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Gear and software (RSS)

Tools for the job

Go all guerrilla on ‘em

My philosophy is get out there and get the job done.  Get the news and get in on-line.  And don't be afraid to shoot video. Don't let some accountant turned editor tell you it will break the newsroom budget.  It doesn't have

No. 4: Multimedia

The KBI was envious. The special agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation were assigned to courthouse security in tiny Eureka, KS, for the capital murder trial of Scott Cheever.  Cheever was accused of killing the local sheriff. They

Get in gear

I’m not a gearhead, although I sometimes play one in our newsroom. I’ve always thought it’s as important to learn how to do the best you can with whatever equipment is available than have the best, newest, shiniest, most expensive

A million-dollar idea

To accompany a story about an increase in homes costing $1 million or more, The Des Moines Register created a cool multimedia project for the web. Be sure to watch the video flyover of the homes using Google Earth Pro. I can think of an array

Almost live from Wichita

Inspired by Ryan Sholin’s running commentary, I thought trying to cover something live looked fun. So I gave it a shot. Armed with my new smart phone, I figured I do what I could to cover a news conference this morning as live as possible.

If you get audio and no one hears it, does it make any sound?

The chemical plant explosion shook buildings. The call from our desk told me to go directly to the emergency command center, which was under the big cloud of black smoke the officials weren’t so sure we should be breathing. I was glad that

They Call Me MISTER Tripod

Hillman Curtis predicts in his book “On Creating Short Films for the Web” that video will take over from Flash as the main tool for driving on-line media. Curtis was one of the developers of Flash and one of the top web designers, doing little
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Slideshows: They're not just for photographers

Fellow multimedia reporter Stan Finger was already grinning, when I walked into work this morning. He’d just found a slide show waiting in his in-box. A teenager had fallen into a river outside Wichita, and emergency crews staged a daring

Way Cool Tool

Here’s something that fits everything multimedia into your back pocket with all the convenience of a notebook.It’s the Nokia 93I: the latest generation of smartphone. I don’t have one, yet, but it looks impressiveThe N93i has a screen that flips 160
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Docs to go

Wear a flash drive around your neck. That's the great advice of Mike McGraw, a Pulitzer-winning special projects reporter with the Kansas City Star. He stopped by Wichita for the National Writers Workshop here this past weekend, then gave another
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Is text a verb?

My wife and I use text messages all the time. She’s a lawyer. I cover courts. One of us is usually in a courtroom. We coordinate schedules, pick up kids, make plans. Did I mention we use them all the time? Then we got our monthly bill. I had 500
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