The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • My Grandparents Love Niche Devices According to PC World

    Katherine Noyes showing ignorance:

    I believe Apple’s iPhone is rapidly becoming a niche device. Its restrictions are too numerous, its approach too condescending, and its choices too few to have the broad appeal it needs to succeed on a grander scale in the long run.

    Which of course explains why my parents, grandparents and just about every other person in the world wants one. Obviously she is saying that the iPhone’s niche market is cellphone users, otherwise this is the dumbest thing I have read in quite some time.

    [via DF, who filed it as claim chowder already]

  • ‘The Star Trek Computer Is Stupid’

    Alex “Sandy” Antunes on the computers used in Star Trek:

    I mean, come on, the Ship’s Computer is smart enough to build an Artificial Intelligence that itself is so smart it can take over the Ship.  But it can’t find something useful it encounters every day?

    It’s a great point and a great argument for semantic computing. I never thought about the fake computers used in Star Trek much, but the more I do now the more inconsistencies I see.

  • Ian Hines Defends Belt Clips

    Ian Hines on wearing your phone:

    I guess the bottom line for me is that the belt clip has always been much more about utility than it has been about fashion. I’m married. I’m not exactly the coolest guy on the block. And I really don’t care as much about fashion as I care that I’ve got my tools where I need them.

    I hate summer for one reason: I can never figure out where to put my phone. It will usually end up in my pants pocket making my thigh look rectangular. Winter/Fall/Spring in Washington allows for jacket weather, jackets have nice inside breast pockets that hold cell phones like a charm.

    My wife says I have more clothes than her ((Yeah, right.)) so I may be too worried about how I look, but I still don’t think there is any excuse for wearing a belt clip. I get why Ian does it, and indeed when I worked in carpentry growing up I wore a tool belt with my hammer, and often my screw gun, hanging from it. For Ian it is about necessity, his job demands that he answers the phone while on the go, his job demands his availability. I can excuse that. The people that really drive me crazy are the ones that so very obviously do not need their phone on their belt.

    At the very least, very least, put your phone in a pocket when you are dressing up for a formal event, or even just a semi-formal event. ((Fin.))

  • Reeder for Mac Preview Available for Download

    Very beta version is available.

    [Updated: 11/30/10 at 10:31 PM] What a great app it is.

  • Explaining the Comcast v. Level 3 Situation

    John Biggs with an excellent look at the Comcast and Level 3 crap:

    In fact, given the value of Internet connectivity to the average user, Comcast could do itself a favor and offer faster, better service to its current subscribers for a little more money instead of shaking down Level 3 (and then probably shaking us down by telling us it can offer “Gold++ Netflix Streaming Service” for $50 a month). As it stands, cable and DSL service is abysmally slow and underperforming in the first place. Clearly Comcast needs to get its own house in order before crying victim.

  • Quiting Instagram

    Tim Van Damme on why he stopped using Instagram:

    First off: I just don’t have the time anymore to pull up the app once a day. I’m always busy doing what often seems like a dozen things at the same time, and lately (with the wedding and more coming up, more about that later) it’s even worse. I’m that kind of person who likes to read all tweets, even those posted while I was asleep. Same goes for RSS, Flickr, Tumblr and all the Campfire windows I have open all day. So I decided to cut down on distractions and refocus on the work that needs to be finished before Gwen and I leave for our honeymoon to Egypt (booyah!). So far, Tumblr and Instagram have been axed. Both great services with very interesting content generated by their users.

    I use Instagram occasionally, and honestly it is a mental decision I must make to open the app and snap a picture. I never can stay on top of the photos from people I follow, nor people ‘liking’ my stuff. I love the filters and the ideas behind Instagram, I just don’t love the extra inbox it adds to my life.

  • WordPress TextMate Bundle

    Shawn Parker:

    The WordPress TextMate Bundle is a TextMate bundle built with the sole purpose of reducing the amount of time spent digging around the WordPress core to look up the little things that we work with every day.

    Nice!

  • ‘A Waste of Money and Time’

    Bruce Schneier:

    A short history of airport security: We screen for guns and bombs, so the terrorists use box cutters. We confiscate box cutters and corkscrews, so they put explosives in their sneakers. We screen footwear, so they try to use liquids. We confiscate liquids, so they put PETN bombs in their underwear. We roll out full-body scanners, even though they wouldn’t have caught the Underwear Bomber, so they put a bomb in a printer cartridge. We ban printer cartridges over 16 ounces — the level of magical thinking here is amazing — and they’re going to do something else.

    Take all the money spent on new security measures and spend it on investigation and intelligence.
    This is a stupid game, and we should stop playing it.

    Sounds about right.

    [via DF]

  • Optional Attendees = Genius

    Google has added the ability to have ‘optional attendees’ in invited events. What an awesome move, this makes me very happy and I hope iCal implements this.

  • ‘Mac of the future: the OS’

    Siracusa thinks that the key to future OS X versions and Mac sales is simplicity. Which can only be a good thing.

  • WordPress Plugin: Headline Split Tester

    From the plugin page:

    This plug-in allows you to enter an alternate headline for every post on your blog. The headlines are then randomly alternated on your website until a certain number of “headline views” has been reached. At that point, a “winning” headline (as determined by the number of people that have clicked on each headline to date) is determined and that headline is shown going forward.

    Pretty clever, I’m giving it a try.

  • ‘The Only OS X Shortcut You Need to Remember’

    What a great tip, invoke the help menu via the keyboard and then you can find any menu item you want use – with no mouse. Excellent (CMD+SHIFT+/) read the post for more info.

  • Angry Birds Plush Toys For Sale

    I don’t know when these came out, but they would make a great gift for anyone obsessed with Angry Birds.

  • TBR Sponsorship

    Did you know that you can sponsor The Brooks Review’s RSS feed? Yeah it works pretty much the same as everyone else’s RSS feed sponsorship – it only costs $99/week. Click through to read more about it, your sponsorship would be much appreciated.

  • The Glif

    The Glif is a tripod mount for your iPhone 4, oh and a stand for it as well. It is very neat and very minimal. I am a Kickstarter donator to the project and was so at a level where I got a pre-production unit. I have been using the Glif now for over a week and I must say it is perfect.

    Very small, light and durable. Easy to slip into a bag. The one thing though, so that in some of the videos they show the iPhone 4 hanging with the Glif mounted to the top – don’t count on that. In my testing that always resulted in the iPhone falling out. The Glif attaches by friction alone, yet doesn’t scratch up your iPhone.

    Buy one, two, three you’ll love it (it’s $20 you can’t go wrong).

  • Rovio’s Awesome Android Success

    Quentyn Kennemer:

    Wait, what? It’s only been a month and a half since the popular game was released on Android and it’s already reached 7 million downloads.

    Something tells me had they charged for that game they would not have had that kind of success. The Android market is very different from Apple’s app store.

  • More on the health risks of backscatter machines

    Jason Bell, a molecular biologist and biophysicist on the porno-scanners:

    According to the TSA safety documents, AIT uses an 50 keV source that emits a broad spectra (see adjacent graph from here). Essentially, this means that the X-ray source used in the Rapiscan system is the same as those used for mammograms and some dental X-rays, and uses BOTH ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ X-rays. Its very disturbing that the TSA has been misleading on this point. Here is the real catch: the softer the X-ray, the more its absorbed by the body, and the higher the biologically relevant dose! This means, that this radiation is potentially worse than an a higher energy medical chest X-ray.

  • Windows 7 tablets

    Charles Arthur on Windows 7 as a tablet OS:

    The reason I'm going to have to be negative about it is nothing to do with the hardware, which is perfectly fine. It's the software. Windows 7, which it runs, definitively proves that there is a difference between a touch-screen operating system, and a tablet operating system. Windows 7 is, certainly, a touch-screen operating system. What it is not is a tablet operating system.

  • TSA Thinks it is not accountable to the public

    TSA is on the ultimate power trip lately.

    [via Gruber]

  • Wired, really?

    Charlie Sorrel:

    It’s funny that the brand-new tablet market has already turned into a commodity race to the bottom. It’s netbooks 2.0, only with Android instead of Windows XP, and with touch-screens instead of keyboards. If we have learned anything from the iPad it’s that the operating system is the most important part, something that seems to have slipped by Acer and Samsung. When the proper, vertical hardware/software devices from HP (WebOS) and RIM (PlayBook) show up, then the tablet market will heat up.

    The tablet market is anything but the net book market. The tablet market is already hot thanks to Apple, HP and RIM are irrelevant until they ship.