The Brooks Review

Top Posts

Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
The Hype: Yoshida & Co’s Porter BagsAugust 26, 2025

Recent Articles

  • ‘My Divorce From Google – One Year Later’

    [Tom Henderson on leaving Google behind][1]: > What I’ve concluded is that I’m happy, and I find that Google and SEO and tracking have soiled the web in unbelievable ways. Google has imposed a constraint on content through its ad business that I can’t get away from, because content is trying to adapt to Google…

    [Tom Henderson on leaving Google behind][1]:

    > What I’ve concluded is that I’m happy, and I find that Google and SEO and tracking have soiled the web in unbelievable ways. Google has imposed a constraint on content through its ad business that I can’t get away from, because content is trying to adapt to Google so it can be found, but especially because content becomes monetized in doing so– to the detriment of us all.

    That’s an interesting thought, and something I hadn’t thought about. It’s sad to think about how much sites tweak their content and headlines just in hopes of a few extra clicks on Google and subsequently their Google Ads.

    One thing that many of you have asked about in response to my [post last week about valuing privacy more than money][2], is why. Why is privacy so important?

    Let’s let former Google CEO and current Chairman Eric ‘Uncle Creepy’ Schmidt answer that for you, as reported by [Holman W. Jenkins Jr.][3]:

    > “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” he says. He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.

    Any questions?

    [1]: http://www.itworld.com/software/350485/my-divorce-google-one-year-later
    [2]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/03/quit-i-dare-you/
    [3]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423294099527212.html

  • Black Maple Hill

    A good friend of mine wanted to get a really great present for another good friend of ours — he wanted to get a bottle of Pappy, or better known as Pappy Van Winkle. Now if you know anything about Bourbon, that particular whiskey is the holy grail of American whiskeys right now. *If* you…

    A good friend of mine wanted to get a really great present for another good friend of ours — he wanted to get a bottle of Pappy, or better known as Pappy Van Winkle. Now if you know anything about Bourbon, that particular whiskey is the holy grail of American whiskeys right now. *If* you can even find a bottle, you’d be lucky to afford it — “empty” bottles sell on Ebay for well over twice the retail cost (usually more).

    If you find it in a bar, drink it. If you find a bottle, buy it.

    Since Pappy was out of the question he sought after Black Maple Hill — [a whiskey he learned about in this Wall Street Journal feature][1].

    As luck would have it he snagged what appears to be the last bottle in the state, and gave it as a gift. Luckily for us, our friend opened the bottle and allowed us to partake.

    Holy shit.

    I’ve spoken here about my love for a fine single malt, typically not much of a bourbon fan (which Black Maple Hill is), but I am always open to trying other whiskeys.

    Black Maple Hill is perhaps one of the best whiskeys I have ever had, hands down, no question. Best of luck finding it.

    [1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578362663959730642.html

  • ‘What Does a Tablet Do to the Child’s Mind?’

    [Nick Bilton writing about a recent experience he had at dinner with his sister and nieces where the kids were given iPads to placate them][1]: > So will a child who plays with crayons at dinner rather than a coloring application on an iPad be a more socialized person? > Ozlem Ayduk, an associate professor…

    [Nick Bilton writing about a recent experience he had at dinner with his sister and nieces where the kids were given iPads to placate them][1]:

    > So will a child who plays with crayons at dinner rather than a coloring application on an iPad be a more socialized person?
    > Ozlem Ayduk, an associate professor in the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said children sitting at the dinner table with a print book or crayons were not as engaged with the people around them, either. “There are value-based lessons for children to talk to the people during a meal,” she said. “It’s not so much about the iPad versus nonelectronics.”

    This is something we struggle with all the time. Our daughter isn’t much interested in the iPad any more (she used to love Garageband) unless you are Facetiming with someone. However, TV, will instantly calm her down — but she typically only watches for 45 seconds at a time before she moves on to playing, glancing back and dancing when ever a song is heard. We still feel guilty every time the TV goes on, or when we give her an iPad to distract her for 10-15 minutes.

    It’s a tough call to make for a parent, when all you want to do is the “right” thing for your child, but “we” are not alone. We are dealing iPads, but every generation of parents before us has had something like this they struggled to deal with. Toys, play-pens, bouncers, walkers, and so forth — the problem is not new, but that doesn’t make it easier to solve.

    [1]: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/disruptions-what-does-a-tablet-do-to-the-childs-mind/

  • ‘The Life and Times of a TV Show Piracy Release Group’

    [Andy for TorrentFreak](http://torrentfreak.com/the-life-and-times-of-a-tv-show-piracy-release-group-130331/): > Today, the vast majority of Internet TV show downloaders simply fire up a general site such as The Pirate Bay or specialist outlets such as EZTV, hunt down a torrent, and then count down the minutes until it’s ready to watch. But how did that torrent begin its life and who…

    [Andy for TorrentFreak](http://torrentfreak.com/the-life-and-times-of-a-tv-show-piracy-release-group-130331/):

    > Today, the vast majority of Internet TV show downloaders simply fire up a general site such as The Pirate Bay or specialist outlets such as EZTV, hunt down a torrent, and then count down the minutes until it’s ready to watch. But how did that torrent begin its life and who put it there?

    It’s always interested me how and why all these TV Shows are readily available on the Internet (via Torrents) in both a high quality form and in a very timely fashion — for free. Given the time, resources, security, and planning it takes to share a TV Show, it seems amazing to me that people are willing to do all that in defense of a principle and not for money.

  • ‘The Pebble’

    [Stephen Hackett reviewing The Pebble, a massively delayed, “smart” watch][1]: > This means turning off the iPhone, flipping it to Airplane Mode or simply leaving it on your desk when you go to lunch means your phone will forget what its supposed to do. Or leaving your watch inside when you mow the grass. Or…

    [Stephen Hackett reviewing The Pebble, a massively delayed, “smart” watch][1]:

    > This means turning off the iPhone, flipping it to Airplane Mode or simply leaving it on your desk when you go to lunch means your phone will forget what its supposed to do. Or leaving your watch inside when you mow the grass. Or leaving your phone in your bag when you workout. Or do anything a normal human does, really. It blows.

    That sounds fantastic — who doesn’t want to mess around with pairing your watch to your phone every time the two get more than 30 feet apart?

    Stephen makes the point that the Pebble is doing things no one intended with iOS, but even if you are willing to dismiss these shortcomings as a software limit due to lack of foresight, there’s still a slew of other issues:

    1. The hardware isn’t great.
    2. The aesthetics of wearing the Pebble are poor.
    3. If Apple decides to make their own watch ((Which I am doubtful of, but there is a lot of smoke. However, one must determine if it is idiots venting the steam from their heads, or real smoke from a real fire.)) that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Pebble gains more features. Apple very likely would make *only* their watch work with iOS. So banking on that isn’t smart.

    ## One Final Thought to Wrap This Up

    Take a look at the photos Stephen posted: the watch display truly looks like crap. It’s not just the crispness, the overall design looks like crap. The only screen that looks decent is the updating screen — as even the watch face Stephen shows looks neat, but highly impractical.

    There’s two reasons to wear a watch:

    1. Style.
    2. Utility.

    Most people get a little of both from a watch if they buy a nice one, and at the very least get the second without too much badness happening on the style front with a cheap watch.

    The Pebble though is uglier than your standard $30 watch, costs more, and only does more *if* you are willing to fight it constantly. *Fun.*

    [1]: http://512pixels.net/2013/03/pebble-review/

  • ‘Why Developers Shouldn’t Use iCloud Syncing’

    [Brent Simmons][1]: > How comfortable are you with outsourcing half your app to another company? The answer should be: not at all comfortable. Simmons’ argument has been linked all over the web as an astute damning of iCloud’s unreliable synchronization for developers to use in their apps. I think Simmons missed something with his statement:…

    [Brent Simmons][1]:

    > How comfortable are you with outsourcing half your app to another company? The answer should be: not at all comfortable.

    Simmons’ argument has been linked all over the web as an astute damning of iCloud’s unreliable synchronization for developers to use in their apps.

    I think Simmons missed something with his statement: user trust.

    It’s true that developers should want to own every aspect of their app and the services it depends on — this way Apple can’t go all Google Reader on your ass.

    However, developers should *also* be thinking about the trust they’re asking users to place in them, their company, their employees, and their ability to protect confidential data. What if Glassboard, which Simmons built and references, was made by a 15 year old kid as her first app? She owns your data. Do you trust her to keep it safe?

    If you’re well known, or trusted by the geeks reviewing your app, then owning everything is probably fine. However, if you’re unknown and need to gain your user’s trust then iCloud seems like a better solution. As a user, I already trust Apple (App Store credit cards and all). If you‘re a new developer and use iCloud sync to store my data, then you don‘t need a bunch more trust.

    As a user and blogger who doesn’t know you, I’m far more likely to give you a shot, than my trust.

    So while there are technical and long-term strategic reasons not to use iCloud, I think there are also very good short-term strategic reasons *to* use iCloud.

    [1]: http://inessential.com/2013/03/27/why_developers_shouldnt_use_icloud_sy

  • Quote of the Day: John Gruber

    “This, from the company that shitcanned Google Reader because they wanted to ‘focus’.” — John Gruber

    “This, from the company that shitcanned Google Reader because they wanted to ‘focus’.”

  • Quote of the Day: Laird Hamilton

    “To me, there’s nothing worse than waking up and realizing that the sun’s already been up for awhile.” — Laird Hamilton

    “To me, there’s nothing worse than waking up and realizing that the sun’s already been up for awhile.”

  • ‘Email Signoffs: End Them Forever.’

    [Matthew J.X. Malady fighting the good fight](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/03/email_signoffs_end_them_forever_best_yours_regards_they_re_all_terrible.single.html): >Henceforth, I do not want—nay, I will not accept—any manner of regards. Nor will I offer any. And I urge you to do the same. I can’t tell you how much I agree here. See also: “[Email Mistakes That Irritate Smart People](https://brooksreview.net/2010/07/email-mistakes-that-irratate-smart-people/)” I largely skip all formalities that…

    [Matthew J.X. Malady fighting the good fight](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/03/email_signoffs_end_them_forever_best_yours_regards_they_re_all_terrible.single.html):

    >Henceforth, I do not want—nay, I will not accept—any manner of regards. Nor will I offer any. And I urge you to do the same.

    I can’t tell you how much I agree here. See also: “[Email Mistakes That Irritate Smart People](https://brooksreview.net/2010/07/email-mistakes-that-irratate-smart-people/)”

    I largely skip all formalities that older generations applied to email. No intro, unless it is an email needing severe formality, and never any signoffs longer than `-Ben` — hell half the time I spell my own damned name `Bem` on accident so I even try to avoid writing that much. ((Clearly I could make a TextExpander snippet or something here, but for what point, I’m barely typing any characters to begin with.))

    What’s clever about email is that there are always sender and receiver fields that tell people who sent the email, who received it, and even who was CC’d on the email. So what’s the point of all the other cruft?

    Mostly ego, or so my ego assumes.

  • Quote of the Day: Frank Chimero

    “The past wasn’t better, we just forgot about all the shitty shit.” — Frank Chimero

    “The past wasn’t better, we just forgot about all the shitty shit.”

  • Forecast.io

    I get emails from people trying to do weather apps all the time. But the best emails I get are from Jack and Adam at Dark Sky — these guys just get it. They just publicly launched [Forecast.io](http://blog.forecast.io/post/46290267206/announcing-forecast) and it’s amazing. I’ve been using it for a bit and here’s my verdict on it: it’s…

    I get emails from people trying to do weather apps all the time. But the best emails I get are from Jack and Adam at Dark Sky — these guys just get it.

    They just publicly launched [Forecast.io](http://blog.forecast.io/post/46290267206/announcing-forecast) and it’s amazing. I’ve been using it for a bit and here’s my verdict on it: it’s hard not to set as your homepage.

    Truly great work.

    Now it is ad supported, but I honestly don’t know that there is any other workable business model for weather sites at this point.

    Ok, [just go check it our for yourself](http://forecast.io/).

  • More Anti-Google Services

    [Lavabit](http://lavabit.com/index.html) comes highly recommended from reader Daniel R. as a better email option than Hush for private email. It is cheaper and offers more. I signed up for a free account, but have yet to figure out how to upgrade it to a premium account — still if you can, Lavabit looks like a very…

    [Lavabit](http://lavabit.com/index.html) comes highly recommended from reader Daniel R. as a better email option than Hush for private email. It is cheaper and offers more. I signed up for a free account, but have yet to figure out how to upgrade it to a premium account — still if you can, Lavabit looks like a very generous offering at only $16/yr.

    **Update**: You go to ‘Preferences’ on the Lavabit homepage to upgrade to the paid account — it’s not a very intuitive website (to say the least).

    [Safari Keyword Search](http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net) comes recommended from reader Simon R. as a better way to use DuckDuckGo in Safari. I have tried this before and it is a solid way to do it, but you have to type something like `d` preceding your search. That was enough of a hassle on an everyday basis to get me to edit my hosts file instead.

  • ‘Google’s Google Problem’

    [Ryan Avent makes a salient point regarding the shut-down of Google Reader](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilities): > Yanking away services beloved by early adopters almost guarantees that critical masses can’t be obtained: not, at any rate, without the provision of an incentive or commitment mechanism to protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service. This,…

    [Ryan Avent makes a salient point regarding the shut-down of Google Reader](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilities):

    > Yanking away services beloved by early adopters almost guarantees that critical masses can’t be obtained: not, at any rate, without the provision of an incentive or commitment mechanism to protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service.

    This, of course, matters when you have a social network — or perhaps if your actual product is the users of your services.

    [MG Siegler tackles another side of the debate](http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/24/bees/):

    > By killing the flower, Google could also kill the bees. That would be bad for all of us, even if we no longer use Reader or have any clue what RSS is.

    Siegler’s point is that Reader drives a ton of traffic to sites everyday and without it, what happens if no other service fills the void? Decreased page views? Who does that hurt? Advertisers… aka Google.

    It seems like a bit of a stretch, but it’s clear that the possibility is there.

    One possible solution, [from Paul Krugman](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/the-economics-of-evil-google/):

    > It seems hard at this point to envision search and related functions as public utilities, but that’s arguably where the logic will eventually lead us.

    So, Google is the new AT&T?

  • You Can’t Quit, I Dare You

    [Marco Arment](http://www.marco.org/2013/03/21/thursday-sandwich): >Want to really stick it to them? Stop using Google. All of it. Search, Gmail, Maps, the works. Delete your account and start using Bing. Ready? >… >Yeah. That’s the problem. You won’t. I won’t. Nobody will. After I read that I quipped to Marco (on App.net) that this is factually incorrect —…

    [Marco Arment](http://www.marco.org/2013/03/21/thursday-sandwich):

    >Want to really stick it to them? Stop using Google. All of it. Search, Gmail, Maps, the works. Delete your account and start using Bing. Ready?
    >…
    >Yeah. That’s the problem. You won’t. I won’t. Nobody will.

    After I read that I quipped to Marco (on App.net) that this is factually incorrect — as I have actually quit Google. To my surprise, many of the anti-free-therefore-paid-and-very-nerdy-advocate types on App.net chimed in that they had, or are, fully leaving Google too.

    It’s not an easy thing to do, mostly because old habits die hard, but it is actually very possible.

    ## Search

    The easiest thing to do is to switch to Bing. While you can argue about how good the results are, I have been using Bing on iOS for over a year now and never once felt like I wasn’t able to find what I needed. Because there’s a difference between searching for something obscure and what most people use search for everyday. For the latter Bing is just as good (if not better, as the design is better looking on mobile), for the former you can make a case for Google, but it’s a close race.

    Basic and intermediate-complexity searches are possible, with slightly less depth for the really deep searches when you need to find that one rant about that thing that no one else should remember.

    That’s where my favorite search engine DuckDuckGo comes in. It’s fantastic.

    You can easily use it on your Mac in Safari by [changing your hosts file](http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/255650) and in Chrome [like so](http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216440-chrome). I prefer DuckDuckGo for everything. It’s fast, accurate, and [privacy conscious](https://duckduckgo.com/privacy).

    DuckDuckGo is the search engine with truly different results — meaning they’re different from the results at Bing and Google. Sometimes that’s fantastic, sometimes it just doesn’t work: The hardest thing is finding the address of a local business on DuckDuckGo.

    There *are* options outside of Google. When was the last time you tried them?

    ## Mail

    I like to run *my* email on *my* server, but it’s a significant undertaking and I don’t recommend *you* do that.

    I use iCloud for most personal email, but I have been testing a couple of different solutions to migrate to.

    [Hushmail](https://www.hushmail.com) is among the top contenders. They offer a free account that sucks, and then two paid accounts. Their pricing is a little obscure: for a basic 1GB account you pay $34.99, plus $14.99 for IMAP access, on a yearly basis. Not too bad, but I wish the storage was a bit more generous at this price point.

    Among some miscellaneous privacy-voodoo for general emailing, Hushmail also offers encrypted email between other Hushmail users. The most important part, for me, is that they seem to take privacy seriously. (Note that Hushmail *will* turn over records to law enforcement when legally compelled to do so. But, being based in Canada means U.S. law enforcement agencies have to request, and Canada has to grant, that legal compulsion.)

    Another thing I like is the business email option, where you can use your own domain name. Again, the pricing is very “up-sell-y”, but the service is private and seems stable to me. (It would cost a 5-person company $40-50 a month to use this, which is pricey [I guess, I have few references for that], but not Google.)

    My advice: if you don’t care too much about privacy get an iCloud account. Otherwise there are plenty of online options — just be sure to do your research before switching.

    ## Everything Else

    The dust is still settling on the recent Google Reader/RSS debacle, but [Feedbin.me](https://feedbin.me), [Fever](http://feedafever.com), and [NewsBlur](http://newsblur.com) are the top alternatives in my book.

    As for online storage: Dropbox, iCloud or SkyDrive are all better than Google Drive, in my opinion.

    That leaves calendars and productivity apps. To be honest I have no good solutions to replace the Google offerings, but then again, I never used Google’s offerings on that front.

    Office 365 is pretty nice if you’re a Windows user but utterly pointless if you’re on a Mac. I don’t trust web apps for office-like tasks and much prefer native apps like Excel, Pages, Numbers, etc.

    ## Money, Money, Money

    Switching your search engine is easy, and free. But as you can see switching anything else is likely to cost you — usually a monthly fee.

    And that seems to be the crux of people’s “ditching Google” hang up: Google makes a killing because people are willing to give up their privacy before handing over cash.

    I’m fine with people using Google, and even loving Google, so long as they understand the trade-off. (Apparently I take that trade-off more seriously than most, so I choose to find privacy-conscious services, most of which happen to cost money.) I find that people either don’t believe there is a tradeoff or, more likely, don’t believe it’s as big of a deal as I think they should.

  • ‘Blocked Sites Is Discontinued’

    [Google](http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1210386): >The Blocked Sites feature is no longer available. To block particular sites from your search results, we recommend the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension from Google. You may also download your existing blocked sites list as a text file. Totally not related to Google’s ability to sell ads. *Totally* different. See also: [Massive botnet costs…

    [Google](http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1210386):

    >The Blocked Sites feature is no longer available. To block particular sites from your search results, we recommend the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension from Google. You may also download your existing blocked sites list as a text file.

    Totally not related to Google’s ability to sell ads. *Totally* different.

    See also: [Massive botnet costs advertisers millions, but hackers may not be to blame.](http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4123720/massive-botnet-defrauds-advertisers-millions-shady-origins)

  • Quote of the Day: The Macalope

    “Because people who don’t pay for smartphones buy so many apps.” — The Macalope

    “Because people who don’t pay for smartphones buy so many apps.”

  • Maybe

    [Kevin Fanning, writing about failure and passion](http://kfan.tumblr.com/post/45910246222/ok-by-now-youve-seen-this-article-in-the-onion): >Maybe the self-obsessed celebrity artist culture isn’t that helpful or useful. Maybe eventually we get to a place where we see that books and music and art are created by us, people who have school and day jobs and other shit we care about. I encourage you to…

    [Kevin Fanning, writing about failure and passion](http://kfan.tumblr.com/post/45910246222/ok-by-now-youve-seen-this-article-in-the-onion):

    >Maybe the self-obsessed celebrity artist culture isn’t that helpful or useful. Maybe eventually we get to a place where we see that books and music and art are created by us, people who have school and day jobs and other shit we care about.

    I encourage you to read this post, especially if you are feeling like you have failed to find your calling. Fanning is spot on.

    I work a lot, more so now than ever in life. I’ve never thought, or felt particularly successful in a general sense — more often I feel like am failing or close to failing in some aspect of my life…

  • Quote of the Day: Marco Arment

    “New Google is much more strategic, cold, and focused.” — Marco Arment

    “New Google is much more strategic, cold, and focused.”

  • ‘Rego, the New Place for All Your Places’

    [Shawn Blanc on Rego](http://shawnblanc.net/2013/03/rego-review/): >Rego is a brand new, location-based app that fills the void left by Gowalla — and Rego is not a new social network. Man do I miss Gowalla. I’ve been using [Rego](http://www.regoapp.com) only a couple of days now (based on Shawn’s review) and it’s really quite nice. The part I like…

    [Shawn Blanc on Rego](http://shawnblanc.net/2013/03/rego-review/):

    >Rego is a brand new, location-based app that fills the void left by Gowalla — and Rego is not a new social network.

    Man do I miss Gowalla.

    I’ve been using [Rego](http://www.regoapp.com) only a couple of days now (based on Shawn’s review) and it’s really quite nice. The part I like best is that it is a personal app and not a social network.

    I like the ideal of a breadcrumb trail of where I have been, but I never was a fan of the idea that others could also see that. Rego solves that issue for me.

  • Developer Hostility Towards Users

    Being in an industry that is entrenched in Windows based software means that I am constantly looking for a solution that is both robust and not terrible looking. We chose Yardi’s Genesis software for our property management needs because it was the only offering that offered everything we needed and did so without cutting corners.…

    Being in an industry that is entrenched in Windows based software means that I am constantly looking for a solution that is both robust and not terrible looking. We chose Yardi’s Genesis software for our property management needs because it was the only offering that offered everything we needed and did so without cutting corners.

    Unfortunately Yardi is stuck in the dark ages of local servers and Windows 95 — seriously — and makes Excel look like cutting edge UI design.

    This means that I routinely search around the web to see if other software offerings have caught up, or surpassed what we use. Usually I end the day having tried a few other pieces of software and finding nothing remotely close.

    Today I needed some work-order software that was web-based, and I ran into something I see often: “request a demo” links.

    Could there be anything more hostile towards new users than refusing to give pricing, screenshots, videos, or access to a demo site?

    I came up with a new rule today: If your site won’t give me pricing and a view of your product without me having to give you my contact info — in other words if you are saying “fuck you” to me — then, well, fuck you too.