Category: Uncategorized

Pet Peeve No. 2,304,405: Unreadable gray on white type

Where in the world did basic design rules go?

Why do so many sites do as this one does http://www.regrettheerror.com/2010/12/03/they-sullied-his-good-name/#disqus_thread and http://www.poynter.org – and go with gray or worse, light gray on white type?

It CAN’T be just I who has to squint to read the words displayed like that. Whatever happened to good ol’ black on white? (A related issue is – why do so many make the type too small – but I can tell you, black on white type is a LOT more readable than gray on white, at ANY type size!)
Anyone have a clue where this trend began, and how we can reverse it, for the sake of all of our eyesight?

PS – Found this lil forum thread on the topic, so I’m not alone, yay! http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2259365-Why-Do-Web-Designers-use-Light-Gray-Type-on-a-White-Background

Wow, again too long…

I see young people have immersed in Social Media to point where blogs have lost their buzz (not to be confused w/Google Buzz, which I’m now playing with – I don’t use gmail much, maybe this will get me using it?
Anyway, what a week. Arrived Monday to an empty newsroom – qhickly learned it was because an ODOT building almost NEXT DOOR was burning.
Turned out to allegedly be a troubled resident of the nearby Bethlehem Inn homeless shelter – which to their credit actually notified police a weird guy had been raising red flags, and could be their man. It was.
Contrast that to Friday, when I was asked by Redmond Airport Manager Carrie Novick – and when Carrie asks, you say yes, even senators and congressmen know that – to attend the ribbon cutting for the great big terminal expansion project.
It looks marvelous, even before all the furniture and signs and my fave thing – newsstand – are in place. Do check it out!
Other achievement this week: Finally got the onboarding questionnaire turned in for our new Web platform for KTVZ.COM and sister NPG sites, Internet Broadcasting.
I can’t wait to get started! A cleaner, faster-loading (yay!) Website, building in a better commenting system (probably Disqus) and lots more fun down the road.
But of course, my all-too-rare chance to get out and a) report personally and b) schmooze with old friends, like Wyden press aide-former UPI colleague Tom Towslee – made for a very stressed late afternoon catching up w/the news. Still, it was worth it!
Meanwhile, right now, listening to my fave podcaster – Leo Laporte at http://www.twit.tv – talk about Google Buzz, last weekend’s show.
As tiny as the ‘QuickPress’ window is in WordPress.com, maybe if I just GET here more often, will post more and … someone will find it interesting. I hope;-)

I love mind-expanding books

And mind-expanding people who make their interesting insights free online, like Bob Garfield’s ‘The Chaos Scenario’: Got Adobe Acrobat Reader? Read on, at his Website, with free readable chapters: www.thechaosscenario.net/

I’ve blown a hole in my keyboard

No. Seriously.

In the spacebar of the wireless keyboard of my not-quite-4-year-old HP Media Center PC.

I don’t pound on it THAT hard. But I must pound it enough – or it’s got some pretty cheap plastic.

Deb had a spare HP wireless keyboard, but it must be a different frequency, as it wouldn’t connect with my receiver.

I could swap the receiver, but … such a hassle.

This is what duct tape is made for – a tiny piece of duct tape over the hole.

These are not times to buy new PCs because there’s a hole in your keyboard, or it starts getting a bit long in the tooth.

It took a ‘dirty’ upgrade to Vista pretty well in ’07. Maybe it’ll handle Windows 7 in ’09?

We’ll see. Have a happy Fourth everybody!

Only the good die young

OK, so it’s a great Billy Joel song. It fits as well as anything for this little piece.

I doubt highly regarded cyclist/triathlete/mtn. biker Steve Larsen, who died this week at age 39, and Navy rescue swimmer and Marshall (skip the smirks) HS graduate Aaron Clingman, who died this week at age 25, ever crossed paths in Bend, the town they both called home.

But they did this week, on the news and in the headlines. Both died inexplicably, to this point – super-fit Larsen collapsing and dying on the Cascade Middle School track of an as-yet undiagnosed heart ailment, Clingman with five crewmates in the crash of a Navy helicopter into the Pacific Ocean near San Diego.

They say deaths come in threes, but let’s not hoist that old canard and just draw some comparisons and contrasts.

I’d never heard of either gentleman, but both no doubt had endured much and prevailed – Larsen winning accolades not just for his multi-sport prowess but his strong family commitment and easy-going way of offering help and advice to just about anyone who crossed his path.

We know far less of Clingman, only that he struggled at Bend HS, always wanted to be a rescue swimmer with the Navy and eventually got that prized diploma.

We know he had a wife and 10-month-old baby, and to look at those photos is both heartbreaking and inspiring.

Two men among the many who die too soon, in the midst of doing what they loved, that giving solace to friends and family, but not really easing the pain.

Sometimes, the shining examples of true lives lived day to day in inspiring ways only draw attention when they end. Which is sad, too, but … hey, we’re all too busy living our own lives.

But it’s worth taking a moment to stop and contemplate – should you, too, depart this mortal plane in an instant, what would people say about you?

I no doubt would have my grieving friends and supporters, and quietly smirking detractors (some of those anonymous online commenters who think I wield my delete-button sword because I’m power-hungry or I don’t agree with their views. In other words, wrong;-/

What would your headline say?

Being an assignment editor is… challenging

And thanks to a Facebook friend, I’ve found a lady in Denver, Colorado, Misty J., who writes a wonderful, fascinating blog about what the joys and tears and challenges of what this job is like – as well about Twitter, which KTVZ now has a feed on (we also have a new Facebook page! Come check us out;-)
http://assignmenteditorminds.blogspot.com/ is it, and if you’re all curious about what we face on the phones, in the newsroom etc., I highly recommend it.
I plan to be a regular commenter there. It might even inspire more blogging by yours truly.

Facebook, the P-I and change

Tuesday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer joins the Rocky Mountain News in the great Newspapers of the Past dustbin, except… online.

I used to deliver the Seattle Times (PM paper, only thing that worked with school) and the Kent News-Journal, in Kent, Wash. (Boy did people try to avoid paying their bills. Some things never change.)

Anyway, I’m not wistful about technology moving on, only about the idea that people will pay for quality journalism.

Did we shoot ourselves in the foot when we decided to make information free online? Did we have a choice?

Can we find the answers in time to keep journalism a thriving career, online? Hard to say, but the questions aren’t getting any easier.

When I found our competitor had started a Facebook page I decided to create one and wrestle with the technology, just as FB really messed it up with a new interface that… well, you can find enough complaints out there if you care.

How can we not go where there’s 200-million folks chatting the day away? People expect us to be there, and they’re right. We’ll use it in ways I probably can’t even fathom now, but not as shovelware for what we’re trying to draw people to at KTVZ.COM.

Could be interesting.

Meanwhile… RIP, P-I.

Doctor my eyes (the Hallelujah Chorus)

OK, real-life drama is always the most interesting.

Here’s mine.

Around 12:30 yesterday, in the newsroom of course, no more stress than normal, I thought I’d looked out our nice new windows at a sun reflection or something.

Why elese would I be seeing spots?

But soon, they morphed into some pulsing designs of various trapezoidal traiangular stuff along the edges of my vision.

Uh…. oh….

I was talking to the ladies in the room, working on their shows, telling them about it but trying to not freak them out or have them freak me out.

I’d put off eye doctors for far too long, in part because… well, occasional flashing thingies in a darkened room, especially as I got up for the day.

For years – even before I heard Dr. Doug Nelson (former Bend schools supt.) tell me, “If you see flashing, get thee to an opthalmologist!”

So I was scared, to put it mildly.

Fortunately it started to pass, then morphing into some odd issue along the edges of my eyesight.

Okay, freak out time.

Called my darling wife Deb, told her calmly there was something wrong with my eyes and I need to see an eye doctor, SAP.

She had an appointment set up for me within two hours. And by the time she’d called me back to tell me, the issue was gone. But not the fear, of course.

Wake up call!

So I told my bosses, they said get outta there. But of course, I was fine, so I kept working. Deb showed up early, I left late. Working, working. (I’m so pathetic;-)

Anyhoo, to make a long story short, I told the nice lady optometrist everything – they numbed and dilated the eyes, did their tests and used the most glorious word I could ever hear.

Normal.

Whew!

What I’d had was an “ocular migraine.” (I’d never heard of that.) One of the joyous fun possibilities when one gets older. I’m very nearsighted, so I have long eyeballs, and… well, the funny, even amazing thing is, after 15 years of far too much staring at computer monitors, my prescription was… basically the same.

That’s right – I’m finally getting new glasses! Nowhwere near as big – they don’t make em this size any more, I hope – but quite fashionable – bronze, lightweight, etc. etc.

These glasses have stood me in very good stead for a decade-plus, even when the nylon straps stretched so much the lenses would fall out and I had to pry/pop them back in.

I’ve been ribbed by many (especially you, Joe;-) about the corny old glasses for a long time.

Pity it took a big fright to get me to do what needs to be done. (Men can be like that. Women too, I suppose.)

The new me, coming soon to a face near you, well, me;-)

Feed the faith. Fight the fear.

We need to focus on the positive about our economy. Because the fear factor is as big an enemy to recovery as any disagreement about the path.
Not Polyanna, just a counteract to the gloom and doom that’s eating up our future.
Whatcha think?

UPDATE: Quick Google search found this: http://www.goodnewseconomist.com/ – exactly what I’m talking about. Hope to feed him more content of a positive vein – you do the same, please.

Abuse of anonymity and an attempt at a solution

 

I think I’ve written no phrase more in recent months on our Website, unfortunately, than “abuse of anonymity.”

 

Privacy is something to be cherished, and many anonymous parties have been great contributors to our comments.

 

But anonymity abused is nothing but grief, except for the chucklehead behind the keyboard. And so, we change our online comment experiment, after about a year or so, to require that people register with the site before they can comment.

 

I hope it doesn’t chill comments. It surely doesn’t at sites like USA Today, where you also must register and log in to comment. I figure craigslist rants and rave can and should have the corner on totally anonymous brawls. We need to set the bar a bit higher than that/

 

Our comment system has been popular beyond my wildest dreams – thousands of postings a month. On the other hand, it also has brought threats of physical harm against me and others, and sincere people who say the comments online hurt KTVZ.COM’s reputation, etc. Then there are the catfights over ‘spin’ and ‘censorship.’ It gets old.

 

Meanwhile, for every person posting an interesting (or outrageous) comment, there have been dozens if not hundreds who read them, like one kind lady who complimented my efforts at moderation (oy, have I got the arrows to prove not everyone feels that way) and said the comments are “better than reality TV!”

 

I love a good conversation, but at times I’ve needed a whip and a chair, or felt like I was babysitting in kindergarten. I think many would rather I spend more time writing and less time fending off the anonymous hordes of hate and divisiveness.

 

So… we’ll try it this way. I’m hoping it’ll be a wash, posting/page view wise – that for every person who clicks away because they can’t post anonymously (or because it isn’t so salaciously enjoyable any more), there’ll be others who now enjoy a less nasty, more civil conversation (folks won’t be required to post with real names – I think – just register an e-mail address, etc. Learning as we go, people.)

 

Like anything else on the Internet, folks can find ways around it, but it won’t be so easy to just throw a bomb into the room and watch every run for cover. And if it causes unexpected problems, changing back is simple. Or finding a new answer.

 

I know some media sites that tried with required registration from the start have little or no interactivity, but I hope we’ve already built enough of an online community that this change will simply make us less offensive and more interesting a spot to visit or hang out.

—

AFTERNOON UPDATE: As usual, no change comes without pain. And it was a pain to see turning on registration/log-in requirement stopped comments completely. Ah, bugs and computers – they go together like… fill in the blank. We’ll try again once things are sorted out. Until then, I get to keep fighting to keep the conversation on a somewhat sane, non-incendiary plane. Wish me luck;-/