The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • This Eric Schmidt Statement Scares the Crap out of Me

    Claire Cain Miller:

    He and other Google executives were not shy about needling Facebook for making it difficult for Google to import social information. Upon signing up for Facebook, people can import their Google contacts, but it does not work the other way around,  Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management, noted.

    “The best thing that would happen is Facebook would open up its network and we’d use that information to improve our ads and our search,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Failing that, there are other ways in which we can get that information, which is what we’re working on.”

    What ‘other ways’ do they have, what the hell.

  • At Best Buy iPad sales are up, PCs down.

    No surprise, the iPad is grabbing up to 50% of laptop sales at Best Buy. I have heard from a couple of people that Best Bu is hard selling the iPad over laptops, which one would think would hurt their profitability with regards to the Geek Squad guys. Interesting none the less.

  • Smoking Apples Thoughts on iOS 4.2 Beta for iPad

    This beta was enough for me to decide to renew my Dev account and put on my iPad. Two things I wanted were the folders for apps and the unified inbox in mail. As I said the other day this update keeps everything that was great about the iPad and adds to it.

    It is like spending most of your life sitting in really great seats at a baseball game, but those seats are still cramped and plastic. Then one day your seats get uograded (for free) to slightly wider and fully padded seats. That is the difference between 3.2 and 4.2 on the iPad – life just gets a little better with it and you begin to think ‘this is the life’.

  • Google Is Now Officially Evil

    Dan Frommer:

    All's fair in business, we suppose. But Google is now basically acting like heyday-era Microsoft here, throwing its weight around and screwing over small companies for its own gain. Google Android boss Andy Rubin went as far as to call Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha “multiple times” to impose a “stop ship” order on the company's phones, according to Skyhook's complaint.

    If Google is the new evil then how do we feel about Microsoft? I feel pity for them. Also this evil Google is only going to get worse I suspect – for the greed has taken over.

  • Plaintext

    Look for this app to hit the app store soon. Looks awesome, perhaps a real Simplenote challenger?

  • DEVONthink To Go – Wish it was Yojimbo

    I have no real reason for posting this other than to say I wish Yojimbo and Ulysses has mobile versions of their apps. That would be really nice.

  • Dreaming Up a Single Input Login Form

    This looks like a great idea, but what if your password has a space in it? That seems like it may cause a problem, not to mention it would eliminate usernames with spaces (though most sites don’t allow that, and why not?).

  • Shawn Blanc’s Inbox Zero

    Shawn Blanc:

    Inbox Zero means I care more about this moment than I do about my narcissistic tendencies of knowing who’s talking to me on Twitter. It means I care more about doing my best creative work than about keeping up with the real-time web and being instantly accessible via email.

    I stopped caring about staying on top of my email inbox a few months ago, but Twitter I am finding harder to let go of – perfect timing on this post.

  • Macworld’s First Look: iOS 4.2 beta 1

    I will try the printing tomorrow in the office (no printer at home except an expensive photo printer). For now if you want to know what is new read through this.

  • The iPad & Competitors

    Peter Svensson for the AP (via the Seattle Times):

    It took competitors a couple of years to start catching up to the iPhone in a serious way. The gap will probably be shorter for tablet computers, but by getting the iPad right on its first try, Apple has real head start. Maybe I’m trying to justify my purchase here, but I have a strong feeling there isn’t a lot to be gained by waiting for the others to catch up.

  • Status Of CrunchPad Litigation

    This is a pretty wild account of what is going on, of course only one side is shown here. What is shown is pretty damning evidence against Fusion Garage. The thing is though (and Gruber said something to this affect a while back) what are they fighting over? This product is not making money, what can they hope to gain?

  • Bill Hill On The Future of Reading: iPad Blows Kindle Out Of The Water

    Fantastic read, Bill Hill:

    When the history of reading on screens is written, it might well be seen as a series of footnotes to the iPad. Yes, we’ve had other eBook devices before now. And yes, the Kindle broke new ground with long battery life using the eInk technology. But as I said in an earlier post, eInk is essentially a backward-looking technology, too slavishly bound to emulating paper, and it’s an evolutionary dead-end.

    [via DF]

  • Ars Technica Reviews Internet Explorer 9

    Peter Bright does a great job covering all of IE 9. One thing that I think is pretty nice is the way tabs are handled, they take up no extra vertical space. They are not on the top or bottom of the URL bar (Chrome is top, Safari is bottom right now) rather they are inline with the URL bar. This looks nice and like I said takes up no extra vertical space (which on our widescreen computers is precious), though the major downfall is how many tabs you can realistically deal with before they become too small.

  • The New Boxed Wine

    Just take a look at that picture – the new boxed wine is a comin. I bet this makes true wine lovers die a little on the inside, and college students everywhere get really excited about the possibilities.

  • Apple releases iOS 4.2 beta for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

    Live in the Dev center right now, I just renewed my iOS developers account so that I can get it (I have been waiting for a iOS 4 beta for iPad to hit to renew). Sweet!

  • Revisiting Solid State Hard Drives

    Jeff Atwood:

    […]because if you care at all about how your computer performs, solid state hard drives remain a life changing experience.

    Agreed.

  • The Best Subtle Things About New Twitter

    Great overview of what is new by MG Siegler, honestly though the only time I use the web interface is to change my profile picture. I want a new version of Tweetie for Mac.

  • Google Engineer Stalked Teens, Spied on Chats

    People at Google can and do look at your ‘private’ data – if you want true privacy Google is not the way to go (nor is anything that you don’t host yourself). Though for the record this is the creepiest looking guy, seriously look at the pictures.

  • Alarms

    Very clever looking Alarm and timer program for scheduling some tasks. I think this will fit in my workflow very nicely (for those things that don’t need to be in OmniFocus).

    [via Shawn Blanc who found it via Patrick Rhone]

  • MG Siegler on the Verizon App Store

    This is incredible interesting, Verizon will be making their own curated app store (much like Apple’s curation process) that will be preinstalled on select Android devices (version 2.2 and up). So they quality should be better and easier to find that the normal Android store, Verizon and the developers get a cut of money, not Google and the consumers get screwed. Well they get screwed in so far as they can’t take their apps out of Verizon.

    Sounds swell.