The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Emergency broadcast warnings to be sent to cellphones

    Tiffany Hsu:

    The “Broadcast Message Center” would allow government agencies to zap alerts to phones in the geographic area affected, whether across a few blocks or nationwide.

    Sounds cool.

  • How to Ask a Nerd for Help (and Get It) Without Looking like a Huge Jerk

    Brett Kelly:

    Reason being, if you don’t give enough of a crap to try to rectify your own situation, then neither does he. Effort shows that you’re (albeit clumsily) committed to getting the problem sorted out and have only come to him out of necessity, not laziness.

    So true, also try Googling for your answer first.

  • Opting Out of TSA for Airport Security Still Requires Full Body Scanners

    This is not good, Ken Tyndall reports:

    The TSA points out that even if an airport decides to use a private firm for security, the screeners still must follow TSA guidelines. That would include using the full body scanners if they are installed at the airport.

  • Defenseless

    Mike Lee:

    As an airline employee, I gave up a lot of rights, because airlines are considered a necessary part of the country’s basic infrastructure. That’s why we bail out the airlines when privatization fails.

    It’s mighty disingenuous, then, to now claim that airline travel is some kind of luxury reserved for those willing to submit to humiliation by the TSA.

  • Atleast One Politician is Mad About Porno-Scanners

    Congressman Ron Paul:

    In one recent well-publicized case, a TSA official is recorded during an attempted body search saying, “By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.” I strongly disagree and am sure I am not alone in believing that we Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel. As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable.

    and:

    My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any US law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

    Those are my favorite parts, but the whole article is excellent and well thought out. This transcends political parties and Congressman Paul makes an excellent point that if “political elites” were subject to this type of screening it would never have gotten this far.

  • Hi, My Name is iTunes and I am a Hoarder

    I had to wait until after the epically over-hyped Beatles announcement was made to make sure that iTunes wasn’t suddenly dead – since iTunes remains I thought we should talk about why I think it is the biggest piece of crap software that Apple ships. More accurately iTunes is what I call ‘bloatware’ – a piece of software that has taken on the characteristics of a hoarder and a ball hog all at once, software that wants to be everything to everyone.

    In the beginning iTunes was great, but that was back when all it did was allow you to deal with music only – now days it tries to be so much more. Certainly you can still handle music in iTunes, but iTunes feels lost to me – like it has forgotten its roots. For instance have you ever tried to manage duplicated songs in iTunes? Holy crap is that a pain in the ass. I recently merged my library with my Wife’s, and with our media center. I have over 4,800 duplicate tracks in iTunes and the only way to get rid of duplicates is to manually select which one I want. It is 2010 and I have to make over 2,400 clicks to get rid of duplicates? Give me a break.

    We haven’t even gotten to the fact that iTunes is now: a video store, app store, bookstore, social network, syncing engine, and more. I am not saying that each of these should be their own apps, but certainly some of them should be. Ping should be browser based and stay out of iTunes aside from being integrated with the playlist so a user can ‘like’ something without leaving the app. Video can stay. Apps and books should be in their own app, I don’t know about you but when I think iTunes I don’t think: games.

    Why was syncing ever made apart of iTunes – for the longest time Apple had been using iSync to handle this, but iPods slowly killed it off (though it is still alive on Macs). Interestingly it is where you control these options for MobileMe:

    Screen shot 2010-11-16 at 3.41.02 PM.png

    The whole thing makes no sense, my iPhone and iPad are not media devices they are computers, so why should I sync them with iTunes?

    There is only one culprit to blame: Windows. ((IMHO))

    Think about it, Apple must ship iTunes to Windows users in order to keep iPod/iPhone/iPad customers happy. Apple needs to ship all the features and additives in iTunes to Windows users as well to support these devices. So what is easier for Apple? Creating separate apps for both Windows and Mac users for each of these services and then having to tie them together on Windows? Or just cramming all the crap they can into iTunes?

    Obviously putting it all in iTunes is the most economical solution – but good God y’all it is the most un-Apple solution possible.

    Think about it another way, if we take the iLife suite and iTunes-ify it you get one app that does: Video editing, photo editing and management, music studio creation software, web development, DVD authoring. Perhaps iWeb gets left out to be fair, but the rest would all be one app aptly named iLife and it would suck a lot. That is how I feel about iTunes.

    Again you can do this with iWork: word processing, page layout, presentation, spreadsheets all in one app. Wouldn’t that be a real gem to use?

    Nobody wants the iWork and iLife suite to become one app – not even Apple. We don’t want that to happen because we all know that it will just look and feel like iTunes, introducing a completely new level of suckage that would only rival Microsoft Office.

    I am of course leaving out all the strange UI conventions that Apple uses in iTunes, but no where else. Never mind this for now.

    Every time I spend more than a few minutes in iTunes I have to cringe – the way that it handles most everything is painful.

    For example:

    • The iTunes store could not load slower – internet connections do not matter, that thing is slow.
    • App updates are a joke – seriously have you ever tried updating your apps in iTunes, then get the error, that the updates iTunes just listed are out of date and need to be refreshed? Then you go through the same cycle 15 times before you can download one update? Yeah happens every time.
    • When you add a new video file you can’t specify Movie or TV Show when you add it. So then you have to edit the metadata after you add it to get your TV Shows to appear in the TV Show section.
    • Additionally if you add a home video you will notice that there is no home video tabs – I mean really?
    • It’s 2010 ((Pronounced Twenty-Ten get with it.)) and iTunes still doesn’t automatically remove the track numbers from titles that I import? Really? I mean that seems easy enough for software to do.
    • Ping makes me cry.
    • Why is their separate ‘Purchased’ lists for each of my devices, yes you can delete them, but why make them to begin with?
    • Why can’t genius work with every song?
    • Why does genius take two years to deliver me information?
    • Why waste so much space keeping all those backups from my iPhone and iPad?
    • Why are you still called iTunes?

    I could keep going, but I started to get too depressed about the whole thing.

    Dear Apple, you can do better and we both know it. Please do better.

  • Backing Up Facebook

    Ian Hines messaged me on Twitter last night to ask if I knew that you could export your Facebook data. It was the first I heard of it, but it turns out that indeed you can export your messages and wall posts among other things.

    Here’s a video from Facebook explaining it all.

    If you are thinking about leaving (and I think you should) then this looks like a smart thing to get before you say goodbye.

    [via Ian Hines]

  • U.K. Government to Snub BBC, Google Over Web Access

    Let’s hope U.S. politicians still ignore other countries, because as Alan Purkiss reports:

    In a speech at a London telecommunications conference organized by the newspaper, the minister will say the market should decide the extent to which service providers can charge for preferential content delivery and slow down other traffic.

  • Google, Facebook Don’t Innovate

    Chris Nuttall for the Financial Times:

    Mr Wilson, author of the  popular A VC blog and a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Google had not come up with anything truly transformative that was a home-grown product since Gmail, introduced in 2004. It had relied on acquisitions instead to develop new services.

    Clever, but the story is a great very short read. Apparently Google board members don’t pay much attention to acquisitions their company makes.

  • One More Thing – TSA Porno-Scanners

    Carol Pucci reporting for the Seattle Times:

    Rachel Hawkridge, chairwoman of the state Libertarian Party, said she will gather volunteers at noon at Seattle’s Best Coffee in the main terminal at Sea-Tac airport, then go from there to security gates to hand out information to passengers on privacy and health risks associated with the scanners.

    This is awesome, I wish I was in town for this so I could lend a hand. If any readers are around I encourage you to participate.

  • Today in TSA

    Instead of flooding you with a bunch of links in the stream, here is what I am reading today in TSA news:

    Josh Mitchell for the WSJ:

    Mr. Pistole also tried to allay privacy concerns about full-body-imaging screenings, which allow inspectors to view graphic images of passengers going through security checks. He said devices lack the ability to store or transmit the images.

    That’s why there has never been a leak of say, oh, 100 images.

    Isaac Schlueter on his experience ‘opting-out’:

    After the first 4 “OPT-OUT” calls, they just passed us all through the regular metal detector. No one got groped.

    Information, properly delivered, is power.

    Great story, be sure to read it.

    Noah Shachtman for Wired adds:

    It’s the same kind of trade-off TSA implicitly provided when it ordered us to take off our sneakers (to stop shoe bombs), and to chuck our water bottles (to prevent liquid explosives). Security guru and scanner-suit plaintiff Bruce Schneier calls it “magical thinking…. Descend on what the terrorists happened to do last time, and we’ll all be safe. As if they won’t think of something else.”

    Read the last two sentences again.

    I don’t remember if I linked to this or not, but here is a letter from a Biochemist at UCSF talking about some ‘Red Flags’ and really if you read anything I posted here, read this.

  • iOS Twitter App Push Notifications

    Loren Brichter on who to quiet push notifications while you sleep:

    Pushes should honor sleep time settings (set on the web). In-app settings are on the todo list.

    Very nice.

  • Macworld’s Outlook FAQ

    Interesting that Outlook looks like a great upgrade for those using Entourage and integrates well with Apple’s apps on the Mac. BUT, it is a proprietary ass in regards to calendar data – which looks like more than just an annoyance.

  • Quote of the Day: Standards & Quality

    Greatness comes when one sets standards for their own results that are far higher then anyone expects and they strive to meet those consistently.

  • ‘Jet Lag May Cause Stupidity’

    In what has to be the best headline I have seen today, Laura Sanders writes:

    Even after 28 days of a back-to-normal schedule, the formerly jet-lagged hamsters still showed learning and memory problems.

    That is a bit concerning if you frequently travel – at least you should be concerned about it.

  • Windows Oddities

    A nice look at some interesting things relating it the history of Windows, my favorite is the ‘Whistler’ logo they had.

  • TSA boss: Our pat-downs turn up “artfully concealed objects”

    Perhaps a better way to fight the TSA on this is to start demanding airports opt out and hire private security firms that do not use these methods. In fact perhaps we should start boycotting airports that continue to use TSA.

  • Faceboooo

    It seems that every time I post about Facebook I can’t help but be condescending about them. I loathe Facebook more than any other technology company out there today – more than Microsoft. It is then only natural that every time I post about Facebook I get a message in one form or another asking why I hate them so. A fair question, and one that I shall now seek to answer in a more reasoned way than I have in the past.

    Privacy

    First and foremost I think the lack of privacy that Facebook promotes is egregious. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said on numerous occasions that he believes, well here are his words:

    I’m trying to make the world a more open place.

    Which would be great except that instead of having well founded reasons why he is trying to do this he simply tries to force it on his users. Of course he absolutely has a right to do so, Facebook is a free service and if you don’t like what they are doing you can and should, leave. Anybody who has been a long time Facebook user can attest to the fact that with each passing ‘new feature’ users get less and less control over their privacy. In that very same interview where that quote was taken the interviewer states just how PRIVATE Zuckerberg is himself…

    Many people have told me that if that is the way I feel I should not blog or use Twitter – except that with both of those services I have no expectation of privacy. I know that unless I password protect my blog, and turn my Twitter feed into ‘Private’ – everything I say will be public facing. My problem with Facebook is that it is supposed to be a closed network that values privacy of the users, except that they don’t.

    What are friends of friends and why the hell should I let them see my private photos and status messages? Why the hell does Facebook get to do whatever they want with my photos when I upload them? Why aren’t more people pissed off about this?

    If I am perfectly honest what pisses me off the most about privacy settings and Facebook is how little they seem to care about it all. I am fine with changes in privacy, but if you are going to do that you need to make it clear why you are changing it, if there is a way to keep that data private, and if not allow the user time to delete that data before the changes take affect.

    Friend Status

    Nothing used to annoy me more than ‘friend requests’. I am fine with anybody reading my blog or following me on Twitter, because again I have no expectation of privacy there. What I am not fine with is the assumption that most Facebook users have, which is: If I send you a friend request and you deny it, then you are an asshole.

    That is total crap. We use the word ‘friend’ because there are such things as people that are not our ‘friends’. Since when did it become OK to demand someones friendship and brand them a pretentious asshole if they denied such friendship. There are people in this world that I genuinely hate and never want to be ‘friends’ with. Further than are a lot more people in this world that I simply do not know – by virtue of what being a friend means we are not friends if I don’t know you.

    Every time I hang out with people younger than myself I am reminded just how screwed up this concept of Facebook friends truly is. There have been many a fights over relationship statuses and friend ship requests. I just do not understand the mentality that Facebook has created, where every person feels entitled to be friends with every other person. I will not be a part of that.

    Lack of Respect for Others

    Facebook has the same problem that plagues most blog commenting systems – people feel like they can be real assholes when they get to hide behind a computer screen. Have you seen some of the stuff that is posted on peoples walls and as comments to things others have posted? It can be rude and nasty at times.

    What it all boils down to is a sheer lack of respect for each other. There has been a culture derived on Facebook where it seems like ‘anything goes’ and that is really a sad thing. Facebook used to be so neat and a great tool, then is slowly started to erode away to nasty comments on photos and the like.

    Facebook feels like high school all over again – I did that once and I won’t volunteer to do it again.

    Distrust

    To put it simply: I, in no way, trust Mark Zuckerberg. The guy is shady, and is not the person I want in control of any of my data. I have never met him, but I have read a ton about him, interviews and the like, and even before The Social Network came out I didn’t trust him.

    I am not saying that he should never be trusted. What I am saying is that if Zuckerberg is given the choice between going bankrupt and shuttering Facebook, or selling all of your data to marketing firms and keeping Facebook alive…well which do you think he would choose?

    Unnecessary

    I quit Facebook back in mid-May of 2010, it has not been a year yet, but it has been a significant amount of time. What I can tell you is that not a single relationship/friendship that I have has suffered because of it. There has yet to be a single instance where I regretted quitting Facebook.

    I have regained a couple of hours each week not having to visit that site. Drama stemming from stupid comments on Facebook have gone to nil in my personal relationships. I have come to realize that Facebook is irrelevant for me.

    Everyone

    Everyone and their Mom ((My mom to my knowledge has not yet joined.)) is on Facebook. Which sounds like it would really make any social network shine, and then you realize that the older generations still don’t quite “get” social networking… which brings me to:

    I Respect People More

    Given that practically everyone is on Facebook, that meant that most people I know and interact with were my ‘friends’ on Facebook. That meant that people that I had previously respected started doing stupid crap like:

    • Hiding easter eggs on my wall.
    • Posting / Playing FarmVille
    • Posting/ Playing all the other crap games.
    • Poking me.
    • Showing off pictures of them wasted.
    • Posting about being wasted.

    Every time I saw one of those posts I lost a little bit of respect for that person. I am not joking here, I simply cannot respect someone that spends 20+ hours a week playing FarmVille.

    That’s All Folks

    Being on Facebook is your decision, not mine. If you are on Facebook and enjoy it, great – good for you. I however loathe it and nothing is going to change that. I don’t think any less of people that still use and sign up for Facebook – just so long as they don’t complain about it. If you complain about Facebook man up and delete it – don’t deactivate, delete.

  • Fly With Dignity

    Sign an online petition to ask that the Department of Homeland Security discontinues the use of the Porno-Scanners. Please take the time to do this, it is all online.

    [via Ian Hines on Twitter]

  • ‘Baby Needs a New Pair of Processors’

    I was curious to read the first post John Gruber did for Daring Fireball, what is linked here is the oldest post in his archives, which seems to be his first. I thought this bit was funny:

    And, if you have a lot more money than the Daring Fireball does and want to take advantage of the new machines’ built-in support for dual displays, you can use this rebate offer to buy as many monitors as you want. Sweet.

    I don’t think I recall another time where he refers to himself as ‘the Daring Fireball’ – overall a good read and still great writing even at the outset of the blog.

    BTW, do any readers know if he has ever talked about the name Daring Fireball before?