The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • The Real Scoop on Ad Age in the ‘Mad Men’ Era

    I am a huge Mad Men fan and watched the season premiere on Sunday night. I thought the episode was great as usual, but did notice the mention of Ad Age in the episode. Though I don’t think it warranted this response.

    Rance Crain:

    What’s wrong with this picture? No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn’t take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn’t ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories.

    Sounds awfully defensive especially given the fact that Mad Men was not making fun of Ad Age, they were making fun of one of the characters. This is most likely a link bait play for Ad Age to publish this.

  • Samsung Galaxy S: Hands-On with the Latest Android Smartphone

    Mashable:

    The Samsung Galaxy S is a fantastic smartphone. Call quality is crisp, data connections are fast, and the phone flies through apps and web pages. While we wish Samsung had left some aspects of Android alone on the software side, some of the touches to TouchWiz are actually an improvement.

    The screen on the device is second only to the iPhone 4, and photo and video quality is serviceable, if not fantastic. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone — especially an Android device — we highly recommend checking out the Galaxy S. It’s one of the best smartphones on the market and easily one of the nicest Android devices we’ve tested.

  • How to Focus

    Clay Johnson:

    I’ve been using a second monitor for nearly ten years, thinking that vast amounts of space were key to productivity. The second monitor myth has been around for quite some time. Yet the only actual scientific study I could find linking multiple monitors to productivity was done in 2003 by a monitor manufacturer, a video card manufacturer, and the University of Utah. It’s actually kind of a marketing document, not a study. I’ve opted for one, large monitor. Two monitors just allows me to put distractions on one monitor, and actual work on another.

    I found that to be true for me as well.

  • 1Password: Automatic Syncing Using Dropbox

    1Password can now sync via the cloud using Dropbox – this is a long awaited feature and is implemented really well. 1Password is a must have for any computer user – it stores all your passwords and automatically logs you in to sites. It can help you create secure passwords and even store billing addresses and credit card info making checkout really fast on sites.

    A nice touch is that when you go to setup Dropbox syncing instead of asking you for your Dropbox password the program pulls it from your database and asks that you confirm it is the right one – very nice touch.

  • New Apple Products Out

    Today Apple released new products:

    The battery charger is very interesting as is the Magic Trackpad. I am going to be stopping in at my local Apple Store to see if they have either in stock today. I am curious to see how practical using a trackpad is with a desktop.

  • Nadia Camera Offers Opinion of Your Terrible Photos

    Charlie Sorrel:

    Instead of an LCD screen to check your pictures, the Nadia judges them for you and assigns a percentage score using the automatic rating engine Acquine. It does this even before you press the shutter, allowing you to compose and recompose, with Nadia offering an electronic opinion every time. When you judge the number to be high enough, you press the shutter and take the snap.

    That’s one way to stop every person with a camera from thinking that they take ‘the best’ photographs.

  • Smarter Than the Average Bear

    This was a note at the bottom of the page for this bear vault that I was looking at buying, REI.com:

    There is a bear in the Marcy Dam area of the Adirondacks in upstate New York that has learned to open BearVault food containers.

    I’m not even mad – just impressed.

  • Most iPhone users love AT&T

    David Goldman:

    …77% of iPhone owners say they’ll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of smartphone customers who say they’ll buy an Android phone.

    Like I tell most people the iPhone is currently king of the hill and once you use it you cannot imagine going back to another phone. (in case you are curious the same holds true for Mac OS X – once you use it you love it)

  • YouTube Launches New HTML5-Friendly Embed Code

    Christina Warren:

    With the new embed, however, it is possible to view video using the HTML5 player, provided you have signed up for the beta version and are in an HTML5-compatible browser. If the embedded video has elements that aren’t compatible with HTML5, the Flash browser will be used instead.

    A step in the right direction.

  • Firefox Just Perfected Tabbed Browsing. It’s Like Apple’s Expose Plus Spaces For The Web

    This is really cool – though I suspect that it is not as useful as shown. This is solely based off of my experience with Exposé on the Mac. It is a cool feature that has its moments, but for the most part I never use it.

  • New in Basecamp: Custom favicon and iPhone icons

    37Signals:

    Basecamp now has a favicon and iPhone icon that you can customize with your own logo.

    Finally.

  • Windows Phone 7 in-depth preview

    Joshua Topolsky:

    Let’s just put this up front: the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot

    I have to admit that I really want to try one of these phones – they look a lot better than Android.

  • India Develops World’s Cheapest Tablet

    Stan Schroeder:

    In another attempt to bring a usable computer to the masses at an extremely affordable price point, India has developed a touchscreen computing device which will cost only $35. According to a press release by India’s Press Information Bureau, the price is expected to drop even further, first to $20 and ultimately to a mere $10.

    This has been all over the news this morning. But I don’t think it really is that great of a ‘deal’.

    The mean household income in the U.S. is $60,528 a year. I could not find similar statistics for India, but from the non-factual sources I could find it was pegged around $1,000-2,000 a year. For the sake of argument let’s go with India at $2,500 mean income per household yearly. Let us also use the iPad as the equivalent Tablet in the U.S. at $499 each.

    In the U.S. then the iPad represents 0.82% of the mean annual household income – in India this new $35 tablet represents 1.4% of the mean annual household income. That is a huge difference and in a nation as poor as India it is not really affordable. $35 might sound amazing to everyone in the U.S. – but it is still the equivalent of an $843.61 expense for us in the U.S.. Not so cheap now is it?

  • HP Wants To Become Apple. WebOS Is The Key

    MG Siegler:

    WebOS is the key to all of this. It’s the software layer that HP’s hardware has been lacking — forcing them to go with Microsoft instead. But the Palm acquisition in April changed all of that. From the moment that happened, HP has made no secret that the reason for the deal was to “double-down” on webOS.

    This whole post is spot on.

  • Microsoft’s Record Q4 Earnings Keeps Revenue Ahead Of Apple… Barely

    MG Siegler:

    Microsoft easily beat Wall Street estimates that they would see about $15.3 billion in revenues. Microsoft largely credits strong sales within enterprise of Windows 7 and Office 2010. Net income was also strong at $4.52 billion. And earnings per share were at $0.51. Both of those beat Wall Street estimates as well.

  • Motorola’s Attention to Detail on the Droid X

    John Gruber:

    This might epitomize the difference between Android and iOS.

    [via DF]

  • Safari Security Hole: I know who your name, where you work, and live

    This is so very not good.

  • Compass Mobile Stand – iPad

    This is so awesome looking. Best stand yet – which means that I have two available for purchase if you want them let me know.

  • Apple Reports Third Quarter Results

    Apple:

    Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of 3.27 million.

    That is a crazy amount of iPads sold.

  • Flipboard

    This is a cool app – the servers have been down most of the day so don’t be dismayed if you can’t connect your accounts just yet.(also another great video from Adam Lisagor)