Playing with Fire

By John Kamerer

Kindle Fire display. Image from Bloomberg.com

I recently came into possession of Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Now, I’ve been a long-time user of Apple’s iPod touch/iPhone and have used iPads at work, so I’d like to share my findings for those on the fence about whether to buy an iPad or the new Fire device (I’ve also had a Kindle Keyboard since back when it was the only type of this device on the market, so my background experience should also help those looking for their ideal e-reader).

Hardware: The Fire is significantly smaller than the iPad, and is a bit minimalist when the devices are compared side-by-side. The only button is the power button, which is located next to the charging port and headphone jack on the bottom of the device. A possible problem I see is that it would be easy to accidentally bump the power button, but a simple workaround is to simply turn the device upside down (due to the lack of physical buttons, the Fire works exactly as well flipped as it does normally).

The fact that it only comes in an 8GB size (2GB of which is reserved for the operating system) can be a bit of a problem for users with lots of music and videos, but presumably if you relied on Amazon for all of your digital media it wouldn’t be much of an issue due to their cloud storage system.

Smart Phones and Smart Journalism

By Herbert Lowe

My Digital Journalism II students are learning how to use multimedia to enhance their storytelling this semester. So the excellent daylong training session offered downtown on September 28 could not have been more timely – or helpful in terms of revealing relevant mobile resources and tips.

Five Diederich College colleagues – Karen Slattery, Gee Ekachai, Steve Byers, Linda Menck and Carole Burns – joined me at the “Smart Phones, Smart Journalism Workshop,” presented by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute. More than 75 people, including many working journalists, joined us at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the event. Val Hoeppner, the institute’s director of education and a multimedia guru, led the way by masterfully teaching how to use mobile technology better and faster.

iPad Apps I Use Most Often

By Gee Ekachai

When people asked me what iPad apps I’d recommend, it’s hard to come up with a short list. I have more than 100 apps on my iPad, many are free, but here are 20 apps I use most often (but not in a particular order). Some of them were included in Mashable’s 10 must-have iPad apps for new users.

Dropbox is a must for transporting files from my laptop to iPad. Cannot function without it!

Flipboard is a great way to read your tweet feeds and Facebook updates. You can also subscribe to a few websites and my favorites are Smitten Kitchen, Wired, and Bon Appetit. Gorgeous pictures. Read Engadget’s review here.

Talking about pictures, NY Post Pix shows what great photojournalism is all about. Captivating photos that tell stories (although its captions are quite non-traditional). You can “favorite” and/or save the photos you like on your iPad.