HumidCity

I want to call out two blogger initiated relief campaigns for people suffering from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. First, the blogger Patrap who writes on a blog hosted at Weather Underground and frequently contributes in the comments on Dr. Jeff Master’s tropical weather blog, is organizing a truck of relief for Texas.

He is co-ordinating with a 501c3 so donations will be tax deductible, and working with a local blogger in the Galveston area to make sure the supplies are what is needed and get to people on the ground who need them most.

Since this is an effort coordinated by a fellow New Orleans blogger, I want to encourage the NOLA social media (bloggers and readers alike) to step up to assist Patrick in his effort.

The details are below:

Updated 4:27 pm with a new mailing address. Be sure to mark checks for Texas Hurricane Relief to ensure they are routed to Patrick’s effort.

We are coordinating a Relief Push for the Galveston area by Thursday.
We are renting a 16ft Budget truck to fill with relief supplies.
If you want to help you can contact Patrap via the Weather Underground site mail (if you have a Wunderground.com login), or you can donate cash support: Read the rest of this entry »

It would seem we have a new blogger here in New Orleans, a recent transplant named Jezebel. From the first post I can tell its going to be refreshing seeing the city through new eyes. Check it out and say hello, it won’t hurt. This time…

Loki, HumidCity Founder

Regular readers are well aware that I, like each of the other writers on HumidCity, am the sole person responsible for my own words. In no way do they reflect the opinions of any of my employers or clients.

That said I am happy to announce that I will now be blogging for the Open Society Institute’s Katrina: An Unnatural Disaster. While my more *ahem* strident opinions will remain on this forum where they belong I will now be able to continue to document and fight for the rebuild with a Webby Award winning platform. Come on out and play.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

According to Matt MacBride, a man my hat is always tipped towards, the head of the Corps of Engineers, Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, has started a blog:

https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/Blog/default.aspx

There is only one post up so far, and it is about Iraq not the Gulf Coast. Still, I think it is damn important that we all take advantage of the opportunity to at least have our say in a new public forum

I know I will be stopping by with pointed questions, and I hope that people from around the U.S. (perhaps folks who live near those 137 levees that are not up to snuff across the country) chime in as well.

[EDIT: here is a link to the Corps Press Release and here is an alternate link if the one above does not work -loki]

Loki
Founder, HumidCity

7am tomorrow I head out towards the Fairgrounds as Jazz Fest launches. This year is going to be very busy as I am not only acting as AP to the Program Manager for the continuous live broadcast / webcast (stream here) of the event, but I am also cordinating and producing a group blog of postings by the DJ’s, myself, and possibly a few others.

It will be a nonstop run unitl 2am Monday night when we wrap Piano Night. Then its the prep and craziness of weekend two.   By the way, for my out of town friends who may have escaped exposure to it WWOZ is worth checking out, its not like any other station on earth and its all New Orleans sound. Check out the Wiki , The Site , The Flickr Photo  Group, and (of course) wwoz_90_7fm

I should hopefully have some good pics and stories to share when its all over, in the meantime I will be out of the loop until after the first weekend of May.

I am repeatedly asked about what tools I use in blogging, and for advice on how to do so more easily and effectively. The following is a rundown on useful web based tools that I use on a regular basis which I offer as a semi-comprehensive answer to these questions.

Flickr - Lets start with something colorful, like pictures. I use Flickr, and wholeheartedly recommend it. The free version is useful although limited. On the good side the paid version is only $25 a year. With a paid account you have 2 GB of upload for pictures and can store a near infinite number of them. My own account has over 10,000 images. It integrates a number of useful features, but the two most important for a blogger are the ability to blog an image directly from with Flickr and the ability to instantly generate source code for inserting images into posts in your normal editor.

Picnik - This is an online image editor which can pull an image directly out of your Flickr account and allow you to edit it. Its no Photshop, but its really good for basics like brightness, contrast, sepiatone, etc. When you are done you can either overwrite your original image or add it as a new one. Picnik fully supports image tagging and Flickr sets.

Flickr Toys - Another wonderful resource that ties directly into your Flickr Photostream. Its actually a collection of image manipulation toys thta allow you to do a number of things. You can make motivational posters, magazine covers, trading cards, and more. Tons of fun and terrific for those with a satirical bent.

Flock - Flock is a new browser, built on the Firefox core (if you are still using IE check out Flock and Firefox, you will switch I promise you!). It is a beautiful tool for a blogger. It has a built in feed reader which you can load up with feeds from sites you constantly refer to using a simple drag and drop interface. It also can integrate your Flickr or Photobucket pictures, showing them in a top bar where they can easily be dragged into posts. If you use del.icio.us (a social bookmarking service), the bookmarks can be configured to post to your online bookmarks. It also has a built in blog editor (which I do not use, see the write up on Performancing below).

Performancing - this is a blog editor extension for Firefox and Flock. It can be configured to post to multiple blogs on multiple platforms ranging from Blogger and LiveJournal to WordPress (there is even a MySpace plugin for it) While you’re in your browser just hit F8 and it opens in the lower half of your browser window. Using this in Flock with the photobar and the newsreader makes it extermely easy to craft a detailed post with pictures and attributed quotes. It is the only editor I use lately.

Hopefully this will be useful to someone out there. If it is let me know. If you have something to add that I missed let me know.
Now all you need is something to say…

Once more I have been invited to be a guest on BBC Radio Five’s Pods and Blogs show this evening to speak about the subject of our recent ills. I will post a link to the particular show once I have one.

EDIT: The interview will be at 8:30 pm CST and I will be joined by Maitri, if you get Radio Five give it a listen. If not it will be accessible from the link above  soon afeterwards.

I fired up the laptop to rant and rail about the things that are destroying my city. Before I could I got diverted by an email detailing a venomous online postfest on another blog I read. Reading through it was enough to force a resolve on my own part, to make this a positive post. With that in mind I am going to give a little detail on an organization I am working with here in the city called ThinkNOLA. I have been asked about them a few times lately and figured presenting the data here would enlighten a lot of people.

Capacity Building : We are trying to teach nonprofit organizations how to publish information so that people can find it, and how to use the Internet as office space.

Think New Orleans shows organizations how to share information with their constituents, we show how to lead discussions in public forums that attract participation, we show how to organize events with calendaring tools and authoring tools, how to create living documentsthrough collaborative authoring in a web accessible forum.

With the Internet Workshops, Think New Orleans creates a collaborative environment where nonprofit and neighborhood organizations can share knowledge, publish information, and develop skills and strategies to employ the Internet in the rebuilding or New Orleans.

I have been working a lot with a great new nonprofit (waiting on the 509A-educational nonprofit to go through) called ThinkNOLA. Last week we launched our first workshop, Web Publishing 101, aimed at bringing the tools of the internet to community and civic organizations here in the New Orleans area.

We are organizing local bloggers and other web based publishers and activists in order to create a positive force for improving our battered city. With this in mind we have formed a group of blogging “elves,” people who are actively assisting those new to the medium in getting their information out.

We are also launching a New Orleans Wiki, an interactive information base where people can go to find important community information and resources as well as being able to easily add their own. In the words of Alan Gutierrez, the man behind ThinkNOLA and the NOLA Wiki, “…nine months later, I see that there is still a online civic resource that is neighborhood focused, and in the hands of the citizens. Please help me build the Think New Orleans Wiki. A web site that any citizen or friend can edit.”
What we need now is help. People with time they are willing to contribute to help us as Elves, to help with the Wiki, to help us use this technology as a force with which to build community where we need it most. If you are willing to assist us please leave a note in the comments section here and we will contact you.

Thanks in avance to everyone willing to join us as we do our digital best to rebuild New Orleans. Get wired!

California Appeals court has now overturned that ruling, clearly saying that web publications are covered under the same protections as offline publications. Hah! So there!

I would like to announce the launch of two companion or annex sites as part of the Humid City project:

• Humid City on MySpace - Networked heavily into the New Orleans art and music scenes, this space will probably be the center of our work with helping revive the scene here. Those of you who remember the Silver Machine will feel right at home there, those who do not should check it out!
• Humid City on LiveJournal -  Bloggers write to people, LiveJournal people intereact and discuss things. This community will try to bridge the gap and provide a “sitting around the coffeeshop/bar,” atmosphere for conversations relevant to New Orleanians both here in the Forbidden Zone and beyond.

It is my hope to use the combination of these three platforms to create unity and a free flow of pertinent information while enhancing our sense of community.

Come by and see us. Get involved. New Orleans is important.