The Brooks Review

Month: November 2015

  • Slack is My World

    What’s my most used app on my iPhone? Slack. On my iPad? Slack. On my Mac? Slack. Yet this isn’t an article about how good Slack is, or how revolutionary it is. Because for as good as Slack is, there are some really rough spots.

    No, This is an article about the fact that a large part of my world exists only in Slack. If you stop and think about this for a moment — wow.

    My entire office and most of the work I do is in Slack. I also have a large group of friends from around the world, whom I only communicate with in Slack. I have an entire professional network of people I hardly know (like any good professional network) which is only in Slack. I have Slacks with people I am working on hobby projects with and on and on.

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  • On the lack of a flagship iPad Pro app from Apple

    Stephen Hackett:

    However, with the iPad Pro — and to a lesser extent, the new Apple TV — Apple's launched a new hardware product without a great first-party example of what people should do with it.

    I would argue that Apple didn't launch a great first-party app because they no longer need to launch these with iOS devices. And there is no need to define the iPad Pro, because the people who wanted one, already got it. If you don't get the iPad Pro, then there is no great app which is going to help you get it.

  • The Completionist

    Years ago, when Shawn and I were still podcasting together, we had a few shows where we talked about my insane RSS feed subscriptions. At one point I remember the subscribed count reaching close to 700 feeds for me. Thousands of posts came through every day and I went through them all. Shawn would tell me it was nuts to have that many. He would tell me he had less than 200 or maybe 100 feeds. I would think he was nuts — and that was basically the gist of every episode we recorded.

    Recently, I was in a chat with Justin Blanton when he said that he was “completionist” meaning he didn’t want to miss a single thing in whatever thing it was that he did. Whether that was RSS or Twitter, and I chimed in agreeing that this is very much how I work and how I feel.

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  • Living with a 12” Screen

    Back in late May I took delivery of a new 12” Retina MacBook and proceeded to move everything to it — making it the only computer I use outside of my iOS devices. It has been a very long time since I have lived with such a small screen as my only screen, and I know many people think it is just too small of a screen to work with for a daily driver.

    Since I’ve had the machine for just over five months I can tell you that there is no turning back for me. Sure, I’ll get an iPad Pro when they launch, but as far as Macs go, this 12” Retina MacBook is all I need. It is my perfect machine.

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  • Why Android One Flight Failed to Take Off?

    Good article, but as I read it I couldn’t help but think: it’s amazing how little control Google is willing to assert over partners. It’s not even that they can’t assert that control — they could. It’s that they don’t want to. What other option do cellphone makers have outside of Android?

    Not much.

    Yet Google bends to them when they really shouldn’t. Especially on things like timely updates.

  • ‘Day One In Depth’

    Great new book from the crew at The Sweet Setup. I’ve had a chance to read through most of it, and it is really well done. Day One is an enigma to me: I love the app, but can’t get into a routine with it. I’m thinking this book is going to help with that.

  • Anxious Robot on Medium

    This is a great new site. I’d say it is one which you must add to your RSS subscriptions, but Medium doesn’t have fucking RSS feeds.

    I honestly have no clue how you are to accurately follow publications on Medium. Yes, you can follow them, but there’s no easy way… Forget it.

    This is a new thing from Justin Blanton, which means it is worth the follow — whatever the fuck that means on Medium.

    UPDATE: Turns out there is a hidden RSS feed: https://medium.com/feed/@jblanton Apparently one of you knew. Thanks!

  • My Love-Hate Relationship with ‘Hey, Siri’

    Let me first start by saying that this post is not about the quality or accuracy of Siri. For everything I have used Siri for, it has been more than accurate and I have no issues with Siri as a service.

    My problem is the interface itself.

    What’s the easiest way to look up a sports score? Siri. What’s the fastest way to set a timer? Siri.

    How do I typically look up sports scores? Safari. How do I typically set timers? Control Center.

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  • The Constant Thinning of Electronic Collections

    Years ago I helped my older sister move from Washington to Arizona. I was young at the time, and still in that phase of life where even if you kept everything you had ever owned — it wouldn’t have amounted to much. So I really didn’t get what someone with an established life would have to move — and it was a ton of stuff as it turned out.

    At one point while helping her, I saw a tiny box of clothes they were getting rid of, and I made some bad joke about how it must have been hard to decide to get rid of such a large amount of clothes. That’s when my sister told me about the system she uses to keep their clothes thinned out all the time.

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  • Flying with Toddlers

    You walk onto your flight, and the first thing you instinctually do is to scan the seats around you for kids. Little bastards can and will prolong the hell that is flying and you really don’t think it is fair if they are next to you. Yeah, we all do it — even parents.

    This past summer I found myself on two separate trips, non-stop, from Seattle to Florida. Both times with my wife and kids. My kids are 3 years old, and 21 months old. I was terrified each time of what the flight may hold for us. Our youngest was a lap infant too, so she didn’t even get her own seat. (Because that makes sense for safety, FAA.)

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  • Mobile, ecosystems and the death of PCs

    Ben Evans:

    You can put the old ecosystem on the new form factor. You'll probably sell some of them. But is that the future, or is it a new Chevy Camaro or Mustang – a product that your existing fanbase loves but that ignores the Teslas and self-driving cars on the way?

  • IKEA Desk Lamp

    One thing I have always thought to be an important part of a good office and desk setup is the lighting. It need not be bright, but it needs to set the right mood and feel for your work.

    To that end, I’ve always loved backlighting my computer. Not only does it look cool, I think it helps me focus better on my work. Because of this preference most desk lamps simply won’t work for me. They typically don’t backlight well, and the space they take up on the desk drives me insane.

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  • A Brief History of Backpack Back Panel Fabrics

    Speaking of Tom Bihn bags, look at the pains they go through testing back panel fabrics:

    In an effort to better understand what we were experiencing, Tom’s longtime friend Robert Swarner (sculptor, helicopter pilot, product designer, big wall climber and machinist) came up with a device that’d allow us to scientifically evaluate the effectiveness of Dri-Lex® Aero-Spacer® mesh. Tom and Robert modified a Synapse and equipped it with Robert’s mobile heat sensors and data recording device, which we named The Swarner 5000 Datalogger. The Synapse had a back panel split down the center vertically: one half was spacer mesh and the other half was 1050 Ballistic (both sides were padded with closed-cell foam). Over the course of the last year, we’ve used this special Synapse on day hikes long and short, on hot summer days and cooler winter ones, and usually on hikes with big elevation gains.

  • Tom Bihn Daylight Backpack

    I looked through the archives yesterday and realized I never did a full review in the Daylight Backpack from Tom Bihn. All I wrote was a few poorly worded sentences on it, as part of a larger review. Which is a shame, and a mistake I want to correct now — because the Daylight Backpack is worthy of its own review.

    The Daylight Backpack is an extremely simple bag, void of all padding, rigidity, and fanciness. It is a floppy mess of a bag when it is empty — which is perfect because it means you can easily stow it away when it is empty.

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  • How Apple TV Turned Me Into a Game Developer

    Great read on what goes into making a tvOS game.

  • PageFair and The Economist

    The Economist:

    On Oct. 31, 2015, one of economist.com’s vendors, PageFair, was hacked. If you visited economist.com at any time between Oct. 31, 23:52 GMT and 01:15 GMT, Nov. 1, using Windows OS and you do not have trusted anti-virus software installed, it is possible that malware, disguised as an Adobe update, was downloaded onto your PC.

    According to Twitter, PageFair is an anti-adblocker. Those fuckers.

  • The Netgear Nighthawk R7000

    We moved into our house back in 2012, and one of my first tasks was getting the WiFi network established. I did it with a single Time Capsule, roughly centered in the house. But there was a bit of a dead spot in our bedroom, so I added in an Airport Express as a wireless repeater. I didn’t need much speed, just coverage at the time.

    Then I started working from home, and speed became a thing I needed to worry about. I upgraded to an Airport Extreme with 802.11ac wireless. This upgrade helped, but I still was having a hell of a time getting video chats and Skype to work reliably — crucial for my job — so I needed a solution.

    The solution I devised, was to route Ethernet from the AirPort Extreme to our bedroom (where my office was) and have the AirPort Express extend the network from a gigabit connection to the AirPort Extreme. That was a hassle but worked fine. I lost a lot of network speed in the process though. When connected to the AirPort Express I topped out at 28 Mbps on any device, but on the Extreme I would be at 60 Mbps, which was the max speed of my Internet connection.

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  • Apple Watch Band Colors

    Like most people, when I ordered my Apple Watch, I had no clue what to expect from it. Because of this, I really didn’t want to spend a ton of money on it and accessories. So I ordered the 42mm Sport with the white band and left it at that. I chose white because I thought it looked pretty sharp, and I stayed with the white band for quite some time, but before WWDC I ordered the Brown Leather Loop to try out.

    And then, with the launch of some new colors recently, I picked up the Red and Midnight Blue sport bands. While the Leather Loop never really worked for me, the sport bands do. Having more options for Sport Bands at my disposal, I have really started enjoying changing around the looks of the Apple Watch.

    If you own an Apple Watch, then I really think you should own a few extra bands for it.

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  • John Moltz Still Wears His Apple Watch

    There's at least one John who wears his Apple Watch everyday.

  • Tom Bihn Yeoman Duffel

    Note: Tom Bihn sent me the Yeoman Duffel bag for review purposes. No agreements were made as to what that review may or may not look like, as is my standard practice I retain full editorial control.

    I’ve always liked the idea of big duffel bags, or duffel bags in general, as there is something about the look of them that draws me in. Something about the idea of just throwing everything in that huge expanse, zipping it shut and heading off. Perhaps it is because I travel minimally and pack tightly and neatly in very small bags, that the idea of having copious amounts of space in which to pack seems like freedom.

    I’m not sure.

    I do have a small, classic looking, duffel bag which I have been using for years on weekend getaways. I transitioned it to be the bag for Sloane’s travel stuff when she was born, but with two kids it has become way too small.

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