Category: Technology

Creative Destruction in the Newspaper Industry

I saw two things today that somehow connected in my mind. The first was an advert for scholarships for computer programmers to Northwestern’s journalism school (link):
Are you a skilled programmer or Web developer? Are you interested in applying your talents to the challenge of creating a better-informed society? Do you want to learn how to find, analyze and present socially relevant information that engages media audiences? Do you see possibilities for applying technology as a way to connect people and information on the Web or new delivery platforms?

The second item was the announcement that one of Seattle’s two major daily newspapers is up for sale and that it will probably cease as a printed paper no matter what happens:
For sale: The P-I

There are a few things to think about here. A simple one is that the printed newspaper as a product is obviously headed for oblivion. The web is far superior at news delivery, especially extended coverage of breaking news (television isn’t good at the “extended” part). Even the bad part of electronically delivered news (reading off a computer screen) has solutions on the near term horizon (e-book readers). You could say that the journalism school is ahead of the game here, looking to turn programmers into journalists who “get” the future of journalism.

I wonder why anyone would be looking to journalism as a second career at this point though. I can understand that the current upheaval in the computer industry would make a career change attractive, but what we got going in IT ain’t nothin’ compared to the outright carnage happening in journalism.

There is an open question about what is the future of journalism: is it trained journalists researching stories or is it bloggers and “citizen journalists” doing it on their own? I’ve never been one to think that interested amateurs can completely replace experienced professional writers, and I still feel that way. The big stories require real journalists, sniffing out the stories over long periods of time and really getting to the bottom of the issues. However, 95% of professional journalism isn’t that. It’s coverage of city council meetings and the daily reportage that some people care a lot about, some people care a little about and the rest of the people care very little about. Those kinds of things are perfect for the interested and excited amateurs and it is that where the blogging community has been eating away at the journalism community. Without young reporters getting their start on that daily grind kind of stuff, however, I’m not sure how folks become the in-depth-extended-research kinds of reporters.

I honestly don’t think that the future of journalism is going to come from the programmers (even those with masters degrees in journalism). I think it is going to come from the thousands of laid-off reporters being released into the world. I hope that many will start to explore the possibilities and I expect at least one will end up changing what journalism is as we know it.

Another iPhone App that I don’t feel like writing…

I’m pretty sure that this app exists for other smart phones and I know that a similar thing exists for normal PCs.

An App that scans the barcode using the built-in camera and then allows you to look it up on your choice of site: froogle, Amazon, whatever… To see if you want to buy it on-line instead.

I’d write this one myself, but it isn’t anything I’d be that jazzed about writing and supporting for a long time… It should be something that Amazon would jump right on if they weren’t worried about getting sued…

freebie iPhone app idea for the real estate websites

yes, this one is for you redfin, windermere, et al. Normally, I’d sit on idea like this, but lets be real. I’m not going to write this one. So, as a customer, I’m asking you guys to do it for me.

I want an iPhone app version of your websites.

Obvious:

  • Get me details on the houses presented for the iPhone screen size
  • Show me houses for sale near my current location

Less Obvious

  • Let me pick a bunch of houses to view on the website: give me a tour, in-order, with turn-by-turn directions
  • Show me how far and the way to get to the nearest: school, park, etc.

Go for it, I’ll use it, and if you want to toss me a commission or make me VP of product development, I’m cool with that.

Go big or go multiple?

Everyone on my team is pushing to get 30″ screens are part of their equipment upgrades. I can certainly understand this. We all get top of the line machines automatically and so what is the cool expensive thing to get your employer to buy you? 30 inches of 30-bit color of course! Now having screen real estate is critical for developers, I can totally dig that. I was just reading Ryan Block’s blog post, 30-inches: too much screen?, and I realized that I actually prefer my dual 19-inchers over a larger screen. While having that break in the middle is a distraction for some, for me it is a boon. Having visual studio stretching over my entire visual field is just going to cause eye and neck strain. With two monitors, I choose my organization so I can focus on one at a time, but have the other handy for reference. When I’m debugging, I have the app on one monitor and Visual Studio on the other. When I’m developing, I’ll have Visual Studio on one monitor and Firefox or Acrobat on the other with documentation. When I’m not coding, I have Outlook on one monitor and Firefox on the other. For me, I’m never really focused on a single application, I always have a primary and secondary application and so dual-monitors works for me.

IPod and disconnectedness

Music: IPod Backlash (Seattle Weekly)

This social isolation is another likely outcome of iPod use, according to Areni, a professor at the University of Sydney who studies environmental psychology, music, and cognition. “Have you ever tried saying ‘hello’ to somebody listening to an iPod? If I see the white or black wires sticking out of somebody’s ears, I don’t even bother, even if it’s a friend. Again, in crowded public spaces, this may be a desirable outcome.”

I found this article fairly interesting. I’d be interested in seeing the psychological effects of wearing an iPod in public. I am one of those folks who wears mine constantly when I’m out and about on my own. I leave my earbuds in sometimes even if the iPod isn’t on. This is mostly due to the fact that I live downtown and 95% of contact with other folks on the street is other people asking me for spare change or directions. It does grow the perceived bubble of my personal space and makes vying my way through crowds more pleasant. I also like the choice of deciding with whom I’ll interact. If I see a friend or enter a business, I’ll take my earbuds out. If someone I don’t know speaks to me on the street, I have the choice of talking to them or pretending not to hear them.

Given a choice between the isolationism of iPods or the fuck-you-all-I’m-talking-here cell phone behaviors, I’m definitely feeling like the isolationism trend is the better of the two.

MacWorld Keynote… feh

The coolest recent Apple announcement is the upgrade to the MacPros, in my book. The Air is cute, but for a little extra heft, the MacBook is still a better computer in every way. And the MacBook is still underpowered for my taste.

Who really cares about thin? Once you are hitting that sub 14″ category, isn’t weight the most important thing? My 12″ PB is a better mini-machine than the MacBook Air.

The ModBook is a more exciting machine to me.

The new iPhoneOS? Cool, but I’m still going to wait for 3G.

The new AppleTV, nice, but not a major improvement.

Renting movies, over due. Available one month after DVD? Sucky.

Wireless NAS? Cute form factor, nice price, but not revolutionary.

Was anyone really blown away by today’s announcements?

What does the new Mac Pro announcement say about the MacWorld Keynote

For those of us who have been waiting for a MacPro upgrade, today is a great day. New Mac Pros with 8 cores of Penryn power, new high-end video cards, all quite exciting.

You would think that this is something that Steve Jobs might want to announce from the stage in his keynote next week. So why announce it today?

Maybe they were holding back this announcement in case another one fell through… Maybe compared to the other announcements they were worried that this one might have gotten lost in the shuffle? Maybe it is to suck some of the attention away from all the announcements at CES?

This certainly ups the anty for next week.

[update: Here is Gizmodo’s take, they agree with me]

Alex Iskold’s tips for startups

36 Startup Tips: From Software Engineering to PR and More – ReadWriteWeb

This is a collection of startup tips covering software engineering, infrastructure, PR, conferences, legal and finance. They describe best practices for an early-stage startup. We hope that you will find these tips useful, but also please remember that they are based on subjective experiences and not all of them will be applicable to your company.

These tips are great for web startups. They are pretty useful for non-web startups as well. I’ve been through the startup mill myself a couple times and I still got some good pointers.

Wow, does the MyBook suck

So, I was at Costco and they had the Western Digital My Book Home Edition 1TB drives for $299.99. I snapped one up, $.30/Gb! What a deal! Then I plugged it in to my computer and… nothing. The drive didn’t power up. I tried different outlets, different cables, every combination. The drive was DOA. I should have looked it up on the web, but for some reason I was stupid, and I just brought it back. When I was returning it, I asked if they had many returns. “No, none.” So, I decided that it was just very bad luck and I got another two (I now actually need another 1TB and a backup as well).

I brought the replacement and the spare home. I opened one and it powered up (now that I know that the first drive never even powered up). However, this one refused to mount. Firewire or USB. Their cables or mine. Now, I actually checked the web and found out that the 1TB Home edition is particularly crap. So, I had to return both of these as well.

I’ve had several MyBook drives and haven’t had too many problems, except for one that had it’s firewire port crap out after several months.

I’m never buying another.

wow, Apple you tricked me again

There are three rules that everyone knows.

  1. Never Get Out of the Boat
  2. Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia
  3. Never upgrade your Apple OS if things are working fine.

I’d been on 10.4.8 on my main get-work-done machine for a while. There was no reason to upgrade. It was solid. I had no problems. Also, 10.4.9 was a piece of crap.

Then I had a problem. An iTunes problem which was also several dot releases behind. iTunes hung for some reason. After Effects hung at the same time, so it probably wasn’t an iTunes problem, but I’d been meaning to upgrade anyway so that I could get the un-DRM’d files from the iTunes store. So, I upgraded iTunes. The new iTunes hung immediately when I tried to download or play a file.

After trying a bunch of stuff, for some stupid reason, I decided to try installing 10.4.10. Mostly, it works except when external drives just go away for some reason. Which is a serious feaking problem, especially when you consider that one of the big “fixes” in 10.4.10 was around external drives. What happens to iTunes when the external drive where your files live goes away? It hangs hard. Like, you can’t reboot hard. Like you have to power cycle the machine hard.

Since trying to upgrade iTunes on Saturday morning, I’ve had to power cycle my most important machine about a dozen times.

the lesson: Never get out of the boat.