Christopher Kirby | What Am I Doing Here?

August 5, 2013

Yearbook Production Blog: Chapter 3

At the end of my previous yearbook production blog post, I said that there was another reason why I use MagCloud for the Ridge Road Elementary School yearbook, and here it is…

Once you upload your final PDF to the site, your publication instantly – and at no additional cost – becomes available to viewers in a variety of digital options. In addition to the printed magazine, you can also view the yearbook on the web using the MacCloud web viewer, on an iPad using the MagCloud app, or you can download a PDF to any iOS, Android or WebOS device.

July 30, 2013

Yearbook Production Blog: Chapter 2

I was very excited when I saw that the school yearbook I just finished had been featured on MagCloud’s homepage under their “What We Like” section. It’s always nice to have your work recognized and appreciated by others.

What is MagCloud?

MacCloud is the print-on-demand service that I have been using for the last three years to handle production of the Ridge Road Elementary School yearbooks. Print-on-demand, for those of you who don’t know, simply means that instead of having to print a large quantity of yearbooks all at once, they’re printed one-at-a-time as needed. You can literally order a single copy of the yearbook if that’s all you want. No more having to estimate how many yearbook you’re going to sell and ordering a minimum of 500, only to have 200 still sitting in a closet years later.

July 22, 2013

Lets Talk About North Haven News

I’d like to talk a little bit about North Haven News – my local news website that I started almost 6 years ago as an experiment in hyperlocal journalism.

I’m a huge fan of video podcasts, and as far back as 2005 you could always find shows like Rocketboom, GeekBrief and Mobuzz TV on my iPod. Today, some of those shows are still around, some have new names and others have disappeared, but my love of the format is just as strong and I still consume about a half-dozen different videos on a daily basis.

Working at a television news station, I knew I could easily launch a similar show of my own, and two years after buying the domain name (yes, it took me that long to work up the courage to do it), the first episode of North Haven News went online with the idea that I would post a new video every other week where I would cover what was making headlines in our town.

July 8, 2013

App Review: Flipboard

I love Flipboard.

If I could only have one app on my iPad, this is it. Flipboard is, quite simply, an elegant and visually beautiful way of browsing content curated from the web and your social networks. Think of it as a constantly evolving magazine made up of all the stuff that interests you.

Flipboard lets readers “easily create sections around topics or people they care about. Choose from Flipboard’s suggested sections on topics such as sports, news, tech and style, with content hand-curated from popular and interesting Twitter feeds. Or, create an entirely new section by searching by topic, person or Twitter list to make Flipboard even more personal.”

July 1, 2013

SQPN Logo Animation

I’ve been a fan and a supporter of Fr. Roderick Vonhogen and SQPN since the day he launched his “Daily Breakfast” podcast – now known as “The Break.” My faith is important to me, and I appreciate and enjoy how he enthusiastically uses technology and new media as a way of spreading the good news and touching people’s lives.