The Brooks Review

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Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
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  • Google Voice Search for iOS: Not a Siri Competitor, Still a Solid App

  • Quote of the Day: Matthew Panzarino

    “It was a deal with the devil, made in a moment of desperation, and it’s been haunting Google ever since.” — Matthew Panzarino

    “It was a deal with the devil, made in a moment of desperation, and it’s been haunting Google ever since.”

  • The Everyday Pocket Knife

    It’s sad and disturbing to think that when my kid(s) are of an age that I trust them with knives, they simply will not be allowed to carry them at school. Of course, this has always been a touchy subject, but I carried one everyday from third grade on. In fact, 9/11 was the only…

    It’s sad and disturbing to think that when my kid(s) are of an age that I trust them with knives, they simply will not be allowed to carry them at school. Of course, this has always been a touchy subject, but I carried one everyday from third grade on. In fact, 9/11 was the only event that caused me to stop carrying a knife, as our population was too scared post-9/11 and I had no patience to deal with the odd looks.

    Time passes, memories fade, and look — there’s a knife in my pocket everyday again, but why?

    I’ve [talked](https://brooksreview.net/2012/05/survival-knife-2/) [a lot](https://brooksreview.net/2011/12/knife-follow-up/) [about](https://brooksreview.net/2011/11/fielder/) [knives](https://brooksreview.net/2012/04/wet-stone-amazon/) in the past and even offered a few reasons to carry a pocket knife everyday, but I don’t think I’ve convinced everyone just yet — so let’s try and do that now.

    There are three keys to wrapping your head around carrying a pocket knife on a daily basis. You need to de-weaponize, utilize, and familiarize your knife.

    *(Well, you have to buy one too, but that’s another issue all together that I will address in a later post.)*

    ## De-Weaponizing

    The hardest part about deciding to carry a knife everyday is that, as an individual, you must make the distinction between weapon and tool. A pocket knife is rarely ever a weapon and almost always a tool. Think of your pocket knife less like a gun and more like a hammer. Yes, a hammer can be used as a weapon, but first and foremost it *is* a tool — so too is your pocket knife.

    In the many years I have spent carrying a pocket knife there have been exactly zero times I have needed to use the knife as a weapon and countless thousands of times I have needed it as a tool. You simply won’t find yourself in a situation where stabbing with a 3 inch knife blade is more beneficial than throwing a rock.

    Pocket knives are tools, in fact, most knives are — first and foremost — a tool.

    Side note: You are not likely to ever convince non-pocket knife carriers that your knife is a tool.

    ## Utilize

    If I can convince you of that first hurdle, the next question people always ask is: “What do *I* need a knife for?”

    So, off the top of my head, here’s a list:

    – Cutting things.

    Perhaps that is too overly simplified, but it *is* the truth. I am not going to try and sell you on the idea that carrying a pocket knife is going to change your life, or even save it ((Just as your knife is not a weapon, it is highly unlikely it will save your life — just think of how many scenarios you have been in where a knife would have saved your life. That said, it can’t hurt if you are in a bad situation.)) , but I do believe that carrying a pocket knife results in an easier life.

    Easier in the sense that I don’t struggle to rip open some packaging, try to snap a thread off my shirt only to cause a bigger problem, or any of the other various minutia that I encounter in my day-to-day life which requires cutting something. You honestly will be amazed at just how much you *could* use a knife everyday, but instead you struggle to get by without a knife and that largely works — not fun though.

    ## Familiarization

    If you are sold on the the above two arguments, the last hold out is always your comfort level carrying and using a pocket knife.

    There is only one way to get over this: you get really, *really*, comfortable with *your* knife.

    This sounds trivial, and it is, but it will be the one step that takes you from carrying a pocket knife sometimes, to carrying and *using* your pocket knife everyday. Remember how awkward it was to type on your iPhone when you first got it? Then after some practice and usage you can tap out things quickly and easily. Same principle here, you need to get your knife in your hand and use it — a lot.

    The more comfortable you are with your knife, the more you will find it being a natural extension of your hand. Again, like your iPhone probably is.

    ## Practical Advice

    You’re convinced now, right?

    Now being the good nerd you are you will Google: “best pocket knife to carry everyday”. From that search you will learn two things:

    1. Knife geeks call these types of knives “EDC”, or “Everyday Carry” knives.
    2. Every person has their own opinion as to what the best EDC is, and nobody seems to hold the same opinion.

    Since you are now lost, I will offer you two places to start your search: [Blade Reviews](http://bladereviews.com) and [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com). As you are looking through all the options, you need to consider the following:

    – **Blade length**. Ideally you should try to keep this under 3-inches, most US States and Cities have [regulations](http://thefiringline.com/library/blades/knifelaws.html) surrounding knives over 3.5 inches, so be sure to look that up for your area.
    – **Overall length**. Most websites won’t tell you the closed length, so you will need to subtract the blade length from the overall length to get an idea of how big the knife will be in your pocket. I prefer a knife between 3-4 inches long when closed.
    – **Blade type**. Look for a straight edge, nothing with serrations to start. Get a standard “drop point” (the blade shape that looks like your stereotypical knife blade).
    – **Price**. Keep it under $50 to start.
    – **Brand**. Stick with name brands, such as: Spyderco, SOG, CRKT, Gerber, Buck, Benchmade, etc.. If it sounds familiar it is probably OK to start, but a quick trip to Blade Reviews will put you at ease.

    If this is your first knife, don’t get too hung up on the steel types used. There’s a huge variation in quality, but for a daily pocket knife you can get away with cheaper steel if you are willing to sharpen your blade more often and aren’t worried about using the knife for survival.

    Which reminds me, be sure to [buy a sharpener](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000N35D2E/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20).

    ## Parting Wisdom

    Buy a knife that you are proud to show off, is comfortable in your pocket, and one that reflects your personality. If you buy a cheesy knife, you will never want to take it out when others are around and this defeats the purpose.

    If you buy a knife that you truly love you will want to find things to use it on — and that’s when a pocket knife moves from crap in your pocket, to an essential tool.

  • Apple Delays iTunes 11

    [Om Malik, yesterday, on the Apple shakeup](http://gigaom.com/2012/10/29/from-inside-apple-the-scott-forstall-fallout/): >In conversations, I learned about something that is troubling from a long-term point of view. Unlike in the Jobs era, when the company would ship features when they were ready for primetime, a culture of schedule-driven releases has become commonplace. Jim Dalrymple, today, quoting Tom Neumayr from Apple:…

    [Om Malik, yesterday, on the Apple shakeup](http://gigaom.com/2012/10/29/from-inside-apple-the-scott-forstall-fallout/):

    >In conversations, I learned about something that is troubling from a long-term point of view. Unlike in the Jobs era, when the company would ship features when they were ready for primetime, a culture of schedule-driven releases has become commonplace.

    Jim Dalrymple, today, quoting Tom Neumayr from Apple:

    >The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right.

    So the way I see it one of three things has happened:

    1. iTunes 11 is in such poor shape there is simply no way they could release it.
    2. Apple has quickly learned from the Maps debacle (and Siri) and decided to revert back to the waiting until its ready deployment schedule.
    3. Malik’s anecdote is full of shit and Apple never switched to a schedule driven company.

    I know where my money is and it’s not with anything associated to bodily functions.

  • Copy Editing Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs. iPad Mini Ad

  • Apple Shakes Up Executive Team

    Writing was on the wall with this one. Forstall was MIA at the last Apple Press Event, Schiller is the new presentation guy. I’ve read stories that Forstall didn’t get along with others and blah, blah, blah, frankly I don’t really care about any of that. For one reason or another Forstall is leaving and…

    Writing was on the wall with this one. Forstall was MIA at the last Apple Press Event, Schiller is the new presentation guy. I’ve read stories that Forstall didn’t get along with others and blah, blah, blah, frankly I don’t really care about any of that. For one reason or another Forstall is leaving and Apple will be fine.

    The shifts in who does what is far more interesting, and telling:

    – Jony Ive is now not only in charge of the hardware designs, but it sounds like he is taking on all design at Apple. God willing we will no longer have to put up with leather, felt, and linen textures everywhere. (Side note: I always wondered what Ive thought of the designs of things like iCal, or Game Cetner.)
    – Eddy Cue gets Siri and Maps. Who has Game Center? That thing is a dog. I don’t know much about Cue, but iCloud is solid — more so than MobileMe — so here’s hoping Maps and Siri start iterating faster.
    – Craig Federighi now runs OS X and iOS. Makes sense right? Yep.
    – Bob Mansfield is all about wireless and semiconductors. Probably the two most important hardware areas for Apple right now.
    – John Browett is out and Cook himself is taking over Retail for the time being. There’s been a lot written about this, but Browett needed to go and I for one am glad Cook is grabbing those reigns for the time being.

    Smart shifts that subtly reorganize the company allowing the people that are best at running particular division to have control over all aspects of those devisions. Ive is design, Cue is cloud, Federighi is OS, Mansfield is hardware internals. Hard to argue with that logic.

  • A Pain in My Chest

    We live on the cutting edge of health practices, well my wife does, I live in a world where Pepsi *is* water. So in our household I am the one pushing us to be on the edge of technology and my wife is pushing us to be on the edge of health and medicine —…

    We live on the cutting edge of health practices, well my wife does, I live in a world where Pepsi *is* water. So in our household I am the one pushing us to be on the edge of technology and my wife is pushing us to be on the edge of health and medicine — God bless her, because I’d probably be comatose on nacho cheese by now if it wasn’t for my wife.

    So when our daughter had trouble nursing, my wife went digging.

    I cannot tell you how many things we tried, how many sleepless nights we both had, the level of crankiness in our home, and on and on. These past six months have been brutal on my wife and I — and our daughter Sloane. None of us have been sleeping, or eating as we should.

    A couple of weeks ago my wife came across some new-to-her research about tongue ties, and suggested that our daughter had one. A day later my wife found out about lip-ties and we were both pretty sure that our daughter had this based on images of lip-ties we found.

    It was at this point that my wife found out about [Dr. Lawrence Kotlow](http://kiddsteeth.com). We found a dentist online that could revise both of these “ties” with a laser procedure (the cutting edge), so we packed up the car and headed to Canada to have something neither us knew about done to our daughter who wasn’t even half a year old yet.

    We were stressed, tired, scared, and stuck in a car with a baby that was not happy about being in a car.

    The surgeon/dentist that we found was kind. He didn’t tell us anything my wife hadn’t yet learned, we met him for all of ten minutes and then we left our daughter with him to have the procedure done.

    We knew the wait wouldn’t be easy, and as we waited for the 10 minute surgery to be completed we were both beyond stressed, nervous, and hopeful. It seemed like an hour passed. We got the call to head back, and when we came back to our daughter, who was screaming, it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

    She was in pain and not around anyone that she knew. She was scared. It was a terrible sight for any parent.

    The one thing I didn’t fully understand going into this is that we must “stretch” her lip and tongue areas to prevent reattachment. This is basically keeping the wound from healing back together, and thus reopening the wound a few times a day — I think you can imagine how painful this must be. The first time we did this, in our hotel room, we both almost broke down into tears with our daughter.

    Two weeks of three-times a day “stretches” went by. Our daughter was upset anytime she was on her back and our hands came near her mouth. It was truly sad.

    We are now 3 weeks removed from her procedure and no longer have to do the stretches to her. She is healed, mentally and physically. Yet my wife and I still aren’t healed mentally from that stress.

    We take solace in the fact that our daughter is now a happier person. She nurses very well. She sleeps much better. She cries less. She is less “fussy”. It’s hard to convey the difference in her, but it is night and day between how she was and how she *is*.

    Causing her pain broke my heart, but, as it turns out, my wife was right (she usually is) and our daughter is better off for it.

    Normally I wouldn’t post something like this here, but it turns out that this is a very common problem and almost no pediatricians know about it or how to treat it. When we looked there were but three doctors we found that did the revision with a laser, one in Vancouver BC, one in southern California and one in Albany, New York.

    So I post this here in hopes that I am able to help at least one other person. The entire lip-tie/tongue-tie thing seemed silly to me at first, but the results speak for themselves and that’s all the proof I needed to be a believer.

    [Learn much more here](http://kiddsteeth.com/dental_topics.html#evaluate_and_diagnose_a_posterior_tongue_tie).

  • Hard Graft Flat Pack Shore, for 15″ retina MacBook Pro

    I love it when a new bag comes in a bag of its own. Just when I thought I had found a bag to last me a lifetime ((Granted, it did almost make it a year before I bought another bag. Thus besting the last record by 9 months.)), someone goes out and makes a…

    I love it when a new bag comes in a bag of its own.

    Just when I thought I had found a bag to last me a lifetime ((Granted, it did almost make it a year before I bought another bag. Thus besting the last record by 9 months.)), someone goes out and makes a bag I find irresistible. I’m talking about Hard Graft’s newest iteration to their Flat Pack which now accommodates the 15″ retina MacBook Pro. I wanted this bag when I first saw it, but never pulled the trigger on it.

    This particular bag is very minimalist and comes in two colors/fabrics: Shore and Heritage. I personally chose the Shore edition.


    In the world of bags there’s but three brands that seemingly always make fantastic products: Tom Bihn, Hard Graft, and Tumi. Tumi is the standard bag of your PC toting businessman, Tom Bihn is the new-age utilitarian bag manufacturer that I am in love with, and Hard Graft is all about sex appeal.

    Where Tumi makes durable well designed, understated (mostly) bags, they fall short at hitting the market that Tom Bihn hits when Tom Bihn combines excellent durability and excellent utility. However, both brands fall flat when you look at style, which is exactly what Hard Graft is all about: style. Tumi makes bags that people swear by, so does Tom Bihn. All I knew about Hard Graft was that they make gorgeous bags.

    Why I Wanted to Try this Bag


    I have never owned a bag from Hard Graft, though I do own this felt case for the original iPad, so I was eager to see if the product lived up to the price and my own hype.

    At $328 the Flat Pack is not inexpensive, but it’s a fine good, this would be like balking at the price of art. It is what it is, you either understand that, or you don’t buy it. So from here on out, I am tossing price aside. Good bags are often more than $300, it just so happens that Tom Bihn bags are somehow much less.

    I really wanted to try this bag for two reasons:

    1. I’ve simply always wanted a Hard Graft bag, but the timing and offerings never seemed to work out for me.
    2. I only have the Smart Alec, and so I often run into scenarios where I would very much like to have a smaller bag to carry, but must remain with the Smart Alec — which isn’t small.

    Very basic reasons, overall.

    The Smart Alec

    Before I dive in, I haven’t changed my mind about the Smart Alec at all. Tom Bihn’s backpack is the best bag I have come across for carrying your gear. Plain and simple.

    Instead I wanted to compliment the Smart Alec with a smaller bag that I could use as scenarios dictate. So while the Smart Alec is fantastic at carrying everything I might need, the Flat Pack is fantastic at carrying the bare essentials.

    There’s two philosophies with bags: it should carry everything you want, or it should carry only what you really need. Bags fit on either side of the spectrum and everything in between, so you need to know your personal preference. For me, I tend to stay on the “everything you want” side of things, however I do respect the desire to have a small bag for the just what you need scenarios.

    This is where the Flat Pack falls for me.

    Why I Love the Flat Pack


    Let’s face it, without equivocation, I love the Flat Pack. It is a fantastic looking, feeling, and smelling bag. I feel great about people seeing me carry this bag. I love the feel of the bag. I just love this bag.

    More specifically:
    – The front of the bag is made from a high-quality canvas and the back from a high-quality leather. The strap, though, is very interesting. The leather bottom of the strap is tan and identical to the back of the bag. However the top of the strap, the Shore color, is not the same canvas you find on the front of the bag — it’s a suede-like leather dyed to perfectly match the Shore canvas color. It’s a small, but fantastic touch that gives a very soft feeling strap in your hand, something that could not have been achieved if canvas were used in the strap. This was the very first thing I noticed about the bag, and that attention to form and function carries throughout the bag.
    – In my usage the bag was very small to carry, but surprisingly big on the interior. I was able to carry a retina MacBook Pro (15″), my iPad, notepad, pen, business cards, USB cables, and a couple other odds and ends without problem. The bag isn’t huge, it’s not a go everywhere carry everything, but it is deceptively bigger than it looks. I would note that given the leather bag you should be careful with how much you stuff the bag as leather can and will stretch over time.
    – The details on the bag are fantastic. Whether it be the small anchors on the strap, the fantastic feeling of the zipper ((Which is surprisingly smooth and easy to unzip/zip.)) , the perfection of the stitching, or the smell of the leather — this is a bag that was crafted by, and for, perfectionists.


    Like I said, I love this bag, but it’s not exactly without its quirks.

    What I Don’t Love About the Flat Pack

    I’ve been using the bag a lot, and there are a few things that bug me about this otherwise fantastic bag:

    • The adjustment clasp on the shoulder strap is fantastic looking, and smooth to operate. However, I noticed that when I took the bag on and off the strap would slide looser each time, making for a tightening to be necessary after you don the bag. Not exactly a deal breaker, but I found it odd. Above the clasp there is a small piece of leather that wraps the shoulder strap and slides freely, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what that was for — I assumed it was some sort of shoulder pad for the strap. I checked the products site for images to show what this was for, but at the time I missed the last image. Instead I contacted Shawn Blanc, who also owns this bag, and he sent me a picture of the end of the strap doubled back through this section to hold the strap from slipping sizings. This was great, but never seemed right, it didn’t fit the style or finish of the bag. I was missing something. I checked the website again and noticed that the last image showed the solution clearly.

      Shawn was right that this piece holds the excess shoulder strap in place, just not right in the way that you feed the strap. Now it makes perfect sense and fits the style of the bag better, but it seems like a pretty odd solution as this doesn’t look as nice as if the end of the strap hangs freely. Hard Graft knows this too — that’s why all their product shots show the strap not using this holder. If the clasp could hold the strap’s position better this would not be necessary, so why not use a better clasp?

    • I talked about how nice the zipper is on the bag, but there is also a downside to that zipper: if you do not completely unzip the bag and slide your Mac in at an angle (and out at that angle) the Mac will slide against the zipper. It doesn’t happen every time, it hasn’t scratched my Mac, but it bugs the crap out of me each time.

    • There are two interior pockets, and both are open topped with no mechanism for securing the contents. This makes keeping the bag zipped shut important, even when not in use, otherwise you will find your pockets empty when you return. I’d love for one of those pockets to have a clasp of some kind, or at the very least for there to be a pen clip hidden inside one of the pockets as I frequently find my pen rolling around the bottom of the bag.

    • Lastly this bag has very little padding. No padding not they side against your body. So unlike the Brain Bag that I have stuff in my Smart Alec I have very little sense elf security in knowing that my MacBook is secure inside the bag. I expected this, but I still wish there was just a touch more padding. I think it could be added without making the bag any bigger.

    Minor sticking points, but they still exist.

    Overall

    As I said, I love this bag, and don’t regret buying it in the slightest. However, will it supplant my Smart Alec?

    No, but I do think it will compliment the Smart Alec. I love being able to carry all my goods in the Smart Alec, but there are times when I just want a small and light bag to sling over a shoulder for a day, and the Flat Pack serves that role very well.

    The Smart Alec will still be my most-of-the-time bag, but the Flat Pack will/is the bag I take when I want a short vacation away from the larger Smart Alec. ((Though, the Flat Pack will not be the bag I take on actual vacations — the Smart Alec is just too good when traveling to leave behind.))

  • Quote of the Day: John Moltz

    “I considered buying one but, as I said below, asked myself this question: ‘Wouldn’t you rather have two iPad minis?’” – John Moltz

    “I considered buying one but, as I said below, asked myself this question: ‘Wouldn’t you rather have two iPad minis?’”

  • DuckDuckHack

  • A Dozen USB Chargers in the Lab: Apple Is Very Good, but Not Quite the Best

  • Quote of the Day: Marco Arment

    “The Surface is partially for Microsoft’s world of denial: the world in which this store contains no elephants and Microsoft invented the silver store with the glass front and the glowing logo and blue shirts and white lanyards and these table layouts and the modern tablet and its magnetic power cable.” – Marco Arment

    “The Surface is partially for Microsoft’s world of denial: the world in which this store contains no elephants and Microsoft invented the silver store with the glass front and the glowing logo and blue shirts and white lanyards and these table layouts and the modern tablet and its magnetic power cable.”

  • Retina MacBook Pro Comps

  • Groklaw, Totally Unbaised

    PJ, in a post titled: “Apple’s ‘We’re Not A Bit Sorry’ Bratty and Not Cool Notice That Samsung Didn’t Copy” writes: >What has happened to Apple? This, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you see yourself as being in a Holy War and listen only to your lawyers, who probably keep telling you that…

    PJ, in a post titled: “Apple’s ‘We’re Not A Bit Sorry’ Bratty and Not Cool Notice That Samsung Didn’t Copy” writes:
    >What has happened to Apple? This, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you see yourself as being in a Holy War and listen only to your lawyers, who probably keep telling you that this will work out well in the end for you. (Cf. SCO Group.)
    >But lawyers are not skilled in brands, in PR, and nobody with enough clout is telling Apple, I gather, with sufficient authority that it’s behaving like a brat. Talk about “not as cool”. What has happened to Apple? Do you still feel like buying their products when you read something like this? I don’t. I’d be ashamed to take it out of my bag in public. And I’ll tell you exactly why: it’s not all right with me for a corporation to publicly show disrespect to a court of law, and that’s how I view this event.

    Totally fair and balanced coverage, I mean I think I speak for everyone when I say that we don’t go to Groklaw for legal analysis, we go there for branding help. Oh, wait.

    [Was Apple’s statement dick-headed?](http://www.apple.com/uk/legal-judgement/) Hell yes, but so too was the U.K. court decision forcing Apple to post something congratulatory about their fiercest competitor online. Apple, Samsung, and the Court acted pretty bratty on this one — but PJ is only damning Apple.

    (It’s an evil stroke of genius that Apple posted the notice on a page with no Apple logos and no executive signing the notice. It’s just a “here it is” thing stuck on a blank page — love that.)

    I think Apple handled the situation pretty well given that even having to post that notice made Apple’s blood boil. PJ, and Groklaw, on the other hand are the ones that seem bratty to me.

    So to answer PJ’s question, I love Apple because it does things like this, not in spite of them doing this. Is it disrespectful to the court? Perhaps, but so too is the court calling a Samsung device “uncool” — since when do courts decide “cool” — that’s not a matter of law. In this one instance, I’d have to point to the courts and say: they got what they deserved on this one.

  • Quote of the Day: Apple U.K.’s Masterful Legal Notice

    “So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.” — Apple U.K.’s Masterful Legal Notice

    “So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.”

  • The B&B Podcast #82: Interview With David Smith

    >Shawn and Ben are joined by David Smith, an indie iOS developer. We talk about some of the things David has learned in his years developing software, and we talk about his most recent app, Check the Weather, including all that went in to building it, preparing for launch, and then handling customer feedback afterwards.…

    >Shawn and Ben are joined by David Smith, an indie iOS developer. We talk about some of the things David has learned in his years developing software, and we talk about his most recent app, Check the Weather, including all that went in to building it, preparing for launch, and then handling customer feedback afterwards.

    Fun interview, Shawn is getting good at doing these — I just try not to derail them too much. Bonus fact: we learn all about inverted iPhone colors.

  • ‘Defining Quality’

    Allison Gibson: >The nature of quality is that it’s hard to pin down. I can look into it forever and never find two matching definitions. Because, ultimately, it’s about intuition. I do know that sometimes quality is a thing so desirable it’ll lead you to chase the rising sun across a barren desert just to…

    Allison Gibson:
    >The nature of quality is that it’s hard to pin down. I can look into it forever and never find two matching definitions. Because, ultimately, it’s about intuition. I do know that sometimes quality is a thing so desirable it’ll lead you to chase the rising sun across a barren desert just to grab a heap of furniture that another person might call junk.

    This is a fantastic essay, well worth a read a couple of times a year. It really made me think about what I mean when I use the word ‘quality’ and personally I think I have two definitions — both relevant to everything I ever post on this site:

    1. That to say something is simply ‘quality’ with no further description is to say that this thing was ‘well-crafted’.
    2. To use quality as a scale is to pit two definitions of quality at either end and find where the current thing lies between those ends. At the highest-end of quality you have a thing that I simply could not imagine having been crafted any other way. At the lowest-end of quality you have a thing that I simply cannot imagine why it was crafted the way that it was.

    That is what quality means when I write here — as best as I can express.

  • Atebits’ Letterpress

    It’s fucking good. I’ve been playing it all day and have 20+ games going right now. Retro theme is my current choice, FYI. It’s massively simple, yet very strategic and mostly highly addictive. The UI is better than most are giving it credit for — almost feels like the UI formerly called Metro, with a…

    It’s fucking good. I’ve been playing it all day and have 20+ games going right now. Retro theme is my current choice, FYI.

    It’s massively simple, yet very strategic and mostly highly addictive. The UI is better than most are giving it credit for — almost feels like the UI formerly called Metro, with a splash of iOS. I want more apps designed like this.

  • What is Microsoft’s Strength?

    David Pogue in his Surface review hits hard on Microsoft with these two statements: >So that’s the amazing, amazing hardware. Now the heartbreak: software. And: >And how ironic that what lets the Surface down is supposedly Microsoft’s specialty: software. Is that Microsoft’s specialty? Has Windows, Office, or IE really ever been amazing software? I’d argue…

    David Pogue in his Surface review hits hard on Microsoft with these two statements:

    >So that’s the amazing, amazing hardware. Now the heartbreak: software.
    And:
    >And how ironic that what lets the Surface down is supposedly Microsoft’s specialty: software.

    Is that Microsoft’s specialty? Has Windows, Office, or IE really ever been amazing software? I’d argue that Microsoft’s specialty is market dominance, business savvy, relentlessness. In other words, the same things that Samsung is good at.

    That’s not to be mean to Microsoft, it’s the truth. Microsoft has been impressively good at creating a dominating business, but they’ve never actually made great software in my opinion. I think that’s why the hardware is so good on the Surface — they haven’t done PC hardware before (outside of Xbox, Zune, etc) so they essentially hired fresh meat to do this — and voila, good hardware.

  • Which iPad?

    Whenever a new device comes out, I often wait until a certain person analyzes it before I form a full opinion. For screen and build quality I look to [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net), for reading and font rendering I look to [Marco Arment](http://www.marco.org), for speed [Bare Feats](http://www.barefeats.com), and so on. We all have *the* “guy” that we…

    Whenever a new device comes out, I often wait until a certain person analyzes it before I form a full opinion. For screen and build quality I look to [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net), for reading and font rendering I look to [Marco Arment](http://www.marco.org), for speed [Bare Feats](http://www.barefeats.com), and so on.

    We all have *the* “guy” that we look to for an opinion on a specific aspect of something. For tablet usage, and usability, and overall guidance I look no further than Fraser Speirs. Speirs just weighed in on the tablet size debate with the most astute point I have seen, saying:

    >I’ve said before and I still think I’m right on this: a sub-10″ device makes a wonderful adjunct to a computer. A 10″ device can replace it.

    So very smart and well said. The iPad mini will compliment the typical laptop/smartphone setup whereas the iPad can, and at times will, replace your laptop. I really want the iPad mini, but I know I won’t be happy until it has a retina screen on it — at that point I probably will switch from a full sized iPad to an iPad mini.

    Why? Because an iPad is only useful if you have it with you, and you want to use it. Right now I don’t always have the iPad with me because of the size, but I always want to use it. With the iPad mini as it currently is I would likely always have it with me, but not want to read on it. A retina screen iPad mini would change that.