Tag Archives: Cleveland

Weekly output: video gaming booms, Locast expands, Sheryl Sandberg defends Facebook

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A time shift caused by the start or end of Daylight Saving Time means one thing around here: a boomlet of page views for the rant I wrote about the unintuitive interface on a sports watch my wife used to wear. Not too many of you still have this Timex model, to judge from the declining stats for that post compared to five years ago, but it remains the most-read post on this blog with 123,612 views–almost twice as many as the second-place post, a how-to about setting up Lotus Notes to forward all your work e-mail to Gmail.

3/10/2021: Limelight survey: The pandemic is driving a boom in gaming, FierceVideo

I spent Wednesday morning filling in at my trade-pub client to cover breaking news, and as part of that wrote up this eight-country survey conducted for the content-delivery firm Limelight Networks.

Screenshot of my Locast story as seen in my Android phone's Chrome browser.3/10/2021: Locast expands service to Cleveland area, now reaches more than 50% of U.S. viewers, FierceVideo

The first piece I filed Wednesday got published second, because reasons. Covering the expansion of Locast to northeast Ohio gave me a chance to introduce myself properly to the PR people at this non-profit that streams local TV stations–this won’t be the last time I cover this interesting option for cord cutters and the legal challenges it faces from broadcasters who don’t appreciate its reading of copyright law.

3/11/2021: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg: Trust Us, You Still Want Personalized Ads, Forbes

An appearance by Facebook’s chief operating officer at the ad-industry group IAB’s virtual event left me scratching my head about the vast gap between the picture Sandberg painted of Facebook and what I’ve seen and read over the past year.

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Six weeks in a row of travel

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When I unlocked the front door on our darkened porch Thursday night–and, as if by magic, the power came back on–six consecutive weeks of travel went into the books.

View of Toronto from a departing airplaneIt all seemed like a reasonable idea upfront, not least when it appeared I’d have a couple of weeks at home over that period.

In an alternate universe, a spring break trip to see Bay Area and Boston relatives and then the IFA Global Press Conference in Spain would have been followed by week at home, then more than a week of additional downtime would have separated Google I/O in Mountain View and Collision in Toronto.

But then I got invited to moderate a panel at the Pay TV Show in Denver, with the conference organizers covering my travel expenses, and my Uncle Jim died. The results: 4/13-4/21 spring break, 4/24-4/28 IFA GPC, 4/29-4/30 in Ohio for my uncle’s funeral (I had about nine hours at home between returning from Spain and departing for Cleveland), 5/6-5/9 Google I/O, 5/13-5/16 Pay TV Show, 5/20-5/23 Collision.

I’d thought having the last three trips only run four days, with three days at home between each, would make things easier. That didn’t really happen, although I did appreciate having time to do all the laundry, bake bread and cook a bunch of food during each stay home, then be able to check the status of my flight home the morning after arriving at each destination.

In particular, my ability to focus on longer-term work and try to develop new business took a hit during all this time in airports, airplanes and conference venues. And because Yahoo Finance elected to have staff writers cover I/O and Collision remotely, so did my income.

Meanwhile, I can’t pretend that I’ve been following the healthiest lifestyle, thanks to all of the eating and drinking at various receptions. Consecutive days of walking around with my laptop in a messenger bag left a softball-sized knot in my left shoulder to complement my sore feet. And I’ve woken up in the middle of the night too many times wondering where I was–including once or twice in my own bed at home.

So while the past six weeks have taken me to some neat places and connected me to some interesting people, I don’t need to repeat the experience.

Weekly output: iOS 11 issues, Super Cruise, SESTA, Tech Night Owl

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In recent years, late September has seen me jetting off to one city or another to attend the Online News Association’s annual conference, but this time around my ONA travel will consist of taking Metro–the conference starts Thursday at the Marriott in Woodley Park. And I’m also on the schedule for the first time: I’m speaking Saturday afternoon with veteran freelancer Katherine Lewis about survival skills for the self-employed.

Meanwhile, the Nationals host the Cubs sometime Friday and Saturday in the first two games of the division series, ensuring that I will be completely hoarse and sleep-deprived by Sunday. Go Nats!

9/26/2017: How to fix Apple iOS 11 battery and Outlook problems, USA Today

My editor opted to hold this post for a day to reduce the odds of it getting lost in USAT’s other iOS 11 coverage.

9/28/2017: What it’s like riding in Cadillac’s self-driving Super Cruise for 350 miles, Yahoo Finance

This account of having a 2018 Cadillac CT6 drive me along much of I-70 and the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes was the most interesting transportation-related piece I’ve written since this spring’s post about advances in Gogo’s satellite WiFi. The long drive from Washington to Cleveland also let me see parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio that I hadn’t glimpsed in years and take a detour to pay my respects at the Flight 93 National Memorial.

9/30/2017: Why the tech industry is worried about a bill targeting sex trafficking, Yahoo Finance

I should have had this post about the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act written earlier, but the delays allowed me to add some useful quotes from a panel I attended on the Hill Thursday.

9/30/2017: September 30, 2017 — Rob Pegoraro and Kirk McElhearn, Tech Night Owl

I talked with host Gene Steinberg about my Cadillac test drive, my iOS experience, and the macOS High Sierra install that was going on in the background but had not wrapped up by the time my roughly hour-long segment ended.