Author Archives: Steve Mays

Come quick, ma. Kay’s on TV. Again.

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ABC News Green RoomRadio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson (friend and co-worker) took part in the autopsy following Sunday morning’s debate by GOP candidates in Des Moines. The debate was hosted by ABC News’ This Week. Following the live broadcast, Kay and three other reporters (I think they were all reporters) appeared in The Green Room segment

Update: Others featured in the video are Rick Klein, ABC News senior political reporter; David Chalian, ABC News political director; Holly Bailey, Newsweek; Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune.

GPS dog collar

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Gpscollar
Garmin, a manufacturer of G.P.S. equipment, makes a tracking system that keeps tabs on dogs during walks in the countryside or in the dense ground cover of a hunting trip. It has two parts: a hand-held G.P.S. unit for the owner and another device that is mounted on the dog’s collar or harness.

If the dog bolts after a deer, the owner’s device will show where the dog is headed so the owner can follow and find it, even if miles away.

The Garmin dog tracker system, called Astro, costs $599, but the price may not be too steep for people who already have a deep emotional and financial investment in their dogs. Businesses that sell the Astro include Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, and Gundogsupply.com. [NYT.com]

Would I pay $600 to find Ripley or Lucy if they were lost. You bet. If they weren’t inside dogs, I’d have me a couple of these collars.

Long Distance (Skype)

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Had a nice, leisurely chat with my brother tonight. We talked about 45 minutes. Regular readers know my brother lives on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia so we’ve always tried to keep our phone calls brief. Thanks to the miracle of Skype, we were able to really get caught up this evening (morning for him).

He recently got some kind of point-to-point, microwave Internet access. Not sure if it qualifies as “high speed,” but it’s a big improvement on the dial-up they’ve lived with since moving to Indonesia.

Skype_logo
Audio quality was pretty good. Waaay better than regular long distance connection. If he can boost his speed a little bit, we’re gonna try video. Stay tuned. And thank you, Skype.

Toxic Employees

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“Toxic employees are usually afraid, poorly managed and underappreciated. They can rarely be bullied into changing their behavior, often because they themselves are bullies. Managers can hire the non-toxic, re-assign the toxic and be really clear with themselves that they’re willing to pay almost any price to keep toxic employees away from everyone else. And if toxic employees appears to be a pattern, my bet is that it’s your fault, not the employees.”

— Seth Godin

Newspapers beat TV at local video

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Lost Remote points us to the latest blog entry from Bill Adee, the associate managing editor for innovation at the Chicago Tribune who wants the paper to be “the main online source of video for Chicagoland users.” And to get there, he says the Tribune has 31 staff photographers with video cameras, and the multimedia team has video cameras.

Again from Lost Remote’s Michael Gay: "Let’s be conservative and say that’s 40 video cameras shooting video around Chicago. After working in Chicago, I can tell you with certainty that there is no TV station with that many cameras out on the streets."

Why would any reporter (TV, print, radio) hit the street without a digital camera (and the knowledge to use it)?

Shopping for a digital video camera

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It’s time to replace the Sony camcorder and I welcome suggestions and advice from one and all. Here are the features I think I want:

  • Digital. Records to SD or SDHC cards* MPEG4 (H.264)
  • Recording time: 30-40 min
  • Accepts external mic
  • Can mount on tripod
  • Smaller the better
  • Firewire? Why would I need this if I can just pull the file across to the Mac?

If you know of, or spot a camera with these features, holler at me. I’m open on price if it has all or most of these features.

Mom! Come quick! Kay’s on TV!

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Every four years, the national media spotlight burns hot and heavy on Iowa. Never more so than this year. And savvy network reporters frequently call on Radio Iowa News Director Kay Henderson for on-the-ground perspective and insight.

She was part of an 8 minute segment on MSNBC’s Hardball Wednesday night. The rest of the show pretty much sucked. Lance Armstrong’s non-answers to Chris Matthews questions made Lance sound like the politician he will someday be. But someone at Hardball had the good sense to bring Kay on, so we’ll forgive them the rest.

Radio Iowa is a Learfield network and I’ve worked with her for the past 20 years.

iPhone Confessions: 30 Day Update

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In a day or two it will have been 30 days since the iPhone went on sale (CNN reports sales have been disappointing). I popped off an email to Tom Piper, George Kopp and Dave Morris to see if they were still as pleased with their iPhones as they (Tom, George, Dave) were when they first got them. I haven’t heard back from Dave yet, but Tom and George filed reports… after the jump.

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