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Web Journalist Blog » 2010 » April

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Archive for April, 2010
29 Apr

Daily Show’s Jon Stewart tells Appholes to “chill out”


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Jon Stewart had a GREAT segment ranting against Apple and the Gizmodo raid. He’s not pissed about the journalism angle, like I am, but more what side of the sledgehammer Apple is on now.

He’s an Apple fanboy, but he had to call the company out.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Appholes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Full episode here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-april-28-2010-ken-blackwell
(NOTE: I know these rotate, but I couldn’t help but notice I got the Verizon Droid ad and later an AT&T ad preload before the clip.)

28 Apr

Blogger’s Journalist’s house gets raided, why aren’t we more angry?


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Gizmodo's Tale of Apple's Next iPhone
Image by Gizmodo

Let’s gets this out of the way. There are a lot of unknowns here and probably lots of potential shady things yet to come out. This story, no doubt, has legs… and lots of them.

But, I have to say, I’m starting to feel really disappointed in the lack of outrage journalists are having to the Gizmodo raid. Maybe I’ve completely missed it, but we should be up in arms here!

And by “we,” I don’t just mean Webby nerds, tech geeks or digital dorks. By “we,” I mean journalists in every newsroom cross platform, across the country.

Where is the statement by the Society of Professional Journalists? The American Society of News Editors? The Online News Association, for heaven’s sake!?!?

If you missed it, Gizmodo posted a recap from their point of view, but here’s my understanding: (Note: You could easily do a search-and-replace here and change “lost” or “found” to “stolen” … or can you? Too soon to say.)

Act I: A new, prototype Apple iPhone was “lost” at a bar in the Bay Area. When this news first broke, many of us thought it was a crafty Apple P.R. stunt rather than a bonehead mistake. Turned out it was the latter and the bonehead employee was later named.

Act II: The “finder” of the phone allegedly attempted to contact Apple to make it aware of the misplaced device… but in the end, Gizmodo paid an estimated $5000 to get their hands on the “found” iPhone.

Act III: After Gizmodo posted a video and photos showcasing the “found” iPhone, it received a memo from Apple asking for their missing property back. The device was “bricked,” or remotely deactivated and made useless, presumably by Apple.

Act IV: Police raided the home of the blogger/reporter who posted the Gizmodo item. They actually knocked down his door while the blogger was not home and seized several pieces of equipment, which included laptops, iPad and more. The police have halted their investigation, once someone pointed about that the blogger is more than likely covered by the federal and state shield law.

Act V: ??? Who knows, but I can’t wait to find out.

Again, let’s get certain things out of the way here.

Yes, Gizmodo practiced checkbook journalism to purchase the iPhone. This is not a practice many of us do, condone or can even afford. But, sorry y’all, this type of journalism exists and is more common than we’d like to think. (One word: Paparazzi.)

Second, no matter the quality of it, Gizmodo is actively doing journalism. It’s not part of a legacy masthed, but one that was built by covering tech news — and it does so fairly well.

Third, you and I don’t know the details yet of how that phone was truly acquired. Hell, if Gizmodo was smart, they probably didn’t ask. But the device was acquired… someone leaked it… someone lost it… someone stole it… but the “it” was, and still is, big news. (Did you know Nokia has a missing device? I’m guessing not. Why? Because it ain’t an iPhone.)

Lastly, a journalist’s house was raided by authorities in connection to the device that he openly admitted and publicized he had. Don’t you think that was a little over the top?

So, I am asking myself, why aren’t we more pissed here? Where is our journalistic outrage? Where is the angry mob with pitchforks defending the first amendment right?

Would we be more outraged if instead of the phone it was some classified government document? Or if instead of a corporation like Apple contacting the authorities, it was the government?

Y’all, this is one of the biggest stories in modern journalism and we need to be on top of this… we need to get angry… we need to pick up our pitchforks pens and craft, at the very least, a statement that says this is not okay!

I love Apple too, but I love journalism more.

28 Apr

Hugo Chàvez selects his weapon of choice for Twitter


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UPDATE: Hugo Chàvez (or his Social Media guru) has updated his Twitter page with some nice, revolutionary red colors. He is also now following five people… @ubertwitter is not one of them.

First tweet by Hugo Chàvez

Venezuela’s controversial president Hugo Chàvez has just joined Twitter (@chavezcandanga)… and he’s taken a page from Conan O’Brien‘s (@ConanOBrien) Twitter playbook.

Just like the late night talk show host, Chàvez is following only one person. Unlike the late night talk show host, Chàvez probably didn’t really think about who he selected.

(For the record, by “person,” I’m using the U.S. Supreme Court‘s version of the term.)

Chàvez is following @ubertwitter, the Twitter client popular on BlackBerry smartphones.

More than likely it was a default setting, but I can’t help but wonder… is TweetDeck jealous or relieved.

Categories: Social Media, Twitter Tags: ,
24 Apr

HTML editors


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A few days back, I was asked for a recommendation for a good, relatively cheap HTML Editor. I use BBEdit and Dreamweaver, but I asked the Twitter-verse for advice. Here’s a list of what they recommend. NOTE: I haven’t used these.

 
Works on Mac and PC:

KompoZer | http://www.kompozer.net | FREE

JEdit | http://www.jedit.org | FREE

Amaya | http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ | FREE

NVU | http://net2.com/nvu/ | FREE

Komodo | http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/ | FREE

 
Mac only:

Taco | http://tacosw.com | $24.95 & Demo

Coda | http://www.panic.com/coda/ | $99 & Demo

Espresso | http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ | $79.95 & Demo(?)

BBEdit | http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/ | $125 or Demo

 
PC only:

Notepad++ | http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm | FREE

 

Categories: Tools & Technology Tags: ,