Reporting: Already under fire, crime labs cut to the bone

February 23, 2010

There are serious questions about the credibility of nearly every kind of crime lab analysis, the conclusions of which often rest on unproven science filtered through the subjective judgment of technicians whose training and certification vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

And with crime labs struggling under backlogs that already reach back years in many cities and states, budget cuts driven by the recession are threatening to make credible crime scene analysis a lost art, law enforcement officials and forensic specialists say.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Reporting: Schools Rethink Bans on Cell Phones

February 3, 2010

As ever more powerful cell phones come closer to mimicking the laptop computers many pupils carry each day, teachers and administrators are wrestling with whether their utility as a teaching tool outweighs the disruptions they can pose in the classroom.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Reporting: Obama Takes on ‘Devastation’ of Recession

January 27, 2010

Declaring that “I do not accept second place for the United States of America,” President Barack Obama compared the economic crisis to the greatest challenges of the nation’s past, saying “history’s call” demanded a years-long freeze on huge chunks of popular government spending programs.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Apple's Tablet: A Vowel, not a Paradigm, Shift

January 27, 2010

So the iPad looks to be just a bigger iPod Touch: no Flash support, no multitasking, no camera. They took the "o" and made it an "a." What's surprising is that anyone is surprised. The techerati still doesn't get the Apple business model.

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Reporting: Apps Call, But Will Your Phone Answer?

January 9, 2010

Mobile software executives and analysts say the large number of incompatible wireless operating systems is the biggest impediment to turning mobile application development into the big moneymaking business it should and could be.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Reporting: Microsoft Generates Little Buzz in CES Opener

January 7, 2010

First the power went out at the International Consumer Electronics Show, and when it came back up, Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer did little to add to the electricity.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Reporting: Lack of Broadband Cripples Much of Rural America

December 28, 2009

In many rural areas, the “information superhighway” is really more like a one-lane dirt road. The least-served areas encompass entire states and regions, especially in the Plains and the Midwest, the parts of America that are the farthest from big urban centers: all of the Dakotas, eastern Montana, northern Minnesota, eastern Oregon, the Missouri-Iowa border and nearly all of Appalachia. That lack of service can leave rural residents and businesses at a real disadvantage.

Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)

Newspapers in Crisis: It Has Come to This ...

December 15, 2009

After 199 layoffs, The Miami Herald is now adding a link to all articles 137soliciting donations from readers. "We're putting it out there to see if it works, to see what the response is," a Herald glass officer says.

Fixing Android's Biggest Annoyance

December 11, 2009

As the user of a mobile phone running Google's Android OS, I've been exasperated by the browser's inability to handle bookmarklets — tiny pieces of javascript that you can run inside Web pages to mark up content, share pages, pump up navigation, etc.

If you're in the same boat, here's how to enable bookmarklets in Android: 

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Journalists' Quick Reference Guide

September 17, 2009

For the first time, I'm publishing the quick reference guide I've maintained in-house for many years. It includes many searches for government, statistical and news-related information directly from the page, along with miscellaneous conversions. ...

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Launching the Reader's Guide to Journalists

September 14, 2009