The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • One Half of the Dynamic Duo Responds

    This time I know who is writing, it’s Taylor Sternberg:
    >Now this is where I have to make my case. Because I have used OnLive for gaming. Regardless of how it sounds, I like it. A lot. It allows me to play games in places where I couldn’t (like my Mac), and feels good. It’s very responsive, and I think it’s a fantastic technology. I don’t agree with their business model, but the technology allows me to have fun. I think that’s important.

  • ‘Steve Ballmer Reboots’

    Ashlee Vance in a long and interesting article about Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has this choice quote:
    >“When you talk to other entrepreneurs and tell them you’re using Microsoft’s cloud services, they look at you like you have leprosy,” says Jeremy Howard, chief scientist at Kaggle, a San Francisco startup that runs data analytics contests.

    No matter how good Microsoft services are they should be spending every ounce of energy to change this type perception — because it can be said about more products that just Microsoft’s cloud products.

  • Responding to the Dynamic Duo

    [Either Taylor Sternberg, or Peter James Zielinski writing](http://robotasaur.us/2012/01/ben-brooks-doesnt-know-about-onlive/) ((The post gives no indication which one is writing.)) (I prefer to think one writes one word and passes it to the other for the next — that’d be fun) responds to my post saying that Mossberg has lost it:

    >I think what Ben Brooks is trying to say here is that using Windows 7 on an iPad is dumb.

    No. Actually I was trying to say [exactly what I said](https://brooksreview.net/2012/01/office-mossberg/):

    >Also: it sounds horrible.

    Never mind what I actually said though, back to the dynamic duo:

    >But Ben, did you read the entire article?

    I did. In fact I take it upon my self to read every article I link to, in full, unless I state that I gave up on it.

    Again the duo states:

    >Walt agrees with you, bro.

    No, actually he doesn’t. [Mossberg mentions](http://allthingsd.com/20120111/working-in-word-excel-powerpoint-on-an-ipad/), as they quoted, that there are:

    >[…]some caveats, limitations and rough edges.

    I stated that “it sounds horrible” and that “Mossberg might be losing it”. I don’t think Mossberg agrees with either of those two things I said, but I will wait and see if he responds to confirm that.

    The reason I doubt Mossberg agrees is because stating that there are some problems, as Mossberg did, is far different that calling something horrible — which is what I called it.

    The duo, agian:

    >But I think the thing that makes me frustrated about Ben’s post (out of context) is that the power isn’t just that it’s a VNC clone (simplifying it to an extreme), but that OnLive’s first mission is to rethink internet streaming video.

    Ok, explain…

    >Their first product is OnLive for gaming. They want to expand their streaming product to a VNC-like system.

    So it’s like VNC, just as I said — and just as you said — but it also allows for streaming games? That’s sounds really horrible.

    >Even if the product itself (OnLive Desktop) is flawed from a usability standpoint, having a company focus on faster 1:1 streaming and computing is good for the internet industry. It creates competition in a space where streaming technology is very important today.

    That may all be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that the product Mossberg described sounds horrible. The same product that you say should be given a pass even if it “is flawed from a usability standpoint”.

    It doesn’t matter if the streaming is precisely 1:1 — clicking toolbars in Office on the iPad with your finger is truly a terrible thing, something I know from first hand experience. OnLive may be trying something new — and that’s noble and all — but in the end it’s still a terrible sounding product.

    Lastly the duo suggests:

    >*Read the entire article.*

    I did. And I responded to what is contained in the article without further trying to figure out things not mentioned. Your post back to me makes many assumptions about what I think — all of which are, simply, wrong.

  • A Study of Email Refinding [PDF]

    An interesting study from IBM research about the benefits of searching and threading email. Showing that in most cases meticulous organization in folders is slower for finding and email than search.

    Seems like common sense to me, but I can’t tell you how many people I know that meticulously file emails in folders.

    [via HBR]

  • Tip for Getting More Organized: Don’t

    Michael Schrage:
    >Our job today and tomorrow isn’t to organize ourselves better; it’s to get the right technologies that respond to our personal productivity needs.

    Great anecdotal evidence about Siri in his post too.

  • ‘Working in Word, Excel, PowerPoint on an iPad’

    Walt Mossberg:
    >OnLive Desktop is a cloud-based app. That means it doesn’t actually install Office on your iPad. It acts as a gateway to a remote server where Windows 7, and the three Office apps, are actually running. You create an account, sign in, and Windows pops up on your iPad, with icons allowing you to launch Word, Excel or PowerPoint. (There are also a few other, minor Windows programs included, like Notepad, Calculator and Paint.)

    Later:

    >Overall, I found OnLive Desktop to be a notable technical achievement[…]

    That’s a *revolutionary* piece of VNC magic there…

    Also: it sounds horrible.

    *(Mossberg might be losing it.)*

  • Tweet of the Day: Scott Simpson

    “My new standard of cool: when I’m hanging out with you, I never see your phone ever ever ever.”
    — Scott Simpson (@scottsimpson) June 17, 2010

  • The Next Apple

    Federico Viticci does an excellent job arguing against [John Biggs’ statement](http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/11/why-samsung-is-the-next-apple/) that Samsung will be the next Apple.

  • ‘Why Samsung Is the Next Apple’

    John Biggs arguing the above ridiculous headline:
    >Samsung specializes in meh and me-too…

    And:

    >Add in some tablets, some washing machines, and some acceptable software and you have a real and vibrant ecosystem.

    Because “meh”, “me-too”, and “acceptable software” all very much sound like Apple. What an idiot.

  • ‘Companies Who Spam Their Best Customers’

    Shawn Blanc:
    >Getting junk mail and advertisements from companies I don’t do business with is annoying enough. But getting it from the companies which I have been a long-time and deeply invested customer is quite annoying.

    What it really comes down to is respect. Companies that value you as a customer also tend to value your time and junk mail is always a waste of my time.

    The easy way to tell how much a company respects and values you is to pay attention to how much crap they send you and how relevant the crap they send you really is. Apple is not exempt here as they send me “news”, but they make it painless to get off that list and don’t abuse the privilege.

  • Google’s Enemies

    John Gruber:
    >It also occurs to me that there’s no company in tech with as many enemies as Google. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter — Google has taken the fight to all of them. In this sense they’re like Microsoft 15 years ago.

    Enemies might be too strong of a word, but I think Gruber has it right with the comparison to Microsoft. Google is the one company where I don’t feel good about using their products, but have a hard time *not* using their products.

  • ‘Misdirection, Doublespeak, Non-Answers, and Straight Up Bad Decisions’

    MG Siegler dived into why Search+ is really not good and after going through it all, he has this to say about Google:

    >It’s like they’re suffering from brain diarrhea.

    That’s actually a pretty perfect way to sum up everything that Google does. Not that this is necessarily bad, just that Google can’t seem to stop and think about things before starting new projects.

    Perfect evidence of this is Google Wave.

    They have really great projects that they start, but they seem to lack on idea of what the use case is, or the follow through needed to make them a success. Search+ seems like one of those things that the engineers pushed through without thinking about the ramifications.

  • Four Great OS X Services You Don’t Know About

    I use DevonTechnologies’ WordService ones on a daily basis.

  • ‘Thirty Five’

    Noah Stokes on 35 things he learned in his 35 years:

    >Scotch is really good.

    Yes, yes it is.

  • The Seminarian on iPad Usage

    Vincent on creating an iPad like writing atmosphere on his Mac:
    >So what I’ve done is removed my twitter client and my email client (Sparrow) from the dock and shut them off. Hopefully this will create a less cluttered environment where I get the best of both worlds.

    I [used to do that with my iPad](https://brooksreview.net/2010/08/using-your-ipad-with-your-mac-pc-to-help-you-focus/), but found that it leads to far too much friction during the day.

  • Under-served vs. Over-served

    An interesting tale by Horace Dediu of how Apple is gaining traction in the enterprise market.

  • Quick Thought: Dedicated Instapaper Device

    Here’s a thought I had after reading about the discount applied towards Nooks if you buy a subscription to select periodicals: What if instead of buying an e-reader that is book-centric, you get an e-reader that is Instapaper-centric (with the ability to side load eBooks)?

    That is a device dedicated to Instapaper from the ground up so the primary focus is still reading, but not reading books.

    It would be my guess that people churn through Instapaper articles much faster than they do through a book and therefore a dedicated (of sorts) Instapaper device could prove more beneficial to consumers than a dedicated book reading device.

    I agree that Instapaper is fantastic on the iPad and excellent on the iPhone/iPod touch, but wouldn’t a Kindle like device that downloaded only your Instapaper articles, as you saved them, be a fantastic device?

    I think so.

    You can certainly send articles to your Kindle from Instapaper, but that’s not something that the general consumer is likely to do. Essentially I want a Kindle type hardware device that is actually a curation of the articles I want to read from the web.

    The Instapaper device becomes my new newspaper, my hub, and books are relegated to the back burner — where their true priority is in my life.

    Just a thought, but I think it could be neat.

  • Jack Daniel’s: The History of the World’s Most Famous Whiskey

    Jim Stengel:
    >What is especially interesting about Jack Daniel’s beginning to advertise regularly is that demand then exceeded supply. “From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, it was on allocation,” Eddy said. “The sales representatives would literally go into an establishment and let them know how many bottles or cases they could have. When other companies would pull back from advertising, Jack Daniel’s spent money on ads to tell people they couldn’t get it.”

    I love that.

  • Cutting the Cord on Cable

    Kevin Sintumuang on leaving his cable TV subscription behind:
    >You’re full of a lot of inescapable crap.

  • ‘New Siding for the Titanic’

    Roger Black talking about publishers, and specifically in this quoted section the periodical *Today*:
    >They’re breaking the stories on the web, and then adding texture and reporting during the day. The print edition features analysis and opinion, the theory being that everyone already has the news. What readers are looking for in print, is the analysis, the background, the critique, the forecast—the narrative.

    That’s a great direction for traditional media to go and come to think of it this is largely how I work here at TBR. Basically all of the linked list items suffice as ‘news’ type posts, while the articles I write are the analysis and opinion.

    I like the idea of paying for analysis and opinion that has been thought through with a developed narrative and leaving news as easy to go get for free because good thougthful analysis and opinion is much harder to find.