This is the end
By Danny | May 20, 2008
Effective immediately, The Tribune will no longer be offering the Inside SanLuisObispo.com blog. Instead, you will find all my usual ramblings (including my original Charter Communications spying post) at MySLOCounty.com, where I will continue to post in a non-Tribune sanctioned capacity.
I want to offer a sincere “thank you” to my legions of regular readers. Letting an obviously unskilled writer post a Tribune sanctioned blog has been an interesting experiment, and one of the more enjoyable aspects of my job. Your kind, yet sarcastic emails have helped make that the case.
Later guys.
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Charter to spy on customers
By Danny | May 14, 2008
Check here for the story.
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Relay for Life
By Danny | May 12, 2008
Today, more than a week later than promised, Justin finally started his gaming blog. He has, naturally, chosen to write about the highly controversial (read: awesome) GTA4. Take a look at his blog, then you can get back to playing GTA4.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from our Sports Editor, Ashley, asking for team members to the Tribune’s Relay for Life team. I’d feel better about it if he’d just asked me based on my phenomenal talents as a runner, and obvious philanthropic tendencies, but really it was just a mass email sent out to the office. Nevertheless, I joined the team so that I could do my part in the fight against cancer.
For those that don’t know, Relay for Life is an event in which teams of people must constantly run or walk laps around a track for a 24 hour period. The money raised goes to the American Cancer Society. The Tribune is one of the sponsors of the event this year, which probably makes it OK for me to solicit donations through my blog. So visit this page, and donate something.
Thanks.
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Streamingly Idiotic
By Danny | May 5, 2008
No doubt you will have noticed that The Tribune has started broadcasting live streaming video of the county supervisors race forums. Last week, we hosted the 3rd district debate here at the Tribune office and today we went to the Paso Robles Inn for the District One debate.I won’t bore you with the details of the technical wizardry that was required to stream the video, because that’s really not a very interesting story. Let’s just say that we managed to get everything working with only minor hiccups and I’m pretty happy with the results.
There was, however one fairly major hiccup that occurred right after the Paso Robles broadcast. You see, there’s a reasonable amount of equipment involved in the process; we have to bring microphones, a camera, a computer, tripods, etc. Not to mention all the wiring that has to be done to get everything connected. It’s a fairly lengthy process that requires someone of obviously genius-level intelligence to facilitate.
It’s such a shame that it was left to me then, since I am clearly an idiot.
After we were finished in Paso, Larissa and I carried all the equipment back to my car. I opened the trunk and started loading everything back in, moving quickly so that I could get out of the stifling Paso Robles heat. Once everything was in the trunk, I closed it up, and reached into my pocket to retrieve my car keys. Which weren’t there. Because I had tossed them into my trunk along with everything else. Because I am an idiot.
So, I had to have my wonderful wife call roadside assistance (I couldn’t do it myself because I had the number in my car) so that they could open the car for me. An hour later, and surely only minutes before I would have died from heatstroke, they showed up and rescued me.
With any luck, we’ll be broadcasting some more live video soon, although I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to leave the office again.
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Shiny new blogs
By Danny | April 28, 2008
It’s an exciting day for blogging on SanLuisObispo.com, for today we have implemented phase one of an awesome new plan to improve our staff blogs. Starting this afternoon, the existing Features blog, SLOGoings, is no more. Instead features writers Pat Pemberton and Sarah Linn are dividing their resources up and will be authoring two separate blogs. Pat will be working on the music and surfing themed Sidetracked, while Sarah will concentrate on movies and pop culture in her new blog, She Likes to Watch.
You may also have noticed that my blog is looking significantly shinier (read, bluer). This is because I have also switched this blog to the new and improved blog format. I’ll probably change things up a little as I test out some new features we might like to add, but please let me know if you think anything desperately need changing.
We’re also hoping to launch another new blog at the end of the week. Our own Justin Hoeger, editor of Ticket, is planning to launch a video game themed blog which we are all, of course, super excited about. That one is just waiting for him to get around to naming the blog and deciding on a design. We’ll let you know when that happens.
Kim says: Danny sure likes his blue, have you noticed?
Things I’d like to add: We decided to go with Wordpress, because I like it and use it on my own personal blogs. Now, instead of boring ol’ Blogger designs, we’ll have super shiny pretty ones that staffers will help design. Wordpress is also way more flexible and we can add all sorts of widgets, whosits and thingamajigs.
Plus, there is going to be something really awesome as soon as all of our blogs are moved over. I’m not going to say more, but it’ll be a one-stop shop.
One more thing, if there’s a blog from a staffer or a topic you’d like to hear the Tribune ramble about, let us know in the comments.
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Of tea and weddings
By Danny | April 24, 2008
I stay up pretty late, and get to work pretty early. That’s a combination that requires a hefty dose of caffeine in the morning; otherwise I get grumpy (although Sally would say that it doesn’t really make a difference). I’m not a fan of coffee, so I tend to get my caffeine through either tea or various soft drinks.
The other morning, I got to work, nice and early, and reached into my box of tea bags to discover that I’d already used up the last one. You’d think I’d have noticed that on the previous day, but I’m not the most observant guy in the world and sometimes things like that escape me.
Now, the vending machines here at the Tribune were recently replaced with shiny new ones, because the old ones kept stealing my money. I assume they stole other people’s money too, but I’m not really concerned about that. They stole mine on several occasions leaving me undernourished and poor. The shiny new machines, we were assured, are much better, and hardly ever steal people’s money.
Well, that’s sort of the case.
Off I walked to the coffee vending machine to test out the newly added “tea”. I put in my money, opting for a “large” cup, and punched in the code. What came out looked kind of like tea with milk, which was what I had requested, but it smelled a lot like coffee. Not to be discouraged, I took a sip and discovered that it tasted like tea, until the nasty aftertaste of coffee kicked in. Saddened and dismayed by this evil mixture of tea and coffee, that I would call “toffee” if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t delicious, I disposed of the drink, and went back to my desk.
A few minutes later, I returned to the vending machine with the remainder of my money and decided to buy a small hot chocolate. With a buzz, the machine sprung to life, and started dispensing my beverage. What it forgot to dispense was a cup. Leaving me penniless and thirsty.
And people wonder why I am grumpy.
This week, we launched our new California Weds publication, where you can find all sorts of wedding resources that are available in the county. There are also some articles that might help when planning a wedding. Our very own Marketing Assistant Extraordinaire, Nicole Bowers is featured in one of the stories.
We also launched a map of gas prices throughout the county. You can submit the prices near you by emailing Sally, or you can update it yourself if you are familiar with Google’s My Maps feature.
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New and improved…stuff
By Danny | April 16, 2008
It’s been a while since I posted last, but I have an excuse, I’ve been really busy working on new stuff for you guys.
First, we have all new winery, dining and hotel listings which we’ve added to our community calendar software. These are a vast improvement over the old system as now in addition to finding basic information about the location, you can also read and write reviews, find directions, and list similar locations nearby.
I could go into detail about the technical wizardry that had to be performed to get these listings imported from our old database into the new one, but I’m guessing most of you don’t really care. Let’s just say it wasn’t easy, nor was it exciting.
We’ve also made some fairly major changes to the layout of MySLOCounty.com over the past few days based on some user feedback. We removed the left rail of navigation, and condensed much of what was there into a more concise horizontal bar at the top of the page. You can now access everything you want to do on the site from that bar, while the contents of the right rail display information about recent posts and other items that may be of interest.
Of course, as with all changes, we’re now getting some feedback from users (mostly grumpy Tribune employees), who have issues with the main column being too wide, and we’re examining what, if anything, needs to be done about that. If you feel strongly one way or the other, please let us know and we’ll take your suggestions into consideration (unless you’re a grumpy Tribune Employee, in which case, we’ve heard from you already, so you can shut up about it now. Thanks).
I’ve been using my membership to the IWA to attend some online Flash classes, which came in very handy with this week’s Grudge Match. After all, what is more convincing in an argument than a poorly made Flash animation demonstrating the merits of paper vs. rock or scissors? You’re right, nothing. Paper is clearly the winner.
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Why is that week-old story still on the homepage?
By Larissa | April 7, 2008
I’m not sure how many of our regular story commenters actually read this blog (as many keep asking the same questions that I’ve already answered here), but here’s my answer for another issue that I saw crop up recently:
A story about three men arrested for allegedly soliciting lewd acts at an Atascadero Lake Park restroom was posted to the Web site Wednesday, March 12. It got a fair amount of views for a day or two, and then – like most stories – fell off the homepage to make room for fresher news.
But then, a week later, the story showed up on the homepage again. This time it was under the “most popular stories now” section. A few readers saw it there, and left these “helpful” comments:
“This story is a week old…move on!”
and
“tt- c’mon…even on the ksby site has this is archived.
this is a sign you folks have nothing better [you think] to report on.
man up, turn off the net and go out and cover some news!”
Actually, we have nothing to do with what stories show up in that section – you, the reader, does. The 10 stories in that section are automatically updated every hour from a program that counts page views on a story. So why would a week-old story get picked up there? Several reasons. Most often, it’s because it was linked to from an outside site. And once it makes it into that section, those people complaining about it being an old story on the homepage are just furthering the problem – each click you make will just keep adding it to the “most-read” list.
So no, we don’t just like to keep really old stories on the homepage – even if there haven’t been that many new exciting headlines (which hasn’t been a problem recently).
As always, if you have any questions about the Web site, don’t hesitate to ask. And if you’re interested, here’s some older posts explaining the inside goings-on of sanluisobispo.com:
Why does this story allow comments, but that one doesn’t?
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I love April Fool’s Day.
By Danny | April 1, 2008
This morning, I arrived at work to hear rumours that the Cuesta Grade was closed, the reason given was that there was “something to do with elephant seals”. What the seals were supposed to be doing, I have no idea. Frolicking perhaps.
Since Elephant seals really have no business on the Grade, this made for an interesting story, but when Larissa looked into it, she found that the CHP had arrived to check out the report only to find that there were no signs of elephant seals, frolicking or otherwise. The whole thing seems to have been an April Fool’s prank played by local radio station KZOZ. Well done guys.
In the spirit of the holiday, I set about with a couple of pranks of my own. I started by taking small pieces of paper, roughly an inch square and writing “April Fools!” on them, then taping them to the bottom of my co-workers’ mice over the laser. Obviously, this stops the little laser from working, and so the mouse becomes useless. Yes, I know, that’s a simple prank, but I don’t have all day to spend thinking up pranks, and this one was unlikely to end in violence, or get me fired.
Next, I sent links to this very interesting article to Sally and Sergio.
Then, at lunchtime I went to the supermarket and bought a dozen cupcakes. There they are, pictured right, they look delicious, don’t they? I brought them back to work, put them on a paper plate and made a sign saying “Happy April Fool’s Day!” I put them in the table in front of my desk, and waited to see who was brave enough to eat one. As I write this, they have been there for an hour and a half and no one has had the guts. Columnist extraordinaire, Bill Morem took a look at them, exclaimed that they looked “delicious”, picked one up, read the sign, put it down, and walked away.
To put this in perspective, most food left in front of my desk is gone within 20 minutes. This may be a new record.
So, avid blog readers, do you guys have any April Fool’s pranks to share?
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Hasta la vista, shiny new camcorder
By Danny | March 27, 2008
You could sense the excitement yesterday morning when an email went out from our fearless leader, Chip, informing us that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator himself, would be visiting The Tribune for a meeting with our editorial board.
The email went out around an hour and a half before Arnie was scheduled to arrive. No time to run home to get my copy of T2 – Judgment Day to have him sign it, and certainly not enough time to “set up live streaming video” as my boss, Sergio suggested. And it’s just as well I didn’t set it up – read on.
We decided that a good compromise to streaming video would be to have Larissa use our “shiny new camcorder” to videotape the meeting and edit it down to some highlights before posting it to the Website. Before that though, Larissa took some video of the protesters outside the building, and managed to get some shots of Arnie arriving at the Tribune office.
Not being on the editorial board, because I am a low-level peon, I didn’t get to meet him. I did, however, see him enter the building wearing a beige suit which was disappointingly less intimidating than the biker leathers and sunglasses, or partially uncovered endoskeleton in which I am accustomed to seeing him attired. He strode purposefully and directly from the main entrance to the conference room, waving and smiling. He muttered something indecipherable amid some half-hearted applause, entered the conference room and was then gone from sight.
Soon after that, Larissa left the conference room having been forcibly ejected by Arnie and his goons. OK, so maybe “forcibly ejected” isn’t the right phrase, but it sounds more interesting than “asked politely to leave”, doesn’t it? And perhaps “goons” might get me into trouble, so we’ll call them “security”, you know what I mean though. So, apparently when a movie star becomes a politician, they no longer want to have cameras pointed at them. Sadly then, we didn’t get to use the “shiny new camcorder” to videotape the meeting.
I will, however, work on figuring out a way to have live streaming video on the Website, just so we’re ready for the next time the T-800 visits us. I suppose in the meantime, I can set it up so that you guys can just watch me write code all day long. That’d be exciting, right?
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