This is an interactive chart that will update. Click on a county to get county level trends.
Chromebooks just got a lot more interesting
I’ve been using a Pixelbook for several months now. I thought it was a more versatile, powerful alternative to a high end iPad. And that, for the most part, has been true.
I have a number of Android and Chrome apps from Netflix to a browser-based SSH client. The variances from a PC keyboard took a bit of getting used to, but it works as a laptop and tablet and can stand up to watch movies.
I don’t have the pen; the consensus seems to be you don’t need it. I haven’t used Google Assistant much but then again, I don’t use Cortana much either. I did get a USB-C hub.
I got a KVM switch so I have it connected to a PC keyboard and mouse and a 26 inch monitor.
I’ve been able to mount network shares on my NAS, SSH to Amazon servers, connect to a Windows 10 machine with Chrome Remote Desktop.
I’ve stuck with the “stable channel” for upgrades and never put it in developer mode because I want the security features and simplicity.
So I didn’t try Crostini until it hit the latest stable OS release 69.
Project Crostini is a Linux container that allows Linux apps to be installed on the Chromebook like the popular Gimp image editor. You also get a Linux terminal window where you can do what you do at the Linux command line.
The ability to use it as a “Linux box” opens a whole new realm of possibilities not already solved by the Chrome browser, built-in apps and file manager, Google Drive and Google Suite, and Android apps.
It’s an incredibly powerful laptop weighing 2.4 pounds with not a lot of RAM or memory (in my case 8 gigs of RAM with a 256 gig solid drive).
It’s also usable offline, but definitely limited (but what computer isn’t these days?).
Chromebooks have come along way from just about the cheapest computer you could buy, good for surfing and email.
Free Facebook Journalism Project Workshop
The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists is bringing the Facebook Journalism Project to Knoxville.
Join us Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Knoxville News Sentinel, 2332 News Sentinel Drive. You must register in advance.
The workshop will cover tools journalists can use to help create and share incredible stories as well as offer advice on how to engage the public in stories about their community.
Lynn Walsh, a project manager at Trusting News Project and a past president of the Society of Professional Journalists, will host the training. She is a former investigative executive producer at KNSD-NBC in San Diego.
More details at ETSPJ website.
Google Tools training for journalists coming to Knoxville
Don’t miss an upcoming free training opportunity in Knoxville for journalists.
The East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is bringing SPJ’s Google Tools training to town on Saturday, June 2.
The four-hour session begins at 10 a.m. at the Scripps Lab, 1345 Circle Park Drive, on the University of Tennessee campus.
While free, registration is required. Sign up here: https://bit.ly/2IJ1cCR
Participants need to bring a laptop and phone to the session.
The instructor will be Mike Reilley, founder of SPJ’s Journalists Toolbox, a treasure-trove of journalism resources.
Reilley (@journtoolbox) is a visiting professor in data journalism and digital journalism at the University of Illinois-Chicago and is a consultant to national media organizations on digital innovation.
This innovative training is made possible by the Google News Initiative and the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Google News Initiative partnered with SPJ in 2015 to teach Google digital tools for news and storytelling at conferences, workshops and newsrooms across the country. Google and SPJ are committed to training as many journalists as possible.
This intensive course will help make you be a better digital journalist, teaching you how to take advantage of Internet sources for researching court cases, public data and news archives, among other sources. It is designed to improve the efficiency and efficacy of your in-depth research.
Here is an outline for the course.
10 a.m. to 10:55 a.m.: Google basics, Google Trends, Google Reverse Image Search and verification tools, Google Scholar. Fun with Google AutoDraw.com and what else is coming in AI with Google Lens.
11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.: Deep Dive Google MyMaps. Data scraping with Google Sheets, scraping .PDFs with Tabula. Google Public Data Explorer
12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m.: Lunch and learn: Mobile reporting tools, including Google Cardboard Camera and Google Streetview app.
1 p.m. to 2 p.m.: Google Earth Pro, Earth Engine Timelapse tool, Street View.
Have questions? Email me at jack@jacklail.com
Warren Buffett on the state of newspapers
“… we haven’t been able to solve it …”
SPJ Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie to speak in Knoxville
Alison Bethel McKenzie, the new executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists, will speak to the East Tennessee SPJ chapter on May 10.
McKenzie, the first African-American to serve as SPJ executive director, will speak at 7 p.m. at the Knoxville Entreprenuer Center, 17 Market Square Suite 10 (in the building where the Knoxville Chamber is).
She was named the 20th executive director of the national journalism organization in February.
A native of Miami, she was executive director of the International Press Institute for five years. The Institute is the world’s oldest global press freedom organization and is based in Vienna.
She was the first American, first woman and first African-American to to be its executive director since it was founded in 1950, according to an SPJ news release.
She has worked as a visiting professor of print and investigative journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore, India.
Bethel McKenzie was a Knight International Journalism Fellow in Ghana in 2008-09, managing director of the Nassau Guardian in the Bahamas in 2007 and executive editor of the Legal Times in Washington, D.C., in 2006-07.
She has also worked at The Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald.
Early in her career, she worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Louisiana, New York and Michigan. She was deputy business editor and senior assistant city editor at The Boston Globe and Washington Bureau Chief for The Detroit News.
Bethel McKenzie is a journalism graduate of Howard University She studied non-profit leadership at Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education and is nearing completion of an MBA in media leadership at the University of Cumbria (U.K.) in collaboration with the Robert F. Kennedy College (Switzerland).
Please join us on May 10.