Karylle’s awful photo in Fruitas ad

Ever since Angel Locsin (the most beautiful woman in the universe) got into a relationship with Azkals star Phil Younghusband, I’ve turned my attentions elsewhere. Recently, I’ve become enamored with Karylle, singer-TV host and daughter of Zsa Zsa Padilla. During lunch breaks while waiting for our water tank to fill up, I would watch her ABS-CBN show. (When she’s not on a segment, I would switch the TV to Masterchef 3, Dog Whisperer,  and History shows like Storage Wars, Pawn Stars, and Kings of Restoration.)

Karylle looks so refreshing and young enough to be a college student. (She looks like the younger version of the second most beautiful woman in the universe I have referred to several times in my Salt and Light blog.) Karylle also seems to be very intelligent; one time, she mentioned the Barack Obama-Mitt Romney debates. On the negative side, her weight loss doesn’t suit her, and contact lenses make her look cross-eyed.

Last week, while at an Ever Gotesco branch, I walked by a Fruitas stand and I saw Karylle’s photo. The Fruitas ad showed her in a sleeveless, low cut, lavender green shirt. The photographer shot her from a high angle. Because the light source comes from the left (from Karylle’s vantage point, from her right), there are shadows on her face and body. Overall, her ad photo has dark tones.

My forte is photojournalism, not portraiture or advertising photography. But I think that the Fruitas ad photo fails to show Karylle’s beauty and in my opinion, will fail to attract customers for Fruitas. Karylle’s photo should have been shot in much lighter tones – to show her fair complexion and to entice people to buy Fruitas. If you remember my discussion on the elements of a photograph, light tones convey to the viewers a cheerful, open, and optimistic mood. The shadows in Karylle’s photo should have been avoided with front lighting. And a normal, eye level point of view should have been used instead of a high angle.

“Time is Nothing” (time lapse video of 25,000 miles across 17 countries in 290 seconds)

Photographer Kien Lam visited 17 countries in 343 days to create this time lapse video. He rode 19 planes, 58 buses, and 18 boats in his travels. He shot 6,237 pictures in all.

Background music is “Places and Faces” by his brother William (Metaphysika Sounds).

Visit the Around The World FAQ page.

Free ebook: Smashing Magazine 5th anniversary offer

This free ebook contains the best articles that have been published on Smashing Magazine in the last five years. It is available in PDF, ePUB and Mobipocket formats. Topics include:

• Thirty Usability Issues to Be Aware Of
• Ten Principles of Effective Web Design
• Clever JPEG Optimization Techniques
• Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices
• Ten Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
• Setting Up Photoshop for Web and iPhone Development
• The Ails of Typographic Anti-Aliasing
• Mastering Photoshop: Noise, Textures and Gradients
• Better User Experience With Storytelling
• The Beauty of Typography, Writing Systems and Calligraphy
• Web Designers, Don’t Do It Alone
• Making Your Mark on the Web Is Easier Than You Think
• Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How to Use It
• I Want to Be a Web Designer When I Grow Up
• Persuasion Triggers in Web Design
• What Font Should I Use?
• The Design Matrix: A Powerful Tool for Guiding Client Input
• Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed
• Dear Web Design Community, Where Have You Gone?
• Make Your Content Make a Difference
• Two Cats in a Sack: Designer-Developer Discord
• Print Loves Web

Sports Journalism Today, from AtGoogleTalks

Tim Kawakami (San Jose Mercury-News), King Kaufman (Salon.com, Bleacher Report), and Ethan Sherwood Strauss (Salon.com, ESPN TrueHoop, WarriorsWorld.net) discuss the state of sports journalism today. From traditional newspaper coverage to the competitive business of professional blogging, Tim, King, and Ethan share their experiences and give some insight into this high-profile industry. Each will speak for about 15 minutes, followed by a Q&A session.

Free PDF on journalism for the Internet

“Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive, A digital literacy guide for the information age”, by Mark Briggs (Assistant Managing Editor for Interactive News, The News Tribune) 

PDF English version now available for download; also available in Spanish or Portuguese. You can also order hard copies.
 
Topics include: Chapter 1: FTP, MB, RSS, Oh My

Chapter 2: Web 2.0

Chapter 3: Tools and Toys
Chapter 4: New Reporting Methods

Chapter 5: How to Blog

Chapter 6: How to Report News for the Web
Chapter 7: Digital Audio and Podcasting
Chapter 8: Shooting and Managing Digital Photos

Chapter 9: Shooting Video for News and Feature Stories

Chapter 10: Basic Video Editing
Chapter 11: Writing Scripts, Doing Voice-overs

For continuing discussion of new technology for journalists, check out Mark Briggs’ Journalism 2.0 site.

Using plain language in government websites; free book on website design and usability

Free website usability guidelines book, from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Throughout your Web design or redesign project, you should take advantage of what is already known about best practices for each step of the process. The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (PDF, 20.64MB) brings you these best practices compiled through an extensive process of research and review. (From usability.gov)

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Free journalism resources from www.hsj.org

“Reaching Generation Next: A News Media Guide to Creating Successful High School Partnerships” from ASNE by Lisa Frazier Page (PDF book how-to for editors, newspaper advisers and principals to come together to create good scholastic journalists; complete book 41mb; also available 200+ lesson plan archive for journalism teachers)

Chapter 1 Hooking Them Early: The Rewards of Investing in Scholastic Journalism (5.4 mb)

Chapter 2 Getting Started: Creating a Successful Print or Broadcast Partnership (9.2 mb)

Chapter 3 Resurrecting Scholastic Journalism: A Look Inside Some Model Newspaper-High School Training Programs (8.3 mb)

Chapter 4 Turning Students On To Television And Radio: Broadcast Partnerships That Work (5.6 mb)

Chapter 5 Teaching The Teachers: Print and Broadcast Training Programs for High School Teachers (5.8 mb)

Chapter 6 Resources (553kb)

Online youth sections of US newspapers

Alabama: The Tuscaloosa News, Pulse; California: The Modesto Bee, Buzzz; The Press Enterprise, Riverside, Teen Page; San Jose Mercury News, Read This; The Daily Press, Victorville, Fresh!nk; Colorado: Post-News Education, Colorado Kids; Florida: Florida Today, Melbourne, The Verge; The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach; Today's Teen; South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Teen Link;

Georgia; The Augusta Chronicle, Xtreme; Illinois: The Herald News, Joliet (and other area sister newspapers in the Suburban Chicago Newspaper group), Web Street Cafe; State Journal-Register, Springfield, Voice; Maine: Bangor Daily News, Youth; Blethen Maine Newspapers, 20 Below; Maryland: Carroll County Times, Westminster, Synergy; Massachusetts: The Sun Chronicle, Attleboro, The Page; The Republican, Springfield, UNlisted; Michigan: Detroit Free Press, Yak’s Corner; Missouri: The Kansas City Star, Teen Star;

New Jersey: The Record, Hackensack, Listen Up; The Jersey Journal, Jersey City, Teen Scene; Asbury Park Press, Neptune, Whatever; New Mexico: The Santa Fe New Mexican, Generation Next; New York: The Buffalo News, NeXt; North Carolina: The Daily News, Jacksonville, CyHigh; The Dispatch, Lexington, FYI; The News & Observer, Raleigh, NandoNext; Ohio: The Columbus Dispatch, Now!; Tribune Chronicle, Warren, Page One;

Oklahoma: Tulsa World, Tulsa, Satellite: Pennsylvania: Erie Times-News, Fresh Ink; Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown, Reality; Reading Eagle, Voices; York Blog, Teen Takeover; Tennessee: The Jackson Sun, CyHigh; Texas: San Antonio Express-News, Teen Team; Temple Daily Telegram, Underage Page; Waco Tribune-Herald, High School Hub; Virginia: The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, it!; The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, 757; The Roanoke Times, The Edge; Washington: The Spokesman Review, Spokane, The Vox Box; Yakima Herald-Republic, Unleashed

Free online books library for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast

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Daily writing tips for students, teachers and others

Whether you are a student, teacher, an attorney, manager, or blogger, writing skills are essential for your success. Considering the rise of the information age, they are even more important, as people are surrounded by e-mails, wikis, social networks and so on. It can be difficult to hone one’s writing skills within this fast paced environment. Daily Writing Tips is a blog where you will find simple yet effective tips to improve your writing.

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You can also measure your writing skills with DWT’s monthly updated tests. Current tests include Vocabulary Test 1, Spelling Test 1, Grammar Test 1, and Vocabulary Test 2.

You can get DWT via RSS Feed, or by email, and stay tuned for your writing tips!

The global village (Did you know 4.0)

Six in ten people around the world now have cell phone subscriptions, for an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with about 1 billion in 2002.80% of the world's population live in an area where they can use mobile phones. One billion new camera phones were shipped in 2008.

Thirty nine percent of Chinese Internet users adopt cell phones to surf the Web. Students are the main strength of mobile Internet users: 43.5 percent of them use their cell phones to read online news, download music, check email and perform a variety of other tasks.

In Japan and several other countries, more people access the Web through mobile devices than fixed personal computers, whose usage and sales are declining. In recent years the cellphone industry has seen surging growth in outskirts of China and India, helped by constantly falling phone and call prices, with cellphone vendors already eyeing inroads into Africa's countryside to keep up the growth. (From Web Evangelism Bulletin quoting from Reuters / Helsinki)

There are many innovative ways to use mobiles, as a Nonprofit Technology Network article explains.

How mobile phones are changing Somalia

A November 4, 2009 Reuters news story “Cheap mobile calls help more young couples elope” by Abdi Sheikh relates how mobile phones are changing Somali society.

Somali courtship was different in Hassan Aden’s day. When he was a teenager, you gave the girl’s parents 11 camels and an AK-47 assault rifle as bride price and then waited respectfully.

Now, the 55-year-old said, a mobile phone service that seems to be the only thing working in the failed Horn of Africa state is helping drive a rise in elopements, pregnancies out of marriage and a steady erosion of Somalia’s conservative values.

“The youth of today enjoy modern technology, fast transportation and free-of-charge marriages,” Aden, a store owner, told Reuters at a coffee shop in the capital Mogadishu.

“Today, even reasonable boys pay just $50 bride price and a copy of the holy Koran after making the girl pregnant or seeing her secretly for months.”

In a drought-ravaged land where rebels are trying to topple a fragile government, gun battles break out almost daily and nearly 20,000 civilians have been killed since the start of 2007, cheap mobile communications are one happy diversion.

The entrepreneurial spirit of Somalis, born out of two decades of anarchy, as well as an absence of taxes, have helped domestic mobile companies thrive despite the chaos.

Many older residents say the prevalence of handsets and such cheap tariffs -- among the lowest in the world -- is making the lives of youngsters unrecognizable. A month of local calls costs about $10. International calls can go for $0.30 a minute.

The cheap calls and extended mobile network in the Horn of Africa nation make it easier for Somalis to get in touch with willing partners and arrange quick assignations. (Read the complete article)