The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • AgileBits Thanks-to-You Sale

    Fifty percent off 1Password this weekend. This is a must have app for me.

  • AT&T Withdraws FCC Application for T-Mobile Merger

    Todd Haselton:
    >AT&T said Thursday that it has withdrawn its application from the Federal Communications Commission to acquire T-Mobile USA.

    And there was a collective sigh of relief heard throughout Bellevue, WA today.

    On another note: AT&T is preparing to pay a $4 billion break-up fee.

  • Black Friday Deals

    Some nice links from Bare Feats, including one to get $100 off of Adobe’s Lightroom 3 — an excellent application.

  • ‘The Problem With Stamped’

    Steve Lyb on what he perceives to be the “problem” with Stamped:

    >The problem with this approach is that you will make the conscious effort to stamp only things that you think others might give you credit for.

    I completely see what he means here because that was my initial assessment: what happens when I run out of stamps? I am addicted to Stamped, and as of right now I have 603 stamps available to me. I started with 100. I have stamped 28 things.

    Now you may say: well that’s easy because you have more followers. But think about the way the service works. If you stamp something and another person stamps that thing, giving you credit, then you get 2 stamps.

    Even if you only have a dozen followers you likely will never run out of stamps so long as you stamp one thing that someone else wants to stamp — that’s not very hard.

    I stamp obscure things because I love seeing people adding those things as a “to-do” — what a great way to share something with people that they otherwise didn’t know about.

    I am guilty of stamping things that we all love, but I am also trying to balance that with things I think you may have never heard of (my favorite Seattle locales and favorite whiskeys). Lyb’s concern isn’t unfounded, but come back in a month and I bet all the common things in your timeline (Instapaper FTW!) will not be the things you see in your Stamped list.

    As the service matures so will the stamps, and as the stamps mature they will get more specific and obscure — if for no other reason than the popular things will have all been stamped.

    No, the *real* problem with Stamped is the business model — or lack there of.

  • What Should You Do if Someone Puts a Gun to Your Head?

    Good question, luckily Justin Freeman has a detailed and comprehensive answer, including:
    >No two gunpoint situations are alike, and they will all be very dynamic situations. My advice is to remain calm, be as compliant as you can, be aware of your surroundings, and do what you need to in order to survive. But the obvious best case scenario is keeping yourself out of the situation that put you on the business end of a firearm[…]

    Great stuff.

  • I Hate Stacked Area Charts

    Count me in with Dr. Drang on stacked area charts:
    >But I find them often misleading, even when their creator doesn’t intend them to be.

    More than just that, I find them downright hard to read — that is if you are actually trying to understand what is happening.

  • Dell’s Misleading Graphics Card Buying Advice

    Just look at the picture, it is absurd.

    **UPDATED** (on Nov 26, 2011): Dell has now [released a statement](http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/371425/dell-apologises-for-misleading-graphics-card-advice) on the matter and claims to be removing the image.

  • Amazon Will Take Over Android App Distribution

    Marco Arment brings up some great points on how Amazon is set to take over as the king of Android App distribution. I hadn’t thought about this before now, but I think Arment is right here.

    Not only does Amazon stand to win this fight against Google, but they do so with a more hostile and less open approach towards developers. Very interesting.

  • WTF Is Up at Twitter

    Edward Domain ((Awesome name.)) noticed a bunch of higher-ups at Twitter are leaving or choosing to be “less involved” and noted:
    >When this many leaders start leaving a company… it doesn’t mean the company is falling apart but it definitely raises some questions.

    Add to this the fact that Jack Dorsey is [trying to split his time](https://brooksreview.net/2011/11/not-sustainable/) at Twitter with Square and it raises some good questions.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Stainless Steel HIP Flask

    The holidays are coming up, make sure you are prepared.

  • On Leaving Twitter

    Adrien Cahen on deciding to leave Twitter:

    >Eventually, the kool-aid turned a bit sour for me.

    Don’t take that out of context, you should read his post in full. I do think it is interesting how fast a tech darling can become too chaotic for many.

  • (Excluding Apple)

    Sarah Bogaty for PR Web:
    >“If you look at the tablet market without Apple there are a number of high-profile brands vying for that number two spot,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “According to NPD’s Consumer Tracking Service, 76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn’t even consider the iPad, an indication that a large group of consumers are looking for alternatives, and an opportunity for the rest of the market to grow their business.”

    Exciting times to be “vying for that number two spot”. Also it is no surprise that people who didn’t buy and iPad, didn’t also consider it.

    How is NPD still in business?

    >The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries.

    Excluding Apple — naturally.

    [via Every where]

  • About Pepper Spray

    So if a habenero comes in at 350,000 Scoville units, where does Pepper Spray come in? Deborah Blum says:
    >It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.

    Not only that, but there are very real, known, health risks associated with Pepper Spray:

    >The more worrisome effects have to do with inhalation – and by some reports, California university police officers deliberately put OC spray down protestors throats. Capsaicins inflame the airways, causing swelling and restriction. And this means that pepper sprays pose a genuine risk to people with asthma and other respiratory conditions.

    >And by genuine risk, I mean a known risk, a no-surprise any police department should know this risk, easy enough to find in the scientific literature.

    This post, if this stuff outrages you, is well worth the read.

    I have only seen the effects of Pepper Spray once, when my roommate went through Campus Security training in College. They volunteered to be sprayed so that they could actually carry the spray. They were sprayed with one pass and carried to a shower where they are immediately treated. When I saw him next, an hour later, his face was still bright red and he was still very much in pain.

    He was prepared and expecting to be sprayed. He had his mouth closed tightly and plugged his nose, because the Campus Security trainer knew that it would be very bad if he inhaled it.

    The lackadaisical way in which the [officer sprayed those students](http://waxy.org/2011/11/viewing_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying_from_multiple_angles/) is what outrages me. How can you do this, multiple passes, to a peaceful set of protesters on a college campus in the United States. Shameful.

  • Like versus Stamped

    Brett Kelly reviewing Stamped:
    >The “like” function is a little weird to me. I get that they wanted to add a way for people to give feedback on a stamp without having to stamp it themselves, but the UI for this feature feels like an afterthought, particularly since (near as I can tell) there’s no way to see who liked a given item other than in the little news ticker thingie.

    I am with him, the like functionality not only seems like an afterthought, but runs counter to the idea behind stamped. What’s the difference between liking and Stamping something if they both actually mean that you, well, like something? I, for one, think ‘likes’ should be removed.

    That said I absolutely am addicted to Stamped right now.

    Kelly also notes that the To-Do function is a great idea and I would have to agree. Whereas with other apps the To-Do stuff seems silly, with stamped it seems really neat — especially if it does get an API. Could be great fun there.

    Give Stamped a try if you haven’t already, because at the very least it has a great icon.

  • What’s Smaller Than Apple?

    Well how about the cost of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs…

  • Google Search App for iPad Updated

    Dave Caolo commenting on the new iPad Google Search app:
    >The UI is far superior to that of a Google search with mobile Safari, but I can’t help but wonder if I’ll use this app instead of Safari, especially now that the new “tablet view” looks so good.

    My thoughts exactly. The app is great to use and look at, but when I need to Google something I can’t see myself going for this app over Safari — let alone Siri.

  • Stamped

    Love the typography and simplicity of the app.

  • What Ron Johnson Learned Building the Apple Store

    Ron Johnson on the Apple Store experience:
    >There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff, it’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better. That may sound hokey, but it’s true.

    Great take on the problems that face most retailers.

  • Amazon Kindles ‘Damaged by Airport Scanners’

    I don’t buy it. Way too many people carrying Kindles on planes for this to *just now* become an issue. The static build-up as a very rare occurrence seems more likely.

  • Vital Signs Camera for iPad

    From the iTunes description:

    >Vital Signs Camera is the only App that measures your heart rate and breathing rate remotely, simply using the camera of your iPad 2!

    It was $0.99 and I was bored at Starbucks so I purchased the app. Amazingly, it works. The heart rate seems pretty accurate and it was pretty fast to acquire it too.

    Overall I find the app pretty useless, but amazing at the same time.