'Parking in Motion' app screengrabJust a short note about two stories of mine that ran over the weekend.
The first was a sort-of review/riff on an app called “Parking in Motion.” Parking in downtown Austin keeps getting worse and worse and I think most people in town who have to go there are looking for some sort of silver bullet to avoid $10/per parking lots. The app, it turns out, doesn’t really solve that many problems, but it sure does look nice and may lead the way to something even better.
Of course, the name of the app implies that you might use it while… you know… you’re in motion? I guess? That’s probably not such a hot idea.
Work has been a little weird and a lot of interesting lately. My beat isn’t changing, but some of my day-to-day duties might in terms of what I’m working on for the paper and what we prioritize. I’ll be writing certain kinds of features more regularly, so that’s good since sometimes covering personal tech is a pretty large beast to try to get your arms around all the way.
I’m still trying to get a separate, more personal writing project off the ground and we’re about to finish another season of Trailers Without Pity. Summer, of course, is moving far too quickly for me to keep up and soon it’ll be too late to go toobin’ or to use that Schlitterbahn season pass. So, despite all the stuff I want to write, I’m trying hard not to spend these next few months stuck inside, away from the sun.
It’s a little out-there compared to the stuff I usually write for them, but with a few tweaks, they were willing to publish it as satire. I’m keeping an eye on the comments for this one because this time when people post, “This article is ridiculous and completely dumb!” I’ll be inclined to kind of agree.
Photo by me for the Digital Savant blogI might be doing stuff more pieces like this for CNN.com soon, which makes me very, very happy.
I always love chatting (or Tweeting) with Stacey and she proved to be a great, fun guest. I look for people who know a lot about tech but also don’t take it too deadly seriously and Stacey is a reporter with a great sense of humor. You can download it on the blog or grab it from iTunes.
I got to meet with him and his girlfriend and geek out a bit over the stuff he’s working on.
Also in the Statesman over the weekend was a reverse-published blog post I did about Turntable.fm, a DJ chat room/music service that my brother and I have gotten completely hooked over the last week. We’re planning on doing a horrible songs room, perhaps on Friday, and just playing the worst stuff we can think of. You should join us! You can find the room here.
Other cool stuff: I submitted an “I Am Not a Crackpot!” audio piece to my favorite podcast, Extra Hot Great and it appeared in an All-Crackpot episode. Lots and lots of fun and a great listen with lots of great submissions. You should subscribe to the podcast. My piece is about how we keep Closed Captioning on all the time. It comes in at around the 45-minute mark. I may not have convinced the podcasters, but I feel vindicated by the commenters on the site.
We had a pretty quiet 4th of July weekend. We didn’t travel anywhere and we had some family stay over. We took Lilly and Carolina to an insane place in New Braunfels called The Jumpy Place where they have giant bounce castles, like six of them in one giant warehouse-sized building. There are also comfy sofas and chairs for parents. But did we sit in them? We did not.
Were we supposed to go in the bouncy castles with the kids and climb the giant slides and jump around even though we are adults? We were not. Did we? Shit yes.
4th of July night was oddly quiet. No fireworks, no explosions. We’ve had a drought and there’s been a big ban on fireworks that, strangely, people actually observed. For the last few years, we’ve missed the fireworks. We used to go every year, especially when we were at S. Padre Island. We’d crowd as close as we could to Louie’s Back Yard by the water and watch the explosions.
The kids go to bed so early that for the last three of four years, we’ve just resigned ourselves to missing the displays. I got a guilty bit of pleasure knowing that nobody else was going to get fireworks this year, either, but then I felt bad sitting inside Monday night, waiting for the sound of Black Cats exploding in someone’s backyard nearby. The sound never came.
Oh, one other quick note — I was supposed to be teaching a class at the University of Texas this fall as an adjunct professor, but it looks like that has fallen through. I was approached about it last year and agreed to do it. Then, it got to be July and I started wondering why nobody had contacted me; shouldn’t I be preparing or something?
Turns out it never really materialized and I just found out. So maybe that’ll happen in the future, but most certainly not for the fall semester. That’s OK. I’m sure I’ll find ways to stay busy.
Jeff Roane of MiCommand, Inc. Photo by Zach Ornitz, Austin American-StatesmanI must have some kind of obsession with the idea of smartphones and tablets taking over the functions of remote controls, probably because of the mishmash of A/V equipment in our living room that all has to work together. I find myself writing about it again and again.
I’ve given up trying to get our trusty Harmony Remote to make everything work perfectly. There’s still times when the receiver, TV and satellite box all turn on just fine, but there’s still a blank screen that requires pressing “TV On/OFF” on the remote to get the HDMI connection to wake up. Don’t even ask. I’ve spent way too much time stressing about it.
I was very skeptical about the hipster photo toolbox app Instagram until I actually started using it. It’s very easy to use, doesn’t have too many options to overwhelm you and the filters, if you like the old-school look like my wife does, are very good. There are lots of filters for computer software like iPhoto/Aperture, etc. that do the same thing, but it’s amazing to be able to do it on your phone and be able to upload it instantly.
Anyway, here’s some pics of the girls I’ve been posting recently.
I was also feeling a bit of malaise with Digital Savant, I think, trying to figure out ways to keep it fresh and keep myself from feeling like I’m just shoveling text every day.
So, with some software setup help from Glark, I recorded my own first attempt at a podcast with Wesley Faulkner, a test run of what a Digital Savant podcast might sound like. The self-imposed criteria was that it be under 20 minutes, easy to edit (it took less than an hour, including sticking in images and other iTunes-friendly metadata) and that it be loose and fun.
I love talking to Wesley; he’s a good friend and he was such a huge help helping me get this done. I owe him.
In the future, I’m hoping to keep the format as 1-on-1 interviews, but with the same fun, goofy tone of Digital Savant. My bosses at the Statesman seemed to like it and there’s even the possibility that we may put it up on iTunes once I’ve got a few more episodes under my belt. That may be a a problem with South by Southwest Interactive coming up. Overall, I’m pleased with the result given it was all done with my aging Macbook, two cheap USB mics and just a few pieces of software in addition to GarageBand. You can download the podcast-formatted AAC version here or download it as an MP3 here.
Yesterday, a segment I recorded for NPR’s All Things Considered about children’s storybook apps (a subject I’ve been knee-deep in since about last August) aired. We scripted and recorded it a few weeks ago and in the time I was waiting for it to go live, I became increasingly convinced that it would be met with disapproval from the same NPR commenters who think it’s crazy to have sensors monitor the health of senior citizens or that iPhones are destroying civilization.
I wasn’t disappointed! The comments on the NPR page for the piece have ranged from a smattering of “Hey, it’s fine” comments to a more consistent drumbeat of readers and listeners who think I’m destroying my 3-year-old’s imagination and rotting her brain and eyes with these dangerous apps.
Memorably, one commenter suggested we let Lilly sleep with the iPad under her pillow or on her chest so she gets cancer. He later said he was joking, but despite my love of dark, disturbing humor, this one didn’t strike me as particularly humorous. Maybe I should lighten up!
Anyway, this time I had decided not to respond because I knew the comments were going to be as wild and vicious as the ones that accompanied the CNN.com piece I wrote about religion and Facebook.
But then I responded to one commenter’s question about CD-ROM adaptations and, well… let’s just say you shouldn’t wish cancer on my kid, OK?
Apart from all that expected mess, it was nice to be back on the air after a long break and very cool to see Lilly’s face on the front of NPR’s website and to hear her voice on the airwaves. I thought she did wonderfully and the audio is something I’m already coming to treasure.
The other stuff I’ve been working on, apart from gearing up for SXSW Interactive, are a possible podcast I may start doing at work for Digital Savant, trying to go to the gym more often (we have a new fitness center at work), shedding our VHS tape collection and doing more stuff with Kirkus Reviews on the iPad app front. Or as the commenters see it, ruining my daughter’s life.
So, with some software setup help from 