Tag life

Entries 8 Total

Things to do…

Sep 2, ’08 4:30 PM

Now that I’m back from vacation, here’s what’s on my to-do list for, uh, the foreseeable future:

  • Finish developing the pre-alpha version of ReportingOn and launch it.  Like, really, really soon.
  • Go to SND/APME next week, speak on Sunday, go to some awesome sessions and pimp ReportingOn to every editor I meet.
  • Write the first draft of my graduate school project report regarding ReportingOn.
  • Get someone to redesign Wired Journalists, or run a contest inviting users to edit their own theme and submit it.  The winner gets, um, a prize of some sort, and all sorts of link love.
  • Think about developing a Wired Journalists job board.  Seems like there are plenty of spots to place ads for generic news jobs, but nowhere to place an ad for a high-end online news job somewhere frequented by the best in their class… This could be profitable, yes?  Authentic Jobs is the model.
  • Put up another baby gate or two. The kid loves practicing her walking with my help.
  • Write much more for Idealab.
  • Do something interesting with a domain I bought recently: newstangle.com.
  • Talk with Canon and other companies about sponsoring Wired Journalists so we have some gear to give away by the end of the year.  Let me know if you’re interested in getting involved.  (In giving stuff away, that is.)
  • Move this blog to Django and redesign it, adding a hardcore linkblog element instead of aggregating it from the cloud.

So what’s on your list?

Migration and alternate reads

Apr 5, ’08 6:45 AM

I’ve been a little busy for the last week or so moving across the country, although going weeks between posts isn’t really anything new here, eh? As always, I’m posting to Twitter far more often than I could hope to blog here.

While I’m slammed with life and work busy-ness, please check out the following if you haven’t yet:

  • Sean Blanda’s Confessions of a journalism student: “The problems facing journalism schools are similar to those facing colleges overall: industries moving too quickly, lower barriers of entry into certain job markets, and the cost of education outpacing the reward.”
  • Shawn Smith on How to write Web headlines: “Be interesting, not mysterious! Interesting doesn’t mean making readers guess what a story is about. A web reader won’t often click into a story to figure out what your headline means.”
  • The Knight News Challenge runners-up: Including Matt Waite’s Louretta CMS for small-town news sites.
  • Hartnett introduces us to Backyard Post: “What I’d really like to leave you thinking about today is simply the foundation on which Backyard Post is built: Neighborhoods. Not cities, ZIP codes or some other vague, gigantic or similarly off-the-mark stab at reaching actual humans in the actual neighborhoods where they actually live.”

Our new washer and dryer will be here any minute, so I’ll leave it at that. Rumor has it our car is in New Jersey, so we’ve got that going for us. Moving is easy. Migration is hard.

Halloween debriefing, baby-friendly in 2007

Nov 1, ’07 6:27 AM

Checking out the scenery

Downtown Santa Cruz yesterday in daylight hours, among throngs of candy-seeking children and stroller-pushing parents (notably, myself, the wife, and our neighbors).

I’m the one in the funny hat.

Last year, this costume was quite a bit less baby-friendly.

Comments Off

Well that was an interesting week

Jun 8, ’07 8:48 PM

It has been a long time since I’ve been this happy to see a Friday night.  It’s the end of my first full week back at work since the birth of our daughter.  It’s the end of a week that started with a blog post that was intended to get approximately the amount of attention it got.  It’s the end of a dramatic week in terms of staffing changes at work.  We (my family, not my employer) also seem to be squeezing the act of changing addresses into the month of June, although it’s all just paperwork and phone calls at this stage. (If you live in Santa Cruz and have a stash of good cardboard boxes around, drop me a line.)  Somewhere in there factor in an oncoming series of family visits and a long list of tasks and a large stack of paperwork or two.  I usually call this a rains/pours situation, and I stopped being surprised by it long ago.  Being surprised isn’t in my job description — any of them — but keeping my sense of wonder intact definitely stays high on the list.  Luckily, I have a 6.5 pound source of wonder in my lap as I type this.

Why I love the Internet

May 20, ’07 6:21 PM

Because shortly before our daughter arrived, I ordered a webcam from Amazon. It was here when we got back from the hospital, and it took about 15 minutes of setup to start streaming video via Skype to four grandparents spread across North and South America.

The only hard part? Not scratching myself wrong in the background.

“Dad, videophone.” — Lisa Simpson

Born

May 17, ’07 10:27 AM

Here she is.

May 14th, 2007, 1:46 p.m.

5 lbs. 10 oz. 19.25 inches

All is well.

Seven Inklings for 2007

Jan 1, ’07 1:19 PM


Fire in the Evening by Paul Klee

(I started this post out as a list of the most popular posts on this blog this year, and then immediately got bored with it, which I figured wasn’t a good sign of the prospects of you, dear readers, becoming bored as well. Hence, the following seven inklings/predictions/resolutions.)

  1. Reinvent one thing at a time. Choose your passion, your poison, your niche, your specialty, and become an expert in it as fast as you can. Then move on to your next passion. Keep learning.
  2. Take care of your body and your mind. Stretch both frequently. Challenge yourself as a habit.
  3. Develop a network of sources for inspiration, filtration, and discussion. Anything is possible, and anyone can have the right answers.
  4. Use collaborative tools at work to save time and avoid doubling up on tasks.
  5. Step away from the computer from time to time. Go out and report on something. Take pictures, shoot video, whatever you like, but get outside and experience the world first-hand. Worry about sharing it online later.
  6. Get some input from outside your niche. Print designer? Learn about CSS. Web designer? Hit the museum and check out some Paul Klee. Writer? Listen to This American Life.
  7. Don’t forget to have fun. If you’re not doing what you’re doing on purpose, think about what you’d rather be doing, and work toward doing it.

Thanks to all for a great year.

Beers and birthday cake

Oct 18, ’06 9:23 PM

30

[UPDATE:  Proof of concept available at Flickr...]

When: Thursday October 19th, 6 p.m.

Where: Gordon Biersch on San Fernando in Downtown San Jose (map)

Who: Um, that would be you, and a mix of SJSU grad and undergrad students, and whoever else shows up. All are welcome, especially if your birthday is anytime soon.

How: See post title.

Feel free to just show up, no RSVP necessary. We have confirmed multiple birthdays…