morph posts

I just got an email from one of my favorite local bands (local being a relative term), saying that they are playing their last-ever show this Friday night. The email caused me to reflect on how the Internet and its various trappings have affected my life in quite random and certainly positive ways.

I discovered the Fredericksburg, Va. based Folded Under (www.foldedunder.com) through Napster. Sort of. I actually downloaded some of their songs along with dozens of others in one fell swoop from mp3.washingtonpost.com, when I lived in Arlington, VA.

Continue reading "Um, I'm with the band" »

Posted by Chad Capellman at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love my DVR for many reasons. But, as a former print person who always marveled at what broadcast people could get away with, I think the ability to hold people more accountable for what they say on the air has to be among my favorite aspects of these wonderful machines. With that, I give you the observations of a reader of ESPN.com's Sports Guy column, who is shooting some of the fish in a barrel known as Joe Theismann's comments:

Continue reading "Say it ain't so, Joe" »

Posted by Chad Capellman at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This came into my inbox today. It got me thinking about other uses for it and how media companies might benefit. It also creeped me out a bit.

Get $50 for participating in a research study.

As a valued Progressive Direct customer, we're inviting you to participate in an innovative research study. The purpose of this study is to help us reduce the cost of car insurance. And you’ll earn $50 just for participating.

How it works:

Let us know you'll participate by visiting us online.

We’ll send you a TripSensor –- a matchbook-sized device that easily plugs in near your vehicle’s steering column. Just plug it in, drive as you normally do, and forget about it. In six months, we’ll ask you to unplug the TripSensor and send it back to us, and we'll send you $50. It's that easy.
The data you provide are for research purposes only, and will not, under any circumstances, have an effect on your current or future car insurance rate.

Continue reading "The Big Brother insurance bot" »

Posted by Chad Capellman at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I remember the days when I had to go to a special, once-a-week class to be able to use a computer in school. I didn't feel that old until I saw this AP story about an Arizona high school that is eschewing textbooks (average costs per student: $500 - $600) per year, and is instead giving out $850 laptops with lessons coming from online articles.

Continue reading "Arizona school shook books for laptops" »

Posted by Chad Capellman at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Major thanks to Matt Thompson, resident genius at the Fresno Bee, for passing along some javascript that fixes that annoying bug that prevents the copying of portions of a css-driven page in Internet Explorer. We've added it to the blog and mediacenter.org and apologize to anyone who ran into the issue prior to the fix. Here's the script:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.body.style.height = document.documentElement.scrollHeight+'px';
-->
</script>

To gain other wisdom from Mr. Thompson, check out my interview with him during The Media Center's Whose News? Symposium at Harvard.

Posted by Chad Capellman at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brian Buchanan passes along this useful article:

Posted by Chad Capellman at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)