Posted on

Plex just keeps getting better

I’ve been using Plex for several months now and it just got news.

Coupled with the iOS app, I use it as a personal Spotify. I find it less compelling for streaming video, but I don’t own a lot of video to stream. It does photos, but there may be better alternatives. it is a great way to organize all media.

I don’t think it’s a Netflix or Amazon Video competitor, but the addition of news services does make it even more useful.

I use it on a QNAP NAS, but there are number of ways to host your own Plex server, including a cloud option. Check it out.

Posted on

Journalist training opp coming up in Knoxville

Journalism Writing Workshop with Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute on Saturday, October 7, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., Scripps Convergence Lab, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To register, contact contact Brenda Heidt at brenda@tabtn.org, or (615) 365-1840.
Posted on

Can I take photos of public records?

Even Tennessee lawmakers sometimes tire of government open records silliness.

During a meeting of the Tennessee Legislature’s Joint Government Operations Committee earlier this week, Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, asked representatives of the Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury, the Department of Transportation and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to ensure their open records policies allow residents to take photographs of public.

Posted on

The music business is back; are there clues for news?

The music business has been growing for the last few years after going into a decline in 1999. And it doesn’t have to do with buying MP3s .

The news and music industries have long been compared; they were disrupted by the Internet at about the same time and forever changed.

Are there still lessons to be learned between the two industries. Would a “Spotify model” work for news? Some efforts have been tried and failed from traditional media companies, the tech powers that control the platforms and entrepreneurial startups.

Music Sales by format