While being interviewed for my job as the webmaster for the UF Law School, I was asked what I thought and knew about online publications.
To their delight, I had plenty to say. They may have even been overwhelmed by my answer, but heck, I had years of schooling and experience to draw from for an answer.
As the questioning continued, I found that the communications office had a semi-annual magazine they put out for the law school community. About a month into working at the law school, I was charged with sprucing up the online version of the magazine, and this is what came of it: UF Law magazine — an XHTML valid, standards-based, Textpattern-driven online publication.
I didn’t truly redesign the site, I just made it dynamic, recoded it and added a few visual flairs. You can compare the new site with the old site as far as aesthetic and code.
I learned a few new things in terms of using Textpattern to it’s full potential as well as some ways jQuery could enhance the functionality of the Web site.
Here are a couple of plugins I used for Textpattern:
I also used FlowPlayer along with SoundSlides (until I find a more-reasonable JavaScript replacement).
Even though the site has been released, as always, it is a work in progress. I’ll make an update if I come across anything interesting while I continue to work on it.
Even though Le Batard can be self-deprecating and silly as hell and considers himself, above all, an entertainer, he's a great journalist and interviewer. I attribute that to his lackadaisical personality and his insistence on asking the questions people really want answers to. He, for the most part, likes cutting right to the chase, and even when interviews do go awry, Le Batard finds a way to make sure you learn something about the interviewee. Sometimes you find out an interesting fact about a person. Other times you find out the person is just a tool, weirdo or has no sense of humor — listen to his Michael Phelps interview. Le Batard considers his show the best in "uncomfortable radio," and that interview is about as uncomfortable as it gets.
Well, today I heard Le Batard calling in to The Sid Rosenberg Show, another show on 790 The Ticket.
He imparted some words of wisdom, not just about being a talk show host, but a journalist or any sort of interviewer.
In the context, it was a serious comment in the middle of a funny exchange. Rosenberg had just interviewed Jean-Claude Van Damme the day before and felt the interview had gone terribly. Le Batard assured him that his listeners got what they wanted, an interview with Van Damme.
But in reassuring Rosenberg, he, as he often does, accidentally came to a poignant conclusion. His message was simple: Make people feel something. Don't let them put down the paper or turn off the radio without leaving some sort of impact on the audience.
Like him or not, I think that's a pretty good way to go about your business.
After President-Elect Barack Obama's decisive victory, here are a few snapshots of some of my favorite newspapers' post-Election Day home pages. Most of them are very similar, and a couple even ran the same photo, which is a shame because there are like 5 million different pictures on the wire.
The coverage on cable was more stomachable than I thought it would be. There wasn't an annoying amount of assuming or over-analyzing going on, in my opinion. I watched CNN most of the night but flipped through the different cable stations because, frankly, Wolf Blitzer can get annoying.
I watched some of the election coverage in Interactive Media Lab at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications with some friends and former teachers. We knew things were going well for Obama around 9:30 p.m. As one person duly noted, it wasn't because of the numbers being flashed across the screen, it was the fact that every time they jumped to a shot of the John McCain rally, instead of showing the numbers on the jumbotrons, they just kept showing Hank Williams Jr. singing.
I was glad to see Fox News take the Obama victory well. They were very tactful and preached the same message as McCain in his concession speech: Support our new president.
I think that's something this crazy bunch of states can rally around.
