The Brooks Review

Month: December 2016

  • The Pok3r

    When I was using a Mac full time, I almost always used a CODE keyboard for all my typing. That lead me to find something better to use with my iPad, and I snagged a Poker II with MX Clear switches. It was a good keyboard for occasional iPad use, but it had a few fatal flaws: it was ugly, and the CMD key was unchangeably in the wrong location.

    I had given up on a mechanical keyboard for the iPad when I switched to it full time — I just hated the way all of them looked. However, over the last few weeks I have come back to wanting a better typing experience. I hooked up the CODE and remembered why I loved it so much, but the same problem with the CODE + iPad Pro remains: scale. The keyboard is just too large compared to the iPad Pro.

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  • My ‘he will keep telling other people about this stuff’ Gift List

    For whatever reason, this year I have been looking through a lot of gift lists, and overall I have been really disappointed with them. Because of this I thought I’d make a gift list for a change — the idea behind this list is: if I didn’t have any of the stuff I currently have, what could someone give me where I would end up being so happy with it, I would tell other people they need to get it.

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  • United Airlines will charge extra fee for use of overhead bins

    United has a new ticket fare, where no luggage is included in the price (except what fits at your feet). If you want overhead bin space, or to check, you pay. I actually love this, though I would much rather checked luggage be free and overhead charged for everyone.

    If you have been on a flight recently (say last 3-4 years) then you likely know how big of a shit show it is when you board a plane. There’s so many people with bags that are clearly too large to carry on, or people with clearly too many bags. Tons of gate checking — in all I think people not following rules, add tremendously to the overall boarding time.

    In the past couple of trips I have taken with United I have noticed something I never saw before: gate agents caring about luggage. I’ve seen them using both luggage sizers at the gate and forcing people to check — and I’ve seen them simply telling people they have too many bags. I know this likely annoys a lot of people, but as someone who packs small and light, I commend United for this.

    It’s been far to long where people don’t follow very clear rules. And honestly, if you can’t fit all of your stuff in a properly sized carryon, then why wouldn’t you want to check it? It’s so much easier at that point to not drag it all around.

    Again it would be great if they flipped things, where checked is free (for one bag) and carryon is charged for anything more than a personal item. You pay for the convenience of not waiting to get your bags back — seems to make sense to me.

  • Basic Privacy

    Quincy Larson:

    To be clear, everything I recommend here is 100% free and 100% legal. If you bother locking your doors at night, you should bother using encryption.

    It’s a good set of first steps to take. I am curious how many people use Signal over iMessage… even I don’t use Signal for any messages (though I do have it setup). I am going to see if my wife will move to it with me though and test it out.

  • Analyzing How People Type

    Pretty neat research looking into how people type, and how that impacts typing speed. I’d love to see more done with this research — and across keyboard types.

  • Twitterrific Gets Better

    John Voorhees:

    Center Stage is great for casual browsing of media in your timeline, but I expect I will use it most at events like WWDC. When I’m in San Francisco for Apple’s developer conference, I don’t want to miss friends’ photos and videos of the event, but I also don’t have time to read every tweet in my timeline. With Center Stage I can go straight to those photos and videos and dip into my timeline later when I have more time.

    Twitterrific really is the best Twitter app you can use. Love it. Neat addition too.

  • iPad Productivity Report – 12/5/2016

    ## A Year iPad Only

    A little over a year ago, [I wrote in a post](https://brooksreview.net/2015/11/the-full-ipad/) about going to the iPad Pro as a full time computer and made this prediction:

    > The iPad Pro right now might not be for you, but come this time next year, I am guessing we will be seeing a lot more people starting to shift their computing to iPads.

    It’s now been that year, and I think you know where I am going with this — there has indeed been a lot more people picking up the iPad as either their primary, or only, computing device. Not the wave I had hoped for, but a far greater amount of people than my most pessimistic parts expected.

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  • Misen

    It’s likely no surprise to readers of this site that my love for knives is not just limited to pocket knives and survival knives, but also to the two kitchen drawers I have stuffed with kitchen knives. I want to talk about the Misen knife, which had a well funded Kickstarter campaign. The sell is this: it has better steel, it has a better edge, superior design, free sharpening for life, and all at a very affordable price of $65.

    It’s a really good pitch, and I backed the campaign because I wanted to see if the knife really lived up to the hype. I know a lot about knifes, but not as much about kitchen knives. I did, however, immediately recognize the steel this knife is made from: AUS-8. Let’s just say that as steels go, it is middle of the road and a steel I would personally stay away from in pocket and survival knives because of its rather run of the mill qualities.

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