The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • 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.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: My New Travel/Office Headphones

    I purchased these Sennheiser PX 200 II i headphones on a recommendation from Marco and took them with me on the plane to San Francisco. Not only are they nice and compact, but they are incredibly comfortable.

    I typically don’t go for headphones that are on-ear. My ideal headphones are over the ear style after which I I used to prefer in-ear buds — but no more. This was the first plane flight where I wasn’t messing about with my in-ear headphones, trying keep them in my ear, or trying and find a more comfortable position.

    They are priced right too.

  • An Amazon Store in Seattle?

    Laura Owen:
    >A new report suggests that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is opening a small, Kindle-focused retail store in Seattle to test whether the concept could be expanded to other markets.

    Sounds like the idea is that they would sell Kindles, accessories, and Kindle exclusive books. It’s interesting to me mostly because I can’t help but wonder what such a store would look like.

    It stands to reason that Amazon might copy the Apple Store model that Microsoft also hijacked, but then again Amazon also doesn’t seem to mind being a bit different. I’m not talking just about the products they would stock, but how those products are displayed and how the staff interacts with customers.

    I think such a store would reveal a heck of a lot about Amazon.

    More than anything, opening a physical store, seems to go against everything that Amazon is and everything Amazon has built up.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 45: A Slightly Better Pedigree of Americanos

    >Shawn and Ben talk about coffee and Americanos, the Samsung Galaxy Note and its revolutionary new stylus, and then they go down the rabbit hole known as ‘Ben’s Paranoia’ as they discuss Google and social networks.

    Brought to you by the fine folks behind [Doxie Go](http://www.getdoxie.com/a/bbpodcast_feb12.php) and [Jumpchart](https://www.jumpchart.com/).

  • ‘PSA: WD40 Will Not Fix Your Home Button, May Damage Your iPhone or iPad’

    Allyson Kazmucha for iMore on the WD-40 home button “fix”:

    >WD-40 may be non-conductive but the solvent in it will break down plastic. Your home button is plastic as well as some of the internal parts. Your speaker assembly is plastic and sits directly below your home button.

    [Exactly](https://brooksreview.net/2012/01/wd-40-trick/).

  • ‘Speculative Developers’

    David Sparks on speculative developers:
    >Don’t make 60 crappy apps: Make one really good one.

    These types of developers along with those that simply copy other developers are really ruining the experience for geeks and non-geeks alike.

    At least, it seems, Apple is [starting to crack down](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/40101/Apple_removes_several_iOS_copycat_games_from_one_offending_developer.php) on some the more obvious copycat offenders in the App Store.

  • ‘It’s Got a Pen?’

    That’s the key line in Samsung’s Super Bowl ad for it’s new pen based tablet/phone thing.

    I didn’t comment when the ad came on, but here’s roughly what I heard in the room I was standing in:

    – “Bwahahaahahah, is that a tablet or a phone?”
    – “My old Palm Pilot had a pen…”
    – “Mine too, do you still have your Palm?”

    Two thoughts about this:

    1. If your brand new product is being compared to a Palm Pilot, then you have already lost.
    2. If the first feature of a new touchscreen device that you want to tout is a stylus — perhaps you need to rethink that device.

  • ‘Over 3 Years Later, “Deleted” Facebook Photos Are Still Online’

    Jacqui Cheng:
    >In the meantime, photos that users thought they “deleted” from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link.

    I think it is safest to assume that once a photo, or anything really, is online it is out there permanently.

  • ‘Weblining’

    Lori Andrews:
    >The term Weblining describes the practice of denying people opportunities based on their digital selves. You might be refused health insurance based on a Google search you did about a medical condition. You might be shown a credit card with a lower credit limit, not because of your credit history, but because of your race, sex or ZIP code or the types of Web sites you visit.

    If you use Google, or any social network, then this is a must read.

  • iMovie vs Avid Studio

    Leanna Lofte:
    >Both iMove and Avid Studio can do the basics that you would expect from any video editor. You can insert videos, photos, and music, trim clips, add titles, and export to YouTube. Unfortunately for iMovie, this is where the similarities end.

    Glad she wrote this up — I have been really curious how the two stack up. Sounds like Avid is the real deal and should only get better.

  • The iPad’s split keyboard has phantom buttons.

    That’s clever. I rarely see the need for the split keyboard, but I’m glad to see it wasn’t as much as of an afterthought as it first seemed the keyboard was.

  • Tumblr Introduces Another Revenue Stream… Maybe

    David Karp on the Tumblr Staff blog:
    >For one dollar, your post will stand out in the Dashboard with a customizable sticker to make sure your followers take notice!

    I am reminded of [this quote from Art Webb](http://quotesondesign.com/art-webb/):

    >If you make everything bold, nothing is bold.

  • Apple Already Patched the FileVault 2 Hack?

    According to this support document (you need to be logged in to view it) Apple says that 10.7.2 and Security Update 2011-006 did the following:

    >Impact: A person with physical access may be able to access the user’s password

    >Description: A logic error in the kernel’s DMA protection permitted firewire DMA at loginwindow, boot, and shutdown, although not at screen lock. This update addresses the issue by preventing firewire DMA at all states where the user is not logged in.

    >CVE-ID

    >CVE-2011-3215 : Passware, Inc.

    That sounds an awful lot like it patched the [previously report security vulnerability of FileVault 2](https://brooksreview.net/2012/02/filevault-hack/).

    [via reader Matt S]

  • ‘Ice Cream Sandwich Now on 1% of Android Devices’

    Vincent Messina:
    >That’s right, Ice Cream Sandwich now occupies 1% of Android devices according to this month’s Android Platform Distribution chart.

    He does note that Gingerbread is on 58.6% of Android devices. For those not familiar with the ridiculous naming system in Android, Gingerbread is versions 2.3-2.3.7 and Ice Cream Sandwich (the newest) is version 4.0-4.0.3.

    In other words it is big news that software that is two versions old is now on the majority of devices and that three months in 1% of devices are using the latest version of Android.

    What a mess.

    I’d be pissed if I bought a new Android phone on a two year contract and was still stuck on Gingerbread.

  • Apple Removed Products From German Online Store Due to Motorola Injunction Based on FRAND Patent

    Florian Mueller reports that Apple had to pull the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4 (not 4S) and the 3G iPad models from its online store to comply with a Motorola injunction. I’d be pissed at Motorola if I lived in Germany.

    This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while now. Say you are a diehard Apple fan and you also love Google, just not Android phones. Google wins a patent spat against Apple and now, all of a sudden, the Apple products that you can buy are restricted. Maybe you can’t get the latest tech when you want it.

    Does this kind of result make you more or less an Apple fan? Does this make you more or less willing to buy Android or Google products, knowing that they are the cause of these restrictions?

    I find it interesting the damage that can come from protecting your own intellectual property.

    [In other news](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/motorola-wins-german-injunction-against.html): Germans can’t use the push feature of iCloud email anymore.

    **Update**: [That was short lived.](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/appeals-court-grants-apple-temporary.html)

  • ‘Mac OSX Lion’s Scroll Breaks the Web’

    Since we are on the topic of linkbait, here is a post from Teambox. The general idea of this post is this: they have a horizontally scrolling web app, but because of the way that Lion implements (by default) horizontal scrolling some users end up moving backwards in their web history instead of scrolling the Teambox web app.

    After they did (I am sure) copious amounts of research, the people at Teambox have decided that Lion:

    >[…] breaks the web with a non-standard behavior, and gives you no JS API to prevent it.

    The funny thing is, does it really “break the web”? Nope, just checked and I could still use “the web”. What about the non-standard part? Well it comes *standard* on all new Macs this way, so I am going to go ahead and say that this is 100% a standard feature for most all Mac users.

    What this article is really about is a web app that doesn’t work well with Lion’s new default behavior, thus breaking this one particular web app. What this isn’t about is “breaking the web”.

  • Topher Kessler, A Hack

    Topher Kessler writing about the [same FileVault 2 vulnerability that I just posted a Macworld link to](https://brooksreview.net/2012/02/filevault-hack/), writes about the sensationalist headline, but not the information that readers need to know. Macworld specified the conditions under which the hack can happen: FireWire port and user needs to be logged in.

    Kessler just says that anyone with this $995 software can crack a FileVault 2 disk in no more than 40 minutes using a FireWire port. Which is a line of bullshit. The most important part is that the user must already be logged in — that gives every FileVault 2 user an easy way around the security hole: logging out.

    It’s one thing to write a craptastic-linkbaiting headline, but it’s an entirely worse offense to not even give readers the full details of the story you are writing about.

    Pathetic.

  • Apple FileVault 2 Encryption Cracked by Forensic Software

    John E Dunn for Macworld on a new “forensic” piece of software that can crack into Apple’s FileVault 2 encrypted systems:
    >Put another way, the product cannot extract encryption keys on static data or before the keys have been summoned as part of the logging-in process. As long as the login is not automatic users should be safe.

    >In the case of FireVault, hackers also need to get to the memory contents through a working FireWire port so remote access is not possible.

    I am guessing that a locked screen will still count as “logged in”. So if traveling it might actually be a fantastic idea to actually turn your laptop off so that this software cannot be used to hack into it.

    One other interesting thing is that FireWire must be used. I am assuming you could use Thunderbolt to get a FireWire port, but what about on my 2010 MacBook Air that has only USB?

    **Update**: [Thomas Brand](http://eggfreckles.net/) chimed in to confirm my suspicions about Thunderbolt:

    and:

  • Windows Phone 8 Preview

    Paul Thurrott:
    >Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo, will be based on the Windows 8 kernel and not on Windows CE as are current versions. This will not impact app compatibility: Microsoft expects to have over 100,000 Windows Phone 7.5-compatible apps available by the time WP8 launches, and they will all work fine on this new OS.

    That’s interesting and in reading his post it sounds more and more like Windows Phone 8 will be very similar to Windows 8. That is: it will be a sibling to Windows instead of a cousin to Windows.

    I am not sure if this will be good or bad, but if they can pull it off while maintaining app compatibility (even while adding more screen resolutions) it should be a win.

  • ‘Against the Wall’

    Marco Arment on Google’s position in social networking and thwarting competitive threats:
    >It’s easy not to “be evil” when you’re ahead. But when you’re backed into a corner and your usual strategies aren’t working, it’s easy to get frustrated, scared, and angry, and throw previously held morals and standards out the window.

    Be sure to also read his footnote, as it is a great summary of the interesting wording chosen for Google’s mantra.