Category: Member

This week: productivity theater; destroying life-changing productivity tips; we need to support gummy bears; those AirPods Pro tips; and a new desk chair for me.

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This week: time is weird; bosses that treat work like prisons; why you can’t trust online reviews; new bag reviewer I like; stop worrying about how your bag looks; things I am working on writing about.

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This week: managing in lockdown; writing as a key remote work skill; the shine wears off remote work; video conferencing follow up; why Comcast internet is a huge blocker to remote work; and some knife talk to round it out.

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This week: better quality video calls; we turn to individuals; managing in a pandemic; I miss the office; sharing culture is a joke.

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This week: wait, does that say the 13th of July already, crap; Xfinity refuses our money; Kitchen upgrade tip; choosing the right words; men’s fear; over committing; DEET; routines.

## Why is Xfinity work from home hostile?

[Betsy Morris, in The Wall Street Journal](https://apple.news/AqKxU9x-cTWy7dFdJMp2jmg):

> Zoom saw daily meeting participants soar to a peak of 300 million in the latest quarter, up from 10 million before the pandemic.

You would think that the work from home revolution was something Xfinity would grab a hold of — the the very least as a means to make more money. Sure, there’s more infrastructure costs with more and faster traffic, but *before* this home internet users really had little need to get an expensive internet and cable package. Before they just needed something that worked between 6pm – midnight. To get them through the hours before they get back to work. Cyber Monday became a thing, because people refused to have great internet connections at home (I’d argue even base connections make that a thing of the past.)

This all changed when we started working from home, often more than just one person in the household needing good internet speed.

But no, Comcast/Xfinity whatever they call themselves this week has buried their heads in the sand. The only real changes are to data caps (at first they removed it, now they added on 25% more for “free”). But what has remained is their plan structuring.


They structure things by focusing *only* on the download speed. 1gigabit service gives you that on the download, on average, usually. Upload? No clue. I have their 1 gigabit service and could not find the upload speed they are committing to on the website or on my account pages. In practice I get 30-40megabits up. *30-40*. Are you kidding me?

With AT&T Fiber, I got 1000 up, and a 1000 down. Full duplex. Full magic. I could rest assured that degraded video was never from my connection.

But, in their moment to shine and make more money, Xfinity has stayed the course (actually, that’s a lie, they now offer a 2gigabits internet connection which would take me from $85/mo to $299/mo with no upload speed increase noted). With the world on video calls, and document collaboration at all time highs, we now have more reason than ever to want — *to demand* — fast upload speeds. And yet, nothing from Xfinity.

I would pay them 50% more money for the same download speed and 250megabit uploads. I am sure I am not alone.

And yet…I am not allowed to do so.

So why are they so against taking more money?

Probably because they generally suck.

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This Week: app makers breaking their apps; Comply AirPods Pro tips; New York Times and Apple News; New Email; Houston Heat; Facebook still sucks.

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It is almost July, how is that possible?

This week: arm on Mac; iPadOS 14 feels; Scribble thoughts; new sidebar design paradigm; VESA stand follow ups; Emergency kits; Alone; Best Coffee; masks; and life indoors is wearing me down.

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This week: VESA iPad stand; looming podcast graveyard; sticking to blogging; tactile turn shorty; mini bugout; and keeping your knives sharp.

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This week: racism and tech; suppression and recession; tech offices; LED lights; and random things I thought of because I moved.

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This week: unrest.

## Small and Big

Last week was rough for the country(and it hasn’t let up), and when you toss in the fact that I began moving Wednesday and am still unpacking — well Advil and Whiskey is my new life slogan.

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*Holy shit, it’s June…*

This week: tech downturns; remote work scam; what runs your lock down life, and a couple notes…

## Silver Linings and All

[Om Malik, writing about tech downturns and silver linings:](https://om.co/2020/05/24/why-every-tech-downturn-has-a-silver-lining/)

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This week: Quick Draft, get it; missing office work; distributed work; blogs; Mac and Windows users; a recommended clothing company.

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This week: Comparison tables; changes I think will stick; face masks; Magic Keyboard battery issues; GIPHY; a sweet duffle bag; and a knife review preview.

## Reviews at The Wirecutter

It has been a while since I wrote about The Wirecutter, but they posted something interesting: how they make their selections for what they recommend. They use [comparison tables](https://thewirecutter.com/blog/comparison-tables/) to track everything and clearly see what product should be the winner.

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This week: retired Mac mini; Instacart thoughts; Shemaghs, buy some; long term remote work; copper touch tools.

## Retired Mac mini

Back in 2012 I spun up a remote Mac Mini with Mac Stadium, and over the years I used the hell out of it. It was, for a very long time, the web server and email server for this website. At the time, it was so much faster than any hosting I could get.

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This week: Magic Keyboard part two; Trackpad is the real story; give me a Magic KVM; Kondo; restaurants are really wanting to go out of business; and let’s not forget what it was like to be alone.

## Magic Keyboard, Week 2

I spent the last week only using my Magic Keyboard to do all my work, and all my personal writing (which there wasn’t any of until the weekend this go around). A simple desk, with just a powerful tablet, *Magic* Keyboard — and then you know another iPad and a trackpad next to it so I could monitor the rapidness with which the world around me is changing.

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This Week: magic keyboard is here; pandemic gadget; Zoom; the end of life hacking; bad bosses take two.

## iPad Magic Keyboard, Let’s Talk About It


Like many of you, I have spent the past few days reading hot takes from around the web about the iPad Magic Keyboard — is it good, is it worth nearly $400 for the 12.9” version (after you account for taxes)? Will I like it?

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This week: dreaming about a new home office; how to draw a line between personal and work at home; COVID is destroying things I hate; I love the trackpad; Magic Keyboard lust; changes to travel; bags for home?; Vanlife; shitty managers; go for a walk; and DNS stuff.

## Dreaming About a New Home Office

As with most people right now, I spend a decent amount of time dreaming about a better home office. To be fair, I have a pretty nice home office as it is, it looks like this:

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This week: post pandemic work from home thoughts; two iPad challenges for you; my WiFi 6 travails; Amazon or Walmart; Airbnb thoughts; and new Mac stuff.

## Future of WFH, Post Pandemic


Those of us lucky enough to still have a job, are also likely those of us with a job where you can work remotely. We are certainly in the midst of a large scale work from home experiment, my company too. And the rhetoric is exhausting.

I am in a unique position to comment on this. I likely know exactly what your situation is like. I’ve run a small business with limited financial and human resources. I’ve been at a fully remote company working with decidedly not remote companies. I am at a Fortune 500 where I have worked remotely with them, and recently in the office with them. I have likely seen, and won’t be surprised by, anything you are seeing.

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This week: I dive deeper into USB-C hubs destroying my iPad Pro battery life, a news app recommendation, Zoom (sigh), and then turn on the pay wall for the new gear I bought, productivity, thoughts on lasting impacts, and a note on walking. Enjoy…

## Power Drain from USB-C Hubs is Unreal

Last week I complained about the state of USB-C hubs, and specifically the power drain I was seeing on my iPad Pro. None of you responded with a better hub suggestion, so I tried [Apple’s Digital AV multiport thing](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07WF96FY5/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20) and it was just as bad. Here is the power drain chart from the Apple dongle attached to the USB-C Alt keyboard:


This is quite something, showing the same keyboard with two different connection methods on the same day. The first arrow is when I plugged in the ALT via a USB-C to USB-A cable to the Apple dongle. The power drain was rapid and in line with what I have seen from *all* USB-C hubs. which means it makes the iPad Pro almost unusable because of how fast the power drains unless you keep the device constantly charging.

The second arrow is when I switched the same keyboard to a USB-C to USB-C cable and plugged it directly in (after charging back up the device), no dongle or anything. The power drain is still there (this keyboard has many LEDs) but the decline is not that rapid and generally what I expect to see.

That’s just one day, and maybe I was doing something else on my iPad, right? Here’s the next day, no dongles at all:


The curve is roughly the same, which to me says that while this keyboard is power hungry, the USB-C hubs makes the problem drastically worse. So I tested a few more times with different setups. I tested the Vortex Pok3r and Vortex Core, both directly connected to the USB-C port with a cable.

Here is the aggregate off all this:


The big black bar at the bottom is the drain from using Apple’s USB-C hub with only my keyboard connected — it is terrible. Next the Greenish line is the ALT on a fresh day, the maroonish is the bar of the ALT from the same day as the black bar, the purpleish is the Pok3r, and the slate/blue is the Core. No doubt the diminutive Core which has but one LED makes it so I can almost last an entire day, even with video calls, and have no need to charge. The Pok3r comes close, I did turn off the LEDs half way through, but that didn’t seem to phase the power drain too much.

What’s clear to me is that the power drain between the keyboards is very different — and enough so that you might think about it a little harder if you truly want to get the most battery out of your device — but at a desk it’s hardly much of a concern. (My tip: when on a call, plug in the iPad for the call, that way you don’t let anyone hear your typing, and you stay focused, and the battery charges back up. I use a 60w charger, you would be amazed how much power you get from that charge.)

My big takeaway though is that you should simply not use a USB-C hub with your iPad Pro, unless you are also charging the iPad Pro, because the power drain is absolutely absurd. I am very used to my work iPad being around 30% at the end of the day, but with a USB-C hub plugged in and only powering a keyboard, I will be at 20% by lunch time. With direct connection I can make it through a work day on one charge. The ALT will most tank the entire battery, often to single digit percentages left, whereas the Core will leave me with about 23% left.

## Finimize

A while back I learned about the Finimize newsletter and signed up for that, and then they posted something interesting which caused me to subscribe. I’m a huge fan. I have long paid for Economist’s Espresso app on iPhone, but I think Finimize is better and will replace that. They do great ‘insight’ pieces as well as distilling down the financial portion of the markets into two major points each day. Only downside it the iPhone only app. They also really only cover financial related news.

It’s just right. [I recommend it](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/finimize-finance-simplified/id1335577505).

## Zoom Bye

Holy shit, what a week for Zoom. Last week I cracked a joke that even with everything going on with Zoom, that I would still prefer it over Microsoft Teams. I apologize, as I had no clue how much worse it was going to get for Zoom. Here’s a smattering of why you should get away from Zoom as fast as you can:

– [It’s not actually encrypted.](https://theintercept.com/2020/03/31/zoom-meeting-encryption/)(More about [security woes here](https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/).)
– [Zoom is Leaking Peoples’ Email Addresses and Photos to Strangers – VICE](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e95m/zoom-leaking-email-addresses-photos)
– [Axios is calling it their ‘tarnished moment of glory’](https://www.axios.com/zooms-tarnished-moment-of-glory-f1e2a46e-9ce2-4926-a0a0-ebb4b9e0d2fa.html)
– [Even the FBI commented on Zoom](https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-warns-video-conference-hijacking-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=69901757)
– [All your Zoom records are easy to find](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/03/thousands-zoom-video-calls-left-exposed-open-web/)
– [Here’s a big list with some things I probably missed](https://tidbits.com/2020/04/03/every-zoom-security-and-privacy-flaw-so-far-and-what-you-can-do-to-protect-yourself/) (too long for me)

What a [nightmare](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_pr_1.html), get away from it and fast. (One good thing, if you are stuck using this for work: they are reacting quickly so far to patch these bad decisions, so stay updated.) I will say that the CEO seems to be saying he is committed to fixing this, and that is actually great. But here’s the thing: why should we trust him? On what grounds has he earned any trust? We should not trust him, this is a get rid of Zoom and wait for security researchers to let us know it is all clear.

Signal, and FaceTime are both secure. FaceTime does fantastic group calls. Microsoft Teams is basically free if you have Office 365 at your, erm, office — so if you need convince your boss, now is great time to pitch cost savings.
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It’s still March… Anyways, this week: some more work from home stuff (free for non-members) about the top gear I have at hand, USB-C hub power drain on iPad Pros, Zoom, UPS backups — then we jump over to a bunch of iPad Pro specific topics for members.

Enjoy…

## WFH EDC

Something rather comical I keep seeing on the “EDC” (everyday carry) SubReddit is people posting ‘my WFH EDC’ or ‘my quarantine EDC’ — now this sub is rather repetitive to begin with – but these posts are particularly amusing. The idea that you need a wallet, two knives, a multitool, and a gun in order to move around your home — well that is a special kind of ‘grow up’ for me. But it did get me thinking how what I carry around has changed.

Truth be told, I don’t really keep anything in my pockets when I am home, and if I am carrying something it is probably my iPad Pro — not even my iPhone that often. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a setup for myself, because I did find that as I worked throughout the day I needed *things* to help me. My home office is right next to the front door, and my wife and I have agreed that when a package comes I will open it at the door, dispose of the outer boxing, clean my hands and then distribute the delivery. For that I need a knife, but you know, I am not carrying one around my home because I don’t post to r/EDC — which is how this little area of my office formed:


That’s a cabinet of drawers which sits to the left of my desk. It started the new WFH mandates with just the work issued MacBook Pro sitting on it — it’s the perfect size! — and then it morphed from there. I dropped my work and personal phone there, and that looked neat. Turns out having my AirPods Pro on that spot kept me from having to shuffle around looking for them before every call. I added the James Brand Elko knife so I could open packages — you don’t need more than that. And that’s the Apple Pencil for my *personal* iPad Pro — in case I need it.

And I know what you are thinking: “I staged that for this blog post” and you are totally right. But what I staged was using a ruler to try and really make things aligned (I still messed that up), but in reality all those items really do sit there, really do sit in that arrangement and are almost always as neat and tidy as I can eyeball them. BECAUSE I HAVE SOME EXTRA TIME ON MY HANDS PEOPLE.

The thing is, I need those items, but not that often. I need the MacBook Pro to test some web apps, but maybe once a week at most. I need my work and personal iPhones, but maybe once a day. [I use that knife](https://shop.thejamesbrand.com/products/the-elko?variant=3015957577768) about 3-4 times a day — deliveries seem to be constant right now, we got three different FedEx trucks on Friday alone. I rarely use the personal Apple Pencil, but I am trying to use it more so that’s a reminder.

And those Airpods Pro are like work from home magic — [you should totally get them](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07ZPC9QD4/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20). I keep a [charging](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0721DV7YX/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20) cable stashed off to the side for the MacBook Pro and the Airpods Pro so that they don’t ever have to leave that spot.

For me, this is not about what I carry *on* me (again, just the iPad Pro), but rather what I need *at hand*. And those are the items I have found that I need at hand. Yours may vary, but having them all in a neat area, arranged with extra compulsion, well that’s been nice for me.

And since you are wondering, this is what my desk setup looks like when I am working during the week:


That’s a large Baron Fig, my Montblanc M Rollerball, Drop.com Alt keyboard, Apple Magic Trackpad, Viozon stand holding my work iPad Pro, and Compass Pro stand holding my personal iPad Pro (which is nervously keeping tabs on infection rates).

And today, as I write these posts, here’s what it looks like:


Coffee, Pok3er, Viozon stand with personal iPad Pro, and Magic Trackpad. And, yes, that little tool spot to the left of my desk, it holds different items on the weekend (I’ve got time people). You always need context shifts, which is why I changed the keyboard when I work on personal stuff, and took the time to completely put away my other keyboard in a cabinet. It tells my brain to get into writing mode, out of manager mode.

One last note about my desks, because I know what type of emails people send me, the desk pad is [this one, in blue](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0794PSYSY/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20). It was a sub $20 thing that made me happy-ish. It’s not super high quality or that impressive, but I wanted to know if a desk pad was something I wanted or not, before I went out and bought a [nice one from Grovemade](https://grovemade.com/desk-pad-collection/). I am still making up my mind on this, but the answer is likely: no, unnecessary.

## USB-C Power Drain

Speaking of work from home stuff, I have been having some issues with my USB-C hub, it is a ‘cost effective’ UTechSmart USB-C hub that I attached to my iPad Pro with a ‘cost effective’ USB-C extension cable. From there I had my keyboard plugged in, as well as power off and on. But the battery life on my iPad Pro has been crazy bad going from 100% to 39% in about 2 hours. I know it is not my keyboard, because I use that at my office directly plugged in all the time. The only other variables would be:

– Microsoft Teams (way higher usage and video call usage and I know that app was made with some crappy tooling)
– The Trackpad
– The OS update
– The Hub

So I decided to eliminate the hub and charged the iPad back up. I switched to a Bluetooth keyboard so I could keep working — my battery life span went back to normal. The USB-C hub, when not providing constant power to the iPad Pro is murdering the battery life.

So, it could be the extension cable, it could be the hub — it’s probably both. But before I go out and spend a bunch of money on this: if anyone has a really great USB-C hub that they love using *with* their iPad Pro? [Let me know](mailto:benbrooks@protonmail.com).

I have been reading around and it seems the TwelveSouth hub is one of the best as it offers a detachable USB-C cable so that you can place the location of the hub somewhere that is not dangling from my iPad Pro. And the reason I don’t constantly charge my iPad Pro battery? Well I am guessing that would not be good for long term battery life. But, educate me if I am wrong here, but leaving my iPad Pro plugged into power for 8 hours a day seems like it would not be good overall. (And internet research on this topic is shit.)

## Zoom, to Good to Be True?

Zoom has been a hero during this work from home worldwide experiment. It has amazingly stayed up, and somehow not really pissed anyone off or done anything stupid. So while [this article tries to tamp the hype](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e599/zoom-ios-app-sends-data-to-facebook-even-if-you-dont-have-a-facebook-account), it’s actually not as abnormal as you might think.

Basically, Zoom’s mobile app uses Facebook’s Graph API — likely to record as many analytics as can be had. This *could* be so they can make more informed product decisions, and this *could* be because data is data, and they want the data. It is likely both, and likely nothing they did with evil intentions. (A lot of times this stuff is added to commercial apps by developers pushing for them because they are asked to fix crashes without having access to users, and so they need as much possible information so they can actually fix bugs. So they choose a robust tool like this, without thinking through what else the tool itself might be collecting because they are trying to solve a problem *right now*.)

But it is a good reminder that most apps use third party services (and many third party services at that) to collect data on your usage of the app — it’s not the fact that they want that data which concerns me, it’s that the third party also (often) gets that data too. So in the case of Zoom — well Facebook gets the data too, and as a company Facebook is a net bad for the world.

So is Zoom too good to be true? No, but they should reconsider using Facebook tools to get what they need.

At most, Zoom is a bad privacy citizen. But that’s not surprising given that they have a Freemium model and they give meeting hosts a ton of tools to tell what is going on in their meetings.

What should you use instead: when and where possible FaceTime will always be your best bet. My company uses Teams, and I have to say the video calling is good quality with shit extras. I would prefer being tracked by Zoom.

## UPS Backups

Not the delivery service, this is not about FedEx, but uninterruptible power supplies — battery backup surge protectors. I was reminded of my lax setup last night when the power went off in quite the dramatic sequence. Came back on a bit later, and then went off again — it did this a few times over the night. I have long kept a UPS on my internet setup so that I never really lose WiFi when the power goes out.

This has been important in most of my houses as they have all had poor cell reception. The house we are currently in has the worst reception and yet last night I was reminded that my router stays up, but not the gigabit fiber connection. Because coming into the house is *another* part of the internet chain which needs power. So I picked up another UPS for that part to keep my entire network up when the power goes out.

With everyone working at home, you should probably grab a UPS (CyberPower gets my vote, [I have one of these](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00095W91O/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20)) and that way you can at least have internet to find out why the power is out and possibly for how long. The bigger the UPS, the longer the WiFi stays on, and usually the more likely it is to have a gauge to tell you how long. I would buy something larger than what I have, but mine meets my needs.

One last pro tip: know how to turn off the alarm sound on your UPS, otherwise you will lose your mind one beep at a time. Oh, and just budget for needing to replace these every 12-18 months — they suck like that.

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