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The personal homepage of Michael Morisy, technology journalist.

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The blog of Michael Morisy on technology, news media, journalism, social networking and more, in a new, reduced-fat format.

2010-03-29 05:15

Gawker design thef-- I mean, inspiration

One thing I've been mildly-yet-obsessively entranced with for a number of years is how nicely Gawker plays with thumbnails: One of the minor irritations of modern web design is that, even you HTML the hell out a blog post to make it look perfect in... Continued »
2010-03-28 18:21

PoBoy Twitter Tracker 0.1: A small Python script to collect follower counts

At work, one of the things I have to do is keep tabs on a number of our Twitter accounts. Nothing spectacular, but with 50-ish accounts to keep track of, it gets to be a lot of overhead. So I automated it! The following Python script simply reads... Continued »
2010-03-23 15:44

Woe to ye who enter here

There's been a lot of discussion about whether Flash deserves its place on the web, and whether it should keep that place. Apple says it shouldn't, that it crashes their computers and breaks the "open web" and drains batteries and drowns kittens,... Continued »
2010-03-16 21:40

Yet another Michael Morisy journalism blog

In addition to here and the IT Watch Blog, I'm now blogging at MuckRock, a site dedicated to web-enabled citizen journalism tools. I'll be writing about, er, citizen journalism, freedom of information laws, and any other little thing that strikes my... Continued »
2010-03-10 15:02

First they came for the bikinis ...

Or rather, the lack thereof. A major German publisher, presumably in Apple's ranks of the exempted (a "well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format," as they put it to the Times), is pushing back... Continued »
2010-03-08 15:41

False Idols

Danc over at Lost Garden recently wrote a great essay about "manufactured" gaming heroes, the public faces marketing teams come up with and trot out to promote a new product. It's a great read, not the least of which it could be applied so much... Continued »
2010-02-23 16:08

There was an app for that

From the New York Times: A screenshot from one of On the Go Girls banned applications.Fred Clarke, co-president of a small software company called On the Go Girls, which made Sexy Scratch Off, said that as of Monday all 50 of his company’s... Continued »
2010-02-17 15:03

Scary Red Text

Scary Red Text Occasionally, logging in to check site comments, I get scary red text like this. It gives me a sick little thrill, realizing how complicated and interconnected everything is, that I can reach in and break stuff on this site, even... Continued »
2010-02-11 18:58

Google Buzz and the commoditization of conversation

Maybe I'm daft (ok, we all know I am daft), but what new features, really new features does Google Buzz bring to the table? For the end user, it really seems like something that could have been cobbled together with a clever Greasemonkey script,... Continued »
2010-02-01 02:00

Donate to help others help a good cause

When I first moved into the Boston area, a priority was finding a civic organization I could volunteer for and make a difference within the community. That ended up being a lot harder than I would've thought: I e-mailed organizations I thought would... Continued »
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