The Brooks Review

Year: 2015

  • Please Don’t Buy a Digital SLR

    Costco, the big box membership discount retailer, has this brilliant plan: all the flashy electronics are up front. The big TVs playing sports, the computers, the iPads, and of course that large rectangular table containing the cameras. Cameras are the great universal equalizer: men and women, old and young, tech savvy and tech illiterate — they all flock to cameras. We all love pictures, we all think we can take better pictures — and you need a camera to get a picture.

    So you stop at that table and see what Costco has to offer and you find that sub $500 dSLR staring at you. There it is. It’s bigger than what you have now so that’s good — that says pro — and it’s got a big brand name like Canon, Nikon, or Pentax.
    It’s not pro-level, this you know, but hot damn will it make your pictures look better.

    And who doesn’t want their pictures to look better?

    (more…)

  • Google announces plans for new operating structure

    Alphabet

    And here I thought that their naming schemes could not possibly get any worse…

  • Android Needs to Address It’s Security Issues

    Android is taking a beating in the security arena lately. First that MMS vulnerability. Now reports that fingerprint data can be stolen from phones. And then there’s this story about how the iPhone is the best choice for most people from a security standpoint (with obvious caveats about iOS).

    And all this on my mind as carriers are killing subsidies on smartphones — something which certainly plays a huge role in sales of Android devices.

  • The adblocking revolution is months away

    This is a really great post on the coming content blockers for iOS. I personally cannot wait to get these. But it is going to be a massive change for the web, and bloggers specifically. For example: currently I run two analytics packages on this site (both in my own database, which I own), in Mint and Piwik. Now Mint doesn't honor “do not track” so every visitor not blocking that script is recorded. Piwik on the other hand does support “do not track” and so it won't track any browser with that option turned on, and it won't track those blocking the script either.

    Why does that matter? Let me tell you why. Yesterday was a pretty typical day for the site, Mint tells me I had 949 unique visitors and 1,478 page views. That's a typical day for me. But what does Piwik tell me? It say I had 708 unique visitors and 1182 page views. So fewer unique visitors and fewer page views. Ad payouts are based on page views, by the way. And that's a dramatic difference if you rely on ads for money. The same people using do not track are likely to use content blockers — likely more people.

    I'll be moving this site to just Piwik shortly and so my stats are going to drop like crazy, but I don't need those stats to make money with my site. And in fact you can use this site in Apple News (search for The Brooks Review and then scroll until you find it) with channels and everything laid out with no tracking from me.

    Content Blockers and privacy in general is going to be a huge shift for every writer on the web. It's going to be fun.

  • Fujifilm X30 Review from Don Craig

    The X30 is a camera that has always intrigued me, and if I didn't already have a Fuji I would be all over this. I'm in the market for a second camera now that my wife is constantly using the X100T, but I think there are better cameras for this price. More on that soon.

  • Chrome vs Safari vs Firefox web browser efficiency

    BatteryBox Team:

    You’ll want to use Safari if you want to get the most battery out of your laptop.

  • The Evolution of Twitter

    Most people talk either about how much they love Twitter, how much they don’t understand it, or how stupid it is. These same people rarely understand the value Twitter has to them.

    But I know exactly the value that Twitter has to me, and that value is whatever 180 extra page views is worth to you. That is to say, on average my posting a link to my personal Twitter account will bring between 100-300 additional page views onto that link.

    (more…)

  • Back on Instagram

    After quitting Instagram when Facebook purchased the service, I have now rejoined with a new account. I have two thoughts to share today:

    1. A large motivation is to support my wife and view her work on the service.
    2. I think Instagram is likely a better network than Twitter. Meaning it is of more value to me.

    I'll write more about this later, but hey: go follow me.

  • MacBook as New Computer Class

    Do you remember Netbooks? What about Ultrabooks? (They might even still use that name.) There’s also “convertibles”. “2-n-1s”. Or a dozen other names — my point being that when manufacturers other than Apple release a radical new hardware type for a computer, they tended to pay some marketing type gobs of money to name that computer class.

    Clearly you use this piece of shit only for surfing the web, and since eMachine is taken, let’s go with Netbook. Ta-da.

    The thing is, Apple never really played that game. They name the computers, but not the computer class, so with Apple it is just Desktop and Notebook. But the new retina MacBook deserves to be put in its own class, because it is most certainly not like any other notebook Apple — or anyone else for that matter — sells.

    (more…)

  • SENSATIONAL: Researchers Create First Firmware Worm That Attacks Macs

    Kim Zetter:

    “Let’s say you’re running a uranium refining centrifuge plant and you don’t have it connected to any networks, but people bring laptops into it and perhaps they share Ethernet adapters or external SSDs to bring data in and out,” Kovah notes. “Those SSDs have option ROMs that could potentially carry this sort of infection. Perhaps because it’s a secure environment they don’t use WiFi, so they have Ethernet adapters. Those adapters also have option ROMs that can carry this malicious firmware.”

    That’s an oddly specific scenario — don’t you think?

  • Goodbye, Android

    Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai:

    As security expert Cem Paya put it, that was a conscious decision Google made when it created Android. Paya called it a Faustian deal: “cede control over Android, get market-share against iPhone.” Basically, Google was happy to let carriers put their bloatware on their Android phones in exchange to having a chance to fight Apple for in the mobile market. The tradeoff was giving carriers and manufacturers control over their Android releases, leaving Google unable to centrally push out operating system updates.

    I think that is giving Google far too big of a pass. Google could have still ceded this control to carriers, while still maintaining a way to push security updates, but they either didn’t think of it, or didn’t care to do that. That would infuriate me even more if I were an Android user.

    More:

    Let me stress this out once more: the patches are ready to go. They were approved by Google months ago. But you won’t get them for another few weeks (if you’re lucky) or months (most likely) or never (a very solid possibility) depending how old your phone is—if it’s too old manufacturers just stop supporting them—and how lackadaisical your manufacturer and carrier are with regards to updates. Given the open nature of Android, pushing out updates, as Android Central put it, is a “messy, unpredictable business” that requires a lot of “moving parts.”

    Good lord.

  • Marco Arment and Context

    Jonathan Poritsky:

    I understand Marco’s dilemma. He’s opinionated and loves blogging. But he sometimes acts oblivious to his standing in the tech community. His success has bred him an audience; his words hold more weight because of his status. I have trouble believing he didn’t know there would be an “Influential iOS developer Marco Arment says…” narrative thread others would pick up on from his post.

    I love this entire post, really well said. Same thoughts I have been having lately.

  • The Security Flaw Google Built Into Android

    Tom Simonite:

    The text message vulnerability revealed today can’t be fully fixed by upgrading apps. And it’s not unlikely that most vulnerable phones will never get the security patches for Android that Google has developed and will offer up to manufacturers and cellular operators. Joshua Drake, the researcher who discovered the text message flaw, guesses that between 20 and 50 percent of devices will receive the update, based on his past experience with Android updates.

  • The GORUCK 10L Bullet Ruck

    I stand by the fact that the best all around backpack is the GORUCK GR1, but I also think it looks a little bit silly carrying a tiny little MacBook in the larger GR1. Not to mention, quite often, it is overkill for what I need to carry for the day.

    When I tried out the 15L Shoulder Bag from GORUCK, I mentioned how it wasn’t actually much smaller than the GR1, so that was out too. I wanted a smaller bag — I’ve wanted one for a while — so that I could use the bag for small trips. I also wanted a smaller bag to carry around at conferences, or on vacation with the family.

    (more…)

  • Things will not change

    Tobias Tom:

    Also, of course everybody seems to know better than Apple. Once their proposed change to the store, the operating system or the platform were to be implemented everybody would be happy. Everyone will get rich. Nobody seems to see that they seem to do something right, at least. Otherwise, why would everyone want to be part of their platform.

  • Short Term Memory with Due

    I’ve long owned Due, but it always just kind of sat there being unused — I often didn’t even have it installed on my phone. Lately Justin Blanton, and CGP Grey have been talking about it — in fact it was the latter of those gents that got me interested in picking the app back up.

    CGP Grey talked about how Due is great for reminding you of things, as the app notifications on your Apple Watch will tap your wrist every minute until you tell it you did that thing. Which is quite perfect if used correctly — I immediately put Due to work.

    (more…)

  • Luma Legacy

    Karol Muñoz:

    Just as always, we value tangible objects more than files in a computer. There is a disconnect between our most precious objects and the images, songs, videos and stories that make those objects so special. Our favorite story from the research came from a woman who had lost her father a year before. Her husband wanted a way to gift her father’s last voicemail but couldn’t find a beautiful way to do this. Luma Legacy could have helped him put this file in a beautiful object to be experienced in a manner that honors it’s sentiment.

  • Day One as Running Diary

    What a neat use case.

  • The Verge’s Mobile Web Sucks

    Joe Steel:

    This is not Apple’s fault. This is literally The Verge’s domain.

  • Keyboard Maestro 7.0

    So. much. new. stuff. I can’t wait to dive deep.