Linked List: June 21, 2011

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Clayton Morris’s Review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 

Clayton Morris isn’t grading on a curve:

The Android Honeycomb software that powers this device is still buggy. Sure, Google’s improved some of the stability issues that hindered the first go round but I still had plenty of sluggish moments. I experienced enough stuttering in the software for it to be annoying. You don’t get that on the iPad. And let’s be honest, no matter how you slice it, Honeycomb lacks elegance. […]

My job is to recommend or not recommend gadgets based on my experience using those devices. For the general consumer I can’t think of a single reason to buy this device.

Steve Martin’s First Look at Final Cut Pro X 

Comprehensive look at what it’s like to use the new Final Cut Pro X.

Nokia N9 Hands-on Demo 

Another good demonstration of the button-less N9 UI.

FBI Seizes Web Servers, Knocking Sites – Including Pinboard – Offline 

Verne G. Kopytoff, reporting for the NYT:

The raid was on a hosting facility in the United States used by DigitalOne, a company based in Switzerland. It was not immediately clear what the F.B.I. was looking for.

In a note to one of its clients, a DigitalOne employee, Sergej Ostroumow, said: “This problem is caused by the F.B.I., not our company. In the night F.B.I. has taken 3 enclosures with equipment plugged into them, possibly including your server — we can not check it.”

It continued: “F.B.I. was interesting only in one of clients and it is absolutely unintelligible, why they took servers of tens of clients. After FBI’s unprofessional ‘work’ we can not restart our own servers, that’s why our website is offline and support doesn’t work. We are still in trying to solve this problem and all our colleagues are at work since 15 hours.”

Yikes. See also: Pinboard’s status page.

Nokia N9 

Great-looking hardware and what appears to be a true, modern mobile touchscreen OS. Watch the “Swipe” video, it’s only two minutes long and it’s worth it. They’ve made a phone with zero buttons on the front face.

No ship date or pricing announced, although the NYT reports it “will sell unsubsidized for the equivalent of about $670 to $760 for 16 and 64 gigabyte models”. So here’s where Nokia stands. Four and a half years after Apple announced the iPhone, Nokia has now announced a worthy rival. And it’s based on the MeeGo OS that apparently is a dead-end, as the company prepares to focus on Windows Phone 7.

You Can Help Mlkshk 

Andre Torrez:

Get Things Done without wasting money. Work hard. Do it yourself. Do a good job and you’ll be rewarded (did I mention I also grew up Catholic? Hah!).

Because of this I didn’t want to take someone else’s money for an idea that could only happen if I took full responsibility.

Mlkshk is a great site, and I love the way Andre and his wife are determined to get it off the ground without borrowing a dollar. Count me in for a $24 paid account.

‘An Infinite Amount of Care’ 

Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 letter to projectionists showing Barry Lyndon. Nice use of Futura.

Final Cut Pro X: Release Notes 

Too much information, Apple. How about a summary?

Windows Phone 7 on the Carriers’ Pay-No-Mind List? 

Michael Gartenberg, on Twitter:

At VZW and ATT stores to compare plans, both steered me to iPhone and Android devices.

Followed by:

In both stores when asked about #WP7 was told “you don’t want that”. In one instance was “corrected” and told it was called Windows Mobile.

Here’s a website — Windows Phone Tattletale — dedicated to documenting poor retail treatment of Windows Phone 7 devices. This sort of dismissive treatment can be devastating to a platform. This was the problem facing the Mac during the ’90s.

Samsung Galaxy Tab ‘Book’ App 

Why do people think Samsung rips off Apple? No idea.

Boston Bruins Run Up $156K Bar Tab Celebrating Stanley Cup Victory 

Includes a $100,000 bottle of Ace of Spades Midas champagne — but it was a big bottle.

Jay Yarow on Why the BlackBerry PlayBook Doesn’t Support Email 

Jay Yarow:

Turns out it had to skip native email support on the PlayBook because its architecture can’t support two devices with one person’s account, according to a source.

Here’s how our source explains it: “The Blackberry email system is the BES — which is the source/focus of all the famous BB security. The BES email server has the concept of one user = one device (or they call it PIN).”

Sounds silly, but it fits the evidence. No other explanation makes sense for why RIM, of all companies, would ship a device that doesn’t support email.

Update 1: Some feedback from readers saying that BES doesn’t actually have a one device per user limitation.

Update 2: More readers, via email, say that BES does have a one-device limitation. What allows BlackBerry users to access their email account from multiple devices are things like IMAP and Outlook’s proprietary protocol. But BES itself is single-device. Which raises the question of why the PlayBook doesn’t at least have an IMAP client.

Mat Honan Calls This Blackmail 

Mat Honan, on Mike Arrington’s creepy AOL/TechCrunch piece yesterday on Caterina Fake’s new startup:

Explicitly, it’s clear what he’s saying: If you, Mr. or Ms. Startup founder, don’t play ball with us, we will fuck you over. But the implicit stuff is more insidious to me.

Arrington is acting as if he’s above the mudslinging by not revealing details. But the problem with that stance is that had he not brought up the “sordid situation,” how would anyone have even known there was mud to be slung?

The piece was bizarrely personal, even by Arrington’s standards.

‘Finally’ 

Our collective impatience, captured. Everything new in iOS 5 should have been here already.

(Thanks to DF reader Drew Bingham.)

Everything Is a Remix: Part 3 

Pour yourself a tasty beverage and give yourself 11 minutes to watch this. Kirby Ferguson argues that progress comes from three things: copying, transforming, and combining. His main example: the original Macintosh. Nailed it.

Seven Months Flashless 

Shadoe Huard:

It has been 7 months since I’ve followed John Gruber’s advice and abandoned Adobe Flash. Put simply, the experience has positively affected almost every facet of using my computer. It’s faster, cooler, runs longer and most importantly, it’s infinitely less prone to infuriating me.

Along similar lines, Peter N Lewis (of Stairways Software fame), yesterday:

Months ago I followed @gruber’s advice and uninstalled Flash on my Mac (w/Chrome as fallback) — completely painless, well worth doing.

Phil Harrison on the Future of Gaming 

Edge Magazine interviews Phil Harrison, who helped launch the Sony PlayStation in 1996, on the future of gaming:

At this trajectory, if you extrapolate the market-share gains that they are making, forward for ten years — if they carry on unrestrained in their growth, then there’s a pretty good chance that Apple will be the games industry.

And the Apple TV doesn’t support apps yet.

Final Cut Pro X 

Now shipping, available only from the Mac App Store, for just $300. Motion 5 and Compressor 4 are out, too, for $50 apiece. Gary Adcock has a good first look at Final Cut Pro X for Macworld.

Egregious Dropbox Authentication Bug Yesterday 

Yesterday I saw this report from Christopher Soghoian, alleging that for a period of time yesterday, anyone was able to log into any Dropbox account using any password. It struck me as too astounding to be true.

Alas, it was true, and the hole was open for over four hours. Everything appears to be working properly now, but I suggest all Dropbox users check their account events log.