The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Improving Search and Maybe Auto-Correct

    This is the first I had heard of Idilia that was founded in 2000 and as reported by Erica Naone:

    The software focuses on the problem of word-sense disambiguation—choosing the meaning of a word based on what makes the most sense in context. Word-sense disambiguation is an old artificial intelligence problem that has proved thorny over the decades. For a computer to apply a word correctly in context, it has to have a huge amount of background information—not just what’s in a dictionary but also a map of how words fit together both grammatically and conceptually.

    They are applying it to search engines to give people better results. I think the greatest money will be made with mobile auto-correct algorithms that could solve a lot of text message confusion. This is the type of company Google and Apple should be looking at buying up.

  • If Your Mac is Waking Up In Your Bag

    Some great tips from Macgasm. My MacBook Pro used to wake up all the time in my bag and would feel like a hot stove when I pulled it out. Be sure that your Mac is asleep when you put it away – MacBook Air has not yet had that problem which is good because there is no sleep indicator light.

  • A Great Hazel Rule from Shawn Blanc

    Shawn Blanc shared a great Hazel rule tonight on Twitter – it reveals a zip files contents when you expand it within Mail.app. A nice addition.

  • Chris Rawson’s Response to Joshua Kors

    Chris Rawson responding to Joshua Kors–whom I have already deemed an idiot:

    Frustrated with his inability to work with Mac OS X, Kors decided to attempt to install a virtual machine of Windows using Parallels. But when Parallels asked him for a Windows installation disc, he cried, “where the hell am I going to get a copy of the Windows CD?” Probably at any major US software retailer.

    Love this entire response.

  • Why IE 9’s Anti-Tracking Feature is Bogus

    Simson Garfinkel on why IE 9’s anti-tracking feature will not work:

    More important, the new feature won’t stop the websites you access from tracking you. And since you won’t block the websites you are using, you won’t block the tracking.

  • John C. Dvorak: No One Under 30 Wants an iPad

    John C. Dvorak asking if he is wrong about the notion that the iPad is an old persons computer, and no one under 30 wants to own one:

    Am I wrong about this?

    Yes, yes you are. You said so yourself earlier in your article:

    I’m sure every department store Santa Claus has heard an earful of requests for an iPad.

    Now unless I am wrong going to sit on Santa’s lap is an overwhelmingly “under the age of 30” thing to do.

  • Joshua Kors: Idiot of the Decade?

    There is so much false stuff and stupid things Joshua Kors says I had a hard time choosing:

    I knew that, unlike a PC, I wouldn’t be able to connect one computer to another and transfer over my documents.

    Yes, Joshua Kors thinks that Macs cannot network. Idiot. If you want a good laugh read the entire thing.

    [via Viticci who hopes and prays that this is a joke.]

  • My Interview on Intrvws

    A while back Ian Hines asked me if I would like to participate in an interview for his new site ‘Intrvws’ I was honored to do so and it was a lot of fun too. Don’t just click through to read my interview, click through and read the ones that interest you, then subscribe to the site.

    [note: I set the link through not to my interview but to the main page so you see all the interviews Ian has done. The direct link to my interview is here.]

  • Patrick Rhone on the MacBook Air

    Patrick Rhone speaking about his 11″ 64GB MacBook Air:

    So far, my experience has been a great one. I’m using it as close to “out of the box” as I can and being very picky about the apps I install. As of this writing I still have over 30GB available.

    That is pretty incredible restraint. He lists a few apps that he decided not to install, and indeed I deleted a bunch of apps that I was not using the other day just for the hell of it. When I was reading Rhone’s initial thoughts I couldn’t help but wondering what apps he is keeping web only. For instance is Simplenote web only, or is he still using Notational Velocity or other Simplenote clients. It will be interesting to hear how he fairs after a longer period of time passes.

  • James Kendrick calls 2010 the Year of the Tablet

    James Kendrick

    This year was definitely the year of the tablet, even with only a few models reaching consumers’ hands.

    I disagree, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. Tablets no doubt took off in 2010 and the market was transformed by Apple’s iPad. But sales were far to slow, next year with more models on the market will make 2010 seem like only a few dozen were sold. Next year is the year that you come home and your grandparents are sitting around playing with their iPads.

  • Top Twitter Trends in 2010

    What I would really like to see that is missing from this list: top Twitter clients.

  • Mg Siegler’s Take on the Cr-48

    A very in-depth look at the Cr-48. Mg Siegler does a great job going over the machine and the OS as a whole, one of the better product reviews I have seen in a while.

  • Andy Ihnatko’s Google Chrome Cr-48 notebook first look

    Andy Ihnatko:

    But without a connection to the Internet, this cutting-edge machine had become little more than a Notebook-Shaped Object. The six or seven open browser tabs in front of me were just ghosts of webapps that joined the choir invisible as soon as they lost contact with their servers.

    I still want to play with one. Hope Google sends me one, though it is not looking hopeful.

  • Pornoscanners Actually Don’t Work

    Leon Kaufman & Joseph W. Carlson:

    It is very likely that a large (15-20 cm in diameter), irregularly-shaped, cm-thick pancake with beveled edges, taped to the abdomen, would be invisible to this technology, ironically, because of its large volume, since it is easily confused with normal anatomy. Thus, a third of a kilo of PETN, easily picked up in a competent pat down, would be missed by backscatter “high technology”. Forty grams of PETN, a purportedly dangerous amount, would fit in a 1.25 mm-thick pancake of the dimensions simulated here and be virtually invisible. Packed in a compact mode, say, a 1 cm×4 cm×5 cm brick, it would be detected.

    Yay they give us cancer and don’t catch things that metal detectors can’t catch.

    [via Boing Boing]

  • ”A new WikiLeaks” revolts against Assange

    Ossi Carp:

    According to the internal documents shared with DN.se, Openleaks intends to establish itself as a neutral intermediary ”without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade- and union organizations and other participating groups.”

    “All editorial control and responsibility rests with the publishing organization. We will, as far as possible, take the role of the messenger between the whistleblower and the organization the whistleblower is trying to cooperate with,” says one anonymous informant.

    That has been the thing that bugs me most about WikiLeaks, they too have an agenda, yet get mad at those that also have an agenda. Hopefully these guys will be able to live up to their lofty goal.

  • Notational Velocity Alt

    I had previously linked to a build of Notational Velocity that allowed for a better widescreen and full screen views. This version of NV from Brett Terpstra is even better, it has a widescreen layout and preview mode for people who write in Markdown. Go get it.

  • A Windows Phone 7 Review by Brad Kellett

    Kellett on Windows Phone 7:

    Excitement, followed by disappointment.

    The more I think about it the more I think I will try to get my hands on one for a week or two so that I can check out the OS more thoroughly.

  • MacSparky Interview

    If you are interested the MacSparky blog did and interview with my about how I am using my iPhone, with a current screenshot of my home screen.

  • Military Bans Disks, Threatens Courts-Martial to Stop New Leaks

    Wait, this wasn’t already the policy? Christ they deserved these leaks then.

  • No Crappy Apps

    I just got an email from Brad Gies who has setup a site called “No Crappy Apps” that analyzes the Android Market and allows users to comment and rate Apps on the site, as well as allowing developers to respond.

    Gies on what makes this system better:

    Well.. first of all we analyze not only the ratings for the apps, but the comments as well.. You might notice that we don’t allow anonymous comments on our website, only registered users can leave comments. We track the comments and analyze them to find out if a commenter has only been rating apps from certain developers highly (and sometimes they rate competing apps very lowly). When our software determines that a commenter is a spammer all of their comments are disregarded for our ratings.

    I am not sure of how this actually pans out given that I don’t have an Android device any longer to browse and download apps he is marking as spam, but look at these numbers from the site:

    • 122,600 total apps
    • 3,401 spam apps

    Gies emailed me to say that he expects that the number of spam apps will reach 20,000 in the next 2 months, given that his system needs 10 weeks worth of data. That is pretty amazing and pretty sad for the Android Market. Now who is up for doing this for iOS?