Tag: kirkus reviews

  • Pointedly

    'Snuggle Mountain,' an app mentioned in this week's Digital Savant column

    My energy level is up in a major, scary way, one of those “LOOK OUT, WORLD!” feelings that the world, it turns out, has largely seen before.

    For a few weeks I wasn’t going to the gym as often and I was eating… not great, and my energy level was just total shit. I was getting sleepy at 10 p.m. even when I’d had a decent night’s sleep and just was getting no writing done in at night, never mind actual house stuff or getting organized.

    Maybe it’s that it got hot again for a weird week, but now that the cool weather is coming back I feel like I’ve got my second (cool) wind. It’s nice. Stuff’s getting done. Waste paper is landing in basketball-hoop-style trash can novelty toys. The blood feels like it’s moving again.

    It’s a good thing because this morning was the first time I’ve done an NPR thing since March. I was invited to go on the show On Point with Tom Ashbrook to talk about the Amazon Kindle Fire and the tablet wars in general. (TABLET WARS! THEY’LL SLATE YOU… THIS CHRISTMAS.) You can listen to the one-hour segment (there were other guests as well) on their web site or just download the MP3 here. I think it went well. I did a ton of cramming and reading over the weekend in preparation, but went in with minimal notes and, in a big departure from when I used to do All Tech Considered, I was able to keep my laptop open and have an Internet connection. Something about having Twitter running in the background and access to information if I need it just calms me. Feeling hermetically sealed often makes me talk faster and feel less confident. Either way, it was nice to be back on the air.

    A few other new things: today we ran a Digital Savant column about an upcoming digital storytelling symposium for children’s book authors and illustrators. There’ll be a lot of talk about ebooks and children’s apps and I’m all over that.

    Last week, I wrote a blog post that ended up running in the paper about the future of vending machines. It was pretty snacky.

    That’s about it right now. I’m looking at a few more weeks of knocking out some stories and columns before I take another vacation in early November, right after Halloween. We’re trying to potty train Lilly at night (no more Pull-Ups!), but that’s challenging. Carolina has learned how to fight back when her sister takes items away from her and that’s… loud. Our fall looks like zoo visits and Wurstfest and putting away the plastic swimming pool and, for once, I’m OK with that. I had a great summer and I don’t feel bitter that it’s gone like I usually do, especially with the awfulness of the temperatures and the drought this year.

    Work is work; a few more staff members are leaving or shifting into other roles and I have a hard time remembering when things were “normal” or if that was ever really a state of being there.

    One thing I saw today really affected me. I went to Goodwill Computer Works to interview someone for a story. As I was wandering around, I saw this hanging up near the front:

    The air went out of my lungs and I just stared, mouth agape. I wrote the story in 1997. I’d just been hired a few months before and it was one of the first big, ambitious stories I wrote. It’s still one of my favorites, a piece about the Apple Lisa back when it looked as if Apple might not even exist in a few more years. A rush of emotions filled me, but I just turned away, smiling. The man I was interviewing walked into the room and it was time to get to work.

  • Spoken word

    I’m not gonna lie, I missed podcasting.

    I’ve been listening to so many of them in recent months, from Extra Hot Great to Kevin Smith’s stable of ‘casts (Tell ‘Em Steve Dave is really surprisingly good) to Comedy Death Ray and the very irregular Out of the Game.

    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.

    The other thing that happened this week is that I broke a little news about Google in Austin and the first of some video reviews I did with Kirkus last week have started appearing on YouTube. You can view two of those below.

  • Story times

    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.

    You know, tomato, to-mah-to.

  • Untied knots

    Image courtesy Grog LLC’s ‘Animated Knots’ app

    I don’t know if it was the vacation I took from work in late December, the fact that I just purged out my desk at work and moved to a new one (more on that in a sec) or just a general sense of delayed New Year’s reflection, but I haven’t felt this content, centered and focused in a while. It just makes me realize what a nervous wreck I was last summer and fall as I was galloping to try to catch up on major writing assignments at work (and at home) and balance it with a toddler on the brink of being potty trained and an infant in the house.

    Whatever the reason, the last few weeks have felt really good in some weird, undefined way. The air seems scented with possibility and at one lull in my December vacation, my wife joked about how relaxed and laid back I was, something she rarely gets to see.

    “Oh, don’t get used to this. Relaxed Omar will be gone soon. Say goodbye. He’s great, but he’ll disappear by mid-January,” I told her.

    I think she may have cried.

    The 2011 good mood is partly because a lot has been resolved of late. The Kirkus Reviews project, which started back in October, is finally wrapping up, at least in its current phase. I committed to write 50 children’s app reviews, which at the time seemed like a ridiculous, theoretical number, the kind of challenge a competitor at the Coney Island 4th of July hot dog eating contest might accept. I just didn’t think I could do it, no matter what the offer was on teh table. So I did it anyway.

    Breaking it down to five reviews a week (and then, when even that seemed daunting, breaking it up to three reviews written by Sundays and two by each Monday) really worked. I turned in my last two reviews with a week to spare (we agreed to have 50 reviews done by the end of January) and I was lucky enough to work with a great editor, Vicky Smith, who guided me through the unfamiliar territory of children’s literature and gave my short write-ups careful, witty, knowledgeable edits. It was a good experience and I may stay on doing app reviews (but in much smaller numbers) for Kirkus as they continue covering the emerging digital book market.

    The other major loose end was that, on my wife’s solid suggestion, I called up my contact at NPR to find out what was up. It was a great conversation and, as it turns out, my fears that I had been unknowingly put out to pasture and was unworthy of being on the radio anymore were unfounded. The stuff I do for them in the future will likely be different than what I was doing before, but in a really good way. I wrote up and recorded a segment for them that is scheduled to air on Monday, Jan. 31 on All Things Considered. We’ll see how that turns out, but it was nice to find out that the door hadn’t been shut on me. It relieved a lot of anxiety I was having (but was trying not to acknowledge).

    In general, I feel an easing of tension, a lack of nervousness and anticipation. In the past, I’d have interpreted it as feeling that my life was boring and I was being unambitious, but lately, I’ve come to embrace having a little free time and room to breathe.

    Meanwhile, my day job continues as usual (or, hey, better than usual). We’re already preparing for South by Southwest Interactive in March, but in the meantime, I’ve had a few stories in the paper. On Monday, I had a piece on the front page of the Statesman about an Austin-related lawsuit filed against Courtney Love. I got to talk to some lawyers about libel law and how it relates to social media. Read it if you want to know if your Tweets and Facebook posts could get you sued.

    I also did a “There’s a Creator for That” app feature about “Animated Knots,” an iPhone app that is about knots and how to untie them.

    I got quoted in a Huffington Post piece about the 30 most underrated tech innovations of 2010 and the book I wrote the foreword for was featured in a New York Times Magazine article and on an NPR Fresh Air segment. So those things were pretty cool.

    Also did a short piece about a new order-from-your-seat technology at Austin’s Frank Erwin Center called Bypass Lane and on Digital Savant, I covered a little breaking news about layoffs at Junction Point Studios.

    Next week, we start up a new season of Trailers Without Pity with our first new video since early November.

    At work, I switched desks, which was an occasion to completely clear out my old desk (as well as the new one) and to wipe both of them down and get all the grime and dust and disorganization cleared away. We’re doing the same thing in our home office; January for me has been a time to throw old stuff away, donate whatever I can and think about how I want to live and work and exist in my space.

    It’s been very liberating to come to work and not face stacks of paper and books and just schmoot all over the place. I know it might not last long, but right now everything fees like its in the right place, that things are focused and correct, relaxed, but poised to act.

  • De-clutterer

    Photo by Laura Skelding, Austin American-Statesman

    The series of blog posts I mentioned before under the label “Project 2011 Tech-Awesome YOU!” (eh, maybe that name needed a little work) resurfaced as an article in the Life & Arts section of the Statesman on Sunday. It had a reworked lead and was tightened up quite a bit, but was probably more digestible than the three-part blog opus of last week.

    The advice on de-cluttering comes just as my wife and I are in the process or reorganizing our house, starting with our upstairs home office. Over my vacation, I spent two days (OK, maybe just a few hours spread over two days) getting rid of cardboard boxes that were littering the office, organizing review products to send back and putting together a stack of stuff to take to Goodwill and to donate to a local family organization. After it was all over, the office was much improved (we could actually walk around in it, not like before) even if I didn’t get to the CDs, books, software and other items that need sorting.

    We’re buying new desks and, possibly, a new computer since we find ourselves both working at home at the same time some weeks and I can’t spend a whole work day on a little laptop. Buying desks, it turns out, is way more complicated than buying a new computer. I’m learning a lot about what kind of workspace I’d like. Feel free to offer suggestions because I’m absolutely lost.

    The other piece that ran in the paper this week of mine was a reverse-published interview with the head of Austin’s Sony Online Entertainment studio about the launch of DC Universe Online.

    I’ve also been writing up a storm of iPad chlidren’s iPad reviews for Kirkus. In two weeks I will have written 50 of them, which I honestly didn’t think was possible when I started on them in November.

    And after months of uncertainty, I might have some good news to share on the NPR front soon. Here’s hoping.

  • Santa gifts

    Carolina shows you magic

    Lilly at the recital This was a really big week for us. Carolina turned one, Lilly had her first dance recital and then, oh yeah, Christmas and a lengthy, much-needed vacation for me. I’m not back at work until Jan. 3.

    Lilly’s dance thing was the culmination of several months of classes at her daycare. We went to San Antonio and the whole thing took place in a big workout room. The kids were adorable and, of course, we thought ours was the absolute best. She got flowers and we went out for a nice dinner to also celebrate Carolina’s first birthday.

    Their personalities are so different that even people who don’t spend much time with them both pick up on it right away. Lilly is methodical and demanding, a Type A toddler who is used to having things a certain way, but is also sweet and organized and generous. Carolina, on the other hand, is hilarious and destructive and just wants to get her hands on everything and/or put everything in her mouth, even things that might choke her. The dynamic between the two of them is already developing nicely.

    We’ve been having a lot of fun this week with Lilly and Santa. This is the first year she’s really grasped the concept and we did the whole bit with the cookies and the milk, the stockings, the whispers before bed about making sure not to get up and surprise him because he has a heart condition. It’s been surprisingly satisfying and fun being on this end of the Santa equation.

    The vacation caps off a year of really just a damn lot of work. I thought things would slow down as things began to cycle down on the NPR front, but just as that was happening, I got approached by Kirkus Reviews to start doing app reviews of children’s story books for the iPad.

    Kirkus has been doing book reviews since the 1930s. I mean, I remember seeing the Kirkus review blurbs in the Stephen King paperbacks I read as a teenager and authors I know have told tale of getting their first review from Kirkus.

    This project is a fairly large shift for them. They moved their headquarters to Austin and are planning to push hard into new kinds of reviews and digital content. So I’ve been quietly spending the last two months downloading iPad apps, reading them with Lilly at night and working up reviews in the short, extremely refined way that Kirkus does things. I’ve been lucky enough to be paired with an amazing children’s books editor who is also learning about the app world along with me. It’s been a very cool experience. All told, I’ve agreed to write 50 reviews, through the end of January. Just last week I hit the halfway mark.

    The first batch of them appears in the Statesman tomorrow, Christmas Day, a bit of a partnership between Kirkus and my newspaper. The reviews will also be appearing on the Kirkus website. It’s been a really fun, cool project.

    On the Statesman front, I also recently wrote an update on the Season for Caring project and the Gomez family.


    Photo by Mark Matson, for the American-Statesman

    And, lastly, I did an app feature recently in the Statesman on a family that creates apps under the name IMAK Creations for There’s a Creator for That. Their app is called “Who Is the Smartest?”

    During my downtime, I plan to watch a ton of movies I haven’t had time to see, get the upstairs office organized and de-cluttered and work on my Christmas cards, which have somehow turned into New Year’s cards as I lost track of time.

    I’ve had two days off already before Christmas to chill out, stop racing to the next deadline and to just think about how great things have been this year (with only one or two speed bumps), and how lucky I’ve been to have so many wonderful people in my life who aren’t just watching out for me, but for my girls as well.

    Thank you, everybody, for reading and for being in our lives.