The smartphone, not the dump truck, may turn out to be a more effective weapon in Burlington’s war on greenbelt garbage.

For the last two months, the city’s code enforcement office has been using SeeClickFix, a crowd-sourcing app for the web and mobile devices that allows users to photograph and report low-level neighborhood problems such as trash, blocked sidewalks and graffiti. Users can vote on which code violations are most urgent; the more votes an entry gets, the higher it appears on code enforcement’s to-do list.... Read more

Welcome to the holiday season — and to the Seven Days holiday guide to gifts. Every Wednesday during the holidays, we’re offering ideas for just about everyone on your list. For greater variety, a different writer weighs in each week: same set of recipients, unique presents of mind. (Note: Some of these recipients may be figments of our imaginations.)

And what do we want this year? Just for you to shop local, please and thank you.

Dad ... Read more

Remember college — specifically, the all-nighters powered by energy drinks and junk food? A “hackathon” is kind of like that. A bunch of computer programmers with an array of skills get together, and each one tries to build something within 24 hours — sleep deprivation be damned.... Read more

Political candidates can invest in television ads, email newsletters and hyper-targeted Facebook ads. But despite all the high-tech options available to modern campaigns, those old-fashioned lawn signs persist. ... Read more

A Burlington-based social media experiment aimed at helping small businesses went bust in a big, public way last week, with Twitter users bashing one of the project’s founders for what they called a “scam.”

The mini-scandal grew out of an ambitious project launched earlier this year called “30 in Thirty.”... Read more

An explosion of colorful confetti, frozen in time and space above downtown Woodstock. A sea-urchin thing sitting on top of a house. A rotating sculpture spinning in the middle of a covered bridge. At last year’s Woodstock Digital Media Festival, you could see these artworks — the only catch being that you had to look through the lens of your smartphone, because they weren’t really there.... Read more

You might remember Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere,” a proposed connector between the mainland and an island of 50 residents that became a talking point during the 2008 presidential campaign. But Burlington has its own “bridge to nowhere” — one that actually was built and that, thankfully, hasn’t become a political hot potato.... Read more

Monologuist Mike Daisey admits he was obsessed with his technology. But after seeing a rare photo from inside a Chinese factory where Apple products are made, he decided he had to see for himself — so he took a trip to China in 2010. That trip formed the basis of Daisey’s one-man show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which explores the links among the late Apple cofounder, industrial design and the harsh, often dangerous conditions for the workers who manufacture Apple products.... Read more

Miro Weinberger’s landslide 20-point win in the Burlington mayoral election took many voters by surprise. But in one crucial arena, Weinberger held a decisive lead from the start: social media.... Read more

On a recent rainy Thursday night, a couple hundred people gather after hours at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center to listen to a University of Vermont assistant professor of math and statistics talk about happiness — or, more specifically, using Twitter and other online communications as a barometer of happiness. ... Read more