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Mar 17 2012
Sports, Television

My HD upgrade (Scoble was right)

My 12-year-old Sony WEGA flat tube TV finally died in January, 5 1/2 years after Robert Scoble told me to ditch it and go HD. The new TV is glorious and I love it far more than I should, but what’s making me write about it today is the start of the 2012 Formula 1 season.

When Scoble and I discussed HD in his living room back in 2006 I told him I didn’t need HD until F1 started broadcasting in HD. That started last year and now I’m able to experience the full force of HD racing. I’m stunned. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I can’t go back to watching on a laptop screen or an SD set. I’ve seen football, baseball, soccer and NASCAR in HD and none of it did much for me.

Sharp? Yes.

Pretty? Yes.

Exciting? Not for me.

F1, however, when I can see the tire tread in detail, the detail in the grassy runoff areas and the in the rooster tail spray, it’s just unbeatable.

By Sony standards, the 12 year life of my WEGA was short. I really should have gotten at least 20 years out of it but I’m so glad it’s gone. My Panasonic ST30 is miles better in every way.

Even better, my 2006 cost analysis was far different from the 2012 reality. The screen was most certainly not $4,000 and I didn’t need all of the upgrades I originally anticipated. Cutting off cable TV 2 years ago made a huge difference, since we already had an HD Roku and didn’t need an HD TiVO or cable box and the XBox was long gone. In the end, we grabbed the new TV, a sound bar, some cheap cables from Monoprice and a blu-ray player. All in, the cost was a fraction of my 2006 estimate.

And this weekend’s F1 season opener in Melbourne is making it all worth it.

You were right, Robert. Thanks.

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Feb 16 2012
macintosh

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: So soon, Apple?

Didn’t see that coming so quickly. There’s no talk of under-the-hood changes, just new apps. I wonder if it’s really worth a full point upgrade?

Looks like it’s up for a lot of criticism about the “iOS-ification” of the Mac and the fact that Reminders and Notes are pretty lightweight tools. The Messages app looks like a no-brainer (I wondered why this wasn’t in Lion) but the UI is pretty damned bad. Who wants a message app that takes up that much space?

Apple is really going to ramp up the conspiracy theories with this new Gatekeeper thing.

I like that sw updates are now through the App Store (though I’m sure IT won’t like that), it makes sense to combine the two update methods.

AirPlay mirroring will be nice and I get the sense that the other shoe waiting to drop is a new AppleTV box or screen.

Share panel and integrated Twitter? Nice, but not necessary.

Safari with a combined location/search bar? Yes, please.

Link: Apple OS X 10.8 Developer Preview

Oct 06 2011
Current Affairs

A sad night

The first Mac I ever saw was at my aunt and uncle’s house. It was a Mac 128 and my uncle showed me how to make art with MacPaint. I was hooked.

The first computer I ever bought with my own hard-earned cash was the original iMac. I pre-ordered it and was at the launch party on the first day at the Mac Store near Lloyd Center. They called our names during the party to come get our iMacs. I was #5.

As computers went, that first iMac wasn’t much to write home about. It was neither fast nor technologically interesting. But it was a triumph of design and focus. It worked in ways that no other computer even dreamed of. There was nothing else like it and I was thrilled to make things with it.

I’ve owned and used a lot of Apple gear since then, each so much better than the ones before it, each giving me the tools to make better and more interesting things.

Steve and his team have been delighting and inspiring me for years. He was one of my few heroes.

As Jeff Jarvis said tonight, “We have lost our Gutenberg, Edison, Picasso, Carnegie….”

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May 27 2011
publishing, social media, Work

How do you build local engagement on Twitter? (via The Buttry Diary)

Steve Buttry nails it with this post in building community engagement on Twitter. The meat of it is this:

However you find people tweeting about your community, the key to engaging them is conversation. If your Twitter feed is a one-way stream of self-promoting headlines and links, people are not likely to engage with it. But if you answer their questions, ask them how they know newsworthy information that they tweet, retweet their observations about community life, they will engage with you.

Excellent advice for anyone or any business on Twitter. He goes on to give tips for using several 3rd party tools and Twitter’s own Advanced Search.

In my experience working with small newsrooms the tools we provide have to be both comprehensive and easy to use. Continue reading →

May 23 2011
journalism, publishing, Work

Outing Your Commenters’ Identities

RulesIt’s important to have a clear set of rules.

Your Terms of Use document (terms of service, community guidelines, FAQ, rules of the road, etc.) is your social contract with your site’s users. Whether you craft it to your specific needs or use boilerplate, your Terms are the rules and a good site lives by and enforces those rules.

The rules should lay out what behavior is expected and what is unacceptable in your online community, and what happens the rules are broken. You expect your visitors to abide by the terms, and they should expect the same of you. Continue reading →

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