The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • 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.

  • Compassionate Tools

    I like to think that there was once a point in time, in this country or the world, where humanity prevailed — and I also like to think that the ‘majority-rule’ screwed it all up by trying to be ‘fair’ to everyone.

    Microsoft Word, perhaps, best characterizes this when it comes to software. Because at one point Word was a really good program, which was both powerful and easy to use and understand.
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  • Think Critical on Begin

    Nate Barham on Begin:

    Begin sees its list (rightly) in a different way. There are things that need doing today, and you’ll be reminded of those at the start of your day (or your decided time). From there, it’s your responsibility to return to the app and check those items off as the day goes on.

  • Why Reviewing by Numbers is a Bullshit Practice and Needs to Stop

    Ok, we’ve been over this before, but we will keep going over it until people listen up.

    Assigning a numerical “score” to any product review is misleading at best, and downright bullshit most of the time.

    The Verge in their review of the Amazon Fire Phone ((No link because: The Verge)) gave the device a score of 5.9 — they then go on to show the breakdown of that score over eight categories.
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  • Quote of the Day: Marco Arment

    “The best thing Apple could do to increase the quality of apps is remove every top list from the App Store.”

  • We Really Can’t Have Nice Things

    Today Jared Sinclair stirred up quite a frenzy by way of blog post about the sales of his RSS app, Unread (which is fantastic). Jared Sinclair:

    Despite all of these circumstances, Unread still only earned $42K in sales ($21K after taxes and expenses) and is on a course that doesn’t promise much growth. I conclude from all this that anyone who wants to make a satisfying living as an independent app developer should seriously consider only building apps based on sustainable revenue models.

    His post was eye opening in how little a very popular app makes in the App Store these days. And he is not alone as he was joined by a chorus of other developers talking about what they make, and/or how to make money, as a ‘indie’ developer.
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  • Quote of the Day: Jon Bell

    “We’re actually going to record “uses” of products now? Well, sure. Because it makes the number look bigger.”

  • The New Typewriter

    MG Siegler:

    I’ve been thinking about this recently when wondering why I like to write on my iPad so much more than my computer. It’s not that the iPad is “better” for writing, it’s that it’s decidedly less distracting. Yes, you still have access to Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

    Read the entire post, I'm right there with him. Now all I need to do is figure out how to use this setup comfortably at my office.