Category Archives: On Journalism and Media

A Terrible Beauty

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Alex

Published in 2000, A Terrible Beauty is defiantly a pre-internet book(1). In under 850 pages (under 775 if you discount the index), it gives the reader a history of the twentieth century’s defining ideas, from Marxism to Nazism, from Feminism to … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, On Journalism and Media, Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

You will be surprised how easy it is

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Alex

The cover of a magazine called Home Farmer, which I spotted while out and about at the weekend. I spend quite a lot of time looking at other magazine’s covers, and this one was quite something – brilliant use of … Continue reading →

Posted in On Journalism and Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

International Times

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Alex

The Guardian has a blog post up today reflecting on the radical/hippy/underground 60s newspaper The International Times, as an archive devoted to IT has just launched (although said archive appears to be down at the moment). Anyway, the Guardian blog … Continue reading →

Posted in Ephemera and links, On Journalism and Media, The Sixties | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Virtual reality, then and now

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Alex

In the 1980s and 1990s, the term ‘virtual reality’ was understood to mean the creation of reality inside the computer – and thus we would need to experience it using complex imaging and interaction systems (3D googles, cursors mapped to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Ephemera and links, Music, On Journalism and Media, Tech, Web | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Too much Photoshop

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Alex

When is too much in Photoshop? This article (translated from Danish) tells the story of a photographer who entered a competition, and was then asked to send unedited samples of his images. The article reproduces the pictures – before and … Continue reading →

Posted in On Journalism and Media, Photography | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Digg and the art of the headline

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Alex

[The entry has been cross posted from my work blog] When it comes to the web, there really aren’t many ways in which to gain readers for your site. Not that many practical and legal ones, anyway – sure, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Custom PC and Bit-Tech, On Journalism and Media | 1 Comment

It’s finally here: the new CustomPC.co.uk

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Alex

And I am so relieved. For the past 18 months or so, helping create a new website for Custom PC has been something of an obsession for me. I’ve talked endlessly about it on flights, in bars, in many, many … Continue reading →

Posted in In My Life, On Journalism and Media, Tech, Web | 2 Comments

An old school journalist does new media

Posted on June 21, 2007 by Alex

As I mentioned in my previous post about heading off to Computex with a bag weighed down with AV kit, at work, we’re really pushing on with expanding what we, technically a bunch of magazine journalists, do. When I joined, … Continue reading →

Posted in On Journalism and Media, Tech | 1 Comment

Computex 2007: Every bag tells a story

Posted on June 2, 2007 by Alex

Tomorrow I’m off to Taiwan for the Computex trade show; while Spring’s Cebit is physically bigger and CES is shinier, Computex is the one that really matters for Custom PC; its main focus is on PC components, and it’s in … Continue reading →

Posted in In My Life, On Journalism and Media | 1 Comment

Barry Miles and International Times: ‘The invisible insurrection of a million minds’

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Alex

Last week I went to a panel discussion on magazines; although I took notes on all three speakers, I ended up with loads from the talk by Barry Miles, co-founder of 60s underground paper International Times (Wikipedia). He talked at … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, On Journalism and Media, The Sixties | 3 Comments