The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • GNU social

    Facebook for your own server, this is not the well known Diaspora project, but it is close.

  • A Closer Look at the Privacy Features of Facebook Places

    Looks like they did a decent job controlling the privacy of Places, but the thing that would bug me the most (if I was still a Facebook user) is the ability of friends to be able to check me in places. That I don’t like, I would disable that immediately if I were you.

  • Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right

    Saw that coming.

  • Apple’s App Store Director Sells His Own Fart Apps

    I felt compelled to post this, lest I become known as one Apple’s payroll. Here’s the thing, is Apple supposed to stop its employees from making apps? Tell them what apps they can and can’t make? Could you imagine how pissed people would be if Apple employees had to follow different rules than the rest of us?

    This guy is selling crappy joke applications and probably not making much money from it, oh and he happens to work at Apple. Where the hell is the story here?

    Wired:

    Still, it comes off as hypocritical that a director of the App Store sells apps that some might call inappropriate, said Ben Kahle, developer of Me So Holy, a satiric religious app that Apple rejected in mid-2009 for containing “objectionable material.” Kahle said after he re-submitted the app to the store, an Apple employee called him and said Me So Holy would “never” be approved.

    Ok fine I guess that is odd, but he was doing it before he got to Apple. I mean what are people supposed to go back through their lives and delete everything they did that goes against their new companies policy? This is crap journalism Wired, crap.

  • Manage Pixels, not Monitors

    Clay Johnson (who is quickly becoming my new favorite blogger):

    Remember: the key to having strong focus is the elimination of distraction. While a lot of space has its plusses, too much space is only creating room for more distractions. Having your mail, twitter, and IMs pop up in one monitor while you truly work in another is just giving your distractions equal ground to what you’re working on. Even having relatively static things up in extra screen space is a distraction. A todo list in a second monitor is nothing but a constant reminder of other things you could be working on other than the task at hand. Keeping anything up other than what you’re working on is a great way to keep yourself distracted from doing the important stuff you don’t want to do.

  • Rands In Repose: How to Run a Meeting

    Michael Lopp:

    Meetings must exist, but meetings cannot be seen as the only solution for making progress. If you must meet, start the meeting by remembering the definition of a successful meeting is that when the meeting is done, it need never occur again.

  • Facebook Places Video

    Also here is Facebook’s video explaining the new service. Two things about it; first is that this is really not as private as I initially thought, and that is terrible. Second why did they have a video of the nerdiest guys ever talking about how ‘cool’ this is?

    Places looks to have good privacy controls in place, the problem though is that Facebook is wanting everyone to use it all the time and is really going to get annoying about it. Meaning look for the privacy controls to change al á the news feed.

  • Facebook’s Awesome Dark Knight-Esque Live Check-In Display

    Remember what I was saying about even less privacy now on Facebook? Yeah this is what I was talking about.

  • Google Updates Gmail for iPad With Stacked Cards

    Not a Gmail user but this update looks pretty nice. Here’s the thing about Gmail though: the mobile interfaces look infinitely better than that of the “full” site that you get on your computer. If the “full” site looked like this I may just use it.

  • Intel to Acquire McAfee

    $7.68 billion and both boards agreed to it, sounds like a great deal for both sides and should catapult McAfee’s business in the consumer marketplace.

  • WD Mybook Users – How to Get Rid of the Annoying “CD” That Auto-Mounts

    You know that little CD image that auto-mounts when you plug in a Western Digital Mybook hard drive? Well here is how you get rid of it. [courtesy of Marco]

  • Facebook Places: Even Less Privacy Than You Had Before

    MG Siegler:

    Facebook is careful to mention the privacy ramifications of this. First of all, you can only tag people you are friends with on these check-ins. Also, by default, your check-ins will only be visible to people you’re friends with (though you can change this to be visible to everyone). You can also opt-out of having friends be able tag you in a location updates. This is found in the privacy page.

    I still haven’t had time to go through all the announcements, but they are partnering with Gowalla, and Foursquare for this as expected. Great to see they are taking privacy seriously right away, the problem with Facebook is that everyone is friends with each other, which defeats the purpose.

  • UPS Figures Out the ‘Right Way’ to Save Money, Time and Gas

    Brian Rooney:

    UPS trucks drove 2.5 billion miles last year, but the company says its package flow technology combined with right-turn routes saved 28,541,472 million miles, and three million gallons of fuel.

    Amazing what eliminating left turns can do.

  • Verizon to Offer Live TV Streaming to iPad, Limited to Local Wi-Fi Networks

    This would be great, but what is up with limiting it to current customers. I can’t even get Verizon service at my home, I know many others cannot as well.

  • What if ISPs had to advertise minimum speeds? In Hungary, they do

    I think they should have to, this theoretical maximum that Comcast offers is a bunch of bull.

  • Google and Verizon Tablet Shipping for Holiday Shopping Season

    If they really are shipping it with ChromeOS and not Android giving it away for free (with a Verizon contract) is just about the only way to sell a ton. Otherwise people will want to wait a few months to see what others say about the completely unknown ChromeOS. Black Friday is just cutting it too close for Christmas sales, especially if Apple slashes the iPad price before then, something I suspect they may do.

  • ttttask

    Shawn Blanc on a new service he wants:

    Similarly to the way Instapaper as a service is for articles you wish to read later, ttttask would be a service for things you wish to do later.

    I am prepared to help find this, who is going to build it?

  • Kevin Rose Offers 5 Terrible Email Time Saving Tips

    I hate email for sure, but these tips from Digg Founder and CEO Kevin Rose just plain suck:

    Type “Sent from iPhone” under your short responses. People don’t expect long responses when you’re on your phone. Don’t forget to mispell a few words.

    First, I don’t misspell things on the iPhone that often. Secondly WTF, this is a terrible tip.

  • Smoking Apples: Twelve South’s Compass iPad Stand — A Review

    I own two iPad stands, I dislike them both. I really want this, but I can’t justify it just yet. With the second iPad stand I justified it by having one at home and one at my office, but where would I put a third, unless one of you want to buy one off of me for a deal?

  • SSDs Are the New RAM Upgrades

    When I was a kid it used to be all about your processor speed – “is that a 286? No it’s a 386 – woah”. Then as I got older it was how much RAM you had, “you have 512mb! Holy crap!” SSDs have now replaced RAM, get your self between 2gb-4gb of RAM and you are set. If you want more computing speed you need an SSD (see why here, here, and here).

    As Patrick Rhone suggests it may be cheaper than you think:

    I mentioned this on my personal Twitter account but it warrants repeating here. If one wanted to go extreme minimal Mac, they could easily make due with a 40GB SSD for only $99. For instance, if one used mostly built in apps, used lots of web services, streaming music, etc. the trade of unused space for speed would be a huge win. An Intel model of the same size and price was recommended over the OWC model by a trusted source as well.