I love iCal, but it’s driving me crazy lately. Help!
As you might have guessed, I’m a pretty busy person. If I didn’t have a good electronic calendar program, with alerts and reliable backup, I’d be totally lost. That’s why I’ve been a devoted user of Apple’s iCal program for about 10 years.
A few months ago, when I upgraded to a Macbook Pro with the Leopard OS (original install, not a Leopard upgrade), iCal started getting weird on me. I’ve been to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store twice about it, and have yet to find a problem. But I’m getting concerned, because I depend so heavily on this program. If it totally flames out on me, moving to a new solution will be a big hassle.
So I’m hoping some of my readers, or someone in the iCal support forums, is smarter or luckier than me and the folks at my local Apple Genius Bar.
Here are the iCal problems I’m experiencing, and what I’ve tried (unsuccessfully, so far) to diagnose and fix it. Your ideas and suggestions for further measures are most welcome… Keep Reading »
“As much as I enjoy shooting virtual spitballs from the back of the digital classroom on Twitter, I want more real-time reporting and sharing of relevant information, too. Professional journalists aren’t the only ones who can report news, after all.”
“To the really young, any device that ships without a mouse is “broken.” The modern pro press, producing the journalism that’s called mainstream now, shipped without a mouse back then because it was made for overlay on a one-to-many system.”
“Don’t do video on the web that pretends to be television and costs just as much to produce. Use Skype to do live podcast two-ways, or have journalists record their audio on their laptops and use Gmail to send the files.”
Intriguing service. Don’t think I’d use it much, but nice to see that this stuff is out there. Makes ya wonder — when the audio stands alone, why bother with the video?
“Encouraging users to report inappropriate comments is key: It helps assure a productive discourse and it reflects new rules of user ownership on the Web.”
At the NewsTools 2008 conference last week, I had a chance to sit down with one of the emerging luminaries of entrepreneurial, experimental journalism. David Cohn runs the BeatBlogging project for NewAssignment.net, and he also works with NewsTrust . Plus, he runs a great blog of his own and is a constant presence on Twitter. Busy guy. I’m glad I got a few miinutes of his time.
Here’s what Dave has to say about where he thinks journalism might be heading, and what he wants to do to help it get there:
…Oh, and in this interview, Dave called me a "force of nature." I’ll assume that’s a compliment:
Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson had some nice things to say about the Nokia N95 in March 2007. Wonder what he thinks of the US service and support?..
Looks like Nokia USA is making some initial moves toward improving how it serves the US market. So far, these seem focused strictly on the hardware — and not the service, support, and availability problems American consumers face. These steps may improve Nokia’s chances in the US market in a year or two.
Well, it’s a start…
Still, there is MUCH more room for Nokia USA to improve significantly in the short term by offering better (i.e. reasonable) service terms for high-end phones. I’m puzzled why the company is not pursuing this low-hanging fruit. While the changes Nokia is planning for its hardware might please US carriers and retailers, the company is still shooting its US reputation in the foot among high-end US consumers with its abysmal US service and support.
This might end up being a surprisingly difficult market problem for Nokia USA. We high-end consumers — especially mobloggers and journalists (professional and amateur) — do talk! Right now, even though Nokia has the best mobile product on the market for our needs, more and more of us are frankly scared to buy or update a Nokia N-Series phone. Why? Because we suspect (with good evidence) that Nokia doesn’t really care much about our experience after we buy their phone.
We are willing to pay a premium price for a Nokia — but we’re not willing to risk being left twisting in the wind.
To catch up, here’s what Nokia USA has said it would do for the US market so far, and why (even though these are constructive steps) they’re still missing the point…
Why can’t I be bisexual on your site? “That was a database decision. We allow you to be straight or gay, but bisexuality requires searching the entire database, and that’s a big load on the servers.” (Intriguing angle on technology & identity.)
Another take on identity, from Al Gore: “I don’t like that phrase party elder,” Gore said. “I am not anxious to be playing that role. I just turned 60, which is the new 59. I am just a voter, and a recovering politician, and watching it carefully.
“Several popular bloggers have complained that it’s time to ditch Twitter and move to a decentralized version of the service that won’t go down every time usage spikes. one aspect of Twitter - it’s openness - could also be its Achilles heel.”
Anyone in the Louisville, KY area? My friend, environmental reporter Jim Bruggers of the Courier-Journal, needs readers’ help for a crowdsourced journalism project. Help him out!
Pretty good article on polyamory, although it does seem to imply that it’s all about sex, rather than relationships and emotional commitment. The comments are particularly good.
On Saturday I attended an event held by the Northern CA chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. I was covering the keynote panel, “New Money, New Media, New Hope,” live via my amylive Twitter account. Fellow journo and Twitter user Saleem Khan submitted a couple of questions for me to ask the panel. However, the panel ended before I got a chance to pose them.
Fortunately afterward I caught up with one of the panelists, Geneva Overholser, who’s about to take the helm at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism. She was kind enough to offer some thoughtful answers to Khan. Here’s what she had to say.
(Note: My apologies for the different audio levels between the intro and the interview. I recorded on two different devices and edited in iMovie HD, which I don’t yet know very well, so it’s a little clunky. I’m still learning.)
“Nielsen Online has unveiled a new syndicated Internet measurement tool, TotalWeb, that will track both Internet and mobile use. Stats on the unduplicated, unique audience for more than 200 Internet sites across computer and mobile platforms.”
“On Apr. 17, Nokia reported the number of phones it sold in North America in the first quarter plummeted 46%, to 2.6 million. Nokia’s biggest problem has been the unusual nature of the U.S. market.”
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