apple world, you need only trust Apple. This is what Apple tells us — it’s a ‘feature’ of the Apple ecosystem.

    The fact is, that in this instance, Apple broke that trust.

  • ‘Your Phone Loses Value Pretty Fast (Unless It’s an iPhone)’

    Priceonomics:
    >Not all cell phones are created equal. You can buy an iPhone 4S today and sell it a few months later on the secondary market for almost what you paid for it. However, if you buy the latest big fancy Android phone, a few months later it has lost hundreds of dollars in value.

    I wonder if this has much of anything to do with popularity/design, because you have to think the slow rate at which Apple releases iPhones, compared to the rate at which new Android phones comes out, plays a huge role in this.

    Priceonomics also noted this underlying assumption that they make:

    >At Priceonomics, we firmly believe that resale value is the best objective indicator of product quality.

    I couldn’t disagree with that statement more. There are far more factors controlling the resale value of cellphones. Things like:

    – Gazelle, or any other company wanting to buy back the phone. Why would you sell your iPhone for less than what Gazelle is offering — this pumps up the price.
    – Apple refurbished units set the price for mint condition used phones.
    – Carrier subsidies: because maybe I am willing to pay $25 more than what I could buy the phone new for, just so I didn’t have to be locked into a contract.

    All this plays a large role in determining price — much larger, I think, than product quality.

    [via Macworld]

  • ‘Attempt to Criminalize Tweets That Solicit Law-Breaking Fizzles in Oregon Legislature’

    Harry Esteve on the proposed law: ((Meanwhile Washington is [inches](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-gay-marriage-washington-idUSTRE81727F20120209) away from legalized gay marriage.))
    >It was dubbed the “flash mob” bill when it got a hearing Monday at the Oregon Legislature — a proposal to make it a felony to summon people by Twitter or email to commit a crime at a designated place.

    and:

    >Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, said he asked for the bill because he heard from retailers about being victims of flash mobs that steal stuff.

    and then:

    >”If someone wants to bring a whole bunch of people to the Capitol to demonstrate, no problem,” he said. “But if they’re solicited to come to the Capitol at 9 p.m. to firebomb the place, that’s a problem.”

    The man does have a point, I mean, firebombs are **not** cool. ((As if we needed another reason not to live in Oregon, Sen. Whitsett wants to make sure we point and laugh.))

  • Windows on Arm

    Or WOA, as Steven Sinofsky highlights in his post about porting Windows 8 to the ARM architecture. Sinofsky also answers one of the bigger questions about WOA, will it run “full” Windows:
    >WOA supports the Windows desktop experience including File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, and most other intrinsic Windows desktop features—which have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption.

    To be honest I am not sure what the hell that statement means. What I think it means is that, yes, you will get full Windows — but that full Windows will have been optimized for tablets running ARM chips.

    I think.

  • ‘US Government Dumps BlackBerry in Favor of iPhone, iPad for NOAA’

    Since the iPhone came out lawyers and government officials have always said (to me): “I can’t use the iPhone because person/agency/department X doesn’t (or doesn’t allow it).”

    I never understood this. Corporate offices have clung to their BlackBerry devices so it is nice to see these organizations make the move.

  • ‘iOS Address Book Access Should Prompt the User for Permission’

    Marco Arment:
    >But Apple can, and should, assure users that no app can read their contact data without their knowledge and explicit permission.

    Yep.

  • The iPad at Work Experiment

    Dan Moren, wrapping up his three day test of the iPad as his *only* machine for work:
    >That’s perhaps the biggest change in switching from a Mac to the iPad: The technology becomes almost transparent. You are simply writing, or reading, or browsing. It’s all about the task itself, while the technology you’re using fades into the background.

    That’s largely been my experience too, so it comes down to whether you like that or not — because it can be quite confusing. Moren wrote a three part series and you should definitely read up on them.

  • Path Deletes All User Uploaded Data

    Path CEO Dave Morin:
    >We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path.

    Well done.

  • Now Available: HP Slate 2

    Hey HP.

    Let me wrap my head around something.

    You killed off the TouchPad — perhaps the most interesting iPad competitor — because it wasn’t selling well and everyone was confused as to what HP was doing.

    Now though (in light of all that confusion passing?), you launch a brand new HP Slate — the same type of device that Ballmer famously tried to upstage the iPad with (before the iPad launched)?

    That just seems silly.

    Surely this is all a joke, right?

  • It’s Easy to Make a Mistake

    A great take on the Path screw up by Brent Simmons, as he shares how these types of mistakes are made on the developer side of things.

  • WeatherMin

    Dan Frakes has a nice look at a Mac app called WeatherMin — it reminds me a lot of how I display the weather on my desktop using [Nerdtool](http://mutablecode.com/apps/nerdtool). Should be a good option if Nerdtool is, well, too nerdy for you.

  • ‘Hipster Uploads Part of Your iPhone Address Book to Its Servers’

    Mark Chang:
    >Inspired by [this post](http://mclov.in/2012/02/08/path-uploads-your-entire-address-book-to-their-servers.html) (which you should all read), I looked at the apps on my own iPhone for information leakage by other apps. I figured this would be common practice, and lo and behold, when booting up Hipster, it seems like parts of my iPhone address book were being uploaded to Hipster. Here’s the breakdown, done in the style of Arun Thampi (the author of the first post).

    One interesting thing that I saw floating around the web, about all this address book uploading that is happening on iOS, is this idea that an App must ask for permission to use your location, but doesn’t need to do so before it grabs everything in your address book and uploads it to their servers.

    Apple needs to change this. Now.

  • ‘Hey Path, Just Nuke All the Data’

    Michael Arrington:
    >Path should just state that they’re nuking all collected address book data for all users right now. Remove it from their servers entirely.

    Agreed. ((Quick, anyone know if I have ever agreed with Arrington before?))

  • Quote of the Day: Chuck Skoda

    “The iPhone is the most useful computer in the world.”