Month: August 2014

  • The Brooks Review Podcast: Episode Seven – Glowing Rectangles

    Today I am joined by Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac and The Cramped, as we discuss putting our glowing rectangles down, and using an actual pen for writing. Bonus content: Patrick takes me to task over my often lack of editing my blog posts.

    Thanks to Hoban Cards for sponsoring.

  • SpamSieve

    When I initially setup my Mac mini server, I did so by using the Server.app IMAP tools and SPAM filtering tools. Things started off just fine, but after a couple of months the SPAM I was getting started to get out of hand. SPAM messages were coming right through the SPAM filtering Apple was trying to do and was dirtying up my inbox — SPAM was driving me nuts. This amounts to 81 SPAM emails per day and I would say Apple’s system caught 20% of them.
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  • Don’t Forget To Remember This

    An outstanding post from John Carey on the state of photography:

    Your tool of choice is your choice. Spend money on a camera, or not, but don’t do it to feel more confident or to fit in. Buy a camera that suits your lifestyle.

    Really love this, be sure to make time to soak it all in.

  • Dear Dads: Here’s How to Talk to Girls

    Angelica Asadi:

    I grew up imagining I could do anything that any one of my brothers could do. Society decided to disagree with me and threw obstacles in my way. A person was at every corner telling me that I could not achieve all that I dream of because I was born the wrong gender. The truth is, I could have taken every single obstacle and turned them all into a stepping stone to get me where I wanted, if the one man in my life who I trusted more than anyone else believed in me. Instead, I hid from the world, I hid from the challenges, and brought up every excuse for not pushing the boundaries, because deep down inside, I began to believe I was not good enough.

    The scariest thing in the world to me is not properly supporting my two little girls so that they never feel held back by stupid bullshit — coming from me or anyone else.

  • ReFocus

    Some of you may have noticed that a chunk of the writing here has once again been about productivity (beyond just Keyboard Maestro). Part of this is what I call ‘the natural cycle of human interest’ — a thing which ebbs and flows over time and topics bringing you back to the same topics you once thought to be fully explored. I think we have all experienced this at some point in our lives — things which were once near obsession are mostly out of our heads, only to pop back up years later.

    I used to write a productivity blog, and a photography blog too. Those are still topics I know and love, but they aren’t what has captivated most of my attention.
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  • Quote of the Day: Guy English

    “Being opinionated and shipping the truest form of your vision of software doesn’t assure success.”
  • Patience and Details

    I used to be a patient person, or at least I think I used to be a patient person. I at least know that people used to tell me that I was a patient person, but I also know it has been nearly a decade since anyone thrusted that label upon me.

    I was the guy that had no problem spending hours polishing and waxing my car. Now I often stare at that last fender wondering: “Does it even need wax, no one would notice, right?” I used to spend an entire month working on a problem and be happy when I finally solved it — never feeling the urgent need to half-ass it just to get it off my plate.
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  • The Brooks Review Podcast: Episode Six – Indie v. Corporate

    This week I am joined by Bryan Clark, a mobile designer at Starbucks and creator of Blixt — the best App.net client ever. We talk about mobile design life as an indie, versus at a large corporation. We also dive into our iOS 8 dreams.

    I really love this episode.

    Thanks to Hoban Cards and Word Counter.

  • Übersicht – JavaScript Widgets on you Desktop

    Very cool tool (see Patrick Welker’s description). The main reason I like this over Geektool: I can style it using CSS and that is awesome.

  • Simple To-Do List Apps on Vimeo

    Nice video talking about the two most important features of a to-do list app: adding tasks and checking them off.

  • Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System

    Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux:

    “We’re getting into Minority Report territory when being friends with the wrong person can mean the government puts you in a database and adds DMV photos, iris scans, and face recognition technology to track you secretly and without your knowledge,” says Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “The fact that this information can be shared with agencies from the CIA to the NYPD, which are not known for protecting civil liberties, brings us closer to an invasive and rights-violating government surveillance society at home and abroad.”

  • nemex.io

    Think of this like a personal, self-hosted, version of Day One. It’s really nice, and really neat. In particular I like that I can have different projects to organize.

    Right off the bat I created a “shots” project to save snapshots of the kids that I like, and a “thoughts” project to save snippets of things I am wondering about.

    Very neat, very simple to install.

  • Is Every Speed Limit Too Low?

    Alex Mayyasi:

    It seems counterintuitive, but it’s a formula Americans should love: Raise speed limits, make roads safer.
    Interesting read on how speed limits are set. I’d also point out that people perceive driving faster as more dangerous so a couple factors of faster speed limits could also come into play:

    1. Better focus when on highways (e.g. No cell phone use.)
    2. Slower drivers avoiding faster highways when not needed.

    I’m a fan all around of faster speed limits.

  • Quote of the Day: CJ Chilvers

    “As noble as you may believe your pursuit of excellence is, it means nothing if you go home at night to people who do not recognize you or want you around.”
  • Smallpdf.com

    Glad this exists, I get a lot of questions everyday about how to do just this.

  • I Still Can’t Be Ok With Just My iPhone

    After talking with CJ Chilvers on my podcast I couldn’t help but to keep thinking about the mantra that he puts forth for photographers of all skill levels to follow. Chilvers’ overall philosophy can best be distilled down to: worry less about what you use to take pictures, and more about what is in your pictures. And even at that: try your best to always tell a compelling story.

    And I agree with him, well in principle, because when it comes to practicing his mantra it is a whole different ballgame.
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  • The Problem with the Social Web

    Tim Carmody on OKCupid fuckery:

    You can't on one hand tell us to pay no attention when you change these things on us, and with the other insist that this is what we've really wanted to do all along. I mean, fuck me over, but don't tell me that I really wanted you to fuck me over all along.

  • The Brooks Review Podcast: Episode Five – Mr. Chambers

    This week I am joined by Bradley Chambers as we talk about iPads. In education, in offices, and how the App Store is changing for good and bad.

    This week we are sponsored by: Delight is in the Details and Begin app.