The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Writing Kit for iPad

    I had the opportunity to beta test this app and have been doing so for a while now. It has been in the App Store for a bit at $4.99. There is a lot to like about the app, including its export of Markdown text to HTML text with Smartypants formatting. The preview is also very nice and the app is incredibly robust and full featured for what it is.

    Personally it isn’t right for me right now — where I think it may fit nicely is for students taking notes (at least I would have like it for that). ((Which also makes me wish I wrote in Markdown back in college.)) I could see myself as a student taking notes with the app and using the in-app browser to goof off when the professor goes on an annoying tangent. The extended keys on the keyboard would make for better and quicker note taking too.

    I also have a lot of faith in this app’s future given the amount of features that are constantly being pushed to beta users — a sure sign of dedicated developers.

  • Urban Outfitters Responds to False Allegations by Necklace Designer

    Perhaps you haven’t heard, but Stephanie Koerner accused Urban Outfitters of stealing and outright plagiarizing her Etsy shop. It has long been known in the Etsy community that Urban Outfitters copies anyone and hides it under a cloak of occasionally wholesaling with some Etsy sellers.

    Here is part of their response to the latest accusation, with my translations:

    >We are not implying that Koerner stole her necklace idea from one of these other designers, we are simply stating the obvious—that the idea is not unique to Koerner and she can in no way claim to be its originator.

    Translation: “We are not saying that she stole the idea too, but we are strongly hinting at it. At very least we don’t see any creativity or originality in her work, unlike ours.”

    >Normally we would not respond publicly to Koerner’s allegations, but we believe the media response to her campaign is threatening to impact the dozens of independent designers we work with on a daily basis. For many of them, having their work sold at Urban Outfitters is a very positive turning point in their careers, and we will not allow their hard work and commitment, or ours, to be undermined by these false allegations.

    Translation: “Normally we laugh internally at these poor schmucks, but this time she complained really loudly. This time it pissed us off a little bit, so we are publicly making fun of her. Also she is the one Etsy should be mad at — not us!”

  • Twitter Unmasks Anonymous British User in Landmark Legal Battle

    This is certainly not what you would like to see happen. California courts ordered Twitter to hand over a users private details (email and phone number) as part of a libel suit. Whether or not Twitter did the right thing by law — they mot certainly did the wrong thing by their users.

    It would have been much better PR if Twitter at all acted upset by the fact that they had to hand this over.

  • The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse

    Devin Leonard:
    >The USPS is a wondrous American creation. Six days a week it delivers an average of 563 million pieces of mail—40 percent of the entire world’s volume. For the price of a 44¢ stamp, you can mail a letter anywhere within the nation’s borders. The service will carry it by pack mule to the Havasupai Indian reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Mailmen on snowmobiles take it to the wilds of Alaska. If your recipient can no longer be found, the USPS will return it at no extra charge. It may be the greatest bargain on earth.

    I love the USPS but they have been in trouble for a long time. It makes no sense to charge so little for such a enormous offering — I say it a lot, but they really *must* charge more.

  • Jumping on the Bandwagon v. Adding Value

    Casey Johnston:
    >If a company can’t create an app with added value, the authors said, they’re better off just making their website more finger-friendly.

  • Twitter Extends DM Switch Date

    In a post in the “Twitter Development Talk” Google group, Matt Harris posts:

    >We understand this means you might not be able to fully test your updated
    flow so we are going to extend the deadline until the end of June.
    >This makes the new enforcement date Thursday, June 30th, 2011.

    Nice to see the developers get an extension… I guess. But this last line really rubs me the wrong way:

    >Thanks for working with us to ensure users can make informed decisions about
    the access an application has to their account.

    You can state something like that when you are the body forcing the change on people.

  • iA Writer for Mac

    Exactly what you would expect from using the iPad version. Well done — high price (though to be fair still a real value).

  • B&B Podcast Episode 13

    Shawn and I talked about standing while working, the Amazon Mac software downloads, cloud backups abd why Gmail scares me.

    Sponsored by: [Evernote Essentials](http://nerdgap.com/landing/evernote-essentials/) the definitive guide for everything Evernote.

  • Hands-on with Amazon's Mac software store

    Dan Frakes on trying out Amazon’s new, Mac Software Download App Store Download Web Site Section:
    >The first thing you actually download is a small disk image (2.1MB in size, in my case) containing an application-specific [Software Name] Downloader program. Open this disk image, if your browser doesn’t mount the image automatically, and double-click the Amazon Software Downloader.app inside. After a few seconds, the Downloader program begins downloading the purchased software—not to your Downloads folder, or even to your Applications folder, but to a new folder on your Desktop.

    It gets even worse after this…

  • Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone

    Horace Dediu:
    >So Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone.

    Awesome, clever bastards.

  • PayPal v. Google

    Interestingly PayPal filed a lawsuit against Google over a couple of things — not the least of which is that one of PayPal’s main executives was interviewing, or had just finished interviewing, for a job with Google at the same time he was negotiating on behalf of PayPal for a payments deal with Google. That’s sketchy.

    What’s stupid is that PayPal waited this long — no matter how they play it they will look like this is about Google Wallet.

    This though doesn’t surprise me, as PayPal has really been showing how inept it is lately.

  • Microsoft board backs Ballmer over Einhorn

    Bill Rigby, reporting on Microsoft’s board backing Steve Ballmer, quotes BGC Partners Colin Gillis:
    >”It’s on. David Einhorn likes to shake things up,” Gillis said. As for Microsoft’s stock staying flat over a decade, “the question is, is it because of Ballmer, or is it because people are concerned about a post-PC era?”

    That’s *not* the question, because it doesn’t matter. The CEO of any company is supposed to successfully navigate a changing consumer market, both Apple and Google have succeeded at that, Microsoft has not — plain and simple.

    So yes Microsoft’s core business maybe deflated as a result of market conditions and yadda yadda yadda — the point is that Ballmer should have found a new avenue for growth. The point is that Ballmer is responsible for letting “people concerned about post-PC era” affect Microsoft’s stock.

  • Reign of Error

    Ryan Block calling for Gates to come back as Microsoft’s CEO:
    >There’s taste, though, and there’s cunning — and it was Bill’s killer instinct that made Microsoft the undisputed winner of the first wave of personal computing. And with each passing quarter, it’s becoming increasingly clear that in matters of both taste and cunning, Steve Ballmer has neither.

    His post is a must read if you are at all interested in why Steve Ballmer sucks at being a CEO of Microsoft. Block has a great take on the lack of vision Ballmer brings and makes a compelling argument for why Gates may come back. ((Being that The Gates Foundation’s funds are tied to Microsoft’s success.))

  • Amazon’s Mac App Store

    Interesting move from Amazon and logical. I would still buy from the Apple Mac App Store as the licensing terms appear to be better on the surface and the ease/upgrade features are well worth it. However if you are leery of software vendor websites and the software you want isn’t on the Mac App Store, Amazon may just have it.

    Competition is always a good thing.

  • Google Unveils Wallet

    Exactly what was expected. Also I am really glad to see that they found a use for the [Google Wave logo](http://www.cloudave.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/ffc3caad93ce83f05713a8b863c86f5d.jpg).

  • TSA Cries

    First I heard of this, but Texas was set to vote on a bill in the State Senate that was already passed in the Texas House of Representatives. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for TSA to grope passengers.

    TSA responded by saying:

    >[…]Texas is barred by the U.S. Constitution from regulating the federal government[…]

    Texas backed down and didn’t vote after TSA said that it would suspend all flights out of Texas, lame. May I remind Texas that they most certainly can [opt-out of using the TSA at its airports](http://www.networkworld.com/community/airport+opt-out+TSA+hire+private+screeners). Perhaps Texas should pass a law that no airports in the Lone Star state can use the TSA, then pass the groping bill. They do that and I am moving to Texas.

    Oh an if you were curious, TSA claims it:

    >[…] would have had to shut down Texas airports as it “could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

    I’d call TSA’s bluff. Chuck Norris has to be pissed that Texas backed down.

  • Splinternet Era

    Josh Bernoff:
    >This is yet another step in a trend we call the Splinternet. The open, standards-based Web experience that we’ve embraced for the last 15 years is becoming a set of platforms that people love, but that are controlled by companies (like Apple, Facebook, and now Twitter). While these platforms are exciting, do not be naive: companies control them and will set the rules on how marketers can use them to connect. They’ll change those rules as they see fit, which will make your life as a marketer far more challenging. This is the Splinternet era; you’d better get used to it.

    Spot on. And this is going to apply to more than just marketers — it already is.

  • How PayPal Sees Square

    Austin Carr reporting:
    >”Existing models don’t go away until they are replaced by models that work better,” PayPal’s Nayar says. “I think people are getting held up in the technical possibilities, and are forgetting that at the end of the day, the consumers have to choose to use it. Unless they can see advantage in doing this versus the existing way of paying, I ask the question: Why would they? The consumer needs to see the benefit beyond, ‘This is just cool.’”

    This sounds an awful lot like [this](http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-04-29-ballmer-ceo-forum-usat_N.htm):

    >There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

  • David Einhorn Calls for Microsoft’s Ballmer to Go

    A bunch of Reuters reporters ((Honestly there are five credits listed…)) :
    >An investor who put $100,000 into Microsoft stock 10 years ago would now have about $69,000 worth.

    That’s pretty bad, Einhorn really nails it though:

    >His [Ballmer] continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft’s stock[…]

    Amen.

  • When is sharing stealing?

    Bob Sullivan writes a great post about the pros and cons of sharing photos on social sites such as TwitPic and others. The rights the photo takers have and the rights that journalists and the like have. This is a very interesting problem that we find ourselves in right now.

    In the past I have always stayed cautious, not sharing something without making sure that it reasonably cannot be stolen (locking down Flickr settings, making copyrights clear). One great piece of advice in the post from attorney Carolyn Wright offers:

    >If you don’t share your work online, then no one knows to license it.