The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Your Email is Not Secure

    Max Masnick, arguing that Google reading your emails should be the least of your concerns:

    >Email is simply not secure. Messages are not secure in transit: the protocol used for sending email (SMTP) does not require encrypted connections, so it could easily be intercepted by a third party as travels over the internet. You also have no guarantees about the security of a recipient’s email client or server.

    He makes great points, not to mention that there’s nothing stopping the recipient from posting your email on thier blog. However I don’t think that all the other security risks associated with email should make you dismiss the privacy invasion you grant Google when you use Gmail.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 46: BlackBerry Withdrawal

    >Shawn and Ben talk about cellphone fanboy rankings in Kansas City, iPad 3 rumors, and Ben’s ideas about the model that Kickstarter is using (Shawn brings some rationality into that discussion).

    Thanks to our excellent sponsors: [Doxie Go](http://www.getdoxie.com/a/bbpodcast_feb12.php) and [Jumpchart](https://www.jumpchart.com/).

  • ‘Your Phone Loses Value Pretty Fast (Unless It’s an iPhone)’

    Priceonomics:
    >Not all cell phones are created equal. You can buy an iPhone 4S today and sell it a few months later on the secondary market for almost what you paid for it. However, if you buy the latest big fancy Android phone, a few months later it has lost hundreds of dollars in value.

    I wonder if this has much of anything to do with popularity/design, because you have to think the slow rate at which Apple releases iPhones, compared to the rate at which new Android phones comes out, plays a huge role in this.

    Priceonomics also noted this underlying assumption that they make:

    >At Priceonomics, we firmly believe that resale value is the best objective indicator of product quality.

    I couldn’t disagree with that statement more. There are far more factors controlling the resale value of cellphones. Things like:

    – Gazelle, or any other company wanting to buy back the phone. Why would you sell your iPhone for less than what Gazelle is offering — this pumps up the price.
    – Apple refurbished units set the price for mint condition used phones.
    – Carrier subsidies: because maybe I am willing to pay $25 more than what I could buy the phone new for, just so I didn’t have to be locked into a contract.

    All this plays a large role in determining price — much larger, I think, than product quality.

    [via Macworld]

  • ‘Attempt to Criminalize Tweets That Solicit Law-Breaking Fizzles in Oregon Legislature’

    Harry Esteve on the proposed law: ((Meanwhile Washington is [inches](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-gay-marriage-washington-idUSTRE81727F20120209) away from legalized gay marriage.))
    >It was dubbed the “flash mob” bill when it got a hearing Monday at the Oregon Legislature — a proposal to make it a felony to summon people by Twitter or email to commit a crime at a designated place.

    and:

    >Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, said he asked for the bill because he heard from retailers about being victims of flash mobs that steal stuff.

    and then:

    >”If someone wants to bring a whole bunch of people to the Capitol to demonstrate, no problem,” he said. “But if they’re solicited to come to the Capitol at 9 p.m. to firebomb the place, that’s a problem.”

    The man does have a point, I mean, firebombs are **not** cool. ((As if we needed another reason not to live in Oregon, Sen. Whitsett wants to make sure we point and laugh.))

  • Windows on Arm

    Or WOA, as Steven Sinofsky highlights in his post about porting Windows 8 to the ARM architecture. Sinofsky also answers one of the bigger questions about WOA, will it run “full” Windows:
    >WOA supports the Windows desktop experience including File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, and most other intrinsic Windows desktop features—which have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption.

    To be honest I am not sure what the hell that statement means. What I think it means is that, yes, you will get full Windows — but that full Windows will have been optimized for tablets running ARM chips.

    I think.

  • ‘US Government Dumps BlackBerry in Favor of iPhone, iPad for NOAA’

    Since the iPhone came out lawyers and government officials have always said (to me): “I can’t use the iPhone because person/agency/department X doesn’t (or doesn’t allow it).”

    I never understood this. Corporate offices have clung to their BlackBerry devices so it is nice to see these organizations make the move.

  • ‘iOS Address Book Access Should Prompt the User for Permission’

    Marco Arment:
    >But Apple can, and should, assure users that no app can read their contact data without their knowledge and explicit permission.

    Yep.

  • The iPad at Work Experiment

    Dan Moren, wrapping up his three day test of the iPad as his *only* machine for work:
    >That’s perhaps the biggest change in switching from a Mac to the iPad: The technology becomes almost transparent. You are simply writing, or reading, or browsing. It’s all about the task itself, while the technology you’re using fades into the background.

    That’s largely been my experience too, so it comes down to whether you like that or not — because it can be quite confusing. Moren wrote a three part series and you should definitely read up on them.

  • Path Deletes All User Uploaded Data

    Path CEO Dave Morin:
    >We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path.

    Well done.

  • Now Available: HP Slate 2

    Hey HP.

    Let me wrap my head around something.

    You killed off the TouchPad — perhaps the most interesting iPad competitor — because it wasn’t selling well and everyone was confused as to what HP was doing.

    Now though (in light of all that confusion passing?), you launch a brand new HP Slate — the same type of device that Ballmer famously tried to upstage the iPad with (before the iPad launched)?

    That just seems silly.

    Surely this is all a joke, right?

  • It’s Easy to Make a Mistake

    A great take on the Path screw up by Brent Simmons, as he shares how these types of mistakes are made on the developer side of things.

  • WeatherMin

    Dan Frakes has a nice look at a Mac app called WeatherMin — it reminds me a lot of how I display the weather on my desktop using [Nerdtool](http://mutablecode.com/apps/nerdtool). Should be a good option if Nerdtool is, well, too nerdy for you.

  • ‘Hipster Uploads Part of Your iPhone Address Book to Its Servers’

    Mark Chang:
    >Inspired by [this post](http://mclov.in/2012/02/08/path-uploads-your-entire-address-book-to-their-servers.html) (which you should all read), I looked at the apps on my own iPhone for information leakage by other apps. I figured this would be common practice, and lo and behold, when booting up Hipster, it seems like parts of my iPhone address book were being uploaded to Hipster. Here’s the breakdown, done in the style of Arun Thampi (the author of the first post).

    One interesting thing that I saw floating around the web, about all this address book uploading that is happening on iOS, is this idea that an App must ask for permission to use your location, but doesn’t need to do so before it grabs everything in your address book and uploads it to their servers.

    Apple needs to change this. Now.

  • ‘Hey Path, Just Nuke All the Data’

    Michael Arrington:
    >Path should just state that they’re nuking all collected address book data for all users right now. Remove it from their servers entirely.

    Agreed. ((Quick, anyone know if I have ever agreed with Arrington before?))

  • Picture: Galaxy Note next to iPhone 4S

    Holy giant phone Batman.

  • ‘Path Uploads Your Entire iPhone Address Book to Its Servers’

    Arun Thampi:
    >Upon inspecting closer, I noticed that my **entire address book (including full names, emails and phone numbers) was being sent as a plist to Path**. Now I don’t remember having given permission to Path to access my address book and send its contents to its servers, so I created a completely new “Path” and repeated the experiment and I got the same result – my address book was in Path’s hands.

    Not cool.

  • Chrome for Android

    MG Siegler on Google porting Chrome for Android devices:
    >Say I have 5 tabs open in Chrome on my iMac and I get up to leave my home. I can see all 5 in Chrome for Android. And if I have 3 other tabs open on my MacBook Air, I can see those as well, all labeled and separated.

    Sounds like a huge step forward for Android users (and would be awesome to get in iOS), but:

    >Back to the bad news: some of the more advanced features of Chrome for Android require APIs found only in Ice Cream Sandwich, so the team made the call to make it only available for Android 4.0 and beyond. Again, this means only 1% of current Android users out there can actually get and use the browser right now.

  • Tweet of the Day: Dan Frommer

    “Google, once the poster child for simplicity, has become Microsoft. Try managing a Google Apps domain for the full experience.”
    — Dan Frommer (@fromedome) February 7, 2012

  • ‘Samsung Shoots at Apple, Hits the Customer’

    Shawn Blanc on Samsung’s odd Super Bowl ad:
    >Whomever it was that Samsung was trying to advertise to, they managed to insult instead.

  • A Succinct Description of Starbucks

    Frank Chimero on why he likes to write at Starbucks:
    >I can focus on the words, because the rest of the environment is vignetted in a fuzziness produced by its lack of opinion on the world.

    Well said.