The Brooks Review

Top Posts

Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022

Recent Articles

  • Amazon Quietly Closes Security Hole After Journalist’s Devastating Hack

  • Galaxy Returns

    [Steven Musil has a list of reasons why people (at select Best Buy locations) are returning the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57487895-37/malfunction-not-ipad-played-greater-role-in-galaxy-returns/). Let’s break down the list, shall we, from most common to least common reasons (according to Musil): – Browser freezes – Lack of screen sensitivity – Poor WiFi – Screen lagging – Short battery…

    [Steven Musil has a list of reasons why people (at select Best Buy locations) are returning the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57487895-37/malfunction-not-ipad-played-greater-role-in-galaxy-returns/). Let’s break down the list, shall we, from most common to least common reasons (according to Musil):

    – Browser freezes
    – Lack of screen sensitivity
    – Poor WiFi
    – Screen lagging
    – Short battery life
    – Inability to sync with a PC
    – Honeycomb OS is difficult to use
    – Wanted an iPad 2 instead
    – Lack of support for Hulu, Netflix, Skype
    – Poor speed and performance

    Ten reasons, only one of which is: “this isn’t an iPad”. ((Anyone else find it odd that he specifies iPad 2, I wonder how many returned it for the new iPad, or a used iPad.))

    Same list, same order, just changing the names of each item to the underlying cause:

    – Bad software
    – Bad hardware
    – Bad hardware
    – Bad software
    – Bad hardware **and** software
    – Bad software
    – Bad software
    – Bad purchase decision
    – Bad software
    – Bad hardware **and** software

    So out of ten reasons to return the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, seven reasons (70%) can be attributed to Android. Forty percent is hardware. I think that says a lot about why Android tablets have been failing: Android is the weak point.

    But that’s not all this tells us, because what is the baseline for these complaints. Is it that the tablets performs these tasks worse than their computers, or worse than another tablet? If another tablet, what tablet?

    I would argue no one buys a tablet expecting it to match PC speed, so I assume that these complaints are in comparison to *another* tablet — the only one of which that makes sense is the iPad because the iPad is the only one with wide enough advertising for first time tablet buyers to be able to form some sort of a baseline for how a tablet should work.

    What I am saying is that the majority of knocks against this tablet are software related and are probably in comparison to the iPad.

  • iPhone Caused “Crisis of Design” at Samsung (Memo)

  • How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking

  • Trey’s Lightroom Presets

    [I saw this collection earlier and decided to buy it](http://www.stuckincustoms.com/lightroom-presets/). It was only `$19.97` for the entire collection of Lightroom presets (sort of like Filters for Lightroom). Editing photos takes an artistic eye and I always have applied a preset and then tweaked it to my style when I needed to make major adjustments. Trey…

    [I saw this collection earlier and decided to buy it](http://www.stuckincustoms.com/lightroom-presets/). It was only `$19.97` for the entire collection of Lightroom presets (sort of like Filters for Lightroom). Editing photos takes an artistic eye and I always have applied a preset and then tweaked it to my style when I needed to make major adjustments. Trey Ratcliff’s presets are very good out of the box, needing little tweaking. Here are some examples using them with shots that otherwise looked below average:

    Original.
    Original.
    Original.
    Original.
    Original.

    Again, not spectacular shots on my part, but the filters turn these shots into useable images in my opinion. Not to mention that they give you fantastic starting points to build off of and to see what areas of the images you want to do what to. [Well worth the purchase](http://www.stuckincustoms.com/lightroom-presets/).

  • Apple Branded Search

    [MG Siegler speculating about Apple replacing Google as the default search engine with Bing](http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/06/two-down-one-to-go/): >Microsoft needs Apple to make Bing relevant. Apple needs Microsoft in order to stop paying Google billions. This is so obvious. I think we may see a Google-free iPhone sooner, rather than later. [I’ve already spoken about how I like Bing…

    [MG Siegler speculating about Apple replacing Google as the default search engine with Bing](http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/06/two-down-one-to-go/):
    >Microsoft needs Apple to make Bing relevant. Apple needs Microsoft in order to stop paying Google billions. This is so obvious. I think we may see a Google-free iPhone sooner, rather than later.

    [I’ve already spoken about how I like Bing on my iOS devices](https://brooksreview.net/2012/08/bing-mobile/), but I think there is another option towards removing Google from iOS and Apple alike.

    [I mentioned that Yahoo! should buy DuckDuckGo](https://brooksreview.net/2012/07/yahoo-punching/), but what if the suitor was Apple?

    Think about this for a moment: what if Apple used a fraction of the cash they have on hand to buy two companies:

    1. DuckDuckGo
    2. Wolfram Alpha

    Then they turn those two search engines into one and the same search engine — powered by Apple — and only available to Apple customers. It’s now the default on iOS and Mac OS X — it would become instantly excellent and widely used.

    Apple would also have two options here:

    1. Give it away free as a thanks for being a customer — they can afford to.
    2. They could place one or two ads on the results using iAds, thus making up what they spent to buy the companies in a few years time.

    Think about this a little more: not only would this be a blow Google, but to Microsoft as well. This would give people a true reason to use iOS and the Mac, it would keep money out of competitors hands, and would be a game changer.

    I have no clue if this a business Apple wants to be in, but I would bet that at least one (DuckDuckGo) of these two companies would match up very nicely with Apple. ((Man, I hope this happens.))

    Alternatively I could see Apple convincing Bing to allow a fully Apple-branded results page and I could further see Microsoft being OK with that for a bit, but that prospect is far less exciting.

  • Text Me if the CDC Reports a Zombie Outbreak by Ericbock

  • ‘Bluetooth vs Airplay’

    Fred Wilson talking about how he loves to allow anyone in the car to control the audio over the bluetooth connection and comparing that to AirPlay in his home: >But that doesn’t support Android phones and not all third party mobile apps support Airplay. Airplay is not ubiquitous in the way that Bluetooth is. After…

    Fred Wilson talking about how he loves to allow anyone in the car to control the audio over the bluetooth connection and comparing that to AirPlay in his home:

    >But that doesn’t support Android phones and not all third party mobile apps support Airplay. Airplay is not ubiquitous in the way that Bluetooth is.

    After realizing how awesome bluetooth is he bought an adapter to use at home:

    >I am betting that by replicating the experience they have in the car in our home, they will take control of our home music system with their phones in the same way they do in our car.

    I am betting they are going to love streaming 1080p videos over that bluetooth connection… wait.

    Bluetooth *is* more “open” than AirPlay, but to say that it is better? Hmmm, I think not.

    For starters you aren’t going to be streaming HD video over bluetooth. Secondly and most importantly: you need not pair AirPlay. Anyone can walk into my home and as long as they are on my network (most friends and family are setup to be already) they can AirPlay audio and video to my TV. That’s awesome and let’s face it, the majority of people that come into my home have iOS devices, not Android.

    Here’s another reality: while bluetooth will likely be OK for those that live in the home, it’s going to be a pain in the ass to pair a new phone for those that come and visit. The *moment* will have passed, if you will, by the time you are setup and ready to go.

    I just don’t see the benefit of this move unless you are an Android only family — which I think Wilson is heavily invested ((Not in the $$$ sense.)) in Android.

  • The Problem With Kickstarter and Software

  • OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion – OS X Mountain Lion: Data Loss via ‘Save As’

  • RIM CEO Thorsten Heins Interview: RIM Considered Android Switch

  • Apple’s Secrets Revealed at Trial

  • ‘Saving Private Research in Motion, RIM, Blackberry’

    Jean-Louis Gassée has a fantastic article dissecting the comparisons of RIM now and Apple back in the mid-nineties (when Apple was on the verge of collapse). A lot has been said about RIM and what they are trying to do, but I love this question for RIM believers from Gassée: >Weren’t most of these engineers…

    Jean-Louis Gassée has a fantastic article dissecting the comparisons of RIM now and Apple back in the mid-nineties (when Apple was on the verge of collapse). A lot has been said about RIM and what they are trying to do, but I love this question for RIM believers from Gassée:
    >Weren’t most of these engineers already onboard when RIM fell asleep at the switch?

    Indeed.

    At this point it’s not only that RIM doesn’t have a competent platform to even compete with Microsoft, but it is that they seemingly can’t decide what the hell the right path forward is.

    – We will march on!
    – New CEO
    – We are massively talented.
    – Slash 5k jobs.
    – BB10 will save the world.
    – BB10 will run everything for you.
    – Our handset business is still growing!
    – We *might* need to license BB10. Might.

    It’s like playing Monopoly against a child and convincing the child to trade different colors with you back and forth as it benefits you. Every trade you make a compelling case why it is best for them, without thinking the child buys that case and makes the trade. Next time you make another more compelling case that contradicts your last. And so on.

    RIM is the child here.

    They started off assuring everyone that they were fine that the management was great. Then they hire a new management team, which says everything is fine. Then they cut thousands of jobs, but it’s right back to everything is fine.

    This is a pathetic line of rhetoric that seemingly only RIM’s board is buying.

    Yes, there will always be those that want a hardware keyboard, but if the demand for such a device is strong enough I assure you an Android partner will make it. There simply are no more compelling reasons why one chooses RIM over Apple/Google/Microsoft.

  • The Positive Power of Negative Thinking

  • Quote of the Day: Rob Cox

    “Facebook looks like a prime example of what Wall Street calls a falling knife—that is, one that can cost investors their fingers if they try to catch it.” — Rob Cox

    “Facebook looks like a prime example of what Wall Street calls a falling knife—that is, one that can cost investors their fingers if they try to catch it.”

  • The New Digg

    Digg relaunched their site/service recently and while ([as I talked about on the podcast](http://5by5.tv/bb/72)) I don’t particularly care for the new site, there is one part of the site that I do like. But first a recap of what I don’t like: 1. Facebook login only — lame. 2. The design doesn’t do much in…

    Digg relaunched their site/service recently and while ([as I talked about on the podcast](http://5by5.tv/bb/72)) I don’t particularly care for the new site, there is one part of the site that I do like. But first a recap of what I don’t like:

    1. Facebook login only — lame.
    2. The design doesn’t do much in the way of telling me what is the most important, other than the one large item.
    3. I don’t understand what value the little “reaction comments” are supposed to add.
    4. The Most Popular section has graphs of popularity over time that do nothing to tell me if the story is something I should read or not. Why are people so obsessed with time and isn’t a mark of a lame post that it is no longer popular a day later — let alone an hour later?
    5. The Upcoming section is just boring.

    I mostly hate the new site for #1, but all the other items bug me. Digg, for me, had/has a lot to prove to show me that it still can be useful.

    So while Digg’s website may not be great — I am liking [their mobile app](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/digg/id362872995?ls=1&mt=8). The Digg iOS app isn’t amazing or even revolutionary, but I find it very useful in how light, fast, and relevant it is.

    Digg tweeted that people should check out their app to stay in touch while out and about over the weekend. And all weekend long I was behind on Twitter and RSS, but it only took 20 seconds to stay up on Digg’s app — and every time I found something neat I wanted to read.

    That’s the Digg I remember liking back in the day. It was a welcomed surprise.

    Now because I can’t sign up (damned Facebook logins) I had to share each story via email to my Instapaper email address in order to add it for reading later — even so I am liking using the [Digg app](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/digg/id362872995?ls=1&mt=8) to find neat stories when I only have half a minute or so to look.

  • Try FontShop fonts in Photoshop and Illustrator

  • Reminder: Join the Movement of App.net

    The only other project that I have pushed my readers this hard on was `Dark Sky` and I think we can all agree that Dark Sky is a damned fine weather app, perhaps the best one out there. Now I want you guys to trust me and go back App.net. I was granted access to…

    The only other project that I have pushed my readers this hard on was `Dark Sky` and I think we can all agree that Dark Sky is a damned fine weather app, perhaps the best one out there.

    Now I want you guys to trust me and go back App.net. I was granted access to the working alpha build of the site, what can I say, it works. Right now things are basic, but by building an alpha they are showing me something that a lot of other products don’t: they already know how to make the product.

    It’s $50 and that’s steep, but it’s $50 that gets you this:

    1. Twitter without ads, ever.
    2. Twitter that won’t ever block a third party client.
    3. Twitter without spammers, because they would have to pay $50 only to get banned.
    4. Twitter without your parents.

    At least one of those has to be worth $50 to you guys, I love the price point and the idea — I hope we can make it a reality.

  • Bing v. Google

    Quentin Hardy: >When Mr. Shum shows ways that Bing outperforms Google, it tends to be around search queries with long strings of words, or deep catalogs of information (including over 3,600 ways to misspell Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name, for example). His deep neural networks of computation involve thousands of potential pieces of information for each query,…

    Quentin Hardy:
    >When Mr. Shum shows ways that Bing outperforms Google, it tends to be around search queries with long strings of words, or deep catalogs of information (including over 3,600 ways to misspell Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name, for example). His deep neural networks of computation involve thousands of potential pieces of information for each query, and in milliseconds crunch several variants of a search around a single topic.

    While I use DuckDuckGo only on my Mac, on iOS I actually have been using Bing for the past few months. I try to use Bang On when I can, but I always forget and end up in the search field in mobile Safari. Since I have Bing set as the search there, I get a fair amount of exposure to Microsoft’s little search engine. The above quote seems trivial, and on the desktop it probably is, but on iOS the above quote is one of the little things that I really like about Bing.

    We all tend to misspell things, well I do, and when searching that’s a big problem. Google always gives you the passive aggressive, slightly pompous: “did you *mean* X” dialog, but Bing always seems to just get it right. For example I searched `black brids` just now on Bing mobile, not a single prompt telling me that I might have misspelled the word, instead two small links at the top to tweak my search:

    1. “Including results for `black birds`.”
    2. “Do you want results only for `black brids`?”

    The first result: “Blackbird” on Wikipedia. The first result of `black birds` — spelled correctly: “Blackbird” on Wikipedia.

    That’s not revolutionary, but my larger point is that Bing just works pretty well on iOS. It takes a lot of getting used to, but it looks nice and is fast. It’s not as good as DuckDuckGo, but I think it is just as good as Google. Should be interesting to see if adoption picks up with Windows 8 using the Windows 8 style UI.

    **Update:** [It looks like Google is using similar language as Bing.](http://twitter.com/jalifax/status/232617172940247040/photo/1)

  • Access iCloud Files From the Finder

    A great tip on where to locate the iCloud files locally on your Mac. As noted in the tip, Finder even changes to say “iCloud” in the title bar when you open this folder. Oddly you cannot add this folder to the Finder sidebar, so if anyone knows how to do that — I would…

    A great tip on where to locate the iCloud files locally on your Mac. As noted in the tip, Finder even changes to say “iCloud” in the title bar when you open this folder.

    Oddly you cannot add this folder to the Finder sidebar, so if anyone knows how to do that — I would love to know.

    Also in looking at this the Apple apps seem to have fairly clean looking folder names, but the rest of the apps have a string of characters before them — I wonder if this is Apple “cheating” or if there is something developers can do to get a cleaner looking names.