The Brooks Review

Year: 2015

  • Cloak’s super-simple VPN

    I’m a huge fan of Cloak, and though I run my own VPN, I still pay for a yearly subscription to Cloak. I love the ease of use, and frankly some times my VPN server stops working.

    Anyways, Cloak on the Mac has always been amazing: auto blocking of Internet access on non-trusted networks. Auto connect. Etc.

    You could never do that on iOS in the past, but now you can. That’s right, Cloak can now auto secure your connection, change server locations, and block internet access on iOS. No brainier. If you care about privacy, you’ll have a year subscription to Cloak.
    Update: umm some of this might not be new. Buts it’s NEW TO ME. Oops. 

  • I’ve seen the future, and I want it now

    The last time I went to Disney it was the mid-to-late 1990s — I don’t remember much of the logistics from back then, but I knew things would be different on this visit. I had heard about the ‘Magic Bands’ that you wear at Disney, but I still didn’t know the full scope of that magic. As it turns out, the Disney Magic Band really is quite magic.

    The band itself is shitty, mind you, but the things it enables are amazing.

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  • Arrest of 14-Year-Old Student for Making a Clock

    Glenn Greenwald:

    But perhaps the worst of all harms is how endless war degrades the culture and populace of the country that perpetrates it. You can’t have a government that has spent decades waging various forms of war against predominantly Muslim countries — bombing seven of them in the last six years alone — and then act surprised when a Muslim 14-year-old triggers vindictive fear and persecution because he makes a clock for school. That’s no more surprising than watching carrots sprout after you plant carrot seeds in fertile ground and then carefully water them. It’s natural and inevitable, not surprising or at all difficult to understand.

  • Nine great things about iOS 9

    Good list, I will also add that the traffic notifications during navigation is awesome. I also get push notifications if traffic is bad when I have travel time based reminders turned on for Calendar entries. Neat stuff.

  • Random Thoughts and Tips for iOS 9

    David Sparks:

    Here are some words I thought I’d never write: One of the stars of the new iOS is the Notes app. I’d written the Notes app off entirely years ago. (Remember Marker Felt?) The new version is really impressive.

    Love the new Notes app, all I use these days.

  • Thoughts on Annual iPhone Upgrades

    Shawn Blanc:

    From where I’m sitting, if you like to upgrade every year, if you’re not ultra-thrifty, if you don’t care about keeping your old hardware, and if you like to pay for convenience, then Apple’s Upgrade program actually sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

    Basically why I will be doing Apple’s upgrade program.

  • Adamant

    I’ve been testing Adamant and you notice the speed gain from running a content blocker right away — it’s awesome. But more amazing is how fast you get spoiled by a content blocker.

    I can’t wait for Adamant to come out so I can put it on every device in my family.

  • Initial Thoughts on iPad Pro

    Fraser Speirs:

    More than almost any other device, the iPad becomes the software it runs. The watch is always a watch. The phone is always pocket-sized (sort of). The iPad uniquely morphs between being a sheet music stand, an artist's easel, a book, a game, a cinema screen, a cash register, a typewriter, a notepad, a map, a project plan and a video editing suite all with a quick launch of an app. That's what makes it a special device. It's not just a “tablet computer”.

  • Apple Pencil vs. Wacom Cintiq

    Linda Dong:

    So my advice to anyone trying to decide between buying Apple Setup vs. Cintiq is run far far away from the Cintiq. Especially if you're a student.

  • Finally

    Yeah, that's right, iOS is getting the long anticipated middle finger emoji. Finally

  • Hands-on with the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard

    I suspect I'll love typing on this keyboard.

  • On the iPad Pro and the Constraints of iOS

    Justin Williams:

    The iPad Pro is a device that is begging for great third-party software from both large companies like Adobe and Apple, as well as the smaller guys like Gus at Flying Meat. A larger screen, keyboard case, and a Pencil aren’t going to solve those problems. You can’t have a Pro tablet without pro apps to go with it. There are a few great iPad apps out there, but most of them feel like minimum viable products at best.

    Exactly. I don't think iOS is necessarily holding it back, but lack of pro software is definitely holding the iPad back.

  • Hypertext: iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6 Plus

    I am agreement with everything Justin says here — except that PopSocket, because liking that is just mental.

  • Summer– Disney World

    My wife covers our trip to Disney, it truly was a great time.

  • Initial Thoughts: MacBook v. iPad Pro

    The 12” MacBook brought OS X hardware as close to iOS as it can possibly be. The MacBook is slim, light, silent, and doesn’t get to burn your thigh levels of heat. The iPad Pro? The iPad Pro brings iOS hardware as close to MacBook hardware as one can, with massive performance gains. And iOS 9 brings iOS as close as you want it to be to OS X.

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  • A Look at NetNewsWire 4

    When I first got a Mac, one of the first pieces of software that I fell in love with was NetNewsWire — it was a revolution in how to keep up with news. It was quite something, and so it took a lot for me to move away from it. But years of stagnation meant I had to try other services. For quite sometime that was Fever, a self-hosted RSS reader, but that too started to get long in the tooth. A while back I went through the plethora of great RSS services before deciding on FeedWrangler + Reeder + Unread.

    While FeedWrangler isn’t the prettiest offering, it is the fastest, and it is damn reliable.

    On September 3rd, Black Pixel announced that NetNewsWire 4 was out. I didn’t even bother to try it before buying the iPhone and Mac version and making the switch over to it.

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  • Removing Mental Overhead on Your iPhone

    A while back I mentioned that I had switched to the CGP Grey method of organizing my main home screen on both my iPhone and iPad. This method is simple:

    • One page of apps only
    • At least one row of apps empty
    • Three icons in the dock

    I was highly skeptical that this method would work, but as it turns out this method is supremely good — as long as you are ok with using Spotlight search. I’ve only used this setup on iOS 9, so I can’t speak to how it works on iOS 8, but I can say that there is no going back at this point.

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  • Fuji Fun Vs. Sony Specs

    I loved this post. Great explanation of why I don't care about all the specs of the new Sony cameras.

    As I tweeted the other night:

    Cameras:
    Sony plays the spec sheet.
    Fuji plays for your heart.

    I hadn't read this article yet, but I knew what it would say. Fujifilm reminds me of Apple: they care about the smile the device gives you in the end. But Sony sure seems to impress some people, and I'm happy for them.

  • The EZGO Slim 2.0 Wallet

    I wrote about my new go to wallet for Tools and Toys. It’s pretty nice.

  • Apple’s content blocking is chemo for the cancer of adtech

    Doc Searls:

    On the B2C side, Apple is working on behalf of its paying customers. This is huge. There isn’t a customer on Earth who wants to be tracked like an animal without clear and explicit permission, or to have pages slowed by tracking cookies, beacons and ads fed by unknown and unwelcome servers. Especially on mobile. Apple knows that because they talk on the phone and in stores every day with those customers. They’ve also seen abundant research (some cited above) that makes clear how much people hate having their privacy violated, which Adtech does with abundant impunity. Meanwhile adtech doesn’t talk to those customers. It only follows them. Ain’t the same.