The Brooks Review

Category: Articles

  • Apple TV 2 and the: “Ready to Play in Xxx Minutes” Bug

    A couple of nights ago my wife and I decided to rent our first movie from our new Apple TV 2. The movie started playing right away and had no troubles whatsoever. Last night we decided to rent another movie and when we tried to play it we were greeted with this message: “Ready to play in xxx minutes”. Except for us it said that we could start watching in 1 hour and 40 minutes. This naturally pissed me off.

    After waiting 10 minutes and not seeing the time change I started searching for the answer. I came across this discussion thread, where there are currently 8 pages of complaints about the problem. Not looking good for Apple. The last page contains a post by “UKGreg” that claims:

    Hi All,

    After experiencing the same issue and trying different changes ie DNS settings, wireless position, channels etc the solution was the following:

    1) Switch off “Send Data to Apple”. This is under Settings-General. Give it a few minutes.

    Interesting, I did as he instructed and I saw no change after 3 minutes. I decided to just restart the Apple TV and see what happened. When it came back on I selected the movie that I rented and what do you know? It worked just fine and very fast.

    Problem solved. If you are having this problem give this solution a try, it is quick and painless to fix.

  • Behind the Scenes

    I don’t know if there is a lot of interest in this, but judging from how many times I get email about different aspects of the site I thought it worth writing up this post. I want to give a good overview and some insight into how I have this site set up — allowing me to reference this post when people ask questions in the future.

    Back End Server & Backups

    This entire site runs on Media Temple’s Grid Service (gs). It is an excellent service, both fast and affordable. My plan is to upgrade to the (dv) plan in a few months, but you can’t go wrong starting with the (gs) plan. One addition I have made to the (gs) plan is buying what Media Temple calls a grid container for the MySQL server on this site.

    I was experiencing about 10 seconds of database down-time, before I purchased the container, whenever I would publish a new post — since adding this container I have had no problems. This adds to the cost of the monthly service, but for me it was worth it. I also use Media Temple’s built in email solution for the TBR email system.

    I am a paranoid person when it comes to backing up the site, so I use the following:

    • Transmit synchronizes the server files with a local backup on my computer every Saturday.
    • VaultPress does real-time backups of the site.
    • WP Backup provides emailed backups of the database file twice a day.

    WordPress Plugins

    I have a slew of plugins running in WordPress so let’s just list them out:

    • All in One SEO Pack: I doubt this is needed any more with the way search engines work, but it provides a quick way to customize the way your site displays the title at the top of web browsers.
    • Customizable Search Widget: That is what you see over on the right hand side. This allows me to change the look of the search box a bit.
    • DF-Style Linked List: This is how I control the linked list and put a glyph in front of all non-linked posts.
    • Google XML Sitemaps: Like the SEO plugin I don’t think this is really needed any longer, but what the hell.
    • Instapaper Read Later Links: Allows me to put the little ‘read later’ buttons on articles.
    • Markdown for WordPress and bbPress: Just in case I forget to convert my writing into HTML, this plugin will keep it from looking bad.
    • MintPopularPostsWP: Integrates with Mint (more on that in a bit).
    • Optimize DB: Keeps my database file nice and small.
    • Redirection: Allows me to set 301 redirects from within WP, I use it to send people looking for certain pages (blind guessing) to a more relevant page.
    • Simple URL Shortener: Did you ever notice how if you try to use Bit.ly to shorten a link on this site, you end up with a http://tbr.mx link? That is what this plugin does. See here for details.
    • Simple Yearly Archive: builds the archive page that allows me to exclude the links category.
    • Title Case: For the most part this will properly capitalize my post titles.
    • Twitter Tools: Auto-tweets new posts, using the Bit.ly custom URL.
    • VaultPress: Interface for backing up.
    • WordPress Database Backup: The above mentioned plugin that emails me database backup files.
    • WP-Footnotes: Allows me to create and style the footnote system.
    • WP Super Cache: John Gruber loves to make fun of WP sites that crash when he links to them — don’t let that be your site.
    • WP to Twitter: Anytime I update a post from the web interface this will send out an [UPDATED] style tweet using my custom Bit.ly domain. ((I tried using only this instead of Twitter Tools, but it will not send a tweet when you post from a client like MarsEdit.))

    Ok that is all the plugins that I use, so let’s talk about a couple that I get a ton of questions on.

    Linked List

    I feel like I get asked questions about this daily. I try to respond the best I can, but here is how this works.

    When you install the linked list plugin you need to add code to your PHP files, as well customizing the options. This plugin does not just work out of the box. You will also need to use the custom fields in WordPress when you want to make a new post.

    Once you set your options for the plugin head over to create a new post — from here you need a custom field that looks like this:

    Screen shot 2011-01-04 at 3.12.28 PM.png

    This field will set the linked URL, in this case we are linking back to this sites main page.

    You are not done yet — now you need to determine how you want your posts to act on your main blog page by editing the PHP files in your theme. This is by far the most confusing part for everyone. I am not going to tell you which files to edit, if do know which files to edit and just want to see how my site works, take a look here. That is the relevant code that I use to make link posts behave the way I want.

    If you email me asking for further support, you likely will get no response. Contacting the developer is a better place to go, he’s a good guy.

    Instapaper Buttons

    Like with the linked list questions, I get email about this fairly often too. I have set this up in the plugin options so that the buttons are not displayed anywhere automatically. Then I inserted the PHP template tag that is provided into my PHP files where needed.

    You may have noticed that I don’t provide these links at the permalink location for linked items — that is just an ‘if, then’ statement much like how I did the above linked list. Play around with it, but again don’t ask me how to do these things. I am happy to help when it is fast and easy, but I won’t develop/design your site for you.

    I get emails on how I do the link posts about once a week. First things first you cannot do this from the WordPress iOS apps so don’t even bother. I mostly post links using MarsEdit 3, though when on the iPad I use a custom version of the ‘Press This’ bookmarklet.

    MarsEdit

    This one is easy: go to the Blog menu item and select “Edit Settings”. From there click on “Custom Fields”. Add this:

    Screen shot 2011-01-04 at 3.26.22 PM.png

    Now when you create a new post, if you put a URL in that custom field it will populate that linkedlisturl field in WordPress that you created before. Short, simple, sweet.

    Bookmarklet

    This is a touch trickier, luckily Shawn Blanc has it all written up on his site. Thanks, Shawn!

    Article Posting

    I have mentioned this elsewhere but I start my posts on my Mac in either Ulysses or in TextMate. I use Writer on the iPad and I don’t even bother on the iPhone. From there everything is converted to HTML in TextMate, then shipped to MarsEdit to post.

    Design

    There is no custom design job here, I just took this theme and customized the CSS and PHP files to my liking. The fonts are served by the excellent TypeKit service. Site logo is by Wet Frog Studios.

    Notes

    Please don’t take this as me telling anyone how to run their site — this is just how I run mine. I am writing this to eliminate some of the email I regularly get, not to spur more — if you have questions about a particular plugin please ask the developer, Google, or the WordPress.org forums. Those sources will be far better equipped to handle your questions.

    Lastly I use Mint and Google Analytics to track my statistics for this site. The former is highly recommended.

  • Getting my Central Hub In Order

    If you are a living breathing human being you most likely suffer from a common problem that all humans suffer from: forgetting stuff. Big or small, we tend to forget things. A large part of my job is to delegate tasks — sometimes I remember to follow-up to see if a task has been done, but too often I forget.

    About a month and a half ago I got really tired of these delegated tasks falling through the cracks — my system of tracking items needed to be overhauled.

    The Old System

    Before I talk about how I now track things, I thought it best to talk about how I was tracking things:

    • OmniFocus
    • Basecamp
    • My memory

    I used to put things in OmniFocus manually and track them there, or simply add them as a task to someone else on Basecamp. Either way, I rarely would set a due date, instead just waiting for a person to check off their task in Basecamp. With this system about 20% of all things I needed to track would go into either Basecamp or OmniFocus — not so great.

    The rest of the tasks went into my brain — just ask my wife how well that works, and I would say that I was missing follow-ups on about 60% of all delegated tasks. This matters in my job for two reasons:

    1. Maintenance tasks that have not been completed reflect poorly on my company and the building owners. Tenants are less likely to want to renew, or sign a new lease on a building if it is not being well maintained. Putting my company at a high risk of having its contract terminated.
    2. Safety of tenants is incredibly important — failing to change light bulbs may result in dark pockets at night making the parking lot unsafe for someone to walk alone. There is also increased risk of theft and vandalism, as well as general low visibility concerns.

    Sealing the Cracks

    Before I could start trying to fix the systems I had in place I first needed to take a brutally honest look at where I was failing. It became clear that I was failing to follow up on sent emails, and phone calls. I also found that the time I spend on Basecamp has decreased significantly, to the point where it is barely used any longer.

    OmniFocus

    I decided that I was going to try and consolidate all of my tracking into OmniFocus — it is the tool that is with me 99% of the time. To do this I created a new single action bucket and titled it “Maintenance Tracker” — additionally I created another bucket that would serve as a more general tracker and would not reside inside my work project folder.

    My goal was to make it ridiculously easy to input items that need to be tracked, while still keeping them separate from items that I actually need to do. After using this setup for a bit I can say that this works fairly well for me. Any time I assign a task to someone else I make sure to note that task in OmniFocus and assign a due date that reflects when I think the task should be completed.

    Instead of checking off items when I follow up on them, I will re-assign the due date to a later time if the task is still not completed. I also file all tracker actions under the context ‘waiting’, which is an apt description, as well as being important for the email component.

    That pretty much covers the memory fault issues that I was experiencing. Making these steps habit is the most important aspect towards making sure that I don’t start relying on my memory once again.

    The last bit that I really needed to tackle was with email. Until I found this magical script I had been using MailTags and setting a waiting context to emails I needed to follow-up on and then sticking those emails into a follow-up folder for later action.

    This worked OK, but not great. Typically the follow-up folder would be overflowing with email to the point where I would just gloss over everything and only find the high-priority stuff. I just ignored far too much and began to loathe looking at the folder. Now though I have an applescript that will automatically add emails that have been flagged as waiting with a tickler date, sending them to OmniFocus’ inbox. From there all I need to do is assign a project and they are filed away, complete with a link back to the email that I sent.

    It is incredibly important that I get the link to the email that I sent, not a link to the email that I responded to. I need to know exactly what I asked someone and have the ability to re-forward that ask to them in order to make this setup work well for me. The ability to take searching for the right email out of the equation makes the system that much more frictionless.

    (As a side note: When I follow-up with people that I have assigned a task via email, I simply forward them the email I sent them and ask for a status update. I haven’t had any complaints about it and I seem to be getting much faster action on items that I send. People don’t want to be reminded of stuff they didn’t do, so they seem to get my stuff done first. This is a nice little bonus for me.)

    Highrise

    I also have added a new-ish tool to my arsenal: Highrise. I had previously only been using Highrise for email archiving (you can blind copy Highrise and it will store that email with the contact(s) that you are sending the email too) and for culling together all of my contacts for the business to help distribute contact lists to my co-workers.

    I have now started to make a better habit of logging notes in Highrise so that my co-workers can stay in touch with everything that is going on. This greatly simplifies our company communications so that we don’t have to meet just to keep each other apprised of what we are doing. Most importantly, Highrise keeps a running log of when tasks are completed (either via entering a note, or responding to a persons email that says they are done). This comes in handy when you need to tell someone when something was completed. Highrise offers a better way to find information that Mail.app does for me.

    Central Hub

    The key to revising my system was to remove system fragmentation. I was tracking actions in: Basecamp, OmniFocus, Highrise, and my memory. Now, I track all actions in OmniFocus and use the other tools as support.

    I only have one place where I need to look to see what needs to be tracked. I cannot begin to tell you how greatly this tweak has effected my business. I am a person who is very embarrassed when I forget things, or when I don’t meet the quality expectations that my clients have of me and making OmniFocus the central hub for my tracking and my tasks has greatly reduced my level of embarrassment.

    This all seems so simple and obvious now, I should have been tracking everything in OmniFocus to begin with, but better late than never. I think we all get too caught up thinking that using more tools is a better solution, right up to the point when things start to falter, only then do we realize: the only thing that matters is actually using the tools.

    My old system failed because I never checked or use the tools that I had appointed for tracking. My new system is working exceptionally well because I use the piss out of OmniFocus.

  • [SOLVED] The Mac App Store and the ” MZFinance.NoGUIDTokenFailureKey_message ” Error

    If you are awake today then you know that the Mac App Store launched (run software update to get it, requires a restart). Upon installing and restarting my machine, I tried to get Twitter for Mac. Yet I cannot sign into the Mac App Store — instead I get this error: MZFinance.NoGUIDTokenFailureKey_message

    This issue is not documented anywhere that I can find at this time, except for this discussion thread I started in the Apple Forums.

    There is rampant speculation as to what the problem is, but first here is what I have tried:

    • Restarting the Mac
    • A secondary Apple ID
    • Re-installing 10.6.6
    • Installing the 10.6.6 combo updater
    • Dumping ~Library/Cache and User/Library/Cache
    • Dumping all plist and files related to the App Store in Library/Application Support
    • Updating all credit card and billing info on the account.
    • Updating apps in iOS so that I can accept the new user terms of service.

    Here are some things I have learned about this problem:

    • People who have used a cloned drive to setup a new computer seem to be experiencing this problem the most.
    • Users with this problem report other Macs working with their login.
    • Speculation is that the Hardware UUID for people who used a clone on a new machine, or migration assistant is not reporting correctly, causing this problem.

    Solution

    See below.

    [Updated: 1/6/11 at 9:39 AM]
    Just got off the phone with AppleCare — they are looking into to the issue now and are currently at a loss. They will be calling me back in a few hours, I will update with any new news as it comes in.

    [Updated: 1/6/11 at 1:49 PM]
    I have heard back from AppleCare and they had me fill out a general form inputting the error code. The Rep I spoke with said that Apple feels confident that the error is on their end, not mine. This step could take well over 48 hours as I must wait for responses. If this step fails I was told there are other options, but these options are more “invasive”. I am not sure what that means, but it can’t be good.

    [Updated: 1/6/11 at 10:01 PM]
    AppleCare wanted me to try resetting the home folder and user ACLs using the re-installation disc. I did that with no success. I will let you know if I find anything else. Major bummer.

    Solved

    [Updated: 1/7/11 at 10:18 AM]

    AppleCare found the solution and it is rather simple. Now this solution has worked for me, but there is no guaranty that it will work for you.

    Solution: Go to Macintosh HD (or whatever you call your HD in Finder) > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration

    For there look for the file labeled: “NetworkInterfaces.plist”

    You need to move this file to the Trash, but do not delete it (an Administrator password will be needed for this). Before you restart your computer be sure you have network passwords and settings at hand, you will need this. If you have that reboot the machine and connect to your network.

    That is it. If the problem you had was the same as mine, this will solve the issue. If you are still having problems please contact Apple to work with them on the issue.

    Please email me if this does, or does not work for you. Good Luck!

  • Microsoft Needs to Learn from Apple’s Near Death

    I just finished watching Pirates of Silicon Valley – a sort of faux documentary on the rise of Apple and Microsoft. It was interesting to watch this film in the light of today’s world — when the movie was made no one knew that Apple would return from what looked to be certain death and come back to post a $300 billion market cap. Personally I don’t put much weight into the facts and events depicted in the film, nor should you, but you can see a lot of why things between Apple and Microsoft went they way they did. ((Such as why Jobs was kicked out of his company. Why Microsoft thinks the way they do. And so forth.))

    In the technology world there are two very important things: making something great for users, and being the first to ship. When you combine these two things you get products like: the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, Mac OS X. When you fail to meet one or both of these goals you get things like: Windows Vista, or the Kin.

    That is not to say that Microsoft is always wrong and Apple is infallible. No: both companies are wrong from time to time and both hit it out of the ballpark from time to time as well.

    I think as Apple fans we have this fear — irrational as it may be — that Apple will get tripped up the way they did in the late 80s through the mid 90s. We are massively off base with that fear — both Jobs and Apple have learned just how painful their mistakes of the past were.

    The problem I see is that Microsoft has yet to learn from Apple’s mistakes. There is a great scene in the movie when Gates, Ballmer, and Allen go to IBM to sell DOS. The character of Ballmer has a great line where he basically tells the viewer that Gates and Microsoft have no such operating system, but that Gates wanted to pitch it and sell it — then worry about shipping and making it. This is a theme carried out in the movie: Apple is visionary and makes neat stuff before Microsoft can; Microsoft just buys or “steals” what they can and ships it as quickly as possible with a wide channel of distribution.

    I don’t know how true, or if any part of the story depicted is true, but I think it is an apt reflection of the problems that we are seeing with Microsoft today, as well as companies like:

    • Google
    • RIM
    • HP
    • Other mobile device manufacturers ((One’s that aren’t called Apple.))

    What we are seeing is that these companies come out and announce all sorts of great sounding new products — yet by the time they are actually able to make and ship them the market has drastically changed, OR their product has drastically changed. This, I believe, is the greatest thing that Apple learned: keep your mouth shut, work hard, and ship as soon as you have something great.

    The movie perfectly shows the trouble that Apple, Jobs, and other companies ((Xerox)) got into by showing off products before they were ready to ship.

    Secrecy is a very hard thing for most companies to adopt. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and various other “small” companies are trying their best to strike a balance somewhere between Apple level secrecy and Microsoft level transparency. A healthy medium satisfies most customers, but is not the most beneficial method for the company because competitors are kept in the loop. Full transparency satisfies investors and consumers, but can be dangerous for companies because their competitors know exactly what they need to compete with. Full secrecy pisses off investors and consumers, but is mostly beneficial for the company keeping the secrets.

    Lets go back to Microsoft for a bit — last year at CES, CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage and famously announced slate tablets — tablets that he said would be awesome. ((I am paraphrasing.)) Ballmer made this classic Microsoft move as a way to try and quell rumors of a forth coming Apple tablet — one we now call iPad — yet a year later with Ballmer set to take the same stage, to presumably make the same announcement, we see very few slate tablets running Microsoft.

    Microsoft failed to ship.

    This won’t kill Microsoft, but it does hurt them both in the short and long term. Sales hurt in the short term and because the company survived the short term sales loss the executives running Microsoft will see no need to change their over arching philosophy: the pre-announcing nonexistent devices.

    If Microsoft does not wake up and fails to see a true financial hardship from making promises they can’t keep — what is to stop them from making more promises that they have no intention (or care) of keeping? I am not suggesting that Microsoft start being secretive — rather I think it is imperative for Microsoft to start being realistic about ship dates. They can’t afford to keep announcing things that never materialize.

  • My Year in Stats

    For all of 2010 I tracked various aspects of my life using Daytum, which collects and graphs various data that you enter. I became inspired to do this by the Feltron Annual Report — though I must admit my data is not incredibly accurate since I am not always perfect about recording stuff.

    I have held off writing about Daytum because I wanted to see what I would learn from using it to track random things. Here are some of the things that I learned:

    Email Sucks

    One thing that I tracked was my Email usage, specifically: amount received monthly, amount replied to monthly, and amount sent monthly (total, including replies). What was most interesting to me was how little I actually reply to emails — it seems I create more emails than I reply to them. Until I saw this I always thought that I spent more time replying to emails.

    email.png

    Kernel Panics

    I also decided to track my kernel panics, or lack of them. I average 2 months 11 days and 17 hours between kernel panics as of this writing — surprisingly high. In fact since 1/10 I only had 3 kernel panics and one complete computer freeze that resulted in having to force the computer off. I am hoping that most of this subsides with the MacBook Air (haven’t had one yet).

    kernel.png

    iPhone Crashes

    Like with my kernel panics I also tracked iPhone crashes: again I only had 4 this year. An average time between crashes of 3 months 20 days and 8 hours. Not too shabby.

    iphonecrash.png

    Personality

    I also tracked things relating to my personality:

    • I kept track of the amount of meaningful conversations I had this year and I counted 130 meaningful conversations on the year. Seven of those conversations were with complete strangers.
    • I was annoyed on average every 7 days.
    • Surprised on average every day.
    • I won one more bet than I lost this year.

    Overall the tracking I did on my personality showed me that I am decent at making wagers, I like to talk to in depth with strangers and that I am constantly surprised. I am glad that the annoyance factor isn’t higher! One last thing: when I shop online I order from Apple.com the most, then Amazon.com.

    orders.png

  • Traveling, Miami, Airplanes and Paid WiFi

    It is Jan 3rd, 2010 9:00a EST or 6:00a PST (aka the time zone I am accustomed to) and as I write this I am flying high over the U.S. aboard Alaska Airlines — returning from a quick trip to Miami, FL for my sister-in-law’s wedding. This trip could not have come at a worse time for me from a business stand point as I had a large amount of work to complete. I loaded up my standard compliment of travel gear and my MacBook Air — with the hope to get work done on the plane.

    MacBook Air and Flying

    On the way to Miami we flew coach and I was position in a middle seat. The work that I needed to do was in Adobe’s InDesign app (report design) and I can tell you that after 10 minutes of trying there was no comfortable way to do this type of work. A trackpad and a middle coach seat are not conducive to this type of work. I stowed my computer and caught some ZZZ’s before we landed.

    Fast forward to the end of our trip and on our return flight to Seattle my wife and I were able to finagle a cheap first-class ticket. First-class is far from an ideal spot to type in, but it certainly is not uncomfortable. I don’t care much for the distractions that in-flight WiFi offers so I have forgone paying for the service.

    I feel confident now in saying that the 13” MacBook Air is not usable for anything other than video watching in the coach cabin of Alaska Airlines — it is very usable in the first-class cabin. I would gather that you would be fine typing on an 11” model in coach, but heavy trackpad use would still remain challenging. The tray tables are a bit too high for natural typing and resting the computer on your lap will cause strain on your neck after a bit. Overall I was pretty happy with using the Air in first-class and miserable in coach with it.

    Sunny Isle, Florida & AT&T

    The wedding was held at the Trump International Hotel in Sunny Isle, FL and that is also where my wife and I stayed. We were fortunate enough to get a room on the 30th floor facing the ocean — a beautiful and distracting view. The Trump hotel and the area surrounding it offers some of the worst AT&T data speeds that I have ever experienced.

    The coverage seemed adequate (I usually had at least two bars), but the network speed was almost unusable. It was not unusual to not be able to refresh Twitter or check email. I had to precariously hold the phone on the top to get some Internet access.

    Pathetic.

    I talked to a few other AT&T users without iPhones as well as some Verizon users with Blackberries and everyone seemed to experience the same problems. From talking to some local residents this is the norm for that area, in part due to the amount of users in the area and also complicated by the tall structures and dense walls. Frustrating for sure.

    WiFi & MiFi

    As with most hotels, the Trump offered its guests WiFi Internet for a fee. There were two levels as I tweeted — the first was priced at $10 a day for 512kbps and the faster optioned was $13 a day for 1.5mbps access. Both were less than stellar options. I would be at the hotel for 5 days, and there was no way I would be willing to pay this monster rate for each of the five days.

    Instead I decided that I would use my Verizon MiFi, tethered to my Laptop via USB (doing this gives you slightly faster Internet speeds and infinitely improved MiFi battery life).

    This worked out great for the most part with the MiFi averaging a 4/5 bar signal strength on the EVDO network. The problem though: the internet speed I was getting was around 0.3MBPs — which is anything but good.

    The work I was doing was minimal (aside from uploading stuff to Flickr) so the Internet speed didn’t kill me, but it certainly was not enjoyable. Perhaps the fact that I am getting older is making me more frugal, but I just despise when hotels deem it necessary to charge guests for WiFi access.

    I will say this once more: cheaper hotels offer free WiFi and business travelers love it, expensive hotels charge you for crappy internet access and everyone complains. Perhaps expensive hotels need to pull a page from the Starbucks playbook and convert their WiFi to free. Starbucks is leading the charge in how to offer better customer service for a cheaper price — there is a reason I like to go to Starbucks for remote working — time to wake up hotel industry.

    Printing

    The second day at the hotel presented a new challenge: two people set to give toasts at the wedding were told that it was preferred that they not talk while reading from an electronic device — instead they were encouraged to use paper. No one brings a printer along though, so I being the resident geek was tasked with printing about 7 pages worth of stuff.

    I grabbed my iPad and MacBook Air and headed down to the business center. There were instructions for hooking up your laptop to print — though all were for PC users and not having a lot of time (and that I am not Rhone) I decided it would be best to use the PCs that were available.

    10 minutes, 14 pages and $24 later I was done. The computer cost $7.50 to use for 15 minutes and $0.50 for each additional minute. The black and white printing I did was priced at $1 a page. Outrageous. (I ended up printing two copies of each speech in two different formats to allow the reader to select which ever would be more comfortable for them to read.)

    Home

    Overall the trip was fun, but the AT&T network was unbearable and Verizon was hardly better. The 13” MacBook Air was a perfect companion once in the room and fit perfectly in the small room safe. My iPad was perfect all around once again.

    My iPhone made me understand why people want a Verizon model so badly and the hospitality industry is responding to the recession by adding fees instead of providing incentives for people to stay with them. Overall all this made me feel as though I was constantly being ripped off.

    I miss Seattle with its robust AT&T network. And my own bed.

  • Twitter for iPhone FAIL

    San Francisco we have a problem: Twitter for iPhone has become the most crashtastic app on my iPhone over the past month or so. I can’t pinpoint when this first started to happen but Ian Hines lamented on Twitter the other day:

    @twitter for iPhone crashes roughly 30% of the time. Unacceptable..

    For an app so good and as high profile as Twitter — this is hardly a good thing. On my iPhone it seems to happen most frequently when I am trying to reply to a Tweet, followed closely by the times that I am simply trying to tap out a Tweet. Normally I use a mix of Tweetie and my iOS devices, but while traveling this weekend Twitter for iPhone was my primary interface and it was frustrating to say the least.

    I am hardly in the mood to switch apps at this point, but I may be forced to if this continues much longer. Then the questions is what app do I switch too? I am not much of a Twitterific fan — Icebird seems nice, but is hardly great. Suggestions?

  • Back to the Future (Our Future)

    It occurred to me the other day, that today’s youth doesn’t know the world without things like: Facebook, Google, Broadband Internet speeds, Microwaves with butter softening settings ((Highly recommend, very cool option.)), waiting for food, not knowing where a person is, getting lost, and so much more. As you think about each of those — think about how different news delivery today is from what it was when you were a teenager.

    I get most of my news from an RSS reader and all my breaking news from Twitter and email alerts. Neither are very old systems

    With that in mind try to imagine what the world will look like in our life spans — hell what the world may look like in just 5 years. It is almost impossible to imagine these things — this is the reason that technology never ceases to excite me.

    Endless Possibilities

    What technology holds five years from now is not knowable — though we can discern a few things here and there. For example we know battery life improves every year and computers tend to always get lighter, smaller, and faster. We also know that internet speeds keep increasing, as do file sizes, as does the amount we pay to companies providing us with services we had never heard about a year ago.

    It is important to remember though that it is not just the big things that change our world — it is also the small things. Things like light sensing backlit displays, backlit keyboards, not having to screw cable connections into your computer. Those little things make life a whole lot easier and they change the way we work too.

    The Future

    Moving forward there are a lot of things that I want to see change and improve. Most of all I want to see us all using less paper — it is a violent medium that gives you some of the most painful cuts a grown man can experience.

    I also want to see better and cheaper broadband internet for the masses, helping to level the intellectual playing field. I want to see technology continue to push boundaries — wowing even the largest luddites.

    I want Google Maps with real-time satellite imagery.

    A Note on Our Past

    I love going on road trips, but every time I venture out I think about my childhood. Not because we spent a lot of time in the car, but because when I was a child getting lost meant: you were lost. It didn’t mean you would have to pull over and check Google Maps on your phone, or program in your GPS. You couldn’t even call someone from your car to ask for directions and help. If you were lost you had to go find an actual live person and ask them for help. ((Or read a paper map.))

    That is mostly lost on today’s generations. They will never know what it is like to simply not talk to a loved one during the day. Think about how before cell phones most people that left on a road trip would not check in until they made it to their destination. It could have been days without people knowing if they are alive and well.

    Today if I am on a road trip without my wife and I haven’t checked in with her recently I will get text or a call for sure. I don’t know if today’s kids are as paranoid about losing contact as people in my generation seem to be, but it is certainly an interesting paradigm.

    Cell phones have changed my world almost as much as the internet has — that is no small feat.

    Anyways

    All of this is just a fancy way of telling everyone to keep dreaming and make those dreams huge.

    Here’s to the future.

  • TBR to the Future

    When I started this blog back in April of this year my only goal was to get my blog out there and to do my best writing. Turns out that I have started on a good path with the first goal and I think my writing has only improved since day one.

    What I didn’t expect was to get some of the amazing emails I have gotten. Perhaps the most amazing thing that happened was that I have made some great new friends along the way — to all of you I want to thank you for your kindness and I look forward to our continued friendship.

    That Was Last Year

    Twenty-Eleven

    I
    want to make 2011 even more bad ass. I look forward to forging new friendships and starting new debates. Please don’t ever be shy about emailing me — even when I get overwhelmed by the amount of email I receive, I always crave a bit more.

    Most of all: tell me when you think I am wrong. I am always happy to debate, or even change my mind.

    There are two major changes that I am pushing right now to the blog:

    1. Ads: I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate to have been invited to join the Fusion Ad network. I had been reserving virtual space to get one ad on the site when I found the appropriate network and I think Fusion is that network. I look forward to joining the ranks of some outstanding blogs and I hope I can live up to the reputation associated with them.

    2. Logo: Until today everything on the site had been designed by me or adapted from other themes. Today though, TBR has a new logo designed by an amazing graphic designer and all around great guy: Aaron Mahnke of Wet Frog Studios. I took advantage of an offer he made on Twitter and decided that TBR could use a better logo. I am very happy with what Aaron came up with and I hope you enjoy it too. ((As a side note be sure to get in touch with Aaron if you have any kind of graphic design work you need done — you won’t regret it.))

    Miscellany

    A couple people send me links to stuff they think I might like and I would like to encourage all of you to send me tips and suggestions. Even if you just want to know what I think about something, or have something you think I should review — send them in.

    Thanks for a wonderful 2010.

    One last thing if you don’t see the new logo refresh again or dump your browsers cache and you should get it. Thanks

  • Confusion Happens When Print Tries to Imitate Web

    For better or worse one of the most popular trends on the Internet is to create infographics on topics (see a bunch here). Some of these graphics are stunning and really paint a nice picture, while others are, well, let’s just say others are less than helpful.

    Those who follow me on Twitter know that I am in Miami right now, last night I grabbed the red eye from Seattle to Miami in hopes of seeing Will Smith — only to find out contrary to the song) he doesn’t live in Miami full-time. ((That is not really why I am in Miami.)) Part of my airport ritual is to purchase a physical magazine to read during take off (when digital devices are not allowed), this time was no different.

    This time around I purchased Bloomberg Businessweek and it was a special ‘Year in Review’ edition that promised:

    365 days, 61 Charts, 289 Pictures, 7 Essays.

    businessweek_tmb_02.jpg

    I grabbed this issues because it appeared that Businessweek decided to make an entire infographic issue of a printed magazine. ((I realize infographics have been popular since before the web.)) So how did they do?

    Pretty shitty.

    businessweek_tmb_01.jpg
    businessweek_tmb_03.jpg

    I have never been more confused in trying to read a magazine ((More confusing that iPad apps.)), or just trying to figure out why all the numbers and charts and lines they are showing are important. I cannot recommend this issue of Businessweek to any of my dear readers.

    If you need a concrete example just look at the bottom left corner of the last picture — they are not saying that those percentages represent each half of the country — no they just put percentages randomly over the top of the country and then colored it differently to show how “equal” they are. Lame.

    Unrelated

    I had a goal once airborne to use my MacBook Air and InDesign to finish up a form for work — middle seat in coach on Alaska Airlines does not work so well for this task. I slept instead. In fact it doesn’t work at all for this task, I needed more elbow room to properly use the track pad — frustrating. More on this when I get back though.

  • F is for Failure

    Yesterday I posted about CNN’s list of the top ten technology failures for 2010 — in the linked list I wrote that I no longer trusted CNN and would not be reading them. Upon thinking about it more I find their entire list to be pretty silly. Here are CNN’s top ten failures in tech for 2010:

    1. iPhone 4 Antenna
    2. 3-D TV
    3. Microsoft Kin
    4. Nexus One
    5. Facebook Privacy
    6. Google Buzz
    7. Gawker Media Site Hack
    8. Content Farms
    9. Digg Relaunch
    10. iTunes Ping

    Apple deservedly makes the list twice — but this is hardly a list of the biggest tech failures and the iPhone 4 antenna issue is hardly at the top. Compare CNN’s list to LAPTOP Magazine’s list:

    1. Microsoft Kin
    2. Augen GenTouch78 Android Tablet
    3. AT&T 3G MicroCell
    4. Literati E-Book Reader
    5. Qik Video Chat
    6. Cisco Flip Side HD
    7. Google TV

    This list makes even less sense. Let’s look at PC Worlds ginormous list of failures, which were annoyingly put in a slideshow format:

    1.Google Buzz
    2. iTunes Ping
    3. Google Wave
    4. Net Neutrality
    5. Facebook Privacy
    6. McAfee’s False Positive 
    7. Palm Pre / WebOS
    8. HP Slate
    9. Android Tablets
    10. Nexus One
    11. JooJoo
    12. Plastic Logic Que
    13. Lost iPhone
    14. iPhone 4 Antenna
    15. White iPhone 4
    16. Blackberry Torch
    17. Ask.com
    18. Blockbuster
    19. MySpace
    20. Microsoft Kin

    This is probably the best list I have seen, but it is hardly definitive.

    With that in mind let me now rank how I see 2010’s biggest technology failures:

    1. BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
    2. White iPhone 4
    3. Microsoft Kin
    4. Slate Tablets announced at CES
    5. Google Buzz
    6. Google Wave
    7. Gawker Media Hack
    8. RIM
    9. Tumblr

    That is it, only nine things. So let’s talk about a few that made the list and why and then I will mention why I have omitted a couple of others.

    BP

    Many of you may be wondering why an Oil Spill constitutes a ‘technology failure’ — I would argue that BP and the U.S. failed to use all available technologies to resolve the situation. More so they failed to properly use technology to prevent the spill in the first place.

    Ignore the poor management of the clean up — a lot of technology failed to make the spill as bad as it was.

    Slates

    These were supposed to be huge, instead did one even ship with Windows on it? Ok — but they sure as hell didn’t live up to anyones standards. This was a massive technology and business failure.

    RIM

    Where the hell were they? Where is all the technology that they purported to be shipping? Ugh…

    Ping

    I left Ping off because if you re-read the definition above you will see that Ping did as advertised. Ping isn’t great and barely anyone uses it, but is that really worse than anything else on the list?

    iPhone 4 Antenna

    Did it stop users from buying it? If Kin makes the list for lack of sales than why would the iPhone 4 make the list…too many sales?

    Facebook Privacy

    I hate Facebook, but apparently I am in the minority. Yes, they are making things less and less private — but I don’t recall something worse than the other things on my list happening.

    Lists

    I didn’t really want to make a list, but I saw no way around it. So if Apple ships the White iPhone 4 before the 1st then you have me to thank. ((They read this blog…right?))

  • Instafixed

    A huge thanks to Marco Arment for not only fixing the bug mentioned earlier, but for doing so quickly.

    Marco Arment:

    Users affected will need to tap the grayed-out stories in the iPhone/iPad app and select “Redownload” to fix them. Sorry about that.

  • InstaFavor [UPDATED]

    [Updated: 12/29/10 at 11:23 AM] Thanks to all that emailed me — this looks to be a widespread problem for more than just my site. If you are seeing this please feel free to continue to report it and also report it to the developer of the apps that you are using. Thanks.

    [Updated: 12/29/10 at 11:27 AM] Marco Arment the developer of Instapaper emailed to say that he is working on the problem. Please don’t flood his email box anymore. Thanks for your help.

    To all readers using Instapaper for iOS could you please do me a favor and try to add this post to Instapaper by whatever means you usually do this. Once you do this can you sync your Instapaper account to your iOS device and let me know if the article shows up.

    I have been getting scattered reports that an article (not linked list items) are showing as “unavailable” in Instapaper for iOS. This of course annoys me to no end and must be incredibly frustrating for you — the reader.

    Shoot me an email to comments@brooksreview.net and let me know if it works for you or not and the steps you took.

    Instapaper appears to work just fine for the linked list items.

    Thanks!

  • A Thinner iPad Does Not Make a Better iPad

    I love reading rumors — the wishing/hoping/dreaming of what will be included in future gadgets fascinates me. Rumors give you a very clear idea of how far from reality certain people are and how in the “know” others are. The iPad and the iPhone are probably the two most rumored devices on the web, but one rumor about the iPad that has been making the rounds is starting to really bug me.

    Rumors keep saying that the next version (iteration?) of the iPad will result in a thinner device. That rumor bugs me a lot.

    Thin

    Just because a device is thin doesn’t mean that it will be better. ((I realize how stupid this sounds coming from the guy who praises the thinness of the MacBook Air — hang with me for a second.)) Pick up your iPad right now and try to imagine what it would feel like if it were thinner. For me I think the iPad would become far to uncomfortable to hold. In fact I think the iPad should retain its thickness and try to shed a few ounces instead.

    What makes the iPad feel large is not the thickness, or even the footprint, of the device: the fact that it weighs 1.5lbs is what makes the device feel large.

    The iPhone

    The original iPhone was 11.6 mm thick and the current iPhone 4 is only 9.3 mm thick. That is a massive reduction in your hand, and many people would like the iPhone to be even thinner. The problem: the thinner a handheld is device, the harder it is to comfortably hold said device in your hand.

    Go grab your wallet: pull out a few credit cards (3-4 should work). Stack them on top of each other and just hold them. Now pick up your iPhone 4 (if you have one). Which feels better in your hand? If you have an original iPhone go grab that, compared to the iPhone 4 I still prefer the way that the original iPhone feels in my hand.

    The curves of the original iPhone, coupled with the aluminum and the thickness, made it a joy to hold. I am not saying that the iPhone 4 doesn’t feel good in your hand — it just doesn’t feel as good as the original iPhone did.

    MacBook Air

    I love — love — the thinness of the MacBook Air, but if I had to choose between a thin laptop and a lighter laptop, I would choose the lighter one every time. Weight is far more important in laptops than the thickness is (to me). It just so happens that for the most part, thickness and weight go hand in hand.

    One thing that I can tell you about the MacBook Air is that when you carry it — like you would carry a book at your side — you will be holding it so that the thicker side is resting in your palm. The front edge of the Air is just too thin to comfortably hold. Feels like it might sever your hand if you hold it with the front edge in your palm.

    Back to the iPad

    There are a lot more things than thinness and less weight that I want out of the iPad first; to name a few:

    • More RAM
    • Longer battery life
    • High resolution screen
    • Faster processor
    • FaceTime camera

    With devices like the iPhone and iPad changing physical dimensions is way more involved than just ratcheting down the specs. If you change the overall thickest point by -1 mm then you have changed the entire curvature on the back of the iPad. In doing that small change you have also changed the entire way it fits and feels in the users hand.

    I honestly believe that a thinner iPad will be much less comfortable to hold. Especially one with a flat back.

    Flat

    There is another rumor that has circled talking about another thin iPad that has a flat back instead of a curved back. This is the last thing I want to see in the iPad. When the iPhone went from the original to 3G models and then to the 4 the iPhone backs changed as well: flat with curved sides, curved back, flat angular surfaces. The first iPhone feels the best in your hand and the 3G models feel the smallest. The 4 is the smallest iPhone yet, but it harder feels like it.

    This is what happens when you flatten out the back, the tactile response is completely changed.

    There is one problem though: using the iPad on the flat surface without a case/stand of some sort is impossible because the back is not flat. A flat back would make it far easier to take notes, in say a meeting, then the curved back does. (That wobbling effect the iPad does when you try to type with it laid flat on a table is far from “fun”.)

    So the question becomes: do you make the back flat so that people can create content on the device without a case or stand — or do you keep the curvature of the back to make the device a delight to hold?

    I don’t know if a happy medium exists here.

    A great example of this is the iPod touch — I am reluctant to mention it because I think it is the weight that is more impressive than the size — it too is massively thin and has a some what flat back and I don’t think it is more comfortable to hold than the iPhone is.

    Bottom Line

    To get at the heart of the matter: changing the thickness of a handheld device is not as simple as trying to make the case as small as possible. Changing the physical dimensions of the iPad in the slightest will result in a massive redesign in the shape and feel of the case.

    The original iPhone was aluminum on the back, the 3G and 3GS (both the same size) were plastic on the back, the iPhone 4 is glass and metal. Each size change drastically changed the materials used to make the device — the same will hold true for the iPad. You are fooling yourself if you think Apple will release an iPad of a different size that looks the same as the original iPad.

    If someone says the iPad is just going to get a bigger battery and be a little thinner then you need to be asking yourself how in the hell they are going to make it thinner. That, and you need to ask yourself if it really makes sense to the make the device thinner.

    Is Apple focused on making the iPad 2 a very thin svelte version of the original? Or, like with the iPhone is Apple focused on making the internal hardware specs the best they can and only when they are able to are they going to make it thinner?

    I think the internal hardware will change on the iPad — I don’t think that the external hardware will necessarily be thinner. I think a lighter iPad addresses far more complaints that a thinner iPad would. I have never heard someone pick up an iPad and say: “Wow this thing is thick.” I have heard many pick up an iPad and say: “Wow this is kind of heavy.”

    It just seems too soon to be worrying about a very good form factor when there are so many other obvious upgrades to be done. Other hardware manufacturers have yet to even come close to matching the form factor of the iPad — they can’t even make a tablet bigger than seven inches it would seem.

    Yes — Apple wants the best physical experience, but do they need it before they need to upgrade the internal hardware specs?

  • The Mighty Eagle Soars

    Last week Angry Birds for iOS got a huge update — I mean huge. They introduced “The Mighty Eagle” — a new bird in the game that can be purchased, in-app, for $0.99 and can only used once an hour. What makes this new bird such a big update has nothing to do with what it means for the game play — the big deal is the once an hour aspect.

    Initially I thought that the Eagle would only be available for every hour you played the game — meaning I would rarely get to use it. I used the Eagle to pass a level I had been stuck on for a while (on my iPhone, for whatever reason I passed the level on the iPad). Then I put away the phone and headed out for Christmas festivities — an hour later I got a push notification to tell me the ‘Mighty Eagle’ was once again ready to fly.

    What the hell?

    Sure enough the Mighty Eagle is available once every hour, no matter if you are playing the game or now. I immediately thought: “this is a game changer.”

    Game Changer

    Some of you still may not get why this is a game changing move by Angry Birds, so let me explain.

    How often do you play iOS games? If you are anything like me then you usually only play these games when you are bored and waiting for something else to happen. You play these games to waste small infrequent spots of time. Occasionally you grab your device with the decision that what you want to do right now is to play some games — mostly though iOS games are just time killers. ((Again this is true for me and most iOS users that I know — I am not saying that it is true for everyone.))

    When you get busy you forget about playing iOS games and just keep working.

    What happens though when an hour after you were ‘killing time’ your phone buzzes to remind you about your Angry Birds process? Of course that would be annoying, so Angry Birds has disguised this action as a notification that the Mighty Eagle is back to soar. ((And cleverly they charge you $0.99 for that reminder.))

    How cool is that? A genius move I’d say.

    I typically don’t play iOS games much— because I forget about them and because I am not really that ‘engaged’ in the game play. Here’s the thing though, over the course of Christmas day Angry Birds kept telling me the Eagle was ready and I kept flipping open the app to play for a bit — even though I rarely used the Eagle. Essentially Angry Birds reminded me of its fun and I kept getting pulled back in.

    Amazing.

    Now, I have since turned off notifications from Angry Birds, but I have to say this is a pretty clever feature on their part. Pretty clever indeed.

    Hidden Agenda

    I don’t know if this was the developers intention, but this update is truly impressive. Most iOS users only use a handful of the apps they download — especially with games. These apps are so cheap that most users will download apps, use them for a week and then forget about them for quite a while. With the Mighty Eagle update Angry Birds is taking a huge leap in making sure that iOS users will not forget how angry these damn birds are.

    This seems like a pretty good way to subtly remind your users that your app exists.

    [Updated: 12/27/10 at 6:08 AM] I am told you can use the Mighty Eagle continuously if achieve the ‘Total Destruction Feather’.

  • Support versus Workarounds

    You can either support a Mac or you can offer a workaround for Mac users. These are incredibly different concepts that seem to be utterly lost on my bank: Umpqua Bank (the self described “World’s Greatest Bank”). I have been inquiring with Umpqua about getting a remote checking deposit system in place for my Property Management company.

    I asked them to provide me with two bits of information:

    1. How much will it cost me?
    2. Is the system Mac compatible?

    The representative that I was speaking with said she would send that information over — that she too was a Mac user (personally) and was very interested in the answer to the second question. Neat.

    I then received an email today, that said ((I am paraphrasing here because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, mostly me.)) “We support Macs as long as they have Internet Explorer, the system doesn’t work with Safari.”

    What I read is: “we don’t support Macs.”

    The last shipping version of Internet Explorer for Macs (yes they used to make it) was version 5.2.3 and Microsoft announced in 2003 they would not be making any more versions. Most websites require at least version 5.5 to be compatible with modern security standards.

    What she really should have told me is that the system doesn’t support Safari and only runs on Internet Explorer — this statement would have at least been accurate. Instead she clearly stated that the software is Mac compatible. Semantics really.

    So I responded: That this was indeed not Mac support since Microsoft had not made a version of IE for Macs since 2003.

    If left at that I would have been fine — truth be told I would prefer to change banks anyways. This representative could not leave well enough alone and decided to challenge me on my technical understand of Macs and on semantics.

    She responded something to like this: “I have a Mac and use Boot Camp with Windows, allowing access to IE. So you can use IE on a Mac if you want.”

    You are kidding me right?

    So I responded: “I am not trying to pick a fight, but being able to run Windows on a Mac so that something works — in no way means that Macs are supported.”

    Frankly I won’t see what she responds to that as I have flagged her as a SPAM sender — I don’t have time for this crap.

    The problem here is not isolated to Umpqua — most large companies lack full Mac support and instead offer workarounds for Mac users. A workaround is not the same as supporting something. Support means it works without hassle — though admittedly with that definition you could argue that a great many companies don’t support Windows.

  • Giving the Gift of iOS

    Last night something rather interesting happened, my Wife’s Grandmother was gifted on iPhone 4 for her birthday (12/21). She promptly called us to share her delight and to ask my Wife a few questions about usability. The very first thing the two of them wanted to do was to FaceTime chat with each other (they live in Portland, OR; we are in Seattle, WA).

    This of course meant that my wife would have to get her Grandma to connect the iPhone to the WiFi network — by only talking her through it. What ensued was mildly amusing and frustrating for both my Wife and her Grandmother.

    The problem they were having was two fold:

    1. The Grandmother was not used to typing on the iPhone keyboard.
    2. My Wife was glossing over key steps — assuming too much knowledge of the user.

    Neither problem was either persons fault and eventually I had to help out a bit. Out of this though I want to give a few tips to readers — no doubt some of you will face these types of problems this Christmas.

    1

    First and foremost you need to understand that you are talking to a user that has no base understanding of iOS — telling them to press the home button is of no meaning to them. Be very clear and deliberate in the instructions you give. Do not tell them to press the ‘back button at the top’ — instead tell them to press the button with a point to the left at the top of the screen, the one that says “XYZ”.

    This type of deliberate clarity will help users to understand what you are talking about with minimal frustration. Once they press it I like to let them know that this is the standard spot to press for “going back”. People pick this up faster than you would think.

    2

    Passwords are a bear to enter for new users. You can’t see what you are typing in most password fields and nothing is more tiring that constantly being told you typed the wrong password. There are a couple of easy ways to solve this:

    1. Send the user a text message with the password and teach them to copy and paste it. This works great for stuff that people likely will never have to enter in again (like WiFi passwords). Or if the password is particularly complex.
    2. Have them create a note in the notes app with the passwords and then they can copy and paste — be sure they delete this and that they don’t store passwords there.

    Just because you never have problems typing in passwords on your iOS device doesn’t mean that others won’t have problems. They will. Being told they entered the wrong password multiple times in a row will turn a user off very quickly. ((Devs you really need to think about whether masking the password is necessary — most of the time you are only masking it from the person that already knows the password.))

    3

    The blue arrows (you know the ones on the WiFi screen) cause a lot of problems. When you are teaching someone how to add their WiFi network they may mistakenly click the blue arrow instead of just the network name. Be sure to explain which spot to tap when you are walking people through things.

    I often tell people to tap the network name, not the blue arrow. It can get confusing so make sure you know exactly what they are looking at.

    4

    Never just take the device and set it up for some one. It will cause three problems:

    1. They will not understand how to do this themselves.
    2. They will think things are more complex than they are.
    3. You will become the person they call every time they want to do something.

    I hate taking a device from someone, but I it can also be agonizing to walk them through it — especially when something that would take you 15 seconds takes them 5 minutes. Just remember that you were there once and everyone needs to start somewhere. Patience is paramount.

    5

    Explain the home button. Explain that it is not a back button and that it will always take you to the home screen. Call it the home button. It is the simplest button on the phone, but that does not mean that a new user will know what it does.

    6

    Open the app store, get them logged in, and have them download a free app. Have them download something you think they will enjoy. The goal is to showcase the app store and show how easy it is to get more apps. Take the fear out of this process.

    7

    Show off something that will blow their minds. For my Wife’s Grandma it was FaceTime. For others the voice commands on the iPhone may do it. There are a ton of options — I like to show off the live weather radar you can get in apps, oh and find my device from Apple. If you know what the person is into then you should have no problem with this.

    Fear

    The biggest problem facing new users is the fear that they may ‘break’ the device. I like to start by telling people that there is nothing they can break unless they drop the device on concrete. Anything that they do can be undone with relative ease. Once people know that they don’t have to fear screwing up — well they tend to have fun.

    This fear stems form Windows — the knowledge that if you plug that printer in to your USB port BEFORE you install drivers you will be in a world of hurt. Welcome these users to the Apple experience.

  • Quick Notes on the Squarespace iPad App

    Squarespace has been one of those companies that has intrigued me from day one. In fact I have a Squarespace site for hosting my Photography portfolio — I chose Squarespace because I wanted something cheap, easy and reliable. That is exactly what the service has been since I have been using it and I rather like it. Not in the way that I want to move everything I have to Squarespace, but in the sense that I have nothing bad to say about it and until recently, nothing great to say about it.

    Then they had to go and release an iPad blogging app that is bar none the best iPad blogging app out there.

    Damn. Now I kinda love Squarespace.

    The App

    I want to make two things clear: this is not a ‘formal’ review and this app is not just good because it is better than the meager offerings currently available on the iPad.

    There are still some very real glitches in the app — glitches that I would have hoped never made it through the beta period, but they did. Switching between comments and posts sometimes makes the UI cut off the top of a post in the preview. Scrolling is a little janky at times — which is very odd when you are used to the smoothness of iOS. The rest are minor UI problems that seem to stick when they shouldn’t.

    What makes the Squarespace iPad app so good is that it is leaps and bounds better than the web interface Squarespace gives you. It is infinitely less confusing to use.

    Using Squarespace in your web browser makes you feel like you are building single web pages — not like you are using a sophisticated CMS. Using the iPad app makes you feel like your Squarespace account is an actual blogging account — that is no small feat.

    Everything that can be done in the app is done beautifully — the entire app reminds me of Reeder. The stylings are very similar. There really isn’t much else to say since the app is free I encourage you to give it a try for yourself.

  • RIP Things

    I have thought a little more on the blog post by Cultured Code from yesterday and the more I think about it the more I despise it. Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is (which is funny given the demand for OTA sync you would think that Cultured Code was the one that didn’t know what it was). Ignore that OTA sync is still a few months away. Ignore everything but: the wallpaper and speed.

    The Wallpaper

    They have got to be kidding me with this wallpaper crap right?

    Cultured Code basically offers a wallpaper as an apology — a wallpaper that looks like yet another patronizing act. Don’t be fooled by this; I have made you a better wallpaper.

    ota-tmb.png

    You can get it here.

    Speed

    Do you know how long people have been wanting OTA sync for things, since July 10th 2008 (2008).

    Here is what Cultured Code said about syncing upon releasing the iPhone app:

    Second, syncing with the desktop version of Things is not yet possible in 1.0. Based on your feedback we decided that seamless over the air sync with the desktop version is a must.

    Yeah…

    By comparison OmniFocus for iPhone in a preview stage still had OTA sync back on June 15th, 2008.

    Change

    Here’s the thing: I have written about Things versus OmniFocus a few times (here and about OTA here) — each time I basically said that both programs are great and if you don’t need OTA sync it is a real toss up. I am a huge OmniFocus fan, huge, but I have a respect for Things and think it is a great app too.

    I have always said you really can’t go wrong with either app — always thinking that OTA sync was just around the corner for Things.

    Until today: I think you are throwing away good money if you buy Things at this point. The development has stalled and seems hell bent on only releasing bug fixes. OTA sync should have been done over a year ago — I just can’t recommend this app anymore.

    That kind of makes me sad, but spend your Holiday money on a copy of OmniFocus. As I have said before you really can get away with the iPad version only to start out with.