Idle Chatter

Monday, April 04, 2005

Things are quiet - too quiet…

What’s happening?

  • Because of the right people quitting, I’ve got 3 jobs now - webmaster, project manager (3 projects) and Visibilities “manager”. I put the last in quotes since there’s no real job, only real work - I have to get all the displays working in a scheduled, coordinated fashion. Ever been to my employer, Media Plaza? If you have, please post back below… Am I enjoying it - mostly. If only that I finally - after 3 years of misdirection and mismanagement - get my hands back on the portal and the web projects. The political football that is our website has landed back in my lap, years after our 2001 award-winning design. So I’m generally happy to be developing this site again.
  • No home system right now. After the debacle of the 12“ Powerbook I’ve decided to go to a 15” model for the better screen. Alas I wanted a different keyboard - like the US model with the larger shift keys on both sides (like a real keyboard) but I can’t get one from Apple here in the Netherlands. Imagine my surprise.  So I’ll have to pick on up later this month while in New York for the yearly “pizza & bagels pilgrimage”. Once I’m equipped, I can begin moving on - I’m eager for that. I hate detritus, which means…
  • Site updates are coming - yeah, my interest in this experiment in blogging is shifting. I do love to write, and occasionally find I have readers who post back (even if only to bitch) but the intrinsic value of blogging is still undecided to me. There’s too much signal-to-noise on the web already, and I’m not big on self-promotion, so unless this comes to some proper usage I’m going to chalk it up to experience. Yet I need my resume and portfolio online, and perhaps I can wrap this all a bit better, a bit less like a blog and more like a resource.  We’ll see - the paper’s already being drawn. Maybe we’ll see some Flash - yeah, like the web needs more of that!
Posted by Admin on 04/04 at 01:10 AM
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Monday, February 28, 2005

3

Are weblogs inherantly unethical? (UPDATED)

Blogs are either the greatest boon to the voice of the people or the greatest tool to create unsubstantiated rumor, for those inclined to do so. Before you can answer of bloggers are really replacing journalists, you have to ask if the methods employed are legitimate to that end. Is that blogger operating in an ethical and non-abusive manner?

“Journalists—the people who actually report the news—are acutely aware of the potential for abuse that is inherent in their system, which relies on support from businesses and power brokers, each with an agenda to promote. Their ethical standards are designed to delineate the journalist’s responsibilities and provide a clear code of conduct that will ensure the integrity of the news.”
- Rebecca Blood

Of course this is only the first step - a discerning and interested public is required to complete the handshake. If we, the public, care to rise to the level of Journalist, perhaps we need a code of ethics ourselves.

Rebecca Blood has proposed 6 bylaws for blogging to help define what’s missing. Next time you read a blog, ask yourself this question:  Are they a reporter or a fanboy?

And consider this with the news that Sony has now decided to support Gawker Media to the tune of $25,000 US a MONTH (AdAge.com, January 31, 2005. Print subscription required to view article). Big bucks for a weblog, and peanuts to what polictical parties pay. For now.

At what point does corporate or political support color weblog journalism? Do the folks at Gawker Media,  producers of Gizmodo, Defamer and more, need to know the 6 rules? (Based on their previous fanboy opinions of Sony-based technologies like Blu-ray and the PSP, I would argue a hearty “oh yeah…”)

UPDATE:
By all measures they do and I don’t - I confused Weblogs Inc’s Engadget with Gawker’s Gizmodo, which I do strongly favor. It may be that they look too damn alike to me, or that with the advent of RSS readers, you sometimes don’t know which content come from which source, or the incredible similarities between both sites when it comes to some features. 

I don’t know who copies whom (although my money’s on Engadget copying the clearly more-creative Gawker brands) but the fact remains that they BOTH more resemble templates than anything else. Change the header, change the color, change a bullet or character graphic and you have a new website. (Another note - Gizmodo changed their look just days after they commented here. Power of the press - hoo hah!)

Still, my faux-pas before is an unwittengly-good example of why blogs need to be considered opinion pieces first and not journalism. They need to earn that right. I just thank god daily that Matt Drudge doesn’t use this site as a source…

Read Rebbecca Blood’s “6 blogging bylaws”...

Posted by Admin on 02/28 at 03:13 AM
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Monday, January 17, 2005

Oh, so it’s OUR fault now?

image

The folks at Miller are opening the wrong barrel of worms: Their new site tries to be viral [Prevent Taste Loss] but loses against sites like Burger King’s Subservient Chicken, which was so successful that it even had a Snopes urban legends page. Everyone’s chasing the holy grail of marketing - getting that 20s-something disillusioned youth (who substitutes snide for substance) onto their website. Must be tough being “the Man” these days…hell, every company is “the Man”, even coolies like Apple.

I have an idea - In my opinion, Miller should stop producing that fecal-tasting brew and just make a beer that actually tastes good...

Posted by Admin on 01/17 at 04:16 AM
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Sunday, January 09, 2005

Updates and MacWorld

It’s slow on this site mostly because 1) this is an experiment to see if I even care to blog, and 2) I sold the old home laptop and I’m waiting for MacWorld before making a decision on a new home computer.

I won’t have another PC in my house - game over on Windows. I work on them all day and I don’t want to be come tech support at home, so now with OS X it’s all Macs at home. The first update will be a new portable and later on in the year I hope to either add a Dual-G5 or, ahem - this is a big “or” - an xServe.

(Yeah, I could run Linux - I’ve done that under Suse and RedHat before on my Sun 5s and the old Pentium II, but now I tend to want to simplify my systems and that means OS X full-time. I just want it to work…Of course, I’m always open to new ideas—and if anyone wants to donate to the “educational fund”, please do.)

But the rumors of MacWorld’s headless Mac systems, home PVRs, new hardware and software makes one just want to wait a little bit more. I’ve got an eye on a new iBook, but the 32MB vram seems a little low when you consider the 64MB video requirements for Tiger…I’m hoping for a slight update on the iBooks.

Posted by Admin on 01/09 at 07:27 AM
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Thursday, December 09, 2004

2

First Post!

Yes, we’re alive and working now!
That only took the better part of a week. arrrgh…

Well, for those of you who read this blog - and that would be the 3 of you - this has taken a while to get started. For a cms I chose Expression Engine (herewith dubbed ‘EE’), the fabulously-flexible content management system from the fine folks at pMachine. But with all that power lie a few problems, mostly in the security area.

EE uses some tools under Unix to perform it’s magic on moving and managing images and objects. In the interest of keeping my system secure I’m not going to discuss what those limits are, but let’s just say that when you install it, check the file upload section first. If you’ve got problems seeing directories or moving files and images, and you’ve done the perquisite file permissions, you’re probably running in the security policy of your ISP.

Then smile, ask nicely and send them tech people beer. You’re going to need them on your side…

Posted by Admin on 12/09 at 09:52 AM
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