SoloJourno

If you’ve been interested in learning how to create an iPhone app, but only know coding and scripting languages like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, well, there’s a course for that (and it’s free!):

Well-known tech publisher O’Reilly is offering a free 5-part live online course, “Learn to Build iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript“.

The course - which runs from January 5th to February 2nd, 2010 - will be of interest to people who want to learn how to program web-based iPhone applications. The course is being taught by Elisabeth Robson, co-author of O’Reilly’s “Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML“. In her capacity as Special Projects director at O’Reilly Media, she has also developed a number of workshops, including, “Build, Compile, and Run Your iPhone App in 2 Days” and “Developing Android Applications“.

No experience creating iPhone applications is required. All that is needed is a working knowledge of the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. O’Reilly promises that “Each session offers easy-to-follow, hands-on lessons. You’ll begin the course by building iPhone apps with standard web tools, then you’ll learn how to create native Cocoa-based iPhone apps using Apple’s tools.” View a 22 minute course overview here - http://blip.tv/file/2962732

People who are unable to attend or who did but want to watch the course over and over will be able to buy a video of the sessions, each of which is 90-120 minutes in length. Code examples and slides are included. The video will cost U$35 until February 5, 2010. After that, it will be U$79.

Official Description:

In this four-session video workshop, you’ll quickly learn how to create simple web apps with features that take advantage of the device’s remarkable functionality. You’ll also learn to use Apple’s tools to create native Cocoa-based iPhone apps. Each video session offers an easy-to-follow, hands-on lesson. It’s the perfect way to get started with iPhone app design.

Presented by CreativeTechs in partnership with O’Reilly, each session offers easy-to-follow, hands-on lessons. You’ll begin the course by building iPhone apps with standard web tools, then you’ll learn how to create native Cocoa-based iPhone apps using Apple’s tools. It’s the perfect way to get started with iPhone app design, and all you need to know in advance is HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics.

• Build working web apps for the iPhone, using HTML and CSS web standards
• Learn what a mobile web app is and how it differs from a native iPhone app
• Create gestures and animation using JavaScript and the iUI and jQTouch libraries
• Integrate your web app with several iPhone features
• Build simple native iPhone apps using the TapLynx library – without programming!
• Learn how to build on your new-found iPhone web app development skills

UPDATE: While browsing the O’Reilly site, I discovered this related ‘early release’ ebook, “Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript“. From what I can tell, this is almost like a sneak preview as it seems the ‘dead tree edition’ hasn’t gone to print yet, and the title is only available at the moment as a PDF. The ebook is U$23.99 while book itself will be U$29.99; if you want to get both the book + the ebook, the price will be U$32.99 which is a very good deal.

Freelance photojournalist, Kyle Cassidy’s photographs have been published in the New York Times, Baaron’s Financial, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s known for his fashion and portrait photography, but his articles deal mostly with technology. During the 2004, he developed an interest in the issues surrounding gun ownership and began to photography gun owners.

Over a two year period, Kyle criss-crossed the States, travelling 15,000 miles to photograph gun owners in their homes and ask them one question: “Why do you own a gun.” This resulted in the 200+ page book, “Armed in America” of which he says: “This isn’t a book about guns. It’s a book about people.”

His words on the scope of the project:

Whether it’s 39% or 50% of Americans, it’s still an awful lot of people. I started wondering just who they were, what they looked like, and how they lived. Such was the genesis of Armed America: Portraits of American Gun Owners in Their Homes.

The idea was to photograph a hundred gun owners, in their homes, and do a gallery show. I figured this would take about two years. But very soon after I started, it became evident that my ambitions were too low. My mailbox flooded with letters from people I didn’t know wanting to participate — I realized that I could probably photograph a hundred people in two months, but it wasn’t a number of people that was important, it was their stories — a cowboy in Texas, a survivalist in Montana, a deer hunter in Pennsylvania, a sheriff in Georgia, a soldier in Idaho….

What I really needed, I realized, was to get moving, to drive across the country and find America somewhere between here and there.

Product Details:
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Krause Publications (2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0896895432
ISBN-13: 978-0896895430
Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.2 x 1.2 inches

Visit the book’s website:

Via Journalism.co.uk:

CNN’s Connect The World: a television news programme which tries to link seemingly unrelated global stories by exploring the impact an event in one place can have on people elsewhere.

“A labour of love (…) and a fairly lofty ambition,” admits CNN’s Connect The World presenter Becky Anderson, but one that through hard work, and tapping into a sense of an increasingly connected world spurred by the rise in social media sites, is successful.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, CNN leading anchor Anderson says the concept of the show, which links topics by time, geography and theme, is aimed at trying to engage the viewer.

“With 24/7 news channels the viewers got a lot of what might be perceived as fairly random stories being thrown at them without too much context (…) Take a story like climate change and rather than throw the climate change, Copenhagen debate story at the viewer one week and then have one of our newsgatherers in Brazil the next week trying to re-engage the viewer, we’re trying to spend longer and get deeper and deal with a few topics in one hour and organise our newsgathering and planning bases accordingly,” explains Anderson.

Read the full article.

On December 8, 2009, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981, released its annual census of journalists imprisoned around the world. As of December 1st, 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists behind bars were being held, many without trial.

This year, freelancers make up 45% of the tally. This is an increase over 2008. China again holds the record for being the world’s worst jailer of journalists, a dubious distinction it has retained for 11 years in a row. Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma round out the top five countries which currently have reporters behing bars. Iran alone has imprisoned 23.

The CPJ says:

CPJ’s list is a snapshot of those incarcerated at midnight on December 1, 2009. It does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year. Journalists remain on CPJ’s list until the organization determines with reasonable certainty that they have been released or have died in custody.

Journalists who either disappear or are abducted by nonstate entities, including criminal gangs, rebels, or militant groups, are not included on the imprisoned list. Their cases are classified as “missing” or “abducted.”

Related CPJ Links:
Database of all imprisoned journalists
Detailed accounts of each imprisoned journalist
How to help journalists in prison

Follow CPJ on Twitter - @pressfreedom

Many journalists are making use of their iPhones to cover the news. Sometimes it’s just recording an interview, other times they shoot stills, usually for use online. Until recently, however, it hasn’t been possible to shoot video with an iPhone (my iPhone Life Magazine coverage here and here). And while there are any number of clever holders and mini tripods to help people take steadier photographs with their iPhones, until now, there hasn’t been anything like the OWLE (Optical Widget for Life Enhancement) Bubo.

Created specifically for the iPhone, the Bubo is an aluminum and silicone case combo which is designed to improve the iPHone’s audio and video capabilities. The stabilizing rig - which can be mounted onto a tripod - includes a high-quality Vericorder microphone and 37 mm wide-angle/macro lens and retails for U$129.99.

Each corner of the Bubo has a drilled hole so you can screw in anything you can find or make to enhance it (like this guy from Handheld Hollywood who made a neck strap after visiting the hardware store for some 1/4” x 2.5” eye bolts). Additionally, since the mount for the lens is a standard 37mm, you can mount any number of lenses there, and not just the one which comes with it.

Don’t worry about the no-flash-synching thing. There’s a shoe to mount a light. As well, the microphone can be replaced with one of your choosing. Probably, you can even plug in a wireless receiver and have the microphone itself elsewhere (hidden camera fun, anyone?).

It would be great to have an option where the Bubo ships just with the aluminum case and silicon holder for a reduced price. Oh, and other colours, too, please. I can’t wait to try one of these out!

Product Features:
* Anodized aluminum case improves iPhone camera with upgraded lens and boom mic
* Improves video or still shots
* Works with iPhone 3G or 3GS (However 3G requires additional app to shoot video and the quality is poor)
* iPhone fits inside included silicone case, then mounts inside the aluminum housing for full protection
* Constructed from a solid block of milled aluminum
* Shoe mount on top allows you to add camera accessories (flash will not work, since there is no way to sync it to the iPhone camera shutter)
* Four screw mounts on the corners of the case enable you to mount to a tripod
* Comes standard with 37mm lens threading, as well as a 0.45x Wide angle/macro combination lens
* Add any other lenses with a 37mm mount

View some stills shot with the OWLE and here are some videos (view more here on their YouTube channel):