I know, I know, it’s been a long break, but the last couple of weeks have been amazing. I’ve written more words in a shorter time than in a great while. On the one hand, I love it — while I enjoyed the podcasting gig at CMP (and campaigned for it), I found that I missed writing. That itch is being scratched with a vengeance. On the other hand, I get to 2:00 AM, realize I haven’t posted here, and know that sleep does have some priority in my life.

Here’s one thing that I’ve been up to: I’ve added InfoWorld’s SMB IT blog to my portfolio. Check it out (especially after I get some real content posted) and let me know what you think. There have been other things in the last couple of weeks, as well…I’ll have links to those up, soon.

Thanks for hanging around — I’ll try to make it worth your while…

Categories: Housekeeping
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You’ve seen the cartoon: a snowball starts at the top of the mountain and speeds down a slope, picking up speed, small farm animals, and our hapless hero along the way. That’s how the months from now until Christmas look right now. I think I’m about three steps in front of the snowball, humping along for all I’m worth.

Part of that is keeping up another blog for my Journalists’ Toolkit class. I have a new entry on photojournalism editing and ethics.It’s an interesting topic for me: I’ve always been interested in photojournalism, and I’ve taken some photos for magazine articles, but I would never consider myself a photojournalist. In the new world of multiple media publishing, though, the walls are tumbling down.

I’m building up to another couple of posts in the next day, and please feel free to head over to The Gainesville Sun to check out my latest column.

Man, that snowball’s getting close…

Categories: Media, Grad School
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OK, so I know that I can’t be trusted to regularly update this blog, but I’ve started another blog as part of a class I’m taking at the University of Florida. It has the fairly obvious title of Mid-Career Grad Student, but that’s about as creative as I can be just now. Feel free to check it out–I’ll look forward to your comments, either here or there.

A couple of folks have asked about my first assignment for my class in on-line journalism tools. It’s very short, but you’re welcomed to listen to a brief interview I conducted with a fellow student. As always, comments are welcomed.

Now, all I have to do is find that order form for the 28-hour day…

Categories: Grad School
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It’s a curious affliction, I know, but I don’t like squirrels. Actually, I should qualify that: squirrels are just fine in brunswick stew, braised with dumplings, or made into any number of tasty dishes. When they’re running around the yard eating stuff I’ve planted or put out for birds, though, they’re nasty little furry-tailed tree rats.

Friends and family have long made fun of my antipathy towards Sciurus Carolinensis, but now the truth about the long-toothed little hell rodents has come out: squirrels are dangerous. When the lives of little children and brave law-enforcement officers are at risk, I say it’s time to break out the stew-pot.

Categories: Outdoors
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In my last post, I promised two secrets that are making my life better. Here, I deliver…

First, an engineer in for an upcoming review for InfoWorld told me a secret of the BlackJack. I can’t say it’s been my very favorite phone up until now, but he showed me how to convince it to act as a wireless modem for my laptop. Joy! Now, I can get work done anywhere I can find a high-speed data signal (which is most of the places I tend to travel). Since I have the unlimited data plan, I figure AT&T can get only so ticked off at me. After all, bits are bits.

Next came a critical revelation about an important application one of my publications uses to manage articles. Since joining the pub, I’d been told that a VPN connection was required to reach the app and, for various reasons, I had to use the pub-supplied laptop for the VPN connection. On a phone call earlier this week, a fellow editor let it slip that no VPN connection was actually required. I checked, and he’s right! Joy, again! I’ve had to do just a bit of application hacking, since the publication is still using Office 2003 and I’m using Office 2007, but I’ve managed to get everything working and I can feel my stress level dropping dramatically. To be able to get necessary work done wherever I am is a gloriously liberating feeling.

That’s it–I’m now more mobile, with my cell phone and single laptop giving me an office-in-a-messenger bag. I’m altogether too pleased with the situation, but it’s put a nice glow on the week.

Categories: Networking, Mobile
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First, sorry that this is the first post of the week. For a “short week,” it’s been jam-packed with action. Where to start? How about this…

My second column appeared in the Gainesville Sun. This one revolved around  on-line collaboration tools for small businesses, families, and students. The longer I do the things I do, the more I’m a fan of on-line collaboration tools. I remember what an effort it was to keep track of chapters when I co-wrote two books–now, we’ll just set up a project on a collaboration system and be in Fat City.

I had a first, this week, as well: I wrote a small feature article for the Sun, on the new AT&T usage filters for cell phones. After more than twenty years as a journalist, this was my first feature for a newspaper. Not much of what I’ve done could count as straight-forward reportage–it was nice seeing that I can do the job when I need to.

OK, so I love trying new things: After talking about my excitement over ZuluPad,  I think I may have already found something I like better–at least for keeping notes for grad school. Debrief is a feature-packed application for taking and organizing academic and research notes. It’s not so free-form as ZuluPad, but it has great facilities for keeping track of references, setting up assignment reminders, and organizing class and research notes into usable groups. There are three versions: one is always free, and the other two are free for a 30-day trial, after which you can pay for them. I’m trying the Professional version, and I can feel a payment coming on in twenty days or so.

Speaking of school, first assignments are due tomorrow. Today was an incredible day–multiple articles to edit and file at InfoWorld, multiple assignments due for classes, a conference call to talk about changes to a production system, a newsletter deadline, and an evening stint playing the piano for a high-school drama audition. You know what? On the whole, I love it. The moments of panic are good for the circulatory system, and staying busy is good for me. About 15% percent less busy than today would be fine, but, hey, you shouldn’t ask for too much. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I’ll be posting links to some of my homework assignments (because I’ve been asked to do so, not because I have such a huge ego), but I don’t think this first assignment will be one of those. If you really want to hear it, let me know and I’ll send you the link.

Next time, news about an exciting discovery (or two) that are making my life ever so much better…

Categories: Media, Consumer, Grad School
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