Missing video

For those who came to the website looking for the video promised on the front page of today's print edition (the video of this year's extended season artist at SPAC), a quick apology and explanation:

I had trouble uploading the video last night from home (so as not to clog the network here at The Saratogian. They're large files and take a long time to upload here). When I tried again this morning, similar issues popped up. It seems to be with the Flash file (we upload each video in two formats: Windows Media and Flash).

Anyhow, I've redone the Flash file and am making another attempt at uploading right now, so with luck it will take. I promise, it's worth the wait, as the music Edmar Castaneda stroked from his Columbian harp is amazing.

Interesting article

For those who take interest in the happenings and trends of the Fourth Estate, particularly the business-side and how it affects the operational side, I direct you to an article I read yesterday in the current issue of The Atlantic.

The topic is David Simon, creator of the HBO series The Wire, now in it's fifth-season, and the fictional world he's created that could, in many respects, pass for a reflection of reality. However, it uses the sprawling backdrop of changes in the media industry over the past two decades or so to inform and examine the psyche of Simon's creation in a way I haven't seen other recent articles do (and there's been quite a few, since this is the last season). I point it out because I thought it might be an interesting angle our local media junkies would enjoy.

I've never seen the show. I don't have HBO, and I've never caught it when I'm visiting the folks. I may have to plunk down some cash for the full set of DVDs sometime, though, as the spate of recent articles has piqued my interest, and this one tipped me over the edge. Anyone want to loan me Season 1?

From archives to slammer

In what I term my "previous life," I worked for the NYS Cultural Education Center's Cultural Resource Survey Program. That's why I was a little shocked and somewhat appalled by the story of archivist-turned-thief Daniel D. Lorello.

I understand the allure of "old stuff." My suspicion is that every archaeologist, archivist, and historian, etc. views tangible pieces of the past as treasure, and is motivated (at least to some degree) to be able to find/maintain/work with that physical treasure (can you hear the strains of John Williams "Indiana Jones" theme?).

What I can't condone is the thought process that ends with a rationale for pawning off pieces of history that were pilfered from a public institution. After all, the value of such items isn't really in the objects themselves; It's about those intangible things they say about our history.

MLK at SSPL

I was behind the camera on Monday afternoon, shooting the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration event at the Saratoga Springs Public Library.

Pardon the use of the cliche, but it was a heartwarming event: the Community Room was jammed full of people to listen to the speakers, hear the student essayists chosen to read their pieces, and pay homage to King's vision of a better us. You can view all our video and written coverage of the event right here.

I have to say that in particular, I was really impressed with Joe Bruchac's words. The story about riding in a car down South during the Civil Rights movement, with two black activists from Africa, a white activist from Sweden, and a car full of occupants decked-out in Klan robes tailing behind them, was both amusing and alarming.

Jose Vanderburgh lent real emotion and steel to the words of King's "I Have a Dream," and essay-writer Lamont Washington turned some negative experiences into positive words and conviction.

It was a good program that radiated some very powerful emotion with a colorblind message: It spoke to how far our society has come, and how the struggle continues.

Doctor, my eyes

Several days before Christmas, my driver-side mirror got clipped while parked in Albany's Washington Park. Until yesterday, I'd been driving around with the the actual mirror in the passenger footwell and the remnants of the mangled plastic casing a constant reminder of how much I needed to get it fixed - especially in more dense traffic when lane changes could be a bit hairy without it.

As I drove off yesterday with my new mirror installed though, I realized that in its absence I had adjusted my own mechanics more significantly than I had realized. All the weeks I was trying to see what was going on behind the left side of my car, I was conscious of having to turn more fully in my seat to perform the over-shoulder look: With a mirror, this movement has always been more of a glance to confirm what I've seen in the reflection; without, though, it was full-scale visual assessment.

More subtle, though, was the fact that my eyes also seems to have adjusted, though at the time I was always fully aware of trying to glance in the mirror and seeing only black plastic and duct tape (left over from a futile attempt to temporarily mend the damage). As I pulled into traffic and went to change lanes yesterday afternoon after the repair, I surprised myself by consciously attempting to use the mirror with a quick optical flick, but not actually seeing the image reflected. My eyes didn't even pause on the mirror, but rather forced my head and body to pivot in the seat to more fully accommodate the new track they had become accustomed to following.

I mention this because it got me thinking about a conversation with a reader about a week ago, who complained that our new site was cluttered and visually confusing, which made it difficult to navigate. He said there were too many options competing for his eyes' attention, such as the banner ad under our masthead and navigation buttons.

He's entitled to his opinion, but I don't agree with him. I gathered from his vocation and opinions that he's very straight forward with his personal visual aesthetic (he spoke out against the decorative horizontal etchings in Mrs. London's windows, for example). That's fine by me, as I think "simplicity" and "elegance" are synonyms (I like the windows though. His complaint made me actually notice them).

Like all forms of printed media, you need multiple entry points to bring a reader in. On the newspaper page it may be a headline, a photo, a caption, a sidebar, or some other element that draws your eye and brings you to read the story (or not read it). The same is certainly true with a website, which doesn't have the luxury of tactile pages which you can flip through and scan quickly before settling in.

For it's flaws, our new website is, I think, pretty simple in its layout. I certainly don't think it's as visually cluttered as The Times Union's homepage, or even, for that matter, the BBC's. Then again, I look at it so many times a day, my eyes are quite comfortable looking it over, knowing where to go for the information I'm seeking. I'm willing to bet the same would be true if I used the TU's and BBC's website half as much as I use CNN's (which I find to be very clean visually, both before and after the redesign they implemented early last year. I think maybe I prefer navigation options above as opposed to on the sides).

Every person's eyes will be drawn to some aspect of a website over another. My eye is always drawn to a picture element, and as a result I make sure to map the "Feature tab" on the left side of the Saratogian's home page first. Another might be drawn by a larger headline, so I tend to map the "Featured story" on the right side of the page next, since that headline is larger than the other top stories.

Even when navigating confusing visual clutter on a page for the first time, a viewer will eventually learn where to look. When they access a page, their eye will go where it's been trained to go and, I dare say (certainly in my case), block out what they're not interested in looking at.

In an attempt to generate communication, let me pose you this question: Where do your eyes first fall when you bring up www.saratogian.com, or any other media website?

Not quite the Northway, but still some good traffic volume

I got a report from the AP video network outlining yesterday's (Tuesday's) video traffic on the site. It's the first site traffic report I've gotten in any form (still waiting on access to general traffic reports), but I thought it was pretty neat.

It both does, and does not, surprise me that the most viewed video on the site was the aftermath of the fire that claimed Joe Murphy's handcrafted Colonial-style home in Greenfield. (You can read the story here. Then, you can watch the video here.) It got 17 views, a full week after the incident. Incidentally, that house looked gorgeous, and the fact that it was build the "olde" fashioned way makes it more appealing to me. I'm a big fan of traditional crafts.

In second place was the Brides on Ice video, with 16 views. I didn't even post this video. It was shot by our sister paper in Troy, and appeared mysteriously on our site one day. I thought it was cute and fairly relevant to our readers, so I left it up.

In third place - and this definitely surprised me - with 11 views was video of speed stacking at St. Clements school. That story (which can be read here) was weeks ago, but I always thought it was a fun, cute video. At the very least, I had a lot of fun shooting the footage and putting it together.

People are still checking out the videos from the Saratoga Race Track preservation press conference, and even Stan Hudy's sports vids.

Now, those numbers may not seem astronomical, but the fact that the newest video is a week old but still got close to 20 views in one day makes me feel pretty good. I look forward to seeing traffic reports after new videos go up, to see how the numbers compare. I hope that what we're offering is of interest to readers, and I hope that with constructive feedback (beyond "Why is your site so slow?" and "You should die"), we can work together to develop and expand our offerings even more.

That being said, always feel free to e-mail me news tips, especially stories you think might lend themselves nicely to video: sshoemaker@saratogian.com

Writers wanted

I'm putting out an active call: We're looking for bloggers who want to to be linked to The Saratogian's website.

We’re looking for “topic blogs,” so if you have a fondness or passion for anything, I hope you'll consider writing about it for the paper’s website. From biking to baking, martial arts to marriage, crocheting to calligraphy: If you’re into it, others are too. So why not write about it and develop a community of like-minded folks?

We're also looking for perspective blogs, something that will give the writer's point of view from whatever vantage point they occupy: parent, active-duty soldier, world traveler, environmentalist, cheese fantatic and connoisseur, cigar afficionado living in an increasingly smoke-free world, purple people-eater, small-business owner, etc.

If you're interested but don't have a blog set up already, go ahead and set one up right here at blogger.com, then e-mail me the link and a short description with your blog's name and what it's about: sshoemaker@saratogian.com

And to answer the question below about whether the archive is coming back: I hope so, and I know that a fix is being worked on. Unfortunately, that's all I can offer right now.

On blogs and governors

Some of you (if there's anyone actually reading this) may have heard this on NPR's "Morning Edition" program the other week. They did a series of stories celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the term "blog."

I only caught the first and last stories in the series at the time, but found them informative and amusing.

As far as www.saratogian.com goes, today has gone pretty smoothly: No network issues smacking our newsroom in the kneecaps, and stories publishing to the site with minimal hassle. As a result I've been able to browse the wire and put up more AP stories and photos, filling in some of the pages that drop lower on my list of priorities (like our pro sports page) when it's a struggle just to get a single story on.

We've also provided readers with a copy of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's State of the State address, delivered earlier today.

I haven't had a chance to give it a good read, and I wasn't able to watch on TV, but I do know that a good portion of the speech was given over to discussing economic development. I know that Spitzer's drawn a lot of flak over the last few months, and I understand the arguments for and against the more contentious policies he was backing.

Irregardless, I'm excited to have a governor speaking so actively about economic revitalization in this state, and more importantly taking action on that talk. I'm a lifelong upstate New Yorker (born, raised, and educated), and in my previous career traveled all over the state. Prior to joining this paper, I was a reporter at The Recorder, in Amsterdam. Almost everywhere I've been in New York, I've seen the same thing: So many cities and towns are striving to regain a faded glory, or establish a new identity.

What I know of Spitzer's initiatives, especially his "City by City" campaign, gets me excited as a citizen of New York.

Let's hope we see some real results on the economic front.

Down time

Note: written about 1 p.m., finally posted about 3:20 p.m.

I realize that in blog (I hate the word, by the way) terms, I've gone ages without making a post.

Surprise, surprise, the JRC websites are undergoing technical issues. I figured I'd use that downtime to try and circumvent the fact that I can't publish anything to the site (or, if I can, the fact that the site can't be viewed right now) and kill however many birds I manage to hit with this one stone.

First, here's a quick rundown of what you can expect in tomorrow's paper:

- The Saratoga County Economic Opportunity Council is naming Julie Hoxsie as its new executive director.

- We'll find out who local politicians and politicos (I'm told there's a difference) are endorsing in the presidential race as primary season is officially upon us.

- Former city attorney Matt Dorsey will be vying for the gavel of the city court judge. He's holding a press conference today at 4 p.m. to announce his candidacy.

Speaking of technical issues, it's no secret that we've been plagued by them lately. For my part, most of last week was spent loading stories and photos that never made it to the site as a result of those misfortunes (both specific to the JRC websites and those that crippled us in-house).

That's one of the reasons you may see older headlines listed above fresh headlines. The structure with which stories publish to the site is essentially like stacking blocks: Stories get mapped on top of older stories. For example, yesterday's story under the "feature tab" on the home page was about the Wilton Preserve seeking more volunteers, complete with a lovely photo of a family cross-country skiing. Today, I mapped the story about the Saratoga County animal shelter to that same spot (complete with a lovely photo of a woman holding a cat - the same as ran on page 3A of today's paper).

That Wilton story is still there, though - it's just been superseded. If I were to remove the animal shelter story, the Wilton story would appear in that same place again. If I were to remove the Wilton story, whatever was mapped there prior to it would show up (the story about CDTA biodiesel buses, I believe).

Sometimes those older stories mistakenly get mapped above the newer stories when they get added to the site a day or two late (those four "tabs" on the left side of the page are simple enough to manage, but the headline listings are easier to get muddled when trying to insert old stories into their proper spot on the time line) .

Even more annoying is when I want to edit an older story that's already published to the site. For example, earlier today I realized that the photo I'd attached to Sunday's story about elder care wasn't loading, because I hadn't formatted it properly. When I corrected that mistake and went to reattach the corrected image to the story, I had to republish the story to the site for those corrections to take effect.

The catch is that if the story was marked to appear under "Top Stories" on any of the pages (for example, the Local News page), it would have prominently published there again. Naturally when a story is first loaded, it's marked as a "Top Story." In the natural progression, it gets bumped lower as newer stories get posted. But if it's republished under such circumstances, it'll bump back to the top.

It's something that can be avoided by making sure it's no longer marked as a "top story", but sometimes I don't realize the mistake has been made until I'm viewing a page (once it finally loads. Yes, I want to remind you that I feel your pain about our site's load time) and see an older headline standing out.

I'm still learning some of the finer points of the system tools that were developed for JRC's new sites, so hopefully this won't be as much of an issue moving forward. Still, I figured an explanation would be useful.