Law Officers Harrass, Arrest ABC News Producer

Today, a nod to digital journalists and the cops who try to stop them from doing their jobs. Also, a Colbert-esque wag of the finger at the Denver Police Department and the Boulder County Sheriff's Office for what appears to be a touch of thuggery in their actions against an ABC News producer yesterday.

According to ABC News' own website, producer Asa Eslocker was arrested for doing his job, covering

Democratic senators and high-profile donors as they were leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

The video shows one officer (note the Boulder County Sheriff's Office uniform) shoving Eslocker into a street and (among other things) then telling Eslocker he was blocking traffic. Here's what it doesn't show: the events leading up to the situation. Kudos to ABC News for including at least a little of Eslocker mouthing-off, ever so delicately, to the cops (New rule: When a cop says, "Let's move," the correct answer isn't to turn away and say, "OK - Hold on" while on your cell phone. It makes you look like a smarta** and blunts our distaste for the cops' police-state behavior). I would like to see more of that exchange. I'm pretty sure ABC has the footage (New rule #2: If you're going to use video to help make the cops look like jackbooted jerks -- and they appear to deserve it here -- be fair and show what led up to it). How about posting it?

Side note to the Denver PD. Please, someone tell the sergeant with the cigar that his oral-phallic symbol does nothing positive for his image - especially in video. But do it gently. He doesn't seem like the type to take criticism well.

Side note to ABC News. Folks, you have one annoying video streaming system. Normally, I don't have much sympathy for folks swiping network footage and throwing it on YouTube, but putting a commercial before and after this tiny chunk of video -- every time I watched it. I now sympathize with the video pirates. I think this site has put me off ABC News for the next week.

Many thanks to the folks at MediaBistro for noting the story.

MobileMe

I spent most of last night working with Apple's new MobileMe service. Steve Jobs is right. It's not yet ready for prime time.

MobileMe is an interesting concept. It's meant to synchronize e-mail, contacts and calendars across multiple devices (Macs, PCs, phones), but my one evening with MobileMe was full enough of frustration to make me cancel my free trial account. Me? Cancel a free account? Yup.

Let's start with e-mail. Folks currently using Web-based e-mail (such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail) need not apply, as your e-mail generally doesn't require any synchronization. Folks using IMAP clients will find limited utility here as well, as IMAP handles most e-mail synchronization without help.

What about contacts. Sure, I would love to have my contacts updated automatically (and instantly) across all my devices. MobileMe doesn't quite do that. I waited 30 minutes for my iPhone to pick up even a single contact from MobileMe, then surrendered. I'm going back to Plaxo for (free!) syncing across computers and using my daily iPhone charge as an opportunity for contact synchronization via USB. Is Plaxo perfect? Heck, no. Among other things, it doesn't sync contact photos. But it does keep my names, addresses and phone numbers in sync.

And calendars? I had calendar sync across multiple computers, years ago on my Linux box. I still have no idea (except perhaps financial incentive) what has kept Apple from producing a calendar with quick, automatic syncing from one of our fine Unix-based boxes. iCal has been out for quite a while, but it's Google that provided omnipresent calendaring. Would I like to use an Apple product for my calendar? Something that doesn't require continual connection to the 'Net? You bet. But do I need to pay $99/year when I'm already using the Google product? I don't think so. We've been waiting so long for a decent Apple solution that I don't think calendaring will be Jobs' killer app any time soon.

What I'd really like is an Apple app to keep my iphoto libraries in sync. MobileMe doesn't do that, either.

So, why not keep playing with MobileMe? It was that 30-minute pause with no updates on my phone.

But give it a try for yourself. Perhaps you'll have better luck!

USPTO Rejects Blackboard Patent Claims

T.H.E. Journal has been regularly updating a story following the U.S. Patent and Trade Office's ongoing examinations of Blackboard patent #6,988,138 ("Alcorn").

I won't spoil the storytelling, such as it is, but perhaps Bb should grow accustomed to rejection...

Drive Crash

Welcome to my first external drive crash.

I've been doing some freelancing for a .org in DC, helping produce videos of seminars on Capitol Hill. The editing is all Final Cut Pro 6. I enhance some of the seminar slides with Keynote animations exported as Quicktime. Good work for good people.

Unfortunately, the 1.5-month-old drive I've been using for assets and editing has just gone Tango Uniform. Unmountable. Unfixable by OS X's Disk Utility.

Why, if I spec RAID systems for other folks, did I go with a single drive config for myself? Budget? Natural cheapness? Carelessness? I guess I just didn't figure the drive would die before the first project wrapped. I had planned to archive the works, right after post-production.

Bad plan. Never again.

So, now I have a NewerTech GMAX (Guardian Maximus -- an over-the-top name if I've ever heard one) 500GB 32M RAID-1 box on order from OWC. There's a copy of Data Rescue II from Prosoft. This will be my first GMax. I'll let you know how well it works.

Time to contact the warranty folks at Maxtor! I wonder what that will be like.

Matt Waite on Data Ghettos

I've been pointing colleagues to Matt Waite's recent blog entry on newspaper website data centers. I thought I should point the blog to it, as well.

I would love to write more about this subject, but I'm in a non-disclosure/non-conflict-of-interest mode at the moment. So, this is me -- not disclosing, not conflicting.



Let me think some more. I have a class tonight, so my brain isn't entirely free at the moment. Perhaps I'll be more thoughtful tomorrow.

Later!

IRBs and Free Speech

I don't know how long this link will remain up, but "Threat Seen to Oral History," from last week's Chronicle.com provoked an interesting response from Ohio University's Joseph Bernt. Here's a snippet:

Moreover, there is that pesky often disrespected 1st Amendment right of free speech, which I assume gives me the right to ask questions as well as make statements and gives my “subjects” or sources the right to offer their views or not.

Bernt is not alone in asserting that IRBs and the ol' 1A are in conflict. A former boss of mine would refuse to deal with the university IRB on just those grounds. Why would a journalism professor or journalism student ask permission to ask questions?

What sort of example would that professor be setting ("Oh, I just need to ask 'Mother, may I' before I can conduct an interview")? Isn't there some problem with journalists kow-towing to authority already?

Just something to think about. Go JB!

David Lynch on cell phone cinema

In case anyone is wondering why digital video instructors harp on shooting/editing differently for micro-media, try this highly blogged snippet from writer, director, producer, etc. David Lynch.

Moodle Server

So, what's D-Ed up to, these days? I took a crack at installing a Moodle server the other day. I think this really deserves its own box, but I don't have a spare Mini and my old Linux boxen are noisy power-vacuums by today's standards.

That leaves me with the ol' family iMac. I just hope uninstalling isn't as involved as installing. Oy!