The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • The Men Who Stare at Screens

    Gretchen Reynolds:

    Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less.

  • How I outsourced my apartment hunt

    Chris Savage:

    Shahan ended up finding around 200 apartments that fit most of the criteria. He searched for two weeks totalling 30 hours of work. I spent about 10 minutes a day sorting and reviewing listings and ended up contacting about 7 listings. I found an apartment with the right price, location, and amenities after only 4 different visits. I spent $90, saved about 30 hours of my time, and navigated the ugly craigslist sea unscathed. All in all, I was really happy with my first personal outsourcing test.

    I just have my Wife do it…but this sounds like a much cheaper way.

  • US newspaper to charge website commenters

    Roy Greenslade:

    From tomorrow, the Sun Chronicle, a Massachusetts paper, will charge would-be commenters a nominal one-off fee of 99 cents. But it has to be paid by credit card, which means providing a real name and address.

    And the name on the credit card will be the name that will appear on comments. So it’s goodbye to anonymity.

    Seems like a great way to get relevant thoughtful comments. Should be great.

  • Design Director of NYTimes.com Leaves

    Khoi Vinh:

    After a lot of internal debate, I came to the conclusion that the time is right for me to make a change in my job. So about two and a half weeks ago, I formally resigned my position as design director of NYTimes.com. My last day will be this coming Friday, 16 July.

    This is a massive talent loss for the New York Times.

  • Remember When We Were All Supposed To Quit Facebook?

    MG Siegler:

    My point isn’t to downplay the privacy problems Facebook had a couple months ago. Many of them were very real, just as the iPhone 4 issue is. But shouldn’t all those who were acting holier-than-thou at the time have an obligation to stick to their guns? When they go quiet so quickly, it just makes them look like fear-mongers and gives Facebook even more power. And that’s exactly why it’s hard to take any of these problems seriously.

    I followed through, did you?

  • Should Apple hide the Consumer Report…Report?

    Eliot Van Buskirk:

    A TUAW reader first pointed out that a number of threads mentioning the search term “consumer reports” had disappeared from discussions.apple.com, replaced by a note asking the user to log in to the site, after which the relevant discussions still are not viewable. However, Microsoft’s Bing search engine cached those pages before Apple removed them, so they’re still visible for the curious.

    The big issue here is not that Apple is covering up the fact that there is a problem with the antenna, rather that they are hiding the fact that Consumer Reports will not recommend the phone. Who cares? Consumer Reports is irrelevant to any good testing and has not been a stalwart recommendation service for anyone under 40 for the past decade.

    Why then is Apple removing posts citing Consumer Reports? Simple they don’t want bad press on their website just as your company would not allow bad press on its website. The issue isn’t the antenna, the issue is marketing. Apple will let you complain all day about any problem you want, just don’t link to articles talking crap about their products.

    Apple is in the majority in this thinking, and they are maintaining their private forum. If you want to bitch and link to Consumer Reports go get a GeoCities ((remember those)) page – just don’t do it in Apple’s playground is all that Apple is trying to say.

  • Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

    Louis Gray:

    Second behind the word choice has to be “Momentum”. I can see that Android has momentum in terms of improved quality, in terms of the number of devices sold and users, and yes, applications, which are growing in quantity, soon to be followed by quality. I really do believe that if Android does not already have a market share lead over Apple yet in this discussion, they soon will. It is inevitable. The growth in the number of handsets, carriers and users will drive more developers to the platform, and the holdouts who are not there will eventually make the move.

    To me the above statement just seems silly, that is like saying that you are using Windows and not Mac OS because the customer base for Windows is bigger. That is never a good criteria to make a decision on unless you are the provider or are talking about social networking.

    I switched to Android because I am extending my move away from the desktop and more to the cloud. iTunes does not deserve to be the core of my device any more, as it is simply a utility to rent films and get new apps for the iPad.

    The above however is an sentiment that I completely agree with.

  • New iPhone 4 Ads

    They all focus on FaceTime and they are all pretty damn good. Though I must admit that I have only used FaceTime twice since getting the iPhone 4. I suspect that usage will rise as I know more and more people with FaceTime capable devices.

  • Out Of Nowhere, The iPad Has A Real Competitor – Kinda

    Don’t get to excited, it still involves modification to the device to get it running ‘full’ Android OS. That said it is cheap enough that I suspect it to be a cult underground classic much like the Nokia Tablets of 5 years ago were (n770 w00t).

  • Man Claims 84% Ownership of Facebook

    Geoffrey A. Fowler:

    In his suit, Mr. Ceglia claims he signed a contract with Mr. Zuckerberg on April 28, 2003 to develop and design a website in exchange for a $1,000 fee and a 50% stake in the product. The contract stipulated that Mr. Ceglia would get an additional 1% interest in the business for every day after Jan. 1, 2004, until it was completed.

    My guess would be that if this had any legitimacy we would have heard about it long ago.

  • Secunia Report Lists Apple As #1 in Vulnerabilities

    I think the most telling part about security was omitted from this report: speed at which a vulnerability is patched. Ever OS and Software platform will have vulnerabilities – it is how fast you patch for users that really matters to me. However, sad to see Apple at #1.

  • Palm webOS Headed to HP Tablet, Printer

    Looks like HP may finally ‘get it’. ((HP wants to control all pieces of the mobile ecosystem, says McKinney. “If you look at success in the market, they are those companies who can control the end user experience and the entire experience stack,” he says.))

  • Judge OKs iPhone class action against Apple, AT&T, Marco Responds

    Marco Arment:

    The majority of cellular phones sold in the U.S. are carrier-locked. Furthermore, since the two biggest networks in the U.S. operate with different radio standards and cannot share devices, there’s almost zero demand for unlocked phones here.

    He does a great job of setting the record straight – I like Marco – have no clue how this made it to an actual case.

  • Microsoft is Hardcore about Making Win 7 Slates

    Steve Ballmer (via Todd Bishop on Twitter):

    We are hardcore about this.

    That’s all fine and dandy, but is he talking about the never successful (except in niche markets) Tablet PCs, or the newly found successful iPad style computer? There is a big difference.

  • How Mariano Rivera Dominates Hitters

    This is an older item, I just had time to watch it and it is a fantastic use of the newer PitchFX data for baseball. Really cool flash video.

  • It’s As If Apple Has Hired Don Draper

    MG Siegler:

    As we’re all well aware, video chat, even on phones, is nothing new. Sure, Apple has simplified it, but they’re not really showcasing that here. Instead they’re going right for the heart strings. They’re doing something rather incredible. They’re conveying how you’ll feel if you use the product, by making you feel alongside those in the commercial. They’re creating this sentimental bond.

    Spot on, it is an amazing commercial. This commercial is the reason parents and grandparents want every member of the family to have and iPhone 4.

  • An interview with Michael Lopp from The Setup

    Loop:

    I’m a Mac OS X nerd and have been so for the past eight years. I’m a LaunchBar guy. Any time I have to touch the mouse, I feel inefficient.

    Amen to that.

  • Grain of Salt Warning: NDrive GPS App Disappears from Apple App Store, Kill Switch the Culprit?

    Evan Selleck:

    The application itself went for $2.99 in the App Store, and it provided upwards of 1.8GB of US map data. However, it sounds like people didn’t have long to download it, or enjoy it for that matter, before the application itself was pulled from the App Store. And then subsequently pulled from customer’s iPhones as well. It’s also disappearing from people’s Macs and PCs, too.

    No sources listed and the company is not confirming either way if this is true.

  • I Have a Fever: Ashes for iPad

    I had been waiting for some way to read Fever on the iPad. I was a hardcore Fever user but switched back to Google Reader so that I could use Netnewswire and Reeder. Sad that Ashes doesn’t live up to the hopes of Fever users. It is also sad that Shaun Inman has seemingly put Fever development on hold so that he can finish his new projects.

  • iPhone 4 as good as the 7D? No, but it’s amazing for what it is

    Damn impressive side by side video comparing the iPhone 4 and Canon 7D.