Mmm, shiny. And yes, I wanted one instantly. It made the internet look stunningly crisp, and rendered photos in vivid clarity. I was a little bit smitten, even if I did agree with what Charlie Brooker had previously written about it being just heavy enough to make your arm ache a little bit after a while.

Common sense soon prevailed, though: I have no real use for an iPad.

Surfing the web? I have a laptop – and an iPod Touch, which I use if I’m in a hurry. Video? Again, there’s the laptop for that, not to mention the TV. Apps and games? iPod again. Music? Once more,  the iPod prevails. Apparently, you can use it to assist surgery – but there’s little chance that I’ll be cutting people open just yet. My last post was on my love of print as a medium for magazines, so I’m left with just one possible use for my hypothetical iPad: as an e-reader.

This is my favourite book:

It’s dog-eared and slightly torn; the corners of its pages have been folded over numerous times. It is a book that has been well-loved, in the same way that an old teddy has. It’s been leant out to family, friends, housemates (it’s a book I get very evangelical about: go and read it, if you haven’t already done so). You can’t do that with an e-book, nor can you simply browse a bookshop, idly scanning blurbs and admiring cover art; for these reasons, a Kindle convert I am not.

As I’m currently writing a feature on the iPad, I interviewed Rory Cellan-Jones this morning. He told me that he thinks people who buy the iPad will find a use for it, even if just because they’ve spent so much money on the purchase – but he thinks that they might spent a while puzzling before finding this use.

I do sort of still lust after one, mind.

While it’s amazing that you can immediately see videos of the events that are being discussed in articles (incidentally, a format like this would also translate brilliantly for a music magazine), I can’t deny that I’m still in love with print. I’m not planning to stage a one-woman resistance against the digital revolution – that would be more than a little ironic, given that I’m currently writing a blog post – but I do still prefer the tangibility of magazines as they currently stand.

I’m a bit of a print geek; I even went on a trip about a year or so ago to where our student paper was printed. I found it irrationally exciting – I mean, look at all the PAPER!

Masses and masses of paper, making for three happy hacks...

We had a lecture on paper last Friday from UPM‘s Terry Parry; it was amazing.  There was so much to consider that I’d never even really consciously thought about. Obviously you want your choice of paper to reflect your magazine’s brand identity, but I’d never really considered the fine-tuning which goes into it.

My favourite paper? I really like what Little White Lies is printed on; it’s really thick and substantial, and has a lovely, distinctive feel to it. I, and many others, could probably tell the magazine by feel alone; the paper becomes part of your concept of the LWL experience.

But, while I am a massive fan of the physical, tactile nature of magazines, I am also aware that magazines will need to start doing something different in order to ensure their survival in the face of declining ABC figures. Esquire is a brilliant title when it comes to experimentation, having produced the world’s first e-ink cover, as well as an “augmented reality” issue and a hardcover issue. It’s innovation such as this which marks the title out as one to watch.

I’m not averse to change, not by a long shot; I’m averse to losing the beauty of magazines as a physical entity.

Cardiff currently has an incredibly vibrant local music scene

Until fairly recently, things didn’t look good for live music in Cardiff. The Globe, a relatively new venue on Albany Road, had been threatened with closure after noise complaints, and there were perennial rumours that Womanby Street’s Clwb Ifor Bach could go the same way. The worst blow, though, to the city’s music scene, was the February 2009 closure of the Bay’s most popular venue, The Point.

But then came November, and some fresh life was breathed into Cardiff’s music scene with the opening of two new venues – Cardiff Arts Institute and the re-opened Coal Exchange. Music fans across South Wales simultaneously let out a gasp of excitement and a sigh of relief.

The Coal Exchange, on November 1, was the first of the two venues to open. The building, which was originally constructed during the Victorian period, was used as a live music venue from the 1980s until it closed in October 2007.

Coal Exchange spokesperson Fran Morgan explains the building’s closure and subsequent re-opening: “Macob own the building, and they were due to do a re-development [into flats and offices] but they decided it wasn’t a good idea in the current climate. There are no more plans to re-develop drawn up at the moment; we’re very pleased, very excited, with being back open.”

Mount Stuart Square's Coal Exchange building, when in use as a trade centre, was allegedly the site of the world's first million-pound deal

The 1,000-capacity venue played host to its first gig on November 5 – Alabama 3, who were, in a fluke of symmetry, the last band to play the venue on 27 September 2007, before it closed its doors for seemingly the last time. Since then, the venue has managed to attract gigs from some big names, including Welsh favourites Super Furry Animals and one of just two UK dates from American supergroup Monsters of Folk.

The Coal Exchange is currently hosting two to three gigs per week

Life-long Cardiff resident and percussionist in local band Cat Mouse Cat, Robin Morgan, is excited about the possibilities that this signals for the future: “The Coal Exchange opening back up was quite a good time for music – the fact that it closed down and opened back up is promising for the future.”

Robin also feels that this sense of regeneration is reinforced by the November 5 opening of Cardiff Arts Institute on Park Place. “The scene’s emphasis is on new music, but also on new Welsh music,” he explains. ” It’s got to be promoted and there are Cardiff bands coming up through that system.”

Cardiff Arts Institute describes itself as a "canteen, social club and music room"

The quirkily-decorated bar-come-venue’s manifesto places emphasis upon stimulation and innovation, as well as upon the nurturing of new talent.

The Arts Institute encourages creative engagement such as the colouring-in of menus (coloured pencils are provided!) and even has its own ping-pong table

CAI puts on a lot of live music nights featuring local bands like Cat Mouse Cat, Decimals and King Louis Collective. Heath-born Cardiff resident Paul Stollery describes the venue as, “a bit different from your average venue, which can only be a good thing.”

With this influx of new venues, many are positive about the state of Cardiff’s music scene. Cardiff has become a formidable musical presence within the UK, partially thanks to the rise of mainstream bands such as Los Campesinos! and The Automatic, and partially thanks to the Huw Stephens-curated Swn festival which takes over a plethora of the city’s venues for three days each autumn.

Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens talks about Swn festival and the Cardiff music scene

But will Cardiff be able to sustain these new venues in the current economic climate? Paul isn’t entirely sure: “I think there’s a chance we could see a venue go, but mainly I think Cardiff has just been unlucky. I hope that as new venues open they will be able to address the problem.”

He does, however, feel that seemingly negative events for the city’s live music scene may have proven to be blessings in disguise. “Although it was quite sad to see The Point go, I think that if it hadn’t closed there wouldn’t have been the opportunity for the Coal Exchange and CAI to open,” he explains. “For every door that closes, there’s a window that opens.”

This optimism is echoed by Robin: “I think The Point closing definitely showed that music, despite being an escape, can also raise a lot of emotion in people. It has to be preserved and people have to put an effort into that preservation.”

These are the current venues open in Cardiff:

Green points signal small venues; yellow points signal medium-sized venues; red points signal large venues.

Computer-aided reporting (or CAR, if you’re one of those who likes an acronym for everything) is, apparently a fairly new phenomenon in the UK. It’s been kicking about for a fair while over in the USA, but has only really hit our shores in the past few years.

I find this quite surprising.

I know that “computer-aided reporting” is quite a clumsy, technical-sounding phrase, and I’m sure that the fact it’s a jargon-esque enough name to have an acronym is probably enough to put some people off, but the concept is actually a pretty simple one. It’s just using computer programmes to manipulate data so that you can get useful statistics for your journalism.

Not even especially complicated computer programmes – apparently a lot of journalists just use fairly standard spreadsheet stuff like Microsoft Excel. I know, I know: it’s all very well to denounce it as not being rocket science while I probably couldn’t do it myself. I’ll happily stand up and admit that I’ve not used Excel since the stressful days of ICT GCSE coursework, and even then a lot of it was done by our teacher.

But the point is, a lot of other people can use Excel. The fact that I can’t, without a bit of help, do something myself doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s hard; I sometimes need help with the tumble drier, and they’re widely accepted as an easy-to-use household appliance.

It’s not getting people’s heads around the computing aspect of it which baffles me – more the fact that nobody’s come up with the idea before. The Freedom of Information Act was originally passed in 2000; we’re now almost into 2010. This means we’ve had pretty much a decade of being able to find out just about anything we like. Well, there are probably some exceptions to that, but you get the picture; it’s still brilliant.

Figures may not be the most interesting thing in the world, but they can conceal – and, when looked at in the right way, reveal -some incredible secrets. Just look at the MPs’ expenses scandal, for instance. It’s certainly worth a bit of boredom for a scoop of that scale.

CAR is definitely something to be embraced. I’m just surprised it’s taken us this long.

We live in an era of free news, don’t we? Simple answer: yes. Simple answer: no. Honest answer: sort of. Honest answer: maybe not for much longer.

Journalism has to come from somewhere; those lovely written words don’t just materialise from thin air. Journalists, just like everyone else, have bills to pay and mouths to feed.

Much as we’re used to – and love – being able to read the content from our favourite newspapers online, it’s quite likely that we will have start paying for it. The backlash has (potentially) begun.

We had a lecture yesterday from Robert Andrews, the UK editor of PaidContent UK, in which it was suggested that most people would really rather not pay, though.

If they are going to have to pay, though, most would rather pay through a subscription model. I can definitely see the logic in this: I don’t trust myself not to accidentally run up a massive bill when using micropayments, and day passes just seem like a bit too much of a fuss.

So yes, a subscription it would definitely be for me. If they were to put up a paywall on the Guardian website (not likely at all, but I’m speaking hypothetically here), I’d subscribe: I use the site enough that it would be daft to do otherwise.

I did think it was interesting that Robert told us that quite a lot of newspapers are looking simply to preserve their brand of journalism in whatever form, be it online or in print. I think this is sensible, but if the end of print is nigh I will be very sad; I think it could signal the end of variety.

As I’ve already said, I like the Guardian; it’s certainly my paper of choice. I do, however, also quite like reading the Mail‘s website, even if just to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of some of the articles. I also quite like some of the opinion pieces in the Times. Sometimes I read the Independent.

If print editions continue to survive and I choose not to subscribe, I can simply pick which print copy I want to buy based upon my mood. Most days I’ll go with my paper of choice (as everyone tends to), but I’ll be able to choose.

If there are no print editions, and I’m a signed-up, paid-up member of one paper’s website, will I carry on shopping around for my articles? Highly doutbful, and I think that’s quite sad.

Not everyone I know is a fan of blogging, though many of my friends are slowly warming to it. Some people are even downright suspicious of blogging and, particularly, its spin-off, Twitter. Personally I’ve always really enjoyed it (I love writing, and it’s just another way of getting to write) but there’s no denying that bloggers have got somewhat of bad reputation in certain circles.

It was really refreshing, then, to have a lecture from Joanna Geary – web development editor at the Times. She’s been blogging for years and pretty much got her job as a result of her blog.

While obviously this will have taken an element of luck and a natural nous for blogging which not all of us will have been blessed with, it’s really encouraging to hear that blogging can be an exercise in career development as well as just a pet project.

I suppose it shouldn’t really come as that much of a surprise. Blogging is a way of getting your writing out into the public domain, and so there’s always the chance that someone of consequence might see it. Not that many people actually read my posts, of course (although my music blog did receive a brief flurry of attention when it was featured on the WordPress front page for 24 hours last week, rocketing my blog stats from a daily maximum of 17 views to nearly 700.)

Years ago, I read that the wonderful Andrew Collins first got invited into the NME offices back in the ’80s on the strength of a fanzine he’d put together. It was what got his foot into the door, and he eventually ended up as their features editor, as well as going on to edit Q.

In a world in which everything can be found online, who’s to say that blogs aren’t the new fanzines? After all, the vast majority of them are created on a very lo-fi basis, by people who genuinely care about what they’re writing about. They’re not something to be suspicious of; they’re something to be embraced.

Can I have a job now, please?

I think I am starting to get the message: technology is a good thing. I already knew this; I am already the type of person who winds themselves up into a tizz if they leave their phone at home, who despairs when their iPod runs out of battery. I am a child of the modern age, after all, even if I am a Luddite compared to some.

So, while I am consistently awed by the level of speakers who deign to come and talk to us lowly Cardiff postgrads (not to mention constantly amused by their insistence on tweeting photos of us), I am a bit baffled by how we are constantly being told that technology is the future.

The best speakers we’ve had so far have showed us something different. I loved the lecture we had by Daniel Meadows, because he showed us something which I’d never seen before. Okay, what he was doing and the way in which he was doing so wasn’t tied to news journalism in the strictest sense, but it was something inventive and original which could then be applied to journalism.

Showing us how we can apply new things to our work is brilliant, and incredibly helpful. Of course it is – I happily admit that right now I am on the steepest learning curve of my life; I’m keen for any new knowledge or skills right now. But just raving to us about the miracles which technology has performed? Not so much.

Maybe, as my maglab colleague Aimee Steen writes, it’s because older journalists haven’t grown up with technology, whereas my generation has. Telling a 21-year-old about the wonders of the Internet is like telling Malcolm Tucker that swearing is an effective way of getting your point across.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones explained to us how he can now make a piece of video with the help of just one other person, whereas in the past he’d have needed a whole crew. That’s great, but we’ll be emerging into a world of journalism where a two-person crew is standard, rather than wondrous. So does it really help?

Technology may be the future of journalism, but surely this is only arguably because it’s seemingly the future towards which Western society is heading. After all, even my Nana knows how to send a “txt spk” message nowadays.

This was my initial view of “digital storytelling”. In a way, it still is – I’d much prefer to read a news story than watch one, hence my ambitions are, above all else, to do with print. In some ways, though, I’ve had a bit of a U-turn. This was thanks to Dr Daniel Meadows.

He gave us a lecture on digital storytelling and his involvement with it. The amount he has achieved in his life is, frankly, staggering. Aged 21, he bought an old-fashioned bus and used it to travel around the UK for over a year. He called it the ‘Free Photographic Omnibus’ and took nearly 1,000 portrait photographs which he gave to the photos’ subjects.

The photos have had an amazing knock-on effect, as well. Meadows tracked down many of the people he photographed, decades later. This amazing story is just mind-blowing, not to mention utterly heart-warming (an adjective which is usually enough to make me turn from anything).

Just imagine how much imagination, determination and inspiration a project like this would have taken. I’m 21, and I can barely even turn on the central heating system in my house without help from a housemate.

But that’s not all he’s done. Meadows didn’t even tell us about his involvement with Factory Records. Iconic photos of Joy Division, like this one?

Yeah, they were mainly taken by him.

Anyway, I’m digressing more than the adverts on Spotify.

Meadows has also been involved with a BBC project called Capture Wales, which gave local people help to make a short film of their own. I’m really not a fan of user-generated content (I’m of the Charlie Brooker school of opinion – the snowman you’ve just made is of no interest whatsoever to me whatsoever), but I do believe that everyone has a story to tell, no matter how insignificant that story can seem in the grand scheme of things. And who better to tell that story than the person themselves?

Most of the Capture Wales films have nothing to do with news. Quite a lot of them are actually quite abstract. Take this one, Elvis Died in my Bedroom, (which I love) for example. It’s not a news story, not by any stretch, but as a short film I think it works really well.

Some stories don’t expressly need to be told, but can be told for their own sake. There’s nothing wrong with doing something just for the hell of it, because you’re passionate about it, with no cynically-motivated reasons for doing so. I think we need to remember that more when it comes to digital storytelling.

And, do you know what? I really want to have a go for myself. I never thought I’d see myself typing that.

We had a lecture yesterday from Adam Tinworth, who is head of blogging at Reed Business Information and who blogs at One Man and His Blog. He’s been blogging for years and years as if his job depends on it (which it does, of course), and so is obviously far more of a an expert on these things than myself, who only dipped my toes into the murky waters of blogging at the end of last year.

But this doesn’t mean that I agreed with all that he had to say.

The idea of a ‘hierarchy of interest’ is, in itself, an interesting one. Opinion is apparently the most interesting thing, even more so than discussion (which seems to be the Holy Grail of blogging) – but there should be less of it in your blog posts than anything else. Because, said Adam, who should listen to your opinion? Why should anyone care? You’re just a nobody.

Well, frankly, they don’t have to – on either count. If someone doesn’t want to read your opinion, they don’t have to. I don’t have a gun to anybody’s head forcing them to read this (as my pitiful blog stats show). Just because I am a journalistic nobody, however, doesn’t mean that I’m not entitled to an opinion of my own. And it doesn’t even necessarily mean than my opinion is any less valid than anyone else’s.

I love opinions. Not just my own, of course; I’m interested in the opinions of lots of different people. I spent more than a year editing the Opinion section of gair rhydd, something which, despite occasionally feeling like a labour of love, I adored doing. I did this because I am interested in opinions, everyone’s opinions – far more than I’m interested in news. Rather than hearing about what’s going, I’d prefer to hear what people think about it.

So maybe I quite like reading opinion on blogs, and in something more than small quantities.

Also, some blogs are set up primarily so that people can share their opinions. Music blogs are a prime example of this. Hell, some websites, even, are founded upon opinion – Popjustice is basically just the wonderful Peter Robinson sharing his opinions on pop music, and it really works.

Then again, he is known for his expertise in the subject. But I do wonder where the line is drawn: at what point is a journalist, a blogger, or even a blogging journalist allowed to step out of the shade of being an opinion “nobody”?

But hey, that’s just my opinion; you didn’t have to read this.

It basically allows you to make pretty pictures by analysing text to see which words come up most frequently. The words which crop up the most are given greater prominence in the word “cloud” produced. Not that you do any of the analysing yourself, of course; that’s part of the wonder of technology.

It’s a fun way of comparing various stories or websites while essentially playing around with nice colours and words.

Here’s a Wordle picture based on the Daily Mail homepage:

And here’s one based on the Guardian homepage:

As you can see, the Mail has been focussing lately on controversy, abuse, arrests, students and sex, whereas the Guardian has been lending much more attention to the postal strikes, as words like “Royal” and “Mail” are coming up larger than the rest.

I’m a bit disappointed that the Daily Mail isn’t showing anything in larger letters, really. I wish the Express had an RSS feed, so that I could analyse it and see how much bigger “Diana” was than any other word.

I can, however, just use this from David Wulff’s Flickr to show the main basic areas of interest for the Express in a far more amusing fashion:

I’m not really sure about the practical journalistic uses for Wordle, but it’s definitely a lot of fun, and it does make really, really pretty pictures.

And you can use it for useless but funny things; like everyone else, I’ve been getting a fair amount of enjoyment from Wordling (is that a verb?) song lyrics. For example, the lyrics to ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths yield this:

I think that speaks for itself, really.