Brian James Kirk » Brian James Kirk

Announcing the launch of Technically Philly, a site covering Philly’s tech

Brian James Kirk — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:57:34 +0000

Since I covered the social technology community in Philadelphia for Philebrity.com in a weekly column, my interest has been piqued by the goings-on of the technology scene, the lack of media coverage it holds, and what potential lie in devoting more energy to the topic. I often wondered how a standalone site dedicated to the tech scene would look and feel, and what good it could potentially bring to a community, that before today, was mostly self-reported.

From the beginning when I pitched my interest in technology to Philebrity as a column, and news broke that Alex Hilman and Geoff DiMasi had opened their collaborative workspace Independents Hall, I had a feeling that there was much more to come.

While writing the column, I witnessed the community evolve at a rapid pace. Social tech events were popping up everywhere. I will concede that many of those events were already well underway, some for years, but I believe IndyHall played a crucial role in evangelizing a community that was mostly disconnected. A rise in the popularity of blogging and the social connections forged by Twitter were also crucial in connecting the people using technology in their day-to-day lives. What sprang from these occurrences was the notion that the talented, well-intentioned individuals involved with the city’s tech scene were coming together to make Philadelphia a better place.

My last column about the community, coverage of the IgnitePhilly lectures, is what I believe should have been the first column; When our technology scene transcended its digital roots and its anti-social, “shut-in” stigmas and became an important part of shaping Philadelphia’s social consciousness. The momentum that I felt while covering IgnitePhilly was palpable, and I doubt there was anyone attending the event that did not feel the same. I have not been able to invoke a better description than when I wrote about IgnitePhilly the following day:

Having had a birds-eye perspective on the creative community during the last year, in many ways, IgnitePhilly felt to me like the culmination of something big—a movement that had been brewing in the hearts and minds of many in the city whom hadn’t put a finger on what it was. Or what to call it. Although I had an inkling that the tech community was doing a lot of cool things, before IgnitePhilly, I didn’t realize how many other communities are tied to this and how many things are changing in every industry.

Style and food. Business and manufacturing. Music downloads and DIY radio. Art and handcraft. Sustainable living and mapping. Even the ways in which humans touch each other is inherently affected by the increasing availability of technology.

And with that, I am thrilled to announce Technically Philly, a news site dedicated to the community of people who use technology in Philadelphia. Since Feb. 9, Technically Philly has been in a soft launch that has offered its editors only a glance at what’s in store. We are excited to work with the technology community, and we hope it will accept our invitation to participate with us in this process of making this site great.

I am proud to be involved with Technically Philly as a co-founder with Sean Blanda and Christopher Wink. Sean has worked tirelessly to make this site possible, and aside from caring for the technical back-end, he is an exceptional journalist who will be contributing in reporting. Chris’s drive is the envy of many, and his experience reporting business and metropolitan news for dozens of publications is a crucial addition to the Technically Philly staff.

For those that have already visited the site, today we are unveiling our comprehensive events calendar. We will be in touch with and hope to hear from technology organizers throughout the metropolitan area. Frankly, we won’t be able to do it without you.

We have many things exciting things to come. This Friday we will feature a Q&A with Roz Duffy of Refresh Philly, our first in a weekly series interviewing a leader or innovator in Philadelphia’s technology community. Later today, we will unveil our first editorial as members of this community, discussing the opportunity that will arise when HallWatch.org is forced to retire from its important fourth estate duty on Thursday. Also, look forward to more event coverage, like our reporting on Philadelphia Standard Organization’s lecture on social media and music last week. And last, we hope you will visit us daily for the best Philadelphia technology news that we can offer.

We hope to facilitate Philadelphia’s technology community as best we can, and ask for your readership as reward for our coverage. Thank you.

Takeaways from La Nueva Frontera Digital

Brian James Kirk — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:24:12 +0000

On Saturday, Temple University was host to La Nueva Frontera Digital, A Multimedia Experience for Journalists. The one-day multimedia and digital journalism conference, sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Philadelphia Associations of Black Journalists, was a look into the tools that journalists will need in coming years, and a networking opportunity to link the ambitious with the anxious. The fearless with fearful. The unemployed with the self-employed. No matter where each attendee fit on the spectrum, one thing was universally understood. News organizations must adapt now.

The conference focused on acquainting journalists with new multimedia concepts utilized by a variety of forward-thinking organizations. Mainstream media was represented by organizations like Washingtonpost.com, MSNBC.com, TIME.com, and Philly.com. Smaller organizations, like Dan Levy’s ontheDLpodcast, Professional Podcasts LLC, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., and others also participated on panels.

The message heard throughout the panels was simple. Get out there and do it. Try new things. Don’t be scared. The takeaways after the jump…

Keynote: Online News — A fast-changing phenomenon

Ju-Don Marshall Roberts, Managing Editor, Washingtonpost.com

New Media people are open and embracing. Don’t be afraid to ask them questions, and contact people with the best experience in the medium you seek to learn.
Steal what you like. Take a look at other organization’s content, see what is good, and make it better.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Experiment as much as possible on the web.
Embrace training opportunities. Sign up for cheap new media classes at community colleges and public high schools.
Find your niche. Figure out what medium you are talented in and pursue it with heart. Is it beat blogging? Multimedia storytelling? Videography?
Personality-driven blogs perform better. Ju-Don shared several of the most successful blogs on Washingtonpost.com, and while breaking news blogs do well, niche, character driven blogs fare best.
The copy editors’ approach to headline writing is dead. In era of SEO, sharp, witty, punny headlines do awful. “The Perfect Storm” alludes to bad weather, not a sports piece about the Tampa Bay Lightning. Keep it functional.
Other notables: Early on, Washingtonpost.com paid per-post to get writers interested in doing extracurricular work online. They’ve since nixed paying for content and decided to factor in web contributions to merit raises.

Podcasting/Vidcasting

Steve Lubetkin, Professional Podcasts LLC
Dan Levy and Nick Tarnowski, ontheDLpodcast
Bill Rowand, PhillyFoodGuys

Podcasting costs nothing. Use free platforms like Audacity, GarageBand, and free hosting options to produce your show.
Podcast listeners are valuable. Although subscription rates might be low, a podcast listener sought your content and wants to hear what you have to say. — Dan Levy
Interviewees appreciate the niche audience. Especially in corporate situations where the podcast listeners are networked with one another, an interview may save an interviewee hundreds of phone calls. — Steve Lubetkin

Backpack Journalism and Writing for the Web

Nicole Brewer, Digital Journalist, CBS3
Yvonne Latty, New York University
Wendy Warren, Editor, Philly.com

The future is self-editing and assigning. As a Digital Journalist with CBS3, Brewer decides which content she will cover each morning and shoots and edits the material herself. — Nicole Brewer
Know everything about your audience. Know how they get and how they use your product. The Web is valuable for editorial and advertisers alike because metrics are so well-defined. — Wendy Warren

Keynote: Journalism 2.0 — Multimedia skills facilitate storytelling

Phaedra Singelis, Supervising Producer of Multimedia, MSNBC.com

Content is cross platform. News organizations will increasingly rely on cross-platform content. Audio-slideshows appear on the MSNBC television network and television spots show on MSNBC.com.
Do you like pictures? Of course you do. Use them often. And don’t be afraid of high-resolution.
MSNBC.com stats are out of control. An average user stays on the site for approximately 45 minutes (Ed. note: Unfortunately I didn’t record the exact metrics. Elsewise in statistics, the site doesn’t do half bad; on Election Day the site had 250 million page views and over 20 million unique visitors, a record).

Developing a Show, Audio, and Video Content for the Web

Dan Levy, ontheDLPodcast
Karl Stolleis, Multimedia Journalist
Wendy Warren, Philly.com

First impressions are very important. If your embedded video players and slideshow applets don’t work, consumers will remember. Transversely, technical quality is a reason to come back. — Karl Stolleis
Audio quality is paramount. Although shaky, poor-quality video can be overlooked because a consumer doesn’t always recognize shoddy production, audio quality matters. People know what sounds good or bad. — Karl Stolleis
Brand your content. Show people something they recognize every time. Consistency in content and production makes production exist in the background. It works the same way as good writing; mechanics disappear when the writing is great. — Karl Stolleis
Set yourself apart with production quality. Small newsrooms should invest in better technology and better editing suites to set themselves apart from sub-par standards used broadly. — Karl Stolleis
Content is king. No matter what technology is used, content is what matters. — Wendy Warren

Visual Journalism Online

Karl Stolleis, Multimedia Journalist
Frank Wiese, Online Projects Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer online

Be the lone voice in the wilderness. Philly.com’s Please Touch Museum interactive combined elements of fiction and non-fiction photography, video, and story telling that was different than projects created by any other news organization. And it worked. — Karl Stolleis
The first big project will streamline future projects. After finishing the Please Touch Museum interactive, the Inquirer staff feels comfortable that they’d be able to churn out better work, faster. — Karl Stolleis
The first big project will pave the way for other projects. Once you show them what you can do, editorial and business will be more easily convinced to allow work on other innovative interactive products. — Frank Wiese
Other Notables: The Inquirer considered advertising options with the Please Touch Museum interactive, but when it came down to it, editorial and advertising couldn’t come to a solid agreement on how to approach it. Why not monetize something like this? — Frank Wiese

Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts taped the conference:

The Greening of Kensington

Brian James Kirk — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:14:19 +0000

It’s been a busy few months looking for work opportunities and sorting through my life after changing from a college student to an actual contributor to society. Before graduating from Temple University in December, I had to complete a final project for the School of Journalism’s capstone class, Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab. My group and I focused on the sustainability movement in Kensington, a Philadelphia neighborhood. Below is the Flash project I created to interactively distribute information on the reporting we collected. Enjoy!

A Day with Buzz Bissinger in two.one.five magazine

Brian James Kirk — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:07:09 +0000

The newest issue of two.one.five magazine features a story I wrote after spending a day with Buzz Bissinger, driving through Philadelphia, discussing the tenth anniversary of his book A Prayer for the City. We discussed the Nutter administration, Street’s “horrendous, bizzare” personality, and whether or not Ed Rendell truly saved the city during his tenure as mayor. And of course, two.one.five’s beautiful design is sharp. I’ll preview the introduction, but you’ll have to pick up a copy to read it in its entirety. The magazine is free (rumor has it, this will be the last issue that’s free), so why not?

Immediately upon stepping into the dusty, dented Ford station wagon, Buzz Bissinger starts answering questions I have not yet asked. “I haven’t seen Ed in ages,” he says, referring to Pennsylvania Governor and former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. In 1992, the men spent four years together. Bissinger was documenting Rendell’s first term as mayor; Rendell was trying to save the city from cataclysm.

Although Bissinger is better known for Friday Night Lights – a New York Times No. 1 best-seller, movie and television show – A Prayer for the City is the Philadelphia writer’s gift to the city. The book is a departure from your typical urban studies textbook; it’s a haunting account of the hopelessness and promise of urban America in the 20th century.

Ten years after the book was published, I’ve asked Bissinger—whose shaggy brown hair is graying slightly at his temples—to drive through the neighborhoods that inspired the book and describe what has changed. Our 3-hour, 30-mile trek through the heart of thriving downtown Philadelphia to its outer, struggling neighborhoods juxtaposes substantial progress against despairing stagnation. A snapshot of an American city still struggling to reconnect to its past glories.

15th and Market, Center City

11:16 a.m. – We circle City Hall – Philadelphia’s epicenter – where Bissinger spent much of his time with Rendell. In 1992, it was surrounded by a dwindling downtown district. Today, hundreds of white-collar workers bustle past us. Since his inauguration in January, Mayor Michael Nutter has worked arduously to raise the city’s profile. Despite making progress, notably with crime, he’s been criticized for not yet living up to some of the many promises of his campaign.

What do you think of Nutter?

I’m curious about Nutter to see how he’s going to do. He’s saying all the right things, getting out in the city and smiling with babies, expressing outrage. He’s really taking his cues from the Ed Rendell handbook. But so far, I haven’t seen much pedal to the metal.

Pick up an issue at local retailers wherever they may be, or head over to their website and ask them where you can get a copy. Actually, I’ll get back to you on their distribution points. My bad.

Knight News Challenge submission: NewsAssist

Brian James Kirk — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:01:43 +0000

NewsAssist: Neighborhood citizens have always looked to community newspapers as a reliable source of geographic information. Today, the far reach of the Internet has made it even easier to connect with these niche communities. Yet, the small budgets of these local daily and weekly publications inhibit quality online content and digital distribution. NewsAssist will empower community coverage and delivery.

By aggregating the content of community newspapers and supplementing their work with an in-house editorial staff dedicated to covering what these papers cannot, NewsAssist will bridge the gap between what these papers would like to do but can’t. The combined editorial products will be distributed on a web site that takes full advantage of technologies proven pivotal to journalism’s evolution on the web and take it another step forward: distributing content by cellular phone to neighborhoods still affected by the “digital divide.”

Circulation rates at daily newspapers are down 30 percent since 1964. Advertising revenues are down 16 percent since last year. But, ask many in the industry about the future of newspapers and they’ll likely foresee the same ending: It will go on. Neglected in this assumption is the most important part of the three-legged stool of advertising, editorial and circulation: readers.

Small communities, coverage of which was cut first as editors evaluated their tightening budgets, could very well revive the newspaper model. It is no coincidence that metro newspapers that have lost readers have also neglected neighborhoods.

“In many newsrooms—but especially in larger metro newspapers that are suffering the biggest drops in circulation and ad revenue—there is a gaping divide between overworked, career-conscious reporters and the communities they cover,” Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, said in a report for the American Journalism Review in September.

Bunch writes that even the small amount of community news that is reported lacks an essential quality; It fails to engage readers by speaking their language. “Language,” literally defined by city’s diverse, ethnic neighborhoods and “language” that express a neighborhood’s values, concerns and qualities. Metropolitan newspapers fail on both definitions.

Seemingly against all odds, small community weekly and daily newspapers compete against behemoth metros. Their front-page stories are what is important to the community activist, business owner, parent and child. With promises of reaching a very specific niche demographic, their advertising revenue is strong. It is no mistake that community newspapers are seeing tremendous growth.

According to a report by Suburban Newspapers of America, which represents 19 community newspapers in Philadelphia, first quarter 2008 results showed a decline in advertising revenue of 2.7 percent, mostly attributed to economic factors influencing the real estate and automotive industries. Compare that with 10 to 19 percent declines at large metros. It’s because of this that market availability for community newspapers is so high, according to an NPR story reported last year. “Twenty million Americans still get at least some of their news from these small daily and weekly papers. One in three small-town papers actually gained circulation last year,” it said.

The Internet has impacted negatively local papers’ advertising revenues and many have branched to the web to provide access to their content. More readers rely on the Internet to get their news and as such, newspapers have seen significant growth in online visits. According to an analysis produced by Nielson Online for the Newspaper Association of America, the second quarter of 2008 showed a 12.2% increase in the number of unique visitors to newspaper web sites compared to last year.

Ultimately, limited budgets and know-how at community papers have been unable to provide an online presence and distribution method that can compete in a 21st century market. Look at any community newspaper website and you’ll see a common theme: drab design, confusing navigation, a dearth of photographs, and a complete lack of multimedia coverage.

By aggregating content from a coalition of community newspapers looking to benefit from a wider audience, NewsAssist will attract advertisers seeking local and regional audiences. A revenue-sharing model would split profits between this editorial product and the community newspaper, enticing them to contribute. Multimedia-intensive and long-form content produced by NewsAssist’s editorial team would supplement their small-scale efforts and entice more readers, and thus, afford more revenue to be shared.

Relying on Web 2.0 standards to create a compelling online product, the NewsAssist website will be powered by user customization that provides local and niche content through many digital delivery methods. A user would enter their zip code and content interests, and the site would be customized to their choosing. Social bookmarking, from sites like Digg and Del.ico.us would be implemented. Community forums, where discussion could be achieved, will also be added.

Delivery is what sets NewsAssist apart. By concentrating on distributing content to all members of neighborhoods— including poor, inner-city neighborhoods—NewsAssist can attract a larger audience and help the community. Yet, current news distribution models must be improved and expanded if we hope to reach these neighborhoods.

According to a report by New York City’s Broadband Advisory Committee last year, the digital divide still leaves 45 percent of citizens in American cities without broadband Internet access. However, cell phone subscriber statistics are mind-boggling—82 percent of Americans use a cell phone.

By distributing news by cell phone and encouraging readers to visit the more intensive content available online, readers will be better informed and more enticed to contribute to the online conversation when they use a computer. Additionally, by exercising a light non-profit element, donated computers would be sought and converted to low-cost Linux based operating systems. The project will help provide the delivery medium to community centers and individuals’ homes. With this initiative, we can ensure the digital divide is further closed.

Today, as community papers struggle to gain audience online, it is important that they provide an interactive experience that entices readers. NewsAssist will aid their efforts and be profitable for both this business and the community newspaper’s business. But most importantly, ignored neighborhoods can once again receive the news coverage they deserve.

Phillies’ World Series victory celebration turns to bedlam

Brian James Kirk — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:02:35 +0000

Last night’s World Series victory was celebrated widely throughout Philadelphia, and fans converged on Center City to share the moment. As the night progressed, at times, the joy became chaotic. Near City Hall, the scene was intense as a traffic pole was brought to the ground, falling on a woman, causing police in riot gear to control the crowd. On Broad St. near Callowhill, onlookers cheered and voiced disgrace as a group of fans tipped a car.

David Cohn’s Drop in the Bucket: Spot.US

Brian James Kirk — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:23:24 +0000

In June, 26-year-old David Cohn—relishing his recent $340,000 grant from the Knight Foundation—stood before a group of 50 journalists at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference answering questions. Yet, he couldn’t keep his mind off Shel Silverstein’s poem, “Whatif.”

“It’s about a kid who’s like, ‘what if this happens in my sleep,’ or ‘what if that happens to the world,” Cohn says.

“What if, what if, what if. The entire crowd had the what-ifs.”

The audience was questioning his recent grant winner, Spot.US, a journalism platform that relies on donations to fund freelance investigative journalism. The first question from the crowd was obvious—what if money influences the editorial process?

“Well, I limit how much one person can donate to 20 percent of the total,” Cohn said.

The crowd pressed on. “What if five people are all willing to do that? Then they’ve influenced it,” one member of the audience noted.

“Well, there’s an independent editor who’s assigned to every story,” Cohn said.

The last question broke him. “What if if the editor is in on it, too,” someone asked.

The conference attendees were some of Cohn’s harshest critics, but he saw the experience as silly. “We can what-if all night,” he says now. “There’s no end to the what-ifs, but in the end, that’s not going to help journalism. There’s a point where you just need to be productive, go out, and see what happens.”

Cohn has been doing just that. Since setting up a wiki—a collaborative web technology for him and users to correspond to one another at the Spot.US web site—soon after winning a grant last year, his project has funded three investigative pieces using his business model.

The premise of the project is simple. A journalist or user pitches a story. The idea is posted to the site’s wiki. Users pledge to donate a portion of a pitch’s budget, and when the budget is fully funded, the pledged fee is charged to users’ credit cards. The journalist begins reporting.

Cohn insists that pitches should be as evergreen as possible, so stories, which have taken up to two months to fund, can still be valuable when the money is raised. For that reason, Cohn says that Spot.US is not for every journalistic venture.

“’Fire across the street! Fund me so I can report on it.’ Not going to work,” he says.

Another problem with the model, according to Cohn, is that it’s impossible to fund stories that require stealth. Investigative pieces that are researched behind-the-scenes, without tipping-off officials, won’t work. Yet. Cohn hopes that in the future, beats could be funded through his model.

Once a story is completed, Spot.US takes a unique approach to controlling its content. For the first six weeks after a story is completed, it is marketed to news organizations who may want to purchase full rights. If this happens, the money donated for the reporting is given back to users of Spot.US as a voucher to invest in future stories. If a story is not purchased, or after six-weeks is up, the story can be published for free with due credit to the organization and writer. So far, no stories have been purchased, but publications that ran the story received considerable traffic from sites like Huffington Post.

It gets more confusing when looking at a pitch currently featured on the site. As more and more baby boomers are retiring, a writer has promised to write about San Fransisco’s longevity revolution. A note from an editor of Redwood Age, a non-profit publication dedicated to social activism, would suggest that the story is being furnished for publishing through their outlet. Does this mean publications can get paid to produce stories on top of their traditional revenue?

“I don’t want this to look like a corporate subsidy,” Cohn says.

“For Redwood Age, the writer is a freelancer. You’d be right to say this is a way for Redwood Age to stretch their freelance budget; their reporter is asking for a thousand dollars but they don’t have a thousand dollars. I will never cut a check to a news organization. It will only go to individuals.”

Cohn studied philosophy at U.C. Berkley, but got his start in journalism interning at Wired. He became tech reporter there, and says that learning about technology was instrumental to his career, and ultimately, to the origins of Spot.US.

“My career is wildly different from how it would have been 30 years ago,” he says.

“Then, I would have been a reporter and I would have been trying to get the attention and praise of my editor. If my first gig hadn’t been at Wired, and I hadn’t become an expert in technology, I would never have been in a position to explain to other people who the web works.”

Cohn ended up at several forward-thinking news organizations that relied or rely on participatory journalism, where users contribute content. He was an editor at Assignment Zero, Wired’s experiment in participatory research of, uhm, participatory journalism. He was an editor at OffTheBus.net, Huffington Post’s citizen news coverage. And he was a director of crowdsourcing—outsourcing projects to large communities of people—effort, NewAssignment.net.

Cohn wound up a research assistant of Jeff Howe, who was writing a book on crowdsourcing. His contributions to a chapter on crowdfunding—a sister notion of crowdsourcing—the idea of networked individuals pulling money together for causes, was the impetus for Spot.US. The models he was checking into, sites like Kiva.org—a “microfinancing” site where small contributions add up to large loans for entrepreneurs in third world countries—gave pause to Cohn. Why couldn’t something like this be done in journalism?

Though a far cry from the participatory journalism Cohn was accustomed to working with, he says the stakes at Spot.US are similar.

“This is still journalism that the public is involved in, but their involvement is by donating money,” he says.

Cohn ran across a friend’s blog post, who detailed a project he was submitting to the Knight Foundation News Challenge competition. Million of dollars were up for grabs for innovative technologies related to journalism, and on a whim, Cohn submitted the idea he had been pondering for his citizen-funded news platform. He passed the first round of eliminations, and started developing the idea more in-depth. He wanted it to be non-profit. He wanted it to be a platform, not a news organization with traditional editors. He wanted it to serve a greater good. And as he was developing the idea and the platform’s wiki site, he found out that he had won a two-year, $340,000 grant.

Cohn gives three reasons for deciding to operate as a non-profit. He strongly believes that a non-profit model lends itself to accepting donations from citizens. Second, he says for an experiment like Spot.US, it is important not to succumb to the pressures of venture capital and bottom-lines. Lastly, he says, “I’m young and naïve.” In hindsight, the idea of taking capital has been appealing to Cohn, who has had offers from venture capitalists he’s talked to about the idea. Still, he’s attracted $30,000 in non-profit donations.

His fundraising efforts for Spot.US can be paralleled with the site’s successful story fundraising.
“The biggest strength of [crowdfunding] is that it is grass roots and organic at the most fundamental level,” he says.

“You can’t have something crowdfunded and be like, ‘I wonder if people will be into this.’ No. They are. And they proved it by giving their cold, hard cash.”

One could argue that Cohn’s perspective on the future of journalism is refreshing. Or maybe, naïve.
“As far as journalism goes, it has to be viewed as a public good,” he says.

“What you’re doing has to be viewed as something that is beneficial to society and journalism needs to make that argument again. We’re not just here to sell newspapers, we’re here because we are a social good.”

But an argument for one of his favorite quotes, is hard to come by. “Journalism will survive the death of its institutions,” he says.

“I never try to sell Spot.US as the silver bullet. But we can be a drop in the bucket. Hopefully, a big drop in the bucket.”

Kensington residents speak out about Election candidates

Brian James Kirk — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:21:53 +0000

Paula Sen, Terrance McNeil, and I interviewed nine Kensington residents this past weekend, for their thoughts on the upcoming election. They shared their views, concerns, and hopes for November 4th. The following multimedia package was created to highlight their main concerns utilizing a tag cloud to show which concerns were greater, and accompanying video is included. Enjoy.

Neil Poulton LaCie Hard Disk Mac Icon

Brian James Kirk — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:04:51 +0000

I purchased a 500gb LaCie Hard Disk designed by Neil Poulton today (thankfully, since my Zoom H2 recorder files were slowly being recycled to make room for the next batch). To be honest, I have no idea who Neil Poulton is, but it’s a beautiful hard drive for the price. Since it’s been resting on my OS X desktop, I’ve not been able to stand the default Mac FireWire icon. So, I whipped up an icon that is a lot better looking than the standard orange hard drive that pops up. I can only take credit for altering a product photo for icon purposes, but hopefully someone will appreciate the work.

Open the .png file in FastIcns, a free icon utility for Macs, and save accordingly.

Right-click here for LaCie Hard Disk Designed by Neil Poulton Mac Icon

Multimedia: Frankford Avenue Clean-up

Brian James Kirk — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:45:27 +0000

My group for Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab trekked up and down Frankford Avenue on Saturday to document the bi-annual clean-up. After Philadelphia Brewing Company shared a few of their kegs with us and volunteers, we put together this multimedia package to show what they accomplished. Click on for the goods.