Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words. You can comment here or there.

This came about because column writer Jan Linley found my blog post (I Hate Brake Lights: 9 Braking Offenses) and agreed with my rant about brake lights. I talked with her for a while about my commuting habits. At the time, I didn't know that she would mention my videoblog at all. As a matter of fact, I released the specific video that she mentions, Tow-tally Screwed, after we had already talked earlier this year. When the photographer came out last month, I knew that my videos would be mentioned as I was told to bring my camera. There you have it.

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Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words. You can comment here or there.

Mobile websites are designed to use less graphics, Javascript, etc. so that sites load easily on mobile devices including cell phones, PDAs, etc. Granted these sites are designed to be lighter versions of the actual websites, I've found that the absence of certain features have to be an oversight or design flaw.

My next example is Flickr. I took a photo of the Caribbean with my cellphone and sent it to Flickr. The way I sent the photo set it to private so I logged in to Flickr from my phone to change it. Flickr showed me that the photo is private but did not give me an option to change this setting. Flickr does allow me to add comments and the like through its mobile site.

I also used Yahoo!Mail and GMail's mobile sites while on vacation. Yahoo!Mail was more reliable but it was down for an entire day. (I know I shouldn't have been looking at it on vacation anyway.) I normally have trouble connecting to GMail's mobile site so I was surprised that I was able to connect to it. When I was able to connect to it I had no problems.

Surprisingly, I had few problems connecting to Twitter's mobile site (when it was up). My only issue with it is that I am not able to see replies and direct messages from the mobile site. Twitter does, however, allow me choose whether or not I access the normal site or the mobile site so I still have access to those features.

My main problem with mobiles sites is when sites use browser detection to automatically send me to the mobile site and then the mobile site doesn't have all the options available. My suggestions are simple: 1) If you use browser detection to send people to your mobile site, give us a choice on the mobile site to use the normal site. 2) Add commonly used features to the mobile site.

As an aside: Since I did not experience this on the Blackberry, I'm wondering what about its browser is different that the browser detectors don't treat it as a mobile device. I ran into problems with this when I actually wanted to go to United's mobile site to find out where my connecting gate was in Denver as the actual site was taking too long to load.

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Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words. You can comment here or there.

I've got several photos of the beach (La Playa de Boca Chica) and the pretty blue water. I also have some photos from the Santo Domingo city tour and the "safari" tour.

My only regret is that I did not have a chance to check to make sure I had cleared my second memory card. I didn't so I was forced to use my other camera after visiting the waterfall.

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Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words. You can comment here or there.

I feel like I'm just a few steps away from rubbing two sticks together - well maybe not that bad. MrFresh captured me a few weeks ago at PodCampDC doing something I did often - reading email, tweets, browsing online, etc. with my Blackberry.

Now I'm in Chesapeake, Virginia, for the weekend and I have to admit that I miss that connectivity. So I have fashioned together my Palm LifeDrive and my Motorola RAZR to get online. I'm using the RAZR as a modem via a Bluetooth connection to the LifeDrive. I admit that it is slow but it's faster than trying to use the browser on the phone and definitely easier to enter text. Also, I can no longer use GMail mobile or the GMail app on the RAZR itself. I haven't looked into it so I don't know why.

I did consider buying my own Blackberry but my new employer will most likely supply me with one when I start in June. The device I really want is the iPhone but I would like to be able to use it on T-Mobile. I am not willing to shell out all the money for an unlocked one or willing to destroy one in an attempt to unlock it, so I wait. Though, if the rumors are true about AT&T lowering the price by $200 when the 3G models come out, I may no longer be able to resist the AT&T bandwagon.

I have a few more trips planned before June so there are going to be more instances when I have to use this combination to get online if WiFi is not available. But it should be okay as I did this when I was in Argentina on vacation last year. I'll probably do it in the Dominican Republic later this month as well. Maybe I'll learn to appreciate a less connected life. Who knows?

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Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words. You can comment here or there.

I had the opportunity to attend screening of The Souls of Black Girls
as a part of the Urban Film Series last night. The film produced by Daphne Valerius questions whether women of color suffer from a self image disorder as a result of media images. It features discussions with teenage girls as well as the familiar faces of actresses Juanita Jennings, Regina King, Amelia Marshall and Jada Pinkett Smith; PBS's Washington Week moderator, Gwen Ifill; and rapper/activist Chuck D.

The film's premise is that Black girls and girls of color in general are given two images to aspire to by the media: 1) the European standard of beauty and 2) the video vixen which essentially equates to a Black prostitute. The girls see that they don't fit the standard of European beauty so they manipulate themselves in an effort to fit that image or gravitate to what looks most like them - the video vixen. In heartfelt interviews, the teenage girls intimate that because what is considered beautiful on TV, in movies, in magazines and the like, looks nothing like them, they feel that they must be ugly. The famous guests give a Hollywood perspective as to which images of Black women are shown. Images that challenge the status quo which are often more realistic are not chosen because executives making the decisions believe they don't sell.

Valerius' piece leaves us with the message that in order to counter these images we must hold ourselves accountable for being complicit in promoting them and also for putting positive and realistic images out there. The documentary is a must see not only for girls and women but also for boys and men.

Valerius started this film as a research project at St. Johns University as a Ronald McNair Scholar . Her motivation for studying this subject was that she too as a girl felt that she wasn't pretty because the images of women in the media looked nothing like her. At that time she had no idea that she would eventually make a documentary based on that research. She went on to make the film as her final project in the broadcast journalism masters program at Emerson College.

Visit the site for listings of screenings in your area. Screenings can also be requested through the site.

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JS Online: African Hut takes a break in business

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.a...

For 15 years, Yinka and Moji Adedokun have served up peanut stew, Jollof rice and chicken, and sweet yam fries at their downtown Milwaukee restaurant, the African Hut, along with a side dish of education about their homeland.

When I lived in Milwaukee, I always looked for an opportunity to go downtown to African Hut for some joloff rice and peanut stew.  It appears that after 15 years African Hut will no longer exist.  There was a restaurant African Harvest owned by a Liberian family in Center City that I frequented as well but it closed before I left Milwaukee in 2001.  Their spiced tea was especially delicious.

Something that stands out in the article to me is "the restaurant never generated strong support among African-Americans in Milwaukee."  I definitely know this to be true.  My ex-husband took his entire staff to African Harvest for some sort of celebration and the majority of them (all African Americans) would not eat anything.  I remember him not understanding that they would eat all kinds of pig feet and chitterlings but wouldn't eat chicken dishes from this restaurant.  The reason they wouldn't eat the food had nothing to do with the food itself but more so with their attitudes toward Africans and "not knowing what they do with the food".

African Hut probably was able to last longer because of its downtown location since the main customers were suburbanites and African Americans not native to Milwaukee.  I would guess that African Harvest failed sooner as it, being in the Black part of town, did not get that foot traffic of suburbanites and tourist.  It's definitely a sad day.

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