Dipsolect.com

The other day, I had an interesting discussion in the pub with someone; they called me a ‘nerd’ and then immediately apologised profusely, which had me laughing – call me a dork (actually, no, don’t; that’s not one of my self-identifying traits), but being called a ‘geek’ or a ‘nerd’ is perfectly fine by me. Hell; The geek shall inherit the earth; it says so in the holy book.

Anyway; Via my freelancing work, I seem to be giving people on advice about lots of things which has nothing to do with my official area of expertise, which is being a writer. Specifically, I appear to have carved myself out a niche as a writer about photography; I’ve written, edited, and ghost-written a whole series of books on the subject, and am as we speak (technically, writing this article should probably be labelled as ‘procrastination’, but feh, the deadline is still SEVERAL HOURS away, so all is well in Dipsolectworld), writing another book, and doing a metric arse-tonne of freelance work as well. (more…)

iPhone 2.0 (that’s either the original or the 3G version) + BookShelf (£6.99 / $10) = a perfect eBook reader, which also has a built-in repository for public domain works, downloadable for free. Titles include Alice in Wonderland, Anna Karenina, Around the world in 80 days, A journey to the interior of the earth, A tale of two cities, A Christmas Carol… And that’s just the A’s! (more…)

Magazine Publishing is the act of putting a magazine into circulation in some way or another.

There are many different types of magazines, such as magazines published by manufacturers of goods (such as “Liv”, published by Volvo about Volvo products, promoting automotive safety and general Swedishness) or services (such as Reach, published by an UK train company). There are trade publications, which aim to inform businesses and traders (such as MotorTrader, which is distributed to car sales outlets and manufacturers in the UK). There are B2B publications, such as information newsletters or magazines published by Microsoft, distributed to their customers to keep them up to date. There are business-produced publication such as PC WORLD Magazine, for customers of the PC World chain of outlet stores. There are official independent magazines, such as official Playstation 2 magazine, which is produced under licence from Sony, but otherwise independent. And there are completely independent magazines, such as most of the ones you’ll see in a magazine shop.

Needless to say, a single write-up cannot cover all the different forms of magazines, nor all the specifics about one type of magazines, and all ways of funding them. This write-up will take a closer look at how a magazine comes into existence, how it is run, and how it all works behind the scenes. A lot of it is applicable also for newspapers and for different forms of magazines, but by and large, this write-up covers the inception, production and distribution of a large (100,000 copies plus), monthly magazine. (more…)

Radio is a peculiar form of communicating, in that it is one of the very few mass communication media that is perceived strictly as a one-to-one medium. It is important to keep this in mind, both with how you write the copy that is going on air, and the type of language you use: Unlike any other media, you can actually speak directly to a radio listener without it feeling un-natural.

Of course, only a minor proportion of the world’s population ever gets on the radio. Podcasting, however, is a different matter altogether: Podcasting.net, one of the largest podcasting directories in the world, is the harbour of roughly 35,000 podcasts, showing that this genre of radio is taking off on a serious way. Seeing as how podcasting is merely a smaller-scale, on-demand version of radio, all the tips in this write-up are applicable. (more…)

LinkedIn is a social networking site, just like MySpace. The big difference is that Linked In is focusing on professional networks, and is often described as a career-network for grown-ups.

LinkedIn is located in Palo Alto, California, and is funded by Greylock and Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firms behind Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, and Apple. LinkedIn’s CEO Reid Hoffman was formerly Executive Vice President of PayPal.

The philosophy behind LinkedIn is that you are more likely to conduct business with people you trust, and that you are more likely to trust people you know, or people you are connected to via somebody. This means that if you are looking for a good writer, and you one who is a friend of a friend, you can ask to get introduced, and then initiate a business arrangement. (more…)

Politicians, rockstars, royalty and other celebrities seem to favour the “no comment” line of defence over any other. But have you ever thought of why this is? Surely, flat-out denial must be the best defence?

Well, no, actually. The thing is, with today’s legal system, the “No Comment” comment is in fact a protection from the press on several different levels. (more…)

To what degree does journalism education benefit a career in print journalism looks at the way journalists are trained and how the various training schemes can help a journalist’s career.
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This essay will explain what journalism regulation is, and why it is important. It will draw a map of the most common forms of regulation in the UK, before analysing their strengths and weaknesses as both guardians and servants to a democratic society.
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"From this day, the painting is dead", Paul Delaroche exclaimed when he saw the first Daguerreotype in 1839. He turned out to be wrong about the bit about the art of painting being dead, but photography certainly had a profound impact on our way of life.
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This essay will outline the history of the Internet and news services available on the net, along with its positive aspects and pitfalls. It will then compare the medium of Internet news to that of other global news services, before discussing how the two affect one another. In the conclusion, this essay will try to ascertain what the future of Internet news is, and – as a corollary – what the place of other news media will be as Internet news becomes more popular.

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