The Brooks Review

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The Hype: Yoshida & Co’s Porter BagsAugust 26, 2025
G-SHOCK DW-H5600 After 7 MonthsJuly 31, 2025
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022

Recent Articles

  • Building a Bug Out Bag

    This is something only paranoid people have, this is something everyone should have.

    I posted a link to an article which pokes a little fun at the bug out bag mentality, in doing so I knew I was going to get some questions — specifically whether or not I have a bug out bag. So, yes, of course I have a bug out bag — I’ve had one since 2012. Allow me to explain why I have one, why you should have one, and how to build one without having to read posts by people trying to survive a nuclear zombie apocalypse where everything is also flooded and people are generally trying to kill each other.

    A tall order.

    (more…)

  • iBooks Author — What Could Have Been

    Artificially slowing the iPad’s pace.

    Daniel Steinberg on passion behind teams at Apple:

    iBooks Author could have been a trojan horse into the personal publishing business. It would have been classic Apple. Instead of small authors going to Amazon’s platform, they would have started with iBooks Author. Apple should have made it easy for them to push to Amazon as well. Why? Because these people wanted to publish on Amazon but they weren’t considering publishing with Apple. Thousands of authors would have come to Apple to create content and stayed with Apple after publishing content there.

    (more…)

  • Todoist

    Yes, I switched to Todoist and I think it is really good but not earth shattering.

    The first time I tried Todoist, I was enamored by one feature: the daily emails. I love those, as they are a great way to make sure I see my list for the day, at the top of the day when I can really do something about it. I quickly brushed Todoist aside for 2Do, as I didn’t trust the sync system and the unencrypted nature of Todoist.

    Truthfully, in many ways 2Do is the better app. But when I found out Todoist was now encrypting sync data properly, I felt it warranted a full look. I switched everything over and found an app with less power, but which is actually more powerful for me.

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  • Owning Your Content Matters

    Manton Reece: Owning your content by having a microblog at your own domain is empowering. Maybe you’re writing about what you had for lunch. Maybe you’re photo-blogging an important trip. Maybe you’re posting from your iPhone at a protest outside the White House. It’s certainly a step better than the arbitrary Twitter “verification” bullshit.

    Manton Reece:

    Owning your content by having a microblog at your own domain is empowering. Maybe you’re writing about what you had for lunch. Maybe you’re photo-blogging an important trip. Maybe you’re posting from your iPhone at a protest outside the White House.

    It’s certainly a step better than the arbitrary Twitter “verification” bullshit.

  • Secret Service Unlocking Phones

    Aliya Sternstein: Typically, a device takes anywhere from a day to a month to break into, depending on whether Secret Service computer engineers need to disassemble the device and software to figure out how it was programmed. Interesting article.

    Aliya Sternstein:

    Typically, a device takes anywhere from a day to a month to break into, depending on whether Secret Service computer engineers need to disassemble the device and software to figure out how it was programmed.

    Interesting article.

  • World’s Saddest 45 Rally Draws Just 8 Supporters

    There appeared to be eight people at the rally.

    There appeared to be eight people at the rally.

  • 45 and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles

    Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, in the second paragraph of the article: Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty…

    Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, in the second paragraph of the article:

    Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

    You read that paragraph and you think, wow that’s insane, and then you read the rest of the article and you think: I wish it was just the second paragraph — that seemed better.

  • iPad Productivity Report — 02/05/17

    The iPad needs continued third party developer love, and it has a little perception problem.

    When I posted that old iPads don’t work well, I received a slew of feedback with people telling me how many people they know using an iPad 3 era device. I truly feel sorry for these people, even when that device was launched it was underpowered. My oldest daughter still uses that, and it’s a pile shit — you stand no chance of convincing me otherwise.

    ## Reliance on Third Parties

    One of the most overlooked advantages of the macOS platform is the lessened reliance on third party software. That’s not to say you don’t need third party software on macOS, but that you can do *a lot* of stuff in something as basic as Terminal. A Mac, straight out of the box has a lot more ability than *any* iOS device straight out of the box. Where the playing field starts to level is when you add in third party apps on iOS (and macOS for that matter).

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  • Remote Work Emergency

    Good lord, this is a perfect article.

    Good lord, this is a perfect article.

  • Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump

    Andrew Restuccia, Marianne Levine, Nahal Toosi: Fearing for their jobs, the employees began communicating incognito using the app Signal shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Signal, like WhatsApp and other mobile phone software, encrypts all communications, making it more difficult for hackers to gain access to them. Hard to blame them. I should note here that of…

    Andrew Restuccia, Marianne Levine, Nahal Toosi:

    Fearing for their jobs, the employees began communicating incognito using the app Signal shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Signal, like WhatsApp and other mobile phone software, encrypts all communications, making it more difficult for hackers to gain access to them.

    Hard to blame them. I should note here that of WhatsApp/Signal/iMessage — Signal is the one to trust.

  • Ulysses Does it Too

    I should have known.

    In my quick review of Textastic I noted that I snagged it for the feature where you can grab an external file, edit it, and “save” it back to the external location without editing (I really need a better term for this). Turns out Ulysses can do that too, I mean of course it can, it’s amazing.

    If you back all the way out of your library and tap the manage view you will find an option to “Enable External Files” (maybe that’s a better name?). Once you do that there is a Library Source called External Files and within that you can grab files from iCloud Drive, OS X Server machines, and any other app which allows this kind of access (Transmit, Documents, Sync, etc). This all works incredibly well if what you are editing is raw text and not code, for my uses this will likely be better than Textastic.

    Thanks to all those who dropped me a note about this.

  • This Here iPad Sales Thing

    Looking into iPad sales numbers and trying not to bore myself.

    Look, I don’t know why iPad sales are trending down, you don’t know why they are, and actually no one knows why they are. You know how I know that? Because even Apple doesn’t know why, and they have the biggest motivation of anyone to figure out why.

    Let’s play a simple game:

    • What’s the best tablet you can buy? iPad.
    • What’s the computer best suited for the average American? iPad.

    Those two questions are so easy to answer that even the most staunch Mac believer will agree: most people probably are best off with a tablet and the iPad is easily the best tablet. That’s not me making an argument for the iPad, or against the Mac — it’s just that most Americans want something to buy things and look at Facebook while at home and, hey, it turns out the iPad is pretty fucking good at that.

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  • Introducing Linea

    Anyone who’s worked at a whiteboard knows that it’s a great place to experiment with ideas. Being able to quickly get rid of mistakes is just as important as capturing a thought. You know your fingers will be dirty at the end of a good session. You can snag Linea here. It’s a really well…

    Anyone who’s worked at a whiteboard knows that it’s a great place to experiment with ideas. Being able to quickly get rid of mistakes is just as important as capturing a thought. You know your fingers will be dirty at the end of a good session.

    You can snag Linea here. It’s a really well done app with great UI controls. I think the whiteboard analogy is apt. It won’t replace apps like Procreate for many, but it is probably the first drawing app any iPad Pro user should buy.

  • Check If Your Netgear Router is also Vulnerable to this Password Bypass Flaw

    Swati Khandelwal: This is the second time in around two months when researchers have discovered flaws in Netgear routers. Just last month, the US-CERT advised users to stop using Netgear’s R7000 and R6400 routers due to a serious bug that permitted command injection. I love the new Netgear routers, but I wouldn’t use one at…

    Swati Khandelwal:

    This is the second time in around two months when researchers have discovered flaws in Netgear routers. Just last month, the US-CERT advised users to stop using Netgear’s R7000 and R6400 routers due to a serious bug that permitted command injection.

    I love the new Netgear routers, but I wouldn’t use one at this point.

  • Democrats boycott hearings of two cabinet nominees, demand the truth

    Laurel Raymond reporting on the reaction to Democrats delaying nominations: “We did not inflict this kind of obstructionism on President Obama,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), one of the other two senators in the room. Toomey labeled the Democrats’ boycott “a completely unprecedented level of obstruction. This is not what the American people expect of…

    Laurel Raymond reporting on the reaction to Democrats delaying nominations:

    “We did not inflict this kind of obstructionism on President Obama,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), one of the other two senators in the room. Toomey labeled the Democrats’ boycott “a completely unprecedented level of obstruction. This is not what the American people expect of the United States Senate.”

    Is that true?

    Senate Republicans refused to hold a vote on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, for nearly 11 months.”

    Oh, that’s right. Glad to see Democrats realizing that the rules of the game have changed. Now, can they keep up?

  • Washington State AG Filing Suit Against Immigration Ban

    Jim Brunner: State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said he will file a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to invalidate key provisions of President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring all refugees and immigration by citizens of seven majority Muslim countries. I’ve been particularly proud of how Washington State politicians are reacting to Trump. From the Governor, to…

    Jim Brunner:

    State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said he will file a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to invalidate key provisions of President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring all refugees and immigration by citizens of seven majority Muslim countries.

    I’ve been particularly proud of how Washington State politicians are reacting to Trump. From the Governor, to the Seattle Mayor and now the AG.

  • Where your elected officials stand on Trump’s immigration order and Cabinet picks

    Philip Bump: My colleague Aaron Blake has a running tally of where Republican members of Congress stand on the most immediately controversial of those issues: the immigration travel ban. We’re going to take that a step further. Using the Sunlight Foundation’s tool to identify legislators by Zip codes, we’re detailing where the people who represent…

    Philip Bump:

    My colleague Aaron Blake has a running tally of where Republican members of Congress stand on the most immediately controversial of those issues: the immigration travel ban. We’re going to take that a step further. Using the Sunlight Foundation’s tool to identify legislators by Zip codes, we’re detailing where the people who represent you have stood on the vote to limit Obamacare (part of a budget bill passed in mid-January) and Cabinet picks (if in the Senate). On top of that, we’ve rolled in Blake’s list of who is where on the immigration ban.

    Fantastic.

  • iPad Productivity Report — 1/30/17

    Managers, why aren’t you using an iPad Pro already?

    I wrote this one a few weeks ago, and this is the first week I didn’t have anything else to write about, enjoy it.

    ## Executive iPad

    This is one of those posts I have had on my list to write from the moment I decided to write weekly iPad Pro articles. My idea has always been that if you are an executive, or a manager in general, the only level of computer you need is an iPad (or [for some](https://anxiousrobot.net/the-iphone-7-plus-is-my-only-computer-489947cc126c#.q9aqjwre6), an iPhone).

    I allude to this idea often in my posts, and it rubs a certain subset of people the wrong way. It’s the same group who thinks that “people like me” only write for a blog, or only administer a simple website. There are a couple of things I can say here: I *am* a writer for a blog, but that’s a hobby more than it is a job. Day to day, I’m the COO of MartianCraft — which is how I know the iPad Pro works fantastically well for managers, because it is all *I* use.

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  • Introducing The Trump Score

    Aaron Bycoffe: The Trump score is a simple percentage showing how often a senator or representative supports Trump’s positions. To calculate it, we add the member’s “yes” votes on bills that Trump supported and his or her “no” votes on bills that Trump opposed and then divide that by the total number of bills the…

    Aaron Bycoffe:

    The Trump score is a simple percentage showing how often a senator or representative supports Trump’s positions. To calculate it, we add the member’s “yes” votes on bills that Trump supported and his or her “no” votes on bills that Trump opposed and then divide that by the total number of bills the member has voted on for which we know Trump’s position.

    One way to get politicians to act is to not reelect those who stand idly by — this Trump Score metric is a great way to hold their feet to the fire.

  • Trump’s Muslim Ban Isn’t Just Inhumane—It’ll Make America Dumber

    One thing people seem to have missed is that “make American great again” doesn’t mean the same thing to Trump as it does to literally anyone else in the world. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

    One thing people seem to have missed is that “make American great again” doesn’t mean the same thing to Trump as it does to literally anyone else in the world. This is just the tip of the iceberg.