Title says it all. HP’s board [should be fired](http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/09/21/hewlett-packard-worst-board-ever/?mod=e2tw) if this is true — terrible move.
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Recent Articles
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Whitman Expected to Get HP CEO Nod After Markets Close (And Not for the Interim Either)
Title says it all. HP’s board [should be fired](http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/09/21/hewlett-packard-worst-board-ever/?mod=e2tw) if this is true — terrible move.
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Meticulous
Circa 2006 I was a huge proponent of computing with dual display setups. I often used my MacBook Pro with the lid open and an external display attached. A multiple monitors setup is supposed to make you more productive and efficient on your computer, but does it truly do as it claims? The problem with…
Circa 2006 I was a huge proponent of computing with dual display setups. I often used my MacBook Pro with the lid open and an external display attached. A multiple monitors setup is supposed to make you more productive and efficient on your computer, but does it truly do as it claims?
The problem with dual displays is that they are pretty lame to use, your options for positioning are either to position them so that when you look straight ahead you see the seam between the two monitors, not ideal. Secondarily you could position your dual displays so that one monitor is directly in front of you with the second off to the side — this creates the additional problem of your second monitor now being less useful and quite often unused.
At some point in 2008-9 I started just using one display — this only after I measured my use of the second display finding that I rarely used it.
Since that time I have held the opinion that one, large, monitor is the best action to take in the name of productivity.
Now I am even questioning just how large of a monitor you need.
Trent Walton has an [interesting post on the matter](http://trentwalton.com/2011/09/20/unitasking/), you should pop over and read it, but here’s his main point:
>I noticed something interesting the day I was confined to just 13” of screen space. Even though I couldn’t see everything I needed to operate and reference at once, I became more focused. Only seeing one window at a time enabled me to mentally hunker down on the task at hand. My actions felt purposeful; my decisions, deliberate. Surprisingly, my productivity didn’t suffer.
I too have noticed that on my Air. For about a month I have been debating and failing to pull the trigger on a monitor for my home. Monetary concerns are certainly a factor, but the bigger factor is that I quite like just having the small screen.
So as I stare at this 24″ Apple LED Cinema Display as I am typing this post, I can’t help but wonder: what if I ditched it for just my MacBook Air screen?
I’m not certain my productivity would suffer at all, in fact, I am writing this post in full screen mode — so no change there.
I can think of just a handful of tasks that would be slightly more cumbersome, but as [Walton says](http://trentwalton.com/2011/09/20/unitasking/):
>I did slow down, but also experienced a calm efficiency[…]
Meticulous. That’s one thing that I am never really described as, but something that I greatly admire and respect. If you watch the excellent TV Series “Breaking Bad”, the character Gustavo “Gus” Fring is, perhaps, one of the most meticulous people on Television.
Every time he removes his jacket you watch as he carefully folds it, rests in, and smoothes it (watch [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgJt82h4zBg) starting at the 1:30 mark to see what I mean). Everything action that Gus takes is meticulous and I love it.
So, I am going to give it a go. For at least the next week my largest computing screen will be thirteen inches. My goal isn’t that I will instantly be more meticulous, my goal is that I will be instantly less distracted.
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Bing Bleeding Billions
MG Siegler on the Microsoft “Online Services” loss: >Microsoft’s real problem here is that in order to beat Google in search, they can’t just be better — they have to be *exponentially* better to get people to switch. And I’m just not sure that’s possible. That’s a great point and is best shown in how…
MG Siegler on the Microsoft “Online Services” loss:
>Microsoft’s real problem here is that in order to beat Google in search, they can’t just be better — they have to be *exponentially* better to get people to switch. And I’m just not sure that’s possible.That’s a great point and is best shown in how the iPhone took over the cellphone world. In 2007 the iPhone wasn’t just better than every other phone, it was better in the way that Excel is better than a solar powered calculator. That’s what Bing needs to be to Google and I think Siegler is right — it’s probably not possible.
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HP Board Said to Weigh Ousting Apotheker as CEO
Aaron Ricadela and Carol Hymowitz reporting for Bloomberg on rumors that current HP CEO Leo Apotheker is on his way out: >Whitman, who joined Hewlett-Packard’s board in January after a failed bid to become California’s governor last year, had a mixed record at EBay. As CEO for a decade, she took the company public and…
Aaron Ricadela and Carol Hymowitz reporting for Bloomberg on rumors that current HP CEO Leo Apotheker is on his way out:
>Whitman, who joined Hewlett-Packard’s board in January after a failed bid to become California’s governor last year, had a mixed record at EBay. As CEO for a decade, she took the company public and pioneered online commerce for small businesses. Yet she also failed to halt a slowdown in revenue growth and overpaid for Skype Technologies SA after a three-way bidding war with Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.She wouldn’t be my pick to run any company, here’s a [better post about Whitman from a New York Times blog post in 2008](http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/going-going-gone-meg-whitman-leaves-ebay/) that states two important things:
#### 1
>There has also long been grumbling that Ms. Whitman made eBay too corporate, taking it too far from its countercultural roots. The old eBay had a lot of Mr. Omidyar’s personality — eBay’s quirky, colorful logo, its designer once told me, was intended to have “a little bit of the ponytail about it.”and:
#### 2
>It’s difficult to quarrel with Ms. Whitman’s financial success over the past decade. EBay went from $4 million in annual revenue in to nearly $ 8 billion today. The stock has risen 5,600 percent, and Ms. Whitman herself became a billionaire along the way, ranked # 261 on Forbes’ 2007 list of the wealthiest Americans.Remember that was written in 2008. The first item, the corporate culture, is exactly what HP does not need. The second, the financial success, that is what HP needs. From everything I have read about Whitman, she is not the one to run HP — even on an interim basis. Again from what I know she is the ‘adult supervision’ type, not the innovative turn this ship around type.
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How to Return the “Bounce Message” Feature to OS X Lion Mail
This fixes the removal of my favorite Mail.app feature. Though I am experiencing the deleted message re-appearing problem, but it is a small price to pay to get this excellent feature back.
This fixes the removal of my favorite Mail.app feature. Though I am experiencing the deleted message re-appearing problem, but it is a small price to pay to get this excellent feature back.
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Google Wallet Opens for (limited) Business
David Sarno: >The app, which will be released as a downloadable “over the air” update, is available only to Sprint wireless customers — and of those, only owners of the Sprint Nexus S 4G smartphone. and later: >The other problem is that NFC-enabled credit card terminals are still relatively rare — though they are now…
David Sarno:
>The app, which will be released as a downloadable “over the air” update, is available only to Sprint wireless customers — and of those, only owners of the Sprint Nexus S 4G smartphone.and later:
>The other problem is that NFC-enabled credit card terminals are still relatively rare — though they are now deployed at hundreds of thousands of locations, credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard have tens of millions of locations worldwide.
Not a good way to get a service going: offer it only to a very select few, in select locations — neither of which may actually overlap.
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Instagram v2.0
Instagram announcing a major update: >See the world through Instagram’s stunning effects before you even snap a photo. Simply select a filter, hold the camera up to the scene and see the world through Instagram’s visual effects. We’ve re-written your favorite Instagram filters to be over 200x faster so even after having taken a photo,…
Instagram announcing a major update:
>See the world through Instagram’s stunning effects before you even snap a photo. Simply select a filter, hold the camera up to the scene and see the world through Instagram’s visual effects. We’ve re-written your favorite Instagram filters to be over 200x faster so even after having taken a photo, switching between them takes no time at all.
Also much higher resolution images. Instagram remains one of my favorite new social networks. (New icon sucks though.)
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Amazon Item of the Week: Western Digital Elements 3 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Just picked up one of these drives ((With Prime same day shipping for $3.99, which was crazy awesome.)) to replace my current “media” drive. It feels cheap, but who carries around an external drive? The drive looks decent and the light is in the back. There is no power switch (bonus) and even better: unlike…
Just picked up one of these drives ((With Prime same day shipping for $3.99, which was crazy awesome.)) to replace my current “media” drive. It feels cheap, but who carries around an external drive? The drive looks decent and the light is in the back. There is no power switch (bonus) and even better: unlike other Western Digital drives this one does **not** have the crapware installed on it that you have to struggle to remove.
*Editors Note: This is a new feature and the links are affiliate links — I point you to something neat, if you buy it I get some cash. Enjoy*
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Dosh: Warranty
Following [my review](https://brooksreview.net/2011/09/dosh/) I decided that I would try to return the wallet to Dosh, here’s what I found out from Dosh’s site: >What if I don’t like what I ordered? >No problem. If this occurs we will gladly refund the cost of the purchase once the products have been returned to us, provided the…
Following [my review](https://brooksreview.net/2011/09/dosh/) I decided that I would try to return the wallet to Dosh, here’s what I found out from Dosh’s site:
>What if I don’t like what I ordered?
>No problem. If this occurs we will gladly refund the cost of the purchase once the products have been returned to us, provided the items are returned in original and unused condition and within 21 days of receipt of the shipment. All returns will be credited to the original credit card used, shipping and handling costs are not refundable.
Now this is fully shame on me, I should have read this prior to ordering. This FAQ still doesn’t say for sure that they won’t take back items and I was a bit pissed so I emailed them this:
>I received my Dosh 6-Card and I simply do not like it. I see that you don’t
take back used items, but how is one supposed to determine if they like
something or not (such as a wallet) without using it?>Lame.
I received a response this morning that only rubbed salt in the wound. From Dani Thai at Dosh:
>I’m sorry to hear that you do not like your Dosh wallet. I’m sorry we cannot
take back a used item – The product loses its retail value once it has been
used. It’s a universal policy that most retailers have.The last line is a blatant lie, but what ever.
Return policies like this tell you everything you need to know about the product being sold: the company does not stand behind the product. I know better now.
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The Dosh 6-Card ‘Luxe’ Wallet
Anything that I have to carry with me on a daily basis is something that is worth being picky over — very picky. Four days a week I lug a computer around with me, so I purchased the fastest, lightest, computer I could. Everywhere I go, I lug a phone with me, so again, I…
Anything that I have to carry with me on a daily basis is something that is worth being picky over — very picky. Four days a week I lug a computer around with me, so I purchased the fastest, lightest, computer I could. Everywhere I go, I lug a phone with me, so again, I got the best I could.
I buy shoes based on comfort and style — I am always willing to sacrifice a touch of style to keep my feet comfy. The two things that I can’t ever get by without having with me are: keys (in some form) and my wallet.
I can’t remember the precise year, but at some point in high school I decided that the traditional folding wallets just weren’t for me. I went with the card-wallet plus money clip approach — I always felt cool having a money clip.
Thinking back there is truly only one wallet I have had that I actually liked, a Tumi leather card wallet. My last wallet was just OK and served me well for a quite sometime, but I never liked the size or the look of it.
I am always open to trying a new wallet, mostly because they are easy to try out and I have yet to find that perfect wallet. So I went and purchased a pricy [Dosh wallet](https://www.dosh.com.au/). Here’s what I think of it: it sucks.
[
](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/20110919-IMG_6590-full.jpg)### The Feel
One of the main reasons that I wanted a Dosh wallet is because it is made out of a material I have never used in a wallet before: “water-resistant polymer material”. What the hell is that?
The short answer is that it is a rubbery plastic that feels like a grippy velvet to the touch. It actually feels quite nice to the touch and really solid, not cheap at all. Likewise the money clip is really nice, super high-quality.
That’s where the niceness stops. The inside of the wallet is made out of a more “normal” feeling plastic and, well, feels like crap — I mean plastic. The inside is very rigid and truly ruins the overall feeling of the wallet.
It’s a mixed bag, if you never open the wallet it is great, once you open it the experience is completely ruined.
### Looks
I purchased the “Luxe Vintage 6-card” wallet and it looks good. I really like the look of the wallet from the closed perspective. When you open it you see the cheaper plastic and I hate the plastic used in the interior.
Part of the assembly of this wallet is that some of that interior plastic shows through to the outside. The color match is excellent between the two materials, but while the rest of the exterior shows little wear, the harder plastic shows wear — I hate the unevenness of this. Even wear is fine on a wallet, but only wearing in certain areas, very small areas, drives me nuts.
### Functionality
When Dosh says “6-Card” they mean it. I was hoping to sneak in an extra card or two, but that simply doesn’t work. There is only room for six cards, and business cards don’t fit well in the credit card slots.
For the money clip I’d say that 10-bills is your comfortable max for this wallet — anything more than that and it will look like a [Costanza wallet](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/george-wallet.png).
[
](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/20110919-IMG_6591-full.jpg)The best thing I can say about this wallet’s functionality is that nothing falls out. I have held it by the edges and shook hard to see if the cards (that are only held in by friction) escape and they never do. I am actually quite impressed by this feat.
There are three major functionality issues with this wallet (in order of annoyance):
The soft feeling of the outside of the wallet turns the wallet into the most difficult thing to get out of your pocket. Wearing jeans while sitting and need to get your wallet? Fat chance. It literally will pull my pocket out when I try to remove the wallet. This is one of those things where you never realize how much you take your wallet in and out of your pocket until you have a wallet that clings to the inside of your pocket for dear life. Even after a week plus of use it is still just as hard to take out of and put back in your pocket.
Each flap of the wallet has three slots, one card per slot. Logically you would think that since the slots are staggered your cards would all be visible. Thus you would see the top edge of each card with a bit to grasp each card with your finger tips. Apparently that logic, well, isn’t that obvious.
[
](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/20110919-IMG_6593-Edit-full.jpg)All the cards sit at the same level in the slots so that it looks like a perfect stack of three cards. Now try to not only find the card you want, but fetch out the middle card on either side. It’s not fun.
[
](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/20110919-IMG_6592-Edit-full.jpg)The money clip in the middle is really great, provided you aren’t low on cash. Try slipping in an wrinkled up old bill by itself and well you are likely to end up with two pieces of a wrinkled old bill — this happens with two bills sometimes too. I found a workaround whereby you can fold the wallet all the way open and slide in the bills, but that’s pretty stupid looking in practice (like “resetting” the compass on your iPad stupid).
Honestly as a functioning wallet, this isn’t that great.
### Size
My biggest concern about the Dosh wallet was the overall size: they are very thick when empty. Turns out my concerns were spot on, once you put your six credit cards and some cash in the wallet it turns into a very thick beast.
So thick that it is in fact not comfortable to place the wallet and iPhone 4 in the same front jean pocket as I have been doing for years. Right there, that’s pretty much the deal breaker for me.
### Conclusion
I should have known better when I saw that the entire website was Flash only… I think I have that old [Tumi](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BWP1GI/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=brooksreview-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B002BWP1GI) wallet somewhere.
[
](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/20110919-IMG_6594-Edit-full.jpg)#### Bonus
The packaging is excellent and one of the few wallets that actually comes in a very nice case — a case which I now use for storing collar stays.
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Qwikster Cometh
Jonathan Poritsky: >Netflix doesn’t want consumers to associate its name with plastic discs anymore. I think given all the Netflix stuff coming out, the above statement is just about all we know for certain right now. Poritsky is spot on. It would have been vastly easier for Netflix to position the streaming side (from day…
Jonathan Poritsky:
>Netflix doesn’t want consumers to associate its name with plastic discs anymore.
I think given all the Netflix stuff coming out, the above statement is just about all we know for certain right now. Poritsky is spot on. It would have been vastly easier for Netflix to position the streaming side (from day one) as a separate business — they never did.
Netflix seems to have had the fear all along of someone/something coming along and doing to them what they did to Blockbuster and other video stores. Not only are they aware of this, but they have proven that they are fighting against it — preemptively.
I am not sure that some of the assumptions Poritsky makes about the Netflix services of the future will hold true — especially his fears about just how separate the services will be.
Personally I think this is step one for Netflix’s exit from the shipping plastic media business.
What Hastings can now do and say is:
– Look at the financials for Qwikster now that it is separate from Netflix, Qwikster loses money every day.
– Given that we can’t afford to keep it open.
– We aren’t closing Netflix, just this Qwikster thing.Basically, right at the point when the consumer recognizes the distinction between the two services (12 months?) they shut Qwikster down. Thus, they are not removing a feature, just killing a struggling business — who can blame them for that?
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Americans and Text Messaging
Aaron Smith for Pew Internet and American Life Project: >Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day—that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month—and the typical or median cell owner in…
Aaron Smith for Pew Internet and American Life Project:
>Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day—that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month—and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).
I find that crazy. I know people love texting, but I have never been a fan. In other news, or non-news:
>Heavy text users are much more likely to prefer texting to talking.
So there’s that.
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Fusion and Carbon Ads Bundle
Worth it for just two of the apps, let alone all 10…
Worth it for just two of the apps, let alone all 10…
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Only Enterprise and Developers Can Bypass Windows Store for Metro Apps
Jon Brodkin: >Metro apps, on the other hand, will be “Distributed through the Windows Store. Apps must pass certification so that users download and try apps with confidence in their safety and privacy. Side-loading is available for enterprises and developers.” The more information that comes out about Metro, the less I believe Microsoft is the…
Jon Brodkin:
>Metro apps, on the other hand, will be “Distributed through the Windows Store. Apps must pass certification so that users download and try apps with confidence in their safety and privacy. Side-loading is available for enterprises and developers.”
The more information that comes out about Metro, the less I believe Microsoft is the company behind it.
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Cracking OS X Lion Passwords
Basically there is an exploit that allows any user with physical access to your machine to change a user password without needing to know the old password. A couple things to note: 1. It is my understanding that you need to be able to get your hands on Terminal. Thus a locked computer would not…
Basically there is an exploit that allows any user with physical access to your machine to change a user password without needing to know the old password. A couple things to note:
1. It is my understanding that you need to be able to get your hands on Terminal. Thus a locked computer would not be vulnerable. ((Now, whether you could do this from a recovery partition and the danger to FileVault 2 users, that I don’t know.))
2. Far more scary is that typing in your password to grant privileges to applications could result in a malicious application executing this command. Mac App Store to the rescue?Very interesting and one commenter pointed out this is likely related to the LDAP security issue that was making the rounds a bit ago.
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[SPONSOR] Screens from Edovia
Screens, the acclaimed VNC client on iOS is now available for Mac. Screens – It just works.
Screens, the acclaimed VNC client on iOS is now available for Mac.
Screens – It just works.
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Qwikster
Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix: >So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10…
Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix:
>So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.
A nice post by Hastings to clarify what is going on, but Qwikster is a horrible name. But this cheered me up:
>The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.
With Starz leaving Netflix in 2012 it looked as though the streaming catalog is set to dwindle. Perhaps given this statement Netflix has found another (more direct?) way of obtaining content — let’s hope so.
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Customer Culture
Marco Arment wondering about the same hurdle that I foresee Microsoft having with Windows 8 and Metro: >The question isn’t whether Metro will be good: it probably will be. And that’s a huge accomplishment for Microsoft that they should be commended for. >But how will their customers react? The fear I have is that Microsoft…
Marco Arment wondering about the same hurdle that I foresee Microsoft having with Windows 8 and Metro:
>The question isn’t whether Metro will be good: it probably will be. And that’s a huge accomplishment for Microsoft that they should be commended for.>But how will their customers react?
The fear I have is that Microsoft will have created this great thing that is shunned by their core user base, thus allowing the “I told you so” crowd to take back over at the company. The fact that Metro got past that crowd already is nothing short of a miracle.
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The B&B Podcast – Episode 27: Makers and Managers
This go around Shawn and I focus on scheduling your time and responding to emails. We also follow up on popping popcorn and trying to pop coffee beans (not really).
This go around Shawn and I focus on scheduling your time and responding to emails. We also follow up on popping popcorn and trying to pop coffee beans (not really).
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Automatic Time Tracking for Your Mac
I want to thank Timing App for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. It’s a killer app for figuring out just how much time you wasted creating that spreadsheet that no one else bothered to look at. While I don’t need to track my time — I love to track my time so that I…
I want to thank Timing App for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. It’s a killer app for figuring out just how much time you wasted creating that spreadsheet that no one else bothered to look at. While I don’t need to track my time — I love to track my time so that I get a sense of just what I spend my life doing.
Let’s just say that Safari is winning for holding down the top spot of biggest time usage right now…
It is a really great app and at least worth your time to check out. It’s in the Mac App Store where it is 50% off for a limited time only.