Category: Media

  • The TV business is a cruel and shallow money trench

    …and Google’s the latest tech firm to jump into it. A wee op/ed piece by me: One of my favourite TV programmes was Casualty. I didn’t like it for the acting, though. I liked it because of the hilariously protracted accidents in each episode. “I’ll just hammer this nail in with an UNEXPLODED BOMB!” this week’s…

  • Waterhouse on Newspaper Style is out again

    Great news for journalists and anyone else interested in newspapers and language: Waterhouse on Newspaper Style, by the late Keith Waterhouse, is back in print. This is a typical Waterhouse quote: When Sam Goldwyn advised that cliches should be avoided like the plague, he forgot that the plague, by its very nature, is almost impossible…

  • Simon Heffer on exaggeration

    If you care about language you might like this: Simon Heffer on the dangers of exaggerated language. If somebody is devastated because his football team has lost a match, how does he feel when he gets home and finds his wife and children have been killed in a fire? If a woman is brave because of her…

  • A couple of things about Apple products

    As you may have noticed, Apple unveiled some new goodies yesterday. As you may not have noticed, I’ve written about two of them. First up, FaceTime video calling in the iPod touch: The big question is whether people want to see one another on the phone. I think the older generation hate the idea. I…

  • Windows 95’s fifteenth anniversary

    Doesn’t time fly? As you may recall, Windows 95 was a good operating system surrounded by some bad behaviour. In 1998 consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote a devastating critique that accused Microsoft of “suffocating” the PC industry and argued that “the victims of Microsoft’s monopolistic activities aren’t just the companies that go belly-up; they are the…

  • iPad the news today, oh boy

    Back in January, I wrote this: I also have a £702/year newspaper habit. Imagine if I could come downstairs in the morning, grab the iPad, and use it as a newspaper. It’s big enough so there’s still the serendipity of seeing articles you might otherwise miss, and it’s digital enough that I can get my…

  • “Everybody knows how reviews work”

    If you’ve ever wondered what working for the tech press is like or suspect that PR people use bungs to get good coverage, you might find this interesting. If you’re reviewing something that’s problematic – perhaps there are clashes with drivers on your computer, or some weird issue you’ve discovered – what happens next? If…

  • Facebook wants you to work for it, for free

    Are you getting the impression that I’m not entirely keen on Facebook? Facebook Questions is its latest attempt to be like the AOL of the 90s, but more annoying and evil. It’s a simple enough plan: make every single link on Google point to a Facebook page. Where’s the best place to buy a T-31…

  • Apple’s going to bring iOS to the Mac

    Never mind inventing a slightly shinier battery charger: Apple’s got big plans. I think they include giving Macs the iOS operating system, or something awfully like it. It’s not just the Mac, either. I’m willing to bet that it’s coming to the Apple TV, too. Apps would make Steve Jobs’ hobby much more appealing, and…

  • Gene Weingarten Column Mentions Lady Gaga

    Via Word magazine, there’s this great column about the new world of journalism. Call me a grumpy old codger, but I liked the old way better. For one thing, I used to have at least a rudimentary idea of how a newspaper got produced: On deadline, drunks with cigars wrote stories that were edited by…