Now that the legal bru-ha-ha between StationStops and MTA has blown over, and MTA seems to be making significant gestures to opening up their data, I want to give a very special and overdue shout-out to some great people behind the scenes who supported StationStops.

First and foremost is the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic headed by Professor Jonathan Askins, as well as professors Jason Mazzone and Derek Bambauer.

Shortly after my conflict with MTA began, I got in touch with Professor Mazzone regarding copyfraud - a term he had coined which I felt accurately represented the early disputes between StationStops and MTA. Mazzone referred me to the IP clinic, whom invited me to Brooklyn to present it to them.

A group of the students led by Erik Dykema took interest in my case, and started fervently researching the legal issues involved, preparing a list of legal contingencies for StationStops.

Thankfully, my conflict with MTA was resolved successfully. However, if necessary, BLIP was prepared to represent me as my lawyer in NY State court (and to be honest, they were a little bummed they didn’t get the opportunity .

In addition, student Liam Barber took the initiative to also attend evening meetings of the New York Data Transit Summit in Manhattan to further research other developers seeking resolution with MTA over data.

The information I received from these bright-eyed future lawyers was outstanding, and allowed me to negotiate with MTA on a very tricky legal subject with confidence and accuracy.

Its information that, from an experienced IP lawyer, would have cost thousands of dollars, but they did it pro bono. More importantly to me, because of the age of the students, they have grown up in a digital world, use MTA transit and mobile applications, and understand the implications and desirable outcome of open data on a personal level.

But they weren’t alone. 4 additional private lawyers, all of them top IP lawyers I could never possibly afford, also reviewed and advised on the legal issues surrounding my case at no cost. I want to thank them for their help as well, but will not name them here as I did not have a formal client relationship with them.

Having actual practicing lawyers chime in was extremely valuable, as they not only know the legal positions in the case, they know the likelihood of what happens in the real world when such cases go to court.

Also, a thanks to Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman for reviewing my case, offering EFF assistance, and sending it up for an excellent blog post by EFF Activism & Technology Manager Tim Jones.

Ron Coleman ( Twitter: @RonColeman )is a prominent NYC Intellectual Property attorney at Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP and author of the blog ‘LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®’. Ron did not support, represent, or advise me directly, but his expert criticism of MTA’s licensing practices were outstanding in helping me explain to people what was going on.

Overlawyered is also a great blog and Twitter citizen for coverage of cases like mine where things seem a bit, well, overlawyered. They have recognized my case in the past and I love reading their tweets of other cases that make me just smh.

I want to thank my own lawyer, Brian Rosenfeld of Stamford, for his extremely high level of personal integrity and responsiveness in my case. Brian always answered my calls, always answered my emails, made it clear the issues he wanted to defer to IP experts (and located them), and overall was very supportive and pro-active.

Finally, I want to thank the Mark Heavey at the Marketing Department at MTA for personally bringing this entire matter to a peaceful resolution.

The case is closed, the hatchet buried, and hopefully someday I will have a new relationship with MTA that will result in great new services for MTA passengers.

I post this list not just to thank these people, but to provide support and encouragement for developers and other individuals and small business who find themselves in legal conflicts whose traditional expense may seem out of reach. Stand up for yourself, pick up the phone, call lawyers and law schools, explain your situation to them and your resources, and get help. It is out there!

As Professor Mazzone explains, in the case of copyfraud especially, its is extremely common for small businesses to simply submit when a larger entity serves them with an erroneous cease and desist. I encourage others to not do this until they have been professionally advised by experts as to their exact legal position.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: StationStops Thanks Brooklyn Law IP Clinic, Others for Legal Support

I love you guys!
Chris

Last week, MTA legal quite laughably accused me of presenting StationStops as an ‘Official MTA Site’.

StationStops is not an MTA site, and definitely does not want to be confused with MTA in any way!

It’s an MTA PASSENGER ADVOCACY and LIFESTYLE blog – and frequently posts blog articles CRITICAL OF MTA SERVICE.

We also have Metro-North schedule pages. Why? Because the MTA webform is awkward, and we knew we could present the schedules in a more usable, bookmarkable format. Metro-North schedules are not copyrightable by MTA.

(in the past year, StationStops has really devolved into a very general-purpose blog, which unapologetically also covers gadgets, politics, and literally any damn thing I feel like writing about – and will continue to do so!)

When I explicitly asked the MTA lawyer to forward me language to add to my site he would find acceptable for visitors to avoid confusion, he stated ‘There is no such language!’

Um, OK.
So, basically, this MTA lawyer wants StationStops to go away.
Not gonna happen!

I say ‘this MTA lawyer’ because over the years, I have worked with lots of MTA employees, and like any big organization, there are good ones and bad ones. More than one MTA employee has honestly admitted to me “often the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” when the history of my discussions with them has been institutionally ‘forgotten’.

I don’t harbor any bad will against MTA for this one lawyer’s accusations.

I have been working with MTA on an agreement to work together for over six months – an agreement we both have agreed is in our mutual interest. Its been a frustrating process, and people I work with come and go, and its often like starting all over again. This lawyer has been the latest wrench in the works.

If anyone higher up at MTA wants to help me cut through the BS and get my agreement worked out, feel free to contact me using the contact form. I’d love to talk with you.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: StationStops is Most Certainly NOT an Official MTA Site!

Over the past year, we have had over 430 posts, 530 comments, and over a quarter of a million unique visitors to the site.

Along the way, we also added Metro-North Schedule pages, and even launched our own iPhone application – StationStops for iPhone, which now has hundreds of users whom rate it 4 stars on the iTunes App Store (iTunes link)!

Here are some of the top-trafficked stories for 2008:

The top FOUR stories of the year were all in anticipation of the iPhone 3G Launch Date.

Next up was my guide for Optimizing Verizon FiOs Connections – still one of the top stories!

Thanks to a link from an ESPN columnist, the story on the new luxury suites on the Singapore Airlines A380 got a lot of traffic.

Our product reviews and comparisons were very popular this year, including our comparison of the new netbooks, including the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Asus Eee PC. The Canon SD870is and massive 4-part Dell XPS M1330 review were next.

Speculation about the upcoming Kindle 2.0 ‘kindled’ a lot of reader interest in 2008, as well as my $.02 on the ongoing battle of which video game console is best.

As for our favorite story, that is undoubtedly our HD video production showing Metro-North riders the inside of the new M8 Railcar prototype. It was our most on-topic and exclusive story, and I personally was proud that I got my ass out of bed at 6 AM to drive to New Haven.

M8 Metro-North New Haven Line Railcar Tour – StationStops.com from StationStops Admin on Vimeo.

We were surprised at the amount of press we received for our first year – including links from Forbes and The New York Times, as well as being a part of the Fairfield County Bloggers cover story in The Stamford Advocate, and GearDiary and Stamford Advocate Blogger Chris Preovolos’s appreciation of StationStops for iPhone.

I also want to give a shout-out to some of my fellow bloggers whom have made this last year a much less lonely experience – my pals at Trainjotting, StamfordTalk, Always Home and Uncool, Ben over at SecondAvenueSagas and Conductor Bobby at Derailed. And Manager Mom, we miss your blog, but wish you all the best!

My favorite readers deserve a mention also – Beth, Mom, Karen, Lizzy and Ludmilla!

And last but certainly not least – thanks to all of our visitors for a great first year!

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Happy First Birthday StationStops.com!

Last week, I was interviewed by phone and in person by Elizabeth Kim of the Stamford Advocate, as part of a story on Stamford-area bloggers.

We were all looking forward to the story, which was published on the frontpage this morning.

Unfortunately, the reporter chose to (accurately) pull a quote from me which I totally regret.

When asked about the awkwardness of our blogging group actually meeting in person, I joked:

“The fact that we’re bloggers means that we have a lot more in common than we don’t. Our spouses don’t understand us. Our friends make fun of us. No one is especially encouraging.”

At the time the quote was just a lame effort at humor and self-deprecation – that none of us take ourselves too seriously. I also wanted to express the inherent camaraderie of blogging which made our face-to-face get-togethers so easy.

But the quote doesn’t represent my experience at all, its the freaking stereotype.

Our blog-and-grog doesn’t represent the lone blogger stereotype. Of our core group, we are mostly 30-something (and then some) college graduates with our own families, homes, and professional careers – equal parts women and men. Our reasons for blogging and choice of topics vary widely – and our friends and families not only support us but participate as well.

If anything, our group represents the evolution, acceptance, and legitimacy of local blogging.

Although parenting is a common theme in many of the blogs, our group is comprised of authors, corporate executives, small businessmen, magazine columnists and disk jockeys. Its not the Facebook set, or the MySpace set – and we stand apart from the 1-million-plus people a year who click-start a blog, post twice, and lose interest forever.

We’re people with stuff to say – even if its just some casual, relatable humor – and willing to put some of our personal time in each week to try to share it.

When it comes to my friends and family, lack of support has not been the case at all. Sure, once in a while someone will kid me about being a blogger (and pay the price for it) – but its rare, and always good-natured, and doesn’t bother me in the least.

Similarly, our monthly blog-grog has grown to include some fans, friends, and spouses as well – none are there out of indifference, they are all there because they want to be included.

My friends and family have been nothing less than totally supportive of my blogging, suggesting tips, stories, and photos – writing comments – and some have even asked for help with blogs of their own. I mean, my wife has let me do this for 8 months – how much more support could I ask for?

This morning, my mother emailed to insist that she was certainly supportive of my blogging (except she didn’t like the post where I drank too much).

I guess it’s not unusual for an interviewee to cringe at the quote a reporter chose to print out of 20 minutes of interviewing – but I made my own bed, and I’m sorry to my fellow bloggers, friends, family, readers, and Ms Kim. As I mentioned, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but in hindsight, I would have preferred to have represented us more accurately.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: StationStops Stupidly Reinforces Blogger Stereotype In The Stamford Advocate

Stamford Talk fessed up to the catalyst for her blogging career this morning, so I figured I would share mine…

When I first moved to Fairfield County and started taking Metro-North (my first adult foray into regular public transportation), I was surprised at how bad Metro-North was (New Haven Line).

The cars are gross.
The A/C doesnt work.
The toilets stink.
There aren’t enough cars and seats.
There are no (few) electronic signs to tell you when the next train is.
There wasn’t even a f***ing schedule posted at the train station (about a year later, I found it).
Their website looks like it was designed in 1994.
And was completely unusable on a cell phone.
Weather protection and amenities at stops range from lavish to savage (most the latter).
MTA enforces their copyright on maps stringently, so distribution sucks.
People who take pictures of anything owned by Metro-North are endlessly and needlessly harassed.
Money is misspent.
Money is overspent.
Fare hike improvements evaporate as soon as the hikes are approved.

MTA is the radioactive spider which bit my hand a year ago and gave me my blogging super-powers.

However, I don’t know for how much longer.
Its clear to me that MTA is an immovable object.
Writing about it just depresses me.

Rather than being the world-leading transportation system it should be, it struggles to stay 15 years behind beautiful, efficient, clean, fast, and expertly managed systems in Europe and Asia.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Origins of StationStops

I am using the new wordpress app for the iPhone, which is great.

It’s definitely harder to type on the iPhone on a moving train than a Blackberry, but it’s do-able.

Anyways, I was just having a chat with the conductor about the new wireless ticket machines ( he didn’t have one), and realized that I have been very neglectful this summer ( to say the least) in my metro-north coverage.

It is not at all lost on me, and I realize it’s become more of a gadget/iPhone blog lately.

However, whether you are a gadget reader, like the Stamford-area stuff or tech news, I have some changes planned which should please everyone.

For now, just indulge my summer ADD and look forward to some cool stuff coming I’m the fall.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Live post from the train on 3g iphone

The embedded version is in regular definition, see the high definition version here.

(This video is also available on YouTube, Revver, and MetaCafe)

Metro-North put the new M8 Railcar prototype interior on display today for the general public at Track 8 in New Haven.

I got up at 5 AM, drove to New Haven, and spent the entire day producing this special report for you, so please sit back, enjoy, and share with your Metro-North friends.

Although the car will be on display at sometime in the future in Stamford and Grand Central Station, there were only 2 small 3-hour windows for people to view the car Wednesday and this morning (from 5 AM to 8 AM – yeesh!).

Because the display is so limited, I thought it was important to capture as much video and pictures as possible so everyone can see the new car, and – this is important – email MTA with your feedback and suggestions!!!

They are doing this so stuff you don’t like (like, say, the color scheme can be changed before delivery of the cars in late 2009. If you don’t offer your feedback, don’t complain when you get your new cars!

If you have a website please feel free to embed the video, all I ask is that you also mention StationStops in text and provide a link back to this story, as I put a lot of work into it. Thanks!

For those of you who cannot use your audio at work, here is the transcript of the video:

“New Haven Line Commuters have had to suffer the worst car conditions of the entire Metro-North system. Smelly restrooms, run-down interiors, and overcrowding due to so many of the old cars being constantly out for repairs.

Meanwhile, commuters on the Harlem and Hudson lines have enjoyed updated cars with modern vacuum toilets, head and arm rests, and improved lighting for years.

Early this morning at the New Haven Metro-North station, commuters finally got to get a glimpse into the long overdue improvements to their daily train ride – the new M-8 railcar.

The new M-8 cars are not scheduled to begin service until late 2009, but a prototype of the car’s interior was on hand so riders could check them out and provide feedback while there is still time to make changes.

Among the most important improvements to the new cars are the restrooms, which feature vacuum toilets to help control odor – this is probably the biggest complaint of the current cars. The larger size also makes these restrooms available to riders in wheelchairs.

This mornings visitors were probably most divided over the red color scheme. Some liked it a lot, some didn’t like it at all – one visitor called it ‘garish’ – but all agreed that it was an improvement over the current cars.

The new seats will be a welcome improvement for all riders, but especially for early morning commuter’s favorite pastime – SLEEPING. Currently there is no head support at all on the New Haven line trains, the new seats have comfortable headrests with flared sides to keep your drowsy seatmate from drooling on your shoulder.

Standard power outlets are available near the seats to charge laptops, cellphones, and iPods.

Overhead electronic destination signs will keep riders advised of upcoming stops.

Thanks to some additional space forward of the seat, using a small laptop is easier than in the current cars, but larger riders and laptops might still need to use the open face to face seats when computing on the go.

One visitor was disappointed that there were no plans to add internet access to the new cars.

The New Haven ride might not be as picturesque as the Hudson’s, but larger windows will at least give riders a better view.

The windows also assist the white walls and enhanced lighting to give the M8 very light and airy atmosphere.

Raj Kurup is a New Haven to Stamford commuter – he liked the new interior but suggested a feature he enjoys when he rides on Shoreline East.

Actually the New Haven Line already has lots of cupholders on one of its cars – but no word yet on whether the Tiki Bar Car will be making its triumphant turn on the new M8.”

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: M8 Metro-North Railcar Prototype: An HD Video Tour By StationStops.com