Category Archives: blogging
I posted more in the month of February then I did for all of 2010, here’s why.
The month of February 2011 I decided to run a month long blogging series dedicated to Black’s in Technology. I decided to showcase a host of African American inventors. The Idea came from a friend of mine Wayne Sutton who runs SocialWayne.com he came up with an idea a couple of years ago for 28daysofdiversity.com. Well following in his footsteps I decided to copy his idea, but with different flair. I decided that most African American’s don’t get the opportunity to be highlighted in our everyday lives, but they are just as important as any Inventor.
I thought about doing this last year but for what ever the reason I didn’t do it, and I wanted to jump on this opportunity for 2011. I will say that it’s easy to blog about something that your passionate about, but when it comes to a blogging series, and no less about people who may have passed away and your research is limited, that’s a different story. Your writing from stories all over the internet some factual and some fake, you can’t get the word from the horses mouth so to say. It takes some time to get your information togeather, you need to approach the task as an overall achievement up front.
Here are a couple of my tips for how to address a month long series in blogging, or just a series in blogging over all.
- Creating the concept is easy, but you must be ready to write it down, even if it’s not going to make it to publish (your ideas are important, don’t loose them because you thought it was not important)
- Come up with the number of post or days up front, this helps you know how many post you will be publishing, and your not brainstorming every night looking to add more and more post that will drag your series out.
- Have your days mapped out, so you know who your going to talk about and on what day (This does not mean you have to write all your information up front) You do need to know who’s coming next so you can be prepared
- If your doing research and it seems your not getting anywhere, make sure to use the advance search capabilities of Google (I know other search engines exsist, but this one just seems to give me what I want the way I want it) i.e. images, blogs, video, and more.
- I just wanted to give a couple of tips for how to create a series in blogging on a topic or subject.
I hope my tips are helpful I know there are other sources that have probably put out information like this, add that to your list of current reads on “Creating a blogging series”
TBTR
28 days of Black History in Technology
February is here and that means “Black History Month” most of us remember these days from our childhood where schools would try and give some information about the contributions that African Americans have given to history. Keeping with that theme I decided to give the world a little bit of Black History myself. I decided to blog about 28 individuals over 28 days that have contributed to Black History with a Technology core.
If you read this blog then you know how often I post… almost once every two months, and if you know me then you can see how this could be a disaster or a compelling success. I want this to be a success, and I’m going to make sure I keep going with valid information about African Americans that have contributed to Black History in some Technological way. If you want to thank someone for giving me the bug to do this, it’s my good friend Wayne Sutton his blog is here and he created the site “28 day of diversity“.
How ever big or small I want to take a moment to give light to some old and some new individuals that are making waves in Technology or have made waves. A word of caution I’m not here to debate all that these people have done in the world right or wrong, it’s a light that I want to use to help someone or give someone information they may not have known.
So pull up a chair and take a moment to read some of these post I will be bringing to you each and every day. By all means please send comments good or bad so that we can start a dialog about these people here on TBTR.
I hope you enjoy this “28 days of Black History in Technology”
TBTR
Apple iPad, because I read in color.
introductions are usually blad, not at Apple
Many companies over the past 2 years have been trying desperately to appease the public, and most of all their shareholders during these financial times. One company has been moved to display a calm and really serious valor for bringing innovation in times of hardship. That company is apple with numerous consumer items at arms length it’s only fitting that they introduce one of the most anticipated items of the year. On January 27th Apple let the world in on a secret that only the blogs were buzzing about for months. Apple introduced the iPad which for lack of a better word seems “perfect”.
While some people look at these kind of events with one blind eye and deaf ears, when Apple speaks it’s like the old E.F. Hutton of the 80 “people listen”. The keynote speech is up for anyone to download, and for those interested in Apple products I would say take a look at this Keynote. While the CEO Steve Jobs looks surprisingly well, he is very thin, when you get past his lanky stance you get to the meat and potatoes of this event “The iPad”.
Simply "Perfect!"
What is it?
Apple says “It’s the best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video. Hands down.” It’s a multi-Touch computer that enables you to do all of the above and more. It weights just 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7 inch LED display. Talk about beautiful products, this has to go down in history as just plan ass cool. So many people have said that the iPad just looks like and over sized iTouch. I will say it does have some cool features that allow you to surf the web, respond to emails, watch videos, and by all means even create & edit documents and presentations using iWork. You get productivity in a small package that can make your life easier while traveling, having a client meeting, or just plain old surfing the web.
What does it do?
Well I think every person using a iPad will have an opportunity to decide how this question is solved. We know you can surf the internet using safari no doubt (the build in browser in all apple products). We also know the iPad has the capability to provide email in a small package, while so many of us are tied to our desk to read, and respond to email the iPad gives you a chance to come out of your email comfort zone. Think about those photos that you have on your computer, say you want to organize them. You can do that and more with the iPad, it gives you a chance to edit, move, and also watch some amazing slide shows right from the iPad. It’s helps ease your access to pictures that you would normally have to display on a laptop. No more, you now get a chance to show the best slide shows of your summer vacation at any time to anyone. Think about, if your a photographer, and you want to show people more about photography and how you seem to capture the moment. It’s all right here on the iPad. We could talk about how well the device is tied to all the music you already own in iTunes, or the more than 140,000 apps in the iTunes app stores, no need to buy your apps all over again, they work already out of the box on the iPad
Last, but not least the iPad has something very new to the Apple Store, iBooks. Steve Jobs showed how effortlessly the iPad is able to display your books to be used as an e-book reader. With a battery life of about 10 hours you could read most of a great novel during a trip overseas. While there are other e-book readers out there, I don’t think you will find one that does so much more than just read books. Lets be honest other e-readers only display in monochrome, but don’t we read in color?
Why should I want one?
I could sit hear and think of numerous reason why the iPad would be a great purchase, weather your a mac or windows fan. Take these notes with you How much does it weigh? 1.5 pounds. Can I surf the internet? Yes Am I able to listen to my music? Yes Do I get a chance to slow a slide presentation with out taking 10 minutes of messing around with the VGA cables and trying to get my laptop to display on the projector? Yes Do I get more precise use of Google Maps? Yes Notes and Contacts are included. Honestly what more can you ask for in such a small package. While netbooks have been making great strides, you need to understand the value of this new product. I will never say that something fits all, I think its possible that Apple has created a product that’s not only pleasing to the eye but pleasing to the pocket book.
Take some time to get to know the iPad here at the Apple site, also everybody will have an opinion it’s not right for every occasion, but it’s damn close. Congratulations Apple for being the true innovator we always knew you were, keep up the good work.
TBTR
December Hiatus
I have been thinking for a while about keeping this blog going, and for the moment the appeal is just not there. I could say that talking about technology is getting…shall I say boring and uneventful. Personally I have been reading more and more, and since I have gotten rid of cable I have also tried to stay away from the computer more and more. Reading was never a passion of mine, but lately I’ve read some really good books. I guess I’m just taking a little bit of time to look inside and figure out what direction I’m going.
I hope to see you on the other side in 2010.
Happy Holidays
Jayson Flint
Twitter moves towards competition with bing & yahoo!, is it enough for stratosphere acceptance only time will tell.
While Microsoft and Yahoo pounded out a new long awaited partnership, a small company has firmly placed it’s hat into the arena as a Real-time search engine, Twitter.com. Twitter has long been seen as a site for uber geeks, and that thing people do for fun, but today Biz Stone one of the founders of Twitter announced on the Official Twitter blog about the new home page redesign.
It looks like they have made a change for the better or maybe the worst (more about that later). The new design shows a focus on topics that are hot by the minute, day, and month. This is showing up as a fire storm on the internet it’s obvious that twitter is really trying to make money by positioning themselves in a better way to grow and create revenue.
Twitter began as a rudimentary social tool based on the concept of status messages but together with those who use it every day, the service has taught us what it wants to be. From features invented by users to applications built on the platform, we’re still discovering potential. Twitter has moved from simple social networking into a new kind of communication and a valuable source of timely information. Also, it’s fun.
We all know how many companies have failed at trying to change the original concept of having fun while being different from the rest of the pack. Twitter will remain different from Bing.com and Yahoo.com which are both horrible in there own little ways. A head of twitter I see a lot of changes to the culture and pure awesomeness of the site I have come to know and love. You see twitter while a darling in the social world is burning through cash like Netscape was during the Internet Explorer invasion. The only way for twitter to survive and stay a float is to do something that gives them more appeal and makes us all look at them like the kid that got beat up on the playground. You feel sorry for the poor guy, but those who were his friends from the beginning will remain loyal and now tell more friends just how awesome he really is.
The internet has long been buzzing about what twitter can do to start making money, I think this is one of the items on the radar along with paid accounts, which hopefully will give you more capability. I think the problem with twitter coming up with paid capabilities is the fact that most of what they think up will have already been made by a third party app using the Open twitter API.
While it has been a challenge trying to explain what twitter is to a lot of my friends who are not twitter users, this looks like at least I can tell them use twitter when you want to search a topic that is right now Real-time. If a huge news story hits the wire, it’s almost a given it was first reported in 140 characters on twitter. The appeal to a lot of people is the always on and current topics that seem to find it’s way into twitter. Only time will tell if this “Search Engine direction” is a good move or not, we do know this twitter is here to stay and I’m loving every minute of my 140 characters.
Tell me what you think about twitters new direction by leaving a comment
TBTR
