The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • “Open”

    MG Siegler on Google’s use of the term “open” when referring to Android:

    And in that context, being “more” open is like being “kind of ” pregnant.

  • Dear Twitter

    David Humphrey on why Twitter should charge it’s users:

    Watching you flail and fail with business models is depressing, when the one obvious one is being completely rejected.  I’m an adult. I have a job; and I use Twitter for my job.  I’d pay for this because it’s a useful part of my online experience.

    Needless to say I completely agree.

  • The B&B Podcast Episode 5

    Shawn and I spend the entire episode talking about some of the cool apps that we use on our Macs for getting all of our stuff done. Things like TextExpander, Droplr, Shortwave and others.

    This episode is sponsored by the very awesome Instacast.

  • The Audacity of Getting Paid

    Christopher Bowns:

    First, making money is easy: you must have the sheer audacity to charge for a product. Pinboard.in turned profitable in week one. Minecraft’s early sales helped bootstrap its development, and the developer has staffed up and found office space in the past six months to work on new features and new games.

    You actually need to ad the whole post because it is fantastic and exactly what I have been talking about.

  • Amazon’s Android Appstore

    MG Siegler:

    If you touch the screen in the wrong place — whoops — you just bought an app. Of course, this is assuming you have one-click purchasing turned on.

    Sounds like a swell experience.

  • Why Jumpcut Is Better Than LaunchBar

    Dr. Drang makes the case for using Jumpcut over LaunchBar when it comes to clipboard history. Looks interesting, but slower than LaunchBar, even with the implied advantages that the Doctor points out.

    What are you guys using for clipboard histories?

  • Miniot iPad 2 Cover

    This cover blows my mind, there isn’t much on the site for it, but check out the video TUAW has.

  • Allow Yourself a Sick Day

    Elliot Jay Stocks speaking to all freelancers and self-employed people:

    So I think that we should all take more time off, and when we’re feeling rough, we should accept that nothing good is going to come of it, and just let ourselves be sick; because being ill is inevitable.

    Since graduating from college in 2005 I have not had a single boss — I have always done my own thing. If you ask my wife she will be the first to tell you that I never take time off. There is always the pressure looming over my head that if I stop working, I stop getting money — and that’s not good. I made a vow that this year I would take more than 4 days away from the office to really enjoy my life.

    So far so good, I even took a couple of sick days already this year and I feel better than ever about that work/life balance stuff.

  • Markdown OS X Services

    Watts Martin has some great tips for creating Markdown services in OS X. Personally I use FastScripts to do a lot of this same stuff, but Automator is free and already on your Mac.

  • How NY Times Paywall Could Turn Out to Be a Success

    Felix Salmon on why the paywall at the NYT could work out pretty well for them:

    The point here is that the paywall is responsible for multiple revenue streams, not just its own narrow subscription revenues. It will drive marginal readers to the print product, especially at weekends — and thereby shore up or even increase print-ad revenues from the weekend paper.

    I hadn’t thought about that — what a great ((Whereby ‘great’ I mean pointless.)) idea, leveraging modern, popular, technology to shore up a dead business.

  • The iPad, A Year Later

    John Carey checking in on his iPad usage:

    I have a simple Manhattan Portage messenger bag with a space that perfectly fits my iPad and it’s lovely cushy sleeve that I wrote about here before and it makes it so very easy to pull out my iPad and instantly be checking my mail, opening up a tech manual for a new piece of gear at work, catching up on the latest news, or sharing a few photos quickly and easily on the big screen. This kind of casual quick approach computing isn’t as accessible on a laptop. Well, maybe on one of those tiny little MacBook airs to an extent but not in the same way.

    Carey makes some great points about how his iPad usage has transformed. For me I used the iPad a lot the first month I got it then the usage waned a bit before it just took off like a rocket. It takes time to get used to computing on the iPad, but once you do you can’t imagine not having one — at least I can’t

  • Digital Death Day

    Glenn Derene on what happens to all your digital data (specifically “cloud” data) when you die, this is what he recommends:

    But for individuals the solution is simple, Davis says—include a digital will along with your regular will. Leave instructions for how to get to your digital assets and what to do with them. Then your online identity won’t end up in digital limbo.

    This is something that has been troubling me for quite some time. When I die my computer effectively becomes useless to my family until they reformat it — everything is locked with a password that only I know. So what do I do? Well, in that case a digital will of sorts makes good sense — provide the password to my wife or next of kin after death and they can use my computer to get the info they want off of it.

    The larger, and more troubling question, becomes what happens to, say, my websites? If I die presumably at some point my credit cards will be shut down and then Media Temple will get rather tired of hosting the site for what would amount to being “free”. I don’t want all my writing to disappear though, yet I don’t want to burden my survivors with the financial and technical responsibilities of keeping the sites going.

    What do you do?

    I don’t know, but if someone created a company that converted WP and other blogs into static HTML upon learning of someones death and just served that in perpetuity for a one time fee I would sign up. Perhaps it could even be paid for like insurance is, I pay in $5 a month and when I die they take the passwords and usernames from my digital will, convert TBR to static HTML and then host the archives forever.

    The only problem is the domain and how you transfer all that and keep the domain alive.

    Somebody needs to figure this out or we stand to lose great parts of the web as the web population ages and tragic deaths occur (as they so often do).

  • DropDAV

    This is a great tool for exporting those annoying iWork for iPad documents back to your Dropbox folder.

    Step one is to open the file from Dropbox in iWork for iPad.

    Step two is to create/edit the document.

    Step three is to export to WebDAV and use DropDAV to pick the folder you want to send the file back to.

    That is a pretty neat setup.

    [via emails from quite a few readers]

  • Love For Japan

    Draw a heart, scan it and submit it. Then pre-order the letterpress poster they are going to be making out of the drawing. Not only do you get something pretty cool, but you are contributing to help the recovery in Japan.

    It is a great cause.

    (Also the website is gorgeous looking.)

  • The iPad 2 and Its Time-Saving Smart Cover

    Nick Bilton with a great observation that I had not consciously thought about before:

    It takes me, on average,  5.1 seconds to start and begin using my first-generation Apple iPad. This is how I spent those 5.1 seconds: opening the cover protector, pressing the power button in the top right corner of the device and then swiping my finger across the screen to unlock the iPad.

    Of course that is the iPad 1 that doesn’t have the Smart Cover — once Bilton added in the Smart Cover on the iPad 2 then things started to change. That is just one of those little intangible speed increased that you get with the iPad 2. Great catch.

  • The Only Secure Password Is the One You Can’t Remember

    Troy Hunt makes a great case for using 1Password (a tool I swear by). I particularly like all the detail he goes into on why you should take the time and the pain in the ass factor to do this kind of thing.

  • remacable

    Liam Cassidy over at remacable was kind enough to interview me — we talked about a lot of things including geeking out on some software and time management stuff.

    Be sure to check it out and subscribe to his new site.

  • OmniFocus Perspectives Galore

    This is a great rundown on how to create perspectives in OmniFocus, particularly how to create the ‘Today’ view so many people love. Very close to what I do.

    More than anything else this is a great way to learn more about perspectives.

  • The New York Times’ Paywall Explained Mathematically

    Felix Salmon breaking down the cost of the NYT paywall in a mathematical formula:

    The message being sent here is weird: that access to the website is worth nothing. Mathematically, if A+B=$15, A+C=$20, and A+B+C=$35, then A=$0.

    Where ‘A’ is the website, what a great point.

  • From the Archives: My PlayBook Review

    Let’s not forget that I had an early prototype that I reviewed way back in September of 2010.