The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • How to View Private Facebook Photos

    So glad I am not on Facebook. Also here are [Mark Zuckerberg’s private photos](http://imgur.com/a/PrLrB).

    Update: I am hearing this has now been patched.

  • Productive Macs Productivity Software Bundle

    Worth it to snag a copy of Fantastical, BusyCal and LaunchBar if you don’t have those already.

  • Inside iPhone 4S US Mobile Data: AT&T vs Sprint vs Verizon

    Apple Insider’s Daniel Eran Dilger reports on carrier speeds:
    >Bottom line: AT&T is already fastest in general, significantly faster on average, and has far more room to grow in progressively rolling out even faster speeds to existing iPhone users over the next couple years.

    He topped out at 5.4Mbps on the downlink. The fastest I have observed on my AT&T 4S is 6.38Mbps down. The data collected largely shows what should already be “known” given the network technologies at play.

  • ‘I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore’

    Dan Pallotta on the absurd nature of our world:
    >There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.” The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do. My expectation is not to have signs around that tell me you want to exceed my expectations.

  • Android Glitch Allows Hackers to Bug Phone Calls

    Dan Goodwin:
    >Computer scientists have discovered a weakness in smartphones running Google’s Android operating system that allows attackers to secretly record phone conversations, monitor geographic location data, and access other sensitive resources without permission.

    Yikes.

    [via DF]

  • Olympus Covered Up $1.67 Billion in Losses

    Samantha Murphy:
    >Olympus has been under fire since its CEO Michael Woodford was terminated about two months ago — just weeks after he joined the global camera maker — for publicly voicing his concerns about the company’s allegedly shady business acquisitions.

    Murphy notes the “covered up” losses date back 20 years. Yikes.

  • Some Bad Advice

    Dan Seitz writing for Guyism.com about the tablets you should avoid this holiday shopping season:
    >The Apple iPad 2: Why are we recommending you not bother with this one? Because the iPad 3 is inevitable next year, and there might even be two of them. It’s not worth $500 for a device that will be obsolete in three to five months.

    Stupid advice. Even if a new iPad came out in January the iPad 2 is still a great buy and will be useable for at least the next 2-3 years. The iPad 2 is the *only* tablet you should be buying.

  • Amazon Kindle Fire Owners Reporting Wi-Fi Bug

    I noticed that the Fire gets worse WiFi reception that just about any other device I have owned since 2008. It get’s one bar shy of full when placed about 10 feet from my router.

    This issue, however, is something that I have not experienced.

  • Splash Screens

    Brent Simmons illustrates what’s wrong with publishers today by sharing a story of a publication being willing to delay the app launch in order to accommodate the display of an animated splash screen. Amazing.

  • Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed in Street-Roving Vans

    You have got to be kidding me. Andy Greenberg notes:

    >But EPIC’s Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. “Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” he says. Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure, he points out. “If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”

  • ‘Rote Simplicity’

    Frank Chimero:
    >I’m skeptical of rote simplicity. It’s good for the people making digital tools to simplify their job and make one tiny widget, but a swarm of tools that all do one tiny thing well is still a complex system for the user to manage.

    The “one thing well” idea is great, but only for a small subset of tasks. The Google Chromebook (supposedly) does one thing well: runs the web. Yet not many people want that experience.

    It’s one thing to make small apps for my iPhone that each do a particular task really well — while being a completely different thing to make an iPhone that only does one thing well. The simplicity in the iPhone is that every thing it does out of the box it does very well — without requiring extra things.

    It can be quite tiring to check 45 different apps.

  • Allow Airline Passengers to Use Electronic Devices in ‘Airplane Mode’ During Takeoff and Landing

    A petition over at WhiteHouse.gov to:
    >Allow devices that have “Airplane Mode” to be used during taxi, takeoff, and landing through revising FAA regulation.

  • Gowalla Is Going to Facebook

    Josh Williams makes it official on the Gowalla blog today:
    >Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.

    Gowalla in its original state was far superior to Foursquare. With recent updates it failed to be useful for me, but it is still sad to see it go.

  • ‘Am I going to beat you through the security line?’

    Michael Lopp wrote about moving from a messenger bag to a backpack. This is a fantastic look at the thought behind choosing a great bag. I love Tom Bihn’s products and the [Ristretto that I use](https://brooksreview.net/2011/02/new-bag/), but I think I am going to give a backpack a try after reading this.

    The primary problems with the Ristretto are:

    1. It doesn’t scale well.
    2. Nothing in it every feels truly secure. (I have watched things slide out of it during take-off.)

    Here’s to backpacks? We’ll see.

  • [SPONSOR] OmniFocus

    You have goals — use OmniFocus to reconstruct fragments of ideas or projects into actionable steps to complete those goals.

    Move the responsibility of remembering daily tasks from your brain to OmniFocus — gather everything into the Inbox for later review, and then organize those bits into folders, projects, actions, and contexts.

    OmniFocus is as simple or advanced as you decide to make it, and available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone with free cloud sync. Move past mere task management and get things done with precision.

    Read more about OmniFocus [here](http://click.syndicateads.net/2011/11/Omni-1/brooksreview.html).

    ### Editor’s Comment ###

    That’s what the OmniGroup has to say about OmniFocus. If you search this site for “OmniFocus” you will get [237 results](http://www.google.com/search?q=OmniFocus&site=brooksreview.net&domains=brooksreview.net&sitesearch=brooksreview.net). That’s quite a bit. [Here is my longstanding thought about OmniFocus](OmniFocus):

    “As of right now there is no doubt in my mind that it is worth twice as much money.”

    There are a lot of things on my Mac that I could use to replace other apps and I would get by just fine. But OmniFocus is completely irreplaceable to me.

  • Justin Williams on Magazines and the iPad

    Here’s Justin Williams’ advice to magazines on the iPad:
    >The iPad is a great opportunity to reach beyond traditional paradigms. Explore them and see what works.

    There isn’t a single iPad magazine that takes true advantage of the iPad in way that many other apps do. Williams’ criticism of *GQ*, *Esquire* and *Sports Illustrated* are spot on and I agree with every point he makes.

    Moreover I have been at the airport and purchased a paper issue of Esquire before because I knew that I wouldn’t have time to download the issue before I had to jump on the plane. That’s just pathetic to think about — especially so compared to how fast I can download (likely) more articles in Instapaper.

    So much of the bad magazine experience can be directly tied to the advertising shoved into the magazines.

    Fix it.

  • Let’s Stop With the Siri Baiting

    Adam C. Engst:
    >Siri can be useful, and is a whole lot of fun to demo, but it’s unreasonable to read anything more — certainly not Apple corporate policy — into Siri’s successes, failures, and little asides.

    This entire drama over Siri is so stupid I can’t believe people got mad about it. ((Well I can believe it, but what happened to common sense?))

  • Congressman Barney Frank’s Best Insults

    My favorite:

    >What the hell is wrong with you?

  • EA Relaunches Tetris on iOS With a $30/Year Subscription

    When you read the above title you probably are thinking: “that’s nuts.”

    Actually EA sells Tetris for $0.99 and then using an in-app purchase you can become a member of the T-Club, this gets you random crap you likely don’t want, for the $30/yr price.

    What’s really interesting is how much they have messed up the look of Tetris. Just look at the [screenshots](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tetris/id479943969?mt=8) — looks hideous.

  • Apple Licensed iOS Scrolling Patent

    Nilay Patel reporting on the licensing of an iOS scrolling patent claims that the following has been licensed in the past:
    >The patent in question is #7,469,381, which covers the distinctive “scrollback” behavior of iOS that displays a background texture when you scroll beyond the edge of a document of webpage.

    Apparently Nokia and IBM licensed this patent. Interesting given Jobs’ comments in his biography.