Dani 3.0

BorderFest = BotherFest

Danielle — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:10:15 +0000

Shot Already Gone at BorderFest, along with a Michael Jackson tribute. What a mess – traffic was terrible, we were routed to the wrong parking lot and into a dead end, and the band (Already Gone) had no sound in their monitors and got jacked on the lights as well. Oh, plus the “pit” area was covered in gravel. I spend a lot of time bending and kneeling when shooting – ever kneel for a couple of hours on gravel? It hurts.

Here are a couple that I managed to pull out – the rest can be seen here.

Already Gone warming up before they take the stage.

The boys on stage.

And one from the MJ tribute – the rest are here.

How Is It I Missed Posterous All This Time?

posterous — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:16:23 +0000

I can't believe I've somehow missed Posterous. Oh sure, I'd heard about it, vaguely knew it was yet-another-social site, but didn't realize how easy it would make updating all of my social sites. (And when you've joined as many social sites as I have, that's no small feat.)

So this is actually my first blog post using Posterous. I had signed up for an account months ago – so long ago that I had forgotten the password – and had a brief moment of mild panic tonight when I went to sign up and was informed that the user name daniesq had already been taken. Once I had sorted out that little fiasco, all I had to do was add the myriad sites that I belong to by following their ridiculously easy point-and-click process. I can post to all 12 of my sites at once by using the email address post@posterous.com, or I can selectively choose which sites I want to post to by using the site names in the email address, i.e.picasa+twitter+plurk@posterous. And that's it.

Posterous also updates your blog with any images attached the email, although I imagine that for entries where layout is important, you'd need to log on to your blogging platform for additional control. I've attached a photo to this blog entry, not that it has anything to do with Posterous, but just because I like it. (It's a photo taken of the Orlando International Airport at night from our hotel room.)

Posted via email from daniesq’s posterous

Pandora Just Got Better for iPhones

Danielle — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:46:29 +0000

Pandora has updated their iPhone app.

Alas, they were my favorite pr of work gloves

Danielle — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:19:28 +0000

Happy Halloween!

Danielle — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 23:43:45 +0000

I’m a bit late, but I wanted to post a pic of the costume I wore this Halloween. I went as Marie Antoinette (although I think I look more like I swallowed Marie Antoinette.) I have always wanted to rent a nice costume, and this year I did. I used Frankel’s Costume in downtown Houston and well, see for yourself.

GooseGrade Fails But Gets an A for Effort

Danielle — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:18:10 +0000

I’m a fan of The Next Web blog and when they mentioned a new copyediting service that they were using for their blog, I decided to check it out.

GooseGrade’s premise is brilliant: use web-based services to allow readers to copyedit online content. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

For example, in both Internet Explorer (7.x) and Firefox (3.x), the fields that contain the text to be corrected and the corrected text orient themselves vertically, not horizontally, which makes corrections very difficult as the fields are only a few characters wide. Also, having to enter one’s credentials each time one makes a correction is completely aggravating. Finally, it would be nice to be able to view and edit one’s corrections. (I made a correction to an article only to change my mind as I read further, but there is no way to communicate to the author that the corrected text should be left ‘as is.’)

I am interested to hear what other editors have to say about this tool. I love the idea and hope that the developers will continue their work, however, until GooseGrade makes their tool easier to use, I anticipate that users will be reluctant to use it with any regularity.

Update: GooseGrade gets an A+ for effort. Within hours of my post, I received an email letting me know that the size of the textboxes had been corrected. Although the interface is still a bit buggy, once I figured out to use the back arrow instead of closing the window each time, it became much less cumbersome to use. Also, I’ve been assured that they’re working on storing a cookie so even if one does close out the window, the app will recognize you for subsequent corrections.

A couple of things I think would make this really useful. First, if there was a way to communicate to the author why the edits are being suggested. This could be as easily accomplished by adding a notes field. Second, a way to view all of one’s suggested edits and the ability to change or delete them.

In any case, the text boxes being fixed go a long way to making GooseGrade more useful. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Form-filling with Sxipper

Danielle — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:29:05 +0000

First, let me qualify this by saying that I’ve been using Roboform for years, so there’s a natural reluctance to change how I do things.

I found Sxipper too much of a departure from Roboform’s unobtrusive form-filling to be a good fit for me. Especially annoying was the way the entire page dimmed when a Sxipper form-filler pop-up appeared. I also found it to be too difficult and time-consuming to train the majority of the forms that didn’t work with Sxipper (about half of all forms I encountered.) I register for a lot of sites and generally speaking, I only register once per site, so training a site-specific form is an exercise in futility. I find Robo-Form to be more effective for my needs in this area – just fill it out and be done with it.

I think that Sxipper is a beautifully designed product with a couple of neat features – the idea of training a form for the benefit of others who will use the form is nice – and I look forward to seeing the product when it is mature. For now, though, my heavy-duty form-filling requirements are best met by RoboForm.

Best Application Store Yet

Danielle — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:16:43 +0000

I’ll admit that the last few months have seen me jealous of iPhone users, not because I coveted their phones (puh-leez!) but because I coveted their app store. Now comes the good news that not only is my carrier (Tmobile) releasing a dedicated app store for their subscribers, but RIM is releasing their own Blackberry storefront.

Categories in BerryStore

This is, of course, wonderful news, but the RIM store isn’t planned to be up and running until March of 2009.

Fortunately for me, I came across Fred Potter’s BerryStore application. BerryStore is an application that installs on your Blackberry and lets you browse, download, rate and review applications. Since the app is still in Beta, only free apps are being offered now, but even so, I’ve been turned on to a lot of free apps that I didn’t know about – like PacMan.(Shout out to Benny Chow – thanks man!) I especially appreciate being able to read the reviews and ratings.

Downloading and installing applications from within BerryStore is easy, convenient, and requires very little interaction on your part. Just click the Download button and the app is transferred to your device. If you decide you don’t like an installed app, it can even be uninstalled from within BerryStore!

BerryStore is true one-stop-shopping and the finest example of application shopping that I’ve seen yet.

BerryStore is free and can be downloaded OTA at m.berrystore.com.

Where Have All the Editors Gone?

Danielle — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:56:13 +0000

It’s not uncommon these days to see typos and grammatical errors on major news sites. Given the time-sensitive nature of the business, it’s understandable that a misspell or typo might make it through occasionally, but more and more I’m seeing the possessive confused with the plural. Surely even the most junior editor at a major online news site should know the difference?

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-30

Danielle — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:59:59 +0000

@ffacker Thanks! Good to know someone thinks I have good taste. lol #
@Whitneyboi I can’t believe you’re going down there. Our LA relatives are planning on coming to Houston on Sunday. #
@Whitneyboi Oh, by the way, turns out my mom is on marriage number six. I stand corrected. #
@iahmike I don’t know, but I’d get busy. #