I’m writing this from the new Wordpress iPhone app. It’s a pretty light, straight-forward interface. It allows saving posts locally on the iPhone before publishing or saving drafts to the server, enabling offline drafting.
There is even rudimentary photo support - but you can’t really control the placement or sizing of the image - it is merely appended to the end of the message. You don’t even see the image markup until it is published or saved as a draft on the server.
But even then, the limitations of the iPhone become clear - there is no copy/paste, and the classes that determine how Wordpress displays uploaded images is unneccessarily complicated. (They should simplify that.)
So, though this is a pretty nice app, I’m not sure how useful it will be without more formatting options and copy/paste. For instance, I can’t even provide a link to it’s app store page. Also, why doesn’t the iPhone have characters luke curly quotes and em/en dashes?
UPDATE (from my Mac): Here is the link to the app.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog is a fantastic three-part web-only musical, starring Neil Patrick Harris. I can’t underline enough how good this is. Available online for free until July 20th, and then available in iTunes for $3.99.
Barriers erected outside the Carroll Street MTA entrance at 2nd Place and Smith Street, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Looks like the 360 Smith luxury condo development is going to shut down my subway entrance, and severely mess up the nice plaza in front:
Because the safety of our customers is of utmost concern, this closure will be in effect on a 24-hour, 7 days per week basis for 6-8 months (subject to the progress of the construction project)…
See outside.in for more history of this controversial development.
Apple apologizes for MobileMe’s mediocre launch, by offering all users a 30-day extension for free:
The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was a lot rockier than we had hoped. We will be extending subscriptions by 30 days to customers free of charge to express our appreciation for their patience during the transition period.
Speed up syncing from your Mac to MobileMe » MobileMe isn’t exactly “pushing” so much as “syncing every 15 minutes” – Ars Technica points to a way of speeding this up.
The MTA’s Service Changes posters are getting more and more indecipherable… This F-train one from this past weekend was a doozy, but we managed to make it back and forth from Manhattan without incident.
Crazy video of Jessica Lynch getting struck by lightening, while taking a video of a storm. She’s okay, don’t worry. [Flickr Blog]
Workmen remove a flyer left behind by David Malone, who climbed the New York Times Building several hours before.
For the third time in five weeks, someone has scaled the outside of The New York Times Headquarters. This time, however, it was over and done before most of us got out of bed:
Unlike the two previous climbers, this one — identified later as David Malone, a 29-year-old activist from West Hartford, Conn., who studies Al Qaeda — did not attempt to make his way to the roof. Instead, he unfurled a banner around the fifth floor of the 52-story building, before climbing a few more stories.
Read More »
In the current Business Week, there is an interesting profile of Deborah Kenny, the founder Harlem Village Academies:
Kenny has applied a business management style to running her schools, focusing on attracting smart teachers, nurturing talent, using reams of data to improve performance, and putting a huge emphasis on rewarding results.
Kenny also happens to be Lisa’s boss.
Ladytron performing at Terminal 5.
I’ve been known to make some blanket pronouncements over the years – such as, “I don’t like cover bands,” only to be proven wrong later. What I discovered was that I quite loved cover bands when they play music that I like, as opposed to the baby boomer prog rock and frat boy drivel that you usually hear.
Apply the same lesson to light shows… fancy lights at rock shows always seemed ridiculous to me; a stoner cliché. Ahh, but fancy light shows accompanying music that I love? That’s awesome!
Ladytron is one such band. As good as many of their records are, their live shows are something bordering on the transcendent. Now, I realize that it is nothing new for electronic bands to have light shows synced to the music, but what is impressive to me about them is their seriousness about playing real instruments, live, in the room. It brings a lot more energy to the show.
But, it has me wondering… how do they sync the lights so perfectly? It’s almost like there is a computer with a line-in feed, processing everything as it’s played.
Read More »
NYTimes.com isn’t the only NYT property that’s doing interesting things with blogs these days – Boston.com launched a different kind of photo blog earlier this month, The Big Picture. With its oversized photos, minimal ads, and hardly a promo to other site content, the presentation is clear and striking – and praise is pouring in.
Firefighters work to contain the Humboldt fire which started Wednesday, had grown to 19,000 acres and threatened more than 5,000 structures. (AP Photo/Jason Halley - Chico Enterprise-Record)
Another interesting facet about the blog is that it not written by a Globe photographer or photo editor, but by one of their website developers. Andy Baio posted a great interview with the blog’s creator and author, Alan Taylor, where he discusses his inspiration, methodology, and what it’s like being a web developer working in a journalist’s world. When asked why more newspaper sites haven’t done this before, he replied:
“Even some of my favorite photo sites are often limited to ‘Photo of the Day’ or ‘24 Hours in Pictures’ features. That’s interesting, and you can find some mind-blowing images there, but I always felt like it lacked context, depth, story.”
Brandon Smith carries his two cats, Fry and Bender, to dry land from their flooded and evacuated home on June 12, 2008 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Photo by David Greedy/Getty Images)
As we move to an age where motion graphics and video regularly enhance our traditional news presentation, it’s interesting to take a step back and consider the power still photography has to tell a story. And working online without the space constraint of print, news organizations have an opportunity to bring more depth and context to readers, through excellent photojournalism.
