Of course, I can’t forget the friends who went to the con. If it wasn’t for them coming to the con, I would have left the con and never come back. I think its pretty much like that for most of the cons. Mostly everyone was there: Fred, Jon, Meredith, Louis, Jesse, Brian was there!
The Dealers Room was the place to be, actually, it was the only place to be. Luckily, there was a variety of different merchandise at different booths, which usually 1 out of 5 booths will have the same stuff as another one, especially at Otakon. I think there should have been more stuff going on, especially after 7:00pm. Most of the panels at the convention either did not draw me interest, or I wasn’t there at the time of a panel.

Compared to the Big Apple Anime Festival (BAAF) in 2002 and Anime Expo (2003) in New York City at Marriott Marquis, NYAF wasn’t as big and I believe that NYAF should be at the Marriott next year. (I compared it to BAAF and AE because it was the con in New York related to NYAF) Not only it was big, but there are other attractions outside of the hotel, which of course is Times Square. Of course, at the Javits Center where NYAF, there was nothing outside of the convention center, not even a variety of restaurants. The closest place to be near attractions is Times Square which is around a 10-15 block walk.

If there shall be another New York Anime Festival again next year, I won’t mind going again. However, I wish that the convention can be at the Marriott Marquis, which I mentioned, or at a different location near attractions; such as restaurants, hotels, and coffee shops where we can go to a place to sit down or hangout after the con is over.

Day one (for me, day 2 of the con) is over and here is the report. Since I am commuting back from the city and my office each day, I was able to write in my blog.

First off, what a major disappointment, from my perspective. I first heard about New York Anime Festival (shorten as NYAF) back in late 2006, and from what I read of the plans of the convention to take place in late 2007 sounded excited. But then going there, I felt like there was nothing to do. I did say the same thing for MangaNext, “Not many things were going, which made me feel more relaxed.” But that was because it was a smaller con, this one had to have an attendance total  3 times the size of MangaNext. MangaNEXT had a total at around less than 2,500 people. This is a “first” for this con to go on, maybe next year will be better.

And what bothered me, and I think everyone else knows, was how early the convention ended. I understand everyone had to get out by 9PM because of the convention center hours. But stopping everything at 6:30pm is crazy. The entire convention expected everyone to see a concert, that will be taking place for two hours. At other conventions, there were other things besides going to the concert or masquerade.
I think that Reed Exhibitions, the organization that operates the con, should think more of “fun” than “business” for this con.

The so-called “number one station in New York,” which WABC-TV calls themselves, has discovered something so amazing, that you probably didn’t know about. It’s a thing called “the internet.”
On their Five O’Clock newscast, there was a report about their “new” website. Of course, WNBC, WCBS, and WNYW changed their website within the past two years and they never had a report about their website, some of the reporters did mention about it on the days of the change. And this was not a typical one minute and half report, the report lasted for nearly 4 minutes. This report was worst than the report WNBC did with their “Navigation 4″ navigation system, which is powered by MapTuit, on the station’s website. In the report WNBC sent out Lynda Baquero driving the streets of using the system. Of course, months later, most of the New York stations also use the MapTuit system on their website.

WABC-TV’s Jeff Rossen, who anchors the morning news for the station, was the reporter for the report. In the beginning of the report, which was done live, Rossen was running around the newsroom, as well as the cameraman, telling viewers of how everyone in the newsroom can submit an article or news report on the new version of the station’s website. “Here is where all of the stories from the area and the country… and here is where our website team is. There is the weather center, … then the meteorologists runs over here to ” The way how he was reported the live report, it sounded like the station felt well accomplished over something that should have been done over 13 years ago.

It then gets worse, the report tape rolls. For nearly two minutes, the tape close-ups of the site’s homepage with dramatic background music. “We’ve heard your Feedback, and now you’ve got it.” Since WABC finally got most of the local news coverage in widescreen/HD since December 2006, the videos are finally in widescreen.

And to clarify to everyone, the new site design was ABC O&O wide. This means that every ABC O&O station got the same look and feel, just a different look of the logo. For example, you can see KABC’s site here and WABC’s site here.
Why WABC-TV didn’t make a promo like the 1998 promo version of  WNBC’s Doppler 4000, which lasted for 3 minutes out of this report instead of considering it as “news.” The report is close enough of making it a promo out of it.

As you can tell, I have a website, WRAJ Internet Radio, and when our current look changed back in November 2003, I didn’t make a big deal, about our site but we didn’t know that the site would of become a popular internet radio station website. We did play promos about the new site, but we didn’t make it sound dynamic like WABC-TV did.
I felt like WABC-TV was some station out in the middle of Kansas who discovered the internet.
And finally, if I had to ask WABC-TV question, myh question will be “Are you going to be changing the terrible graphics within the next decade?”

If you have been watching WNBC lately, you might notice something different with the opening cards in the beginning of each newsbreak. Just like the the Today Show newsbreaks used in the past, the anchors are no longer announced. One reason is that now the WNBC news music performed by Edd Kalehoff in 2003 is now on NBC O&O station in San Francisco KNTV NBC 11. KNTV plays their opening just like how most O&Os that WNBC is now doing by not announcing the anchors.
But the music is not only the same as a WNBC look and feel. For the past three years, KNTV has been using the previous graphics package used on WNBC that was launched in 2003. Its the only station left out of 5 O&Os and affiliates that used the graphics. Stations included WPMI, WTVJ, and WVTM.

There have been rumors that KNTV will be using the similar HD graphics as WNBC when the station moves its newscasts in high-definition. The last time I watched KNTV in April while I was on a trip in San Francisco, I’ve witnessed the WNBC HD graphics on the lower thirds during a special investigation piece of an 11 O’Clock newscast.

We began upgrading to the newest Mac version of Mac OS, version 10.5, our known as Leopard. Its being installed on most of our Macs this week and will be installed on our necessary machines by the end of the week.
So why there was a one month delayed of installing the new operating system? At WRAJ Internet Radio, we wait at least a month to install a new operating system that was recently released. We wait for the month for stability reports and to be aware of software that we have that might not work with the new operating system.
Leopard runs pretty good, as of know. We installed Leopard on a 12″ PowerBook G4 and runs very well. With the multitasking of Spaces, the computer still runs well with only 4 spaces running. Thankfully, the transparency of the windows and menu bar is not enabled on our PowerPCs computers, which we believed that could of slowed the computer down dynamically.  We did notice some loopholes of the OS installer installing Front Row, which is pretty uncessary of being installed because there is no remote control. There are sometimes that the screen turns off on the 12″ PowerBook G4. We believed that its the low memory of the video card, or its something that the Intel Chips can perform better than the PowerPC processor.

We’ll be installing the new OS on a MacPro, the previous iMacs models, and a Mac Mini.
On the Windows side, we are still using Windows XP. I see no chances of going to Vista for most of our systems for a while, because software that we have don’t run on Vista correctly, including our station’s broadcast software.