The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Rumor: Microsoft To Buy Nokia For $30 Billion

    Dragos Pirvu:
    >Now Eldar Murtazin states that Microsoft is going to buy Nokia’s mobile division meaning that the Finnish-based company will no longer produce smartphones. The deal will see Microsoft paying more than $30 billion for Nokia after last week it paid $8.5 billion for Skype.

    I doubt that this would be an all cash deal. I also don’t get this deal for either Nokia or Microsoft, therefore I am going to go ahead and say that I doubt this rumor to be true. ((With Ballmer though I probably will be wrong, as logic goes out the door with him.))

  • The Problem with Microsoft Now

    Xavier Morera on the Microsoft culture:
    >MS Consulting IMHO was not what it could be, I worked there too and they have extremely good technical people, but the only thing a lot of them seem to be passionate about is being a Microsoft employee and not building amazing stuff. Besides, a lot of them look down on other companies when they shouldn’t.

    Xavier is not alone, since posting my [Ballmer piece](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/ballmer/) I have received tons of email from current and former employees and consultants all sharing the same sentiment.

  • Productive Macs Software Bundle

    This is a killer bundle that has three of my favorite Mac apps in it for $29 — a bargain. You get Keyboard Maestro, TextExpander **and** Mail Act-On, which make it worth it right there. Awesome deal.

  • CEO Steve Ballmer’s Advice to USC Grads

    We have the full text of Steve Ballmer’s speech to USC students now, and oh boy. Ballmer:

    >I also have to tell you, a guy I know in Seattle has a son who goes to the school down the street here, UCLA. And I saw him the other day, yes, that’s right. I saw him the other day, and he starts chirping at me, chirp, chirp, chirp. I said, “I’m going down to USC to speak.” Chirp, chirp, chirp, UCLA better, chirp, chirp, chirp. I had it. I whip out my Windows Phone, I Bing the university rankings, and I just show it to him right there in black and white, USC 23 – UCLA 25.

    What does “chirp, chirp, chirp” mean? And really, product placement in a commencement speech? Ugh, and later:

    >Number one, great ideas matter. Number two, find passion. And, number three, be tenacious, be irrepressible.

    He seems really good at the last word from what I see on the outside looking in. Where is number one and two in Microsoft? That’s what Microsoft needs right now.

    Ugh…

  • Ballmer’s Latest Acquisition

    Jean-Louis Gassée on Microsoft’s Skype acquisition:
    >In just the past 12 months, Microsoft has lost $2.5B in its Online business. They spend $2 to make $1 in revenue. Buying and “integrating” Skype will make the picture even redder.

    and later:

    >Microsoft’s ability to successfully charge for a formerly free product is lacking.

    I also love the Elop quips.

  • Instapaper iPad Redesign

    You may have seen [Tim Van Damme’s](http://dribbble.com/shots/170007-Instapaper-Redesign) Instapaper redesign and Marco’s response linked to here. What strikes me about all of this is that Tim’s design looks great, but Marco makes some excellent points why it wouldn’t *work* great. A lot of times we (myself included) complain about how an app looks or works — forgetting that what we want may not be possible given the feature set and developer APIs available.

    Most of all Marco’s post stands to show just how much thought and care is put into the Instapaper app:

    >I’ve often cut entire features during development because there was nowhere good to put them in the interface.

    How many other companies would cut a **feature** because they couldn’t find a place to put the button that they were happy with?

  • More Evidence Against Steve Ballmer

    Sharon Pian Chan reporting on Steve Ballmer’s USC commencement speech:
    >“I thought I might have to Skype in,” Ballmer said. He then urged students to “Please, Skype on!” after graduating.

    Compare and contrast that to [this](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html) and you get why he [needs to go](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/ballmer/).

    UPDATE: [Here’s the full text of his speech](http://www.geekwire.com/2011/irrepressible-steve-ballmer-microsoft-ceos-usc-commencement-speech).

  • The Macalope: Remember Microsoft?

    The Macalope:
    >Microsoft acquired Skype for an eye-popping 8.5 billion quatloos, which the Macalope knows is not a real form of money, but, let’s face it: Microsoft’s not treating it like it’s real either.

  • A Great Title Grabbing Applescript

    Great work over at The Carton on an Applescript to grab the title for the current Safari/Chrome window. I use it with [this workflow](https://brooksreview.net/2011/03/cmd-one/).

  • How Google controls Android

    Nilay Patel:
    >The OHA might well steward the open-source aspect of Android, but when it comes down to actually shipping a device, it’s entirely Google’s show. And that might be biggest takeaway of all: for all of Android’s open-source ideals, Google is very much in control — and it’s not shy about letting its partners know it.

    I’m *shocked*.

  • B&B Episode 11: Never Punch Someone in the Forehead

    >In this episode Shawn and Ben discuss cloud based music solutions and swords.

    Yes, swords.

  • Indie iOS Devs Under Legal Fire For Offering In-App Purchases

    John Brownlee:
    >The lead developer behind the popular Mac dock replacement DragThing and the fantastic iOS scientific calculator app pCalc is about to be sued for patent infringement because his software uses Apple’s own in-app purchasing mechanism. And he’s not alone.

    The best thing Apple could do here is tell the developers that Apple will fight this for them. If developers have to start hiring lawyers then you can kiss iOS developers good bye.

  • Comcast Offers Help to The Pirate Bay

    Ernesto at TorrentFreak.com:

    >Comcast has reached out to The Pirate Bay and set aside resources in case the BitTorrent site needs it. “I can have our engineers work directly with them to assist,” Jason Livingood told TorrentFreak.

    Yesterday Comcast customers were unable to reach The Pirate Bay — many assumed that Comcast was blocking the site. What is really cool is that Comcast not only reached out to The Pirate Bay after hearing about this, but they also did this:

    >Comcast reached out to Serious Tubes Networks, who deliver transit to The Pirate Bay, and they were able to correct the issue.

    Comcast probably doesn’t care for The Pirate Bay and all the BitTorrent traffic that it brings to Comcast pipes, but in this case they really did the right thing. Kudos to them.

  • ‘Stay tuned’

    Paul Reynolds:
    >Asked today about the possibility of Amazon launching a multipurpose tablet device, the company’s president and CEO Jeff Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company’s plans. In an interview at Consumer Reports’ offices, Bezos also signaled that any such device, should it come, is more likely to supplement than to supplant the Kindle, which he calls Amazon’s “purpose-built e-reading device.”

    That sounds about right from all the rumors and speculation that I have seen. I would guess it would be a touch screen device running Android with the Amazon appstore installed. I would further guess that the full Amazon web store would be presented rather nicely on the device.

    Those are pretty easy, the bigger question is price. Will it be higher or lower than the iPad and will there be an ad supported version?

  • iMac Game Performance (mid 2011 models)

    Interesting results from Bare Feats on the newest iMac models and how they stack up against the Mac Pro. They conclude that the iMac makes for a great “best buy” gaming Mac. I think it is more than all but the most serious gamers will need.

  • Thomas Hawk on Why He Will Likely Switch Back to an iPhone

    Thomas Hawk:
    >Updating the operating system on your Android phone is a huge pain in the ass. In order to update my Samsung Galaxy Vibrant from the Eclair operating system to the Froyo operating system (keep in mind that Google’s working on honeycomb now apparently, which is two operating updates ahead of what I just updated to), I had to go through hell to get it done. No OTA for Samsung. No iTunes for Samsung. No, I had to manually find the file somewhere on the web on a confusing website, download it to a Windows machine (yes Windows only), and update my phone through a long confusing process.

    Not to mention that Google has no naming convention that would tell you “Éclair” is older than “Froyo” — that alone would drive me nuts.

    UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for pointing out that Android releases are done alphabetically, which is dumb. Why is it dumb? Industry standard is numbers because numbers make sense. What happens if you want to release an minor update, you get things like ‘Alpha Name + 2.2’ — because that is consumer friendly.

  • Something New

    Khoi Vinh:
    >None of these are perfect, but they’re all imaginative and incredibly creative, and what’s more, they are fearless in acknowledging that this platform is something new, that it requires an entirely different approach to software, that in order to succeed, they have to create products that truly embrace the strengths and the weaknesses of the iPad.

    So what is he talking about? Three new apps to interact with Photoshop. Made by Adobe. Say what you will about Adobe and its Creative Suite, they have really taken to the iPad at reasonable pricing — it all feels like the calm before the storm.

  • OmniOutliner for iPad Is Now Available

    It’s $19.99 because it is a damned impressive offering. They use the Solarized themes in some of the documents and really have made a robust offering. I am still playing with it, but I can already tell it’s going to get used a bunch. Also, no export to Dropbox but if you use DropDAV then you can export to Dropbox.

  • Enough Episode 33

    Patrick and Myke were kind *enough* to have me on as a guest. We talk about what I would install on a stripped down MacBook Air 11″. We also discuss throwing fish, so you should at least be interested in that.

  • After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist

    Nate Anderson:
    >Four months after approving the massive transaction, Attwell Baker will take a top DC lobbying job for the new Comcast-NBC entity, according to reports.

    This shows a complete disregard for all Americans.