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27 Jan 2010 09:19

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Tech: Twitter’s excitement about the Apple Tablet just reached fever pitch

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Dec 2009 10:22

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Tech: Reuters’ redesign is one of those designs that starts slow, gets better

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  • The interesting thing about Reuters’ redesign is the same thing that’s interesting about “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem: It starts out not looking like much, but as you get further down the page you realize that there’s a ton going on here. That’s how it starts, the way it does in bad films. Except the part where the motor kicks in. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Oct 2009 10:57

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Tech: Twitter’s atwitter about the pending launch of NASA’s Ares I-X rocket

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Oct 2009 21:09

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About: Big site news: ShortFormBlog’s redesigning, and other changes

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We have big plans, guys. As you might remember a couple weeks ago, we asked you guys what you wanted. In part, that's because we have some big plans for the site's future. To start with, we have a redesign ready to launch November 3. Here's a little about the redesign, and some other changes:
  • Why the redesign? ShortFormBlog has been in existence for ten months, and we’ve learned a lot. And in many ways, the site’s focus evolved in ways that the original site didn’t anticipate. Mainly, we wanted a cleaner format that made the bite-sized elements work as well throughout the site as they do on the front page. To emphasize these changes, we’re flipping the slogan from “writing a little, saying a lot” to “read a little, learn a lot.” Small, but notable.
  • Why the redesign? ShortFormBlog has been in existence for ten months, and we’ve learned a lot. And in many ways, the site’s focus evolved in ways that the original site didn’t anticipate. Mainly, we wanted a cleaner format that made the bite-sized elements work as well throughout the site as they do on the front page. To emphasize these changes, we’re flipping the slogan from “writing a little, saying a lot” to “read a little, learn a lot.” Small, but notable.
  • Sports: Outta here One of the things that we’ve wrestled with more than anything is a way of paring down the site’s elements in smart, clear ways. For that reason, we’ve chosen to take out a piece of the pie that’s fallen by the wayside. Sports will not be part of the redesign. By cutting off a finger, we hope to make the hand stronger or something. But in the future, we have other plans for sports. And we want to bring readers on board to help.
  • Why the redesign? ShortFormBlog has been in existence for ten months, and we’ve learned a lot. And in many ways, the site’s focus evolved in ways that the original site didn’t anticipate. Mainly, we wanted a cleaner format that made the bite-sized elements work as well throughout the site as they do on the front page. To emphasize these changes, we’re flipping the slogan from “writing a little, saying a lot” to “read a little, learn a lot.” Small, but notable.
  • Sports: Outta here One of the things that we’ve wrestled with more than anything is a way of paring down the site’s elements in smart, clear ways. For that reason, we’ve chosen to take out a piece of the pie that’s fallen by the wayside. Sports will not be part of the redesign. By cutting off a finger, we hope to make the hand stronger or something. But in the future, we have other plans for sports. And we want to bring readers on board to help.
  • New content, kids! One thing that we will be adding to the site is a weekly editorial comic by Shawn Vulliez. Vulliez, a fan of the site, created the animation for one of the most well-known and popular Flash clips of all time, “The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.” The comics are just a start, we hope. Our long-term goal is to figure out ways, both big and small, to get more contributors on board. Bug us if you’re interested.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

16 Oct 2009 21:27

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Offbeat: Hey, look, raw Balloon Boy launch footage. Interesting.

  • Pops has a temper. And man, this non-story has enough entertaining twists and turns that we cannot convince ourselves to turn away. In the latest news of the case, the Heene family was, in fact, working on a TV show about their family, but networks and production companies passed on it. Wouldn’t it be sad/awesome if they got a reality show out of this incident anyway?source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Sep 2009 10:13

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Tech: Remember Compuserve, nerds? It just hit a historic anniversary.

  • The year Compuserve launched – 30 years ago today, in fact. source
  • The initial modem speed, in baud, you could access the iconic service. source
  • Percentage of users’ time spent on the popular CB, or chat, service. source
  • The year AOL finally killed Compuserve’s iconic service. Sigh. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Sep 2009 20:13

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Tech: Dear Palm: Don’t announce things ahead of Apple events

  • -8% stock dip after announcing the Pixi today of all days source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

07 Jul 2009 21:30

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Biz, Tech: The sad fate of The Printed Blog, an idea loaded with optimism

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  • What it was Right around the time ShortFormBlog launched back in January, a fairly original twisting of the newspaper medium called The Printed Blog launched. We were fast fans, in part because the idea was so loudly original and because it partly felt like the kind of idea we’ve played with in the past. source
  • What it was Right around the time ShortFormBlog launched back in January, a fairly original twisting of the newspaper medium called The Printed Blog launched. We were fast fans, in part because the idea was so loudly original and because it partly felt like the kind of idea we’ve played with in the past.
  • Why it’s dying It’s a victim of the economy and the idea didn’t work. Founder Joshua Karp announced the publication’s fate today, blaming it on a lack of venture capital support. Some, like Gawker (shut up, jerks), are claiming it was because it was a backwards idea. It was crazy, but it wasn’t backwards. source
  • What it was Right around the time ShortFormBlog launched back in January, a fairly original twisting of the newspaper medium called The Printed Blog launched. We were fast fans, in part because the idea was so loudly original and because it partly felt like the kind of idea we’ve played with in the past.
  • Why it’s dying It’s a victim of the economy and the idea didn’t work. Founder Joshua Karp announced the publication’s fate today, blaming it on a lack of venture capital support. Some, like Gawker (shut up, jerks), are claiming it was because it was a backwards idea. It was crazy, but it wasn’t backwards.
  • What we’d do We liked the idea but felt it could have used refinement. We would have used the publication as a guidepost to blog content online rather than straight-up printing blog items. It should’ve used its role as gatekeeper to edit and refine the content – like a newspaper! It might have gotten there, sadly. :( source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Jun 2009 20:38

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Tech: Apple is really sorry that you can’t activate your iPhone. Here’s $30.

  • Since Friday’s launch of the iPhone 3GS, the activation process has been spotty at best and completely unusable at worst. It’s not as bad as last year, when the servers completely crashed on people wanting to activate an iPhone 3G. source
  • To make up for the torrent of new iPhone activations (500,000 by one analyst’s count), Apple is making it up to users by offering a $30 iTunes Store credit to those stuck without a working phone for the weekend. Aww, how nice. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Jun 2009 21:48

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Tech: Not to steal the iPhone’s thunder, but the Pre isn’t doing bad either

  • 50,000 Palm Pres sold in two days source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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