241 Posted Topics
 | People looking for examples of how social media can be leveraged to create a brand typically think of cutting-edge technology companies, not housewives exchanging cleaning tips. They haven't heard of Flylady. Which is getting increasingly hard to do these days, especially now that Flylady -- the [I]nom de mop[/I] of … |
| | If you like the Google Earth mapping application, there's now an application that works with it and provides information on [URL="http://earth.google.com/outreach/kml_entry.html#tMarine%20Protected%20Areas"]"Marine Protected Areas"[/URL] on the Earth. Installing the application shows all the various marine protected areas (MPAs); clicking on them provides some information, including a link to [URL="http://mpas.appspot.com/pa?id=agRtcGFzchULEg1Qcm90ZWN0ZWRBcmVhGJv9AQw"]more detailed information[/URL]. … |
| | [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444089,00.html"]Fox News[/URL] is ominously warning about the potential of Twittering terrorists. The U.S. Army's 304th Military Intelligence Battalion released in mid-October [URL="http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/mobile.pdf"]a report [/URL]describing how a number of social media and other technologies, including Twitter, could be used by terrorists. After all, “Twitter has also become a social activism tool … |
| | In another case of a potentially rogue government programmer, the investigator found more than he bargained for: tens of thousands of pornographic images of children. As with San Francisco city government computer engineer Terry Childs [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2864.html"]earlier this year[/URL], [URL="http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/548999.html"]Marc Young[/URL], computer applications manager for Canyon County, Idaho, was under investigation … |
| | Just months after [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3136.html"]Google purchased [/URL]the entire online rights to a new satellite's imagery, the U.S. government, citing budget concerns, has [URL="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-10-21-cognress-satellites_N.htm"]canceled plans[/URL] to launch two more commercial satellites. According to the Associated Press, the House and Senate intelligence appropriations committees cut approximately $1.7 billion in funding for 2008 and … |
| | In recent weeks, both [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/technology/internet/08air.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin"]American Airlines[/URL] and Delta Airlines have announced that their in-flight wireless Internet services will include a filtering service to keep passengers from viewing porn on their laptops. I admit it, I'm torn. Porn proponents such as Violet Blue, in the [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/10/16/violetblue.DTL""]San Francisco Chronicle[/URL], make all the … |
| | Federal, state, county, and city governments and agencies are beginning to use Twitter to update constituents on what's going on. A recent post on Silicon Alley Insider listed a number of [URL="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/us-government-on-twitter"]federal Twitter source[/URL]s (with more added in the comments), but a casual Twitter search for other government entities are …  |
| | The group [URL="http://www.stopinternetpredators.org/"]Stop Internet Predators[/URL], claiming that the Street View 360-degree technology can be used by pedophiles to help stalk their victims, is recommending that municipalities "[b]an Street View from your neighborhoods until it is safeguarded to ensure children's safety and privacy." How Google is supposed to do that, the …  |
| | Last Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin held a rally in Los Angeles in the Home Depot Center, and the California Democratic Party rented a giant electronic billboard during the event, and solicited questions from people, via texting, to display during the presentation (exhorting submitters to … |
| | The initial model for looking at Twitter was horizontal -- see everything that all the people you follow are thinking about. Now the model has been turned on its head 90 degrees -- see everything that anyone says, whether you follow them or not, that has to do with a … |
| | Effective Wednesday, October 1, each business in Nevada must encrypt customers’ personal information when it is transmitted outside the business’ secure network, such as when it's transmitted over wifi. Initially passed in October 2007, it was said to have been the [URL="http://www.privsecblog.com/archives/state-legislation-some-state-data-encryption-requirements-more-effective-than-others.html"]first law[/URL] of this type. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts … |
| | Evoking [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3059.html"]Internet ads[/URL] that some people wondered might be a clue to Republican presidential nominee John McCain's vice presidential pick, the campaign is now reportedly running ads claiming that McCain has won tonight's debate -- not only before the debate had occurred, but before the candidate had even announced he … |
| | Buddhist writer Scoop Nisker used to close out his news reports on a San Francisco radio station by saying, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." Now, if you don't like political advertising, you can go out and make some of your own. … |
| | We were all treated this week to a lovely example of why it's a good idea to use standard email for government business (or corporate business, for that matter). First, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mentioned that [URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html"]she used Yahoo Mail[/URL] for some of her email, which is a … |
| | [I]You have no friends named "palin".[/I] Sob. I had been so proud, the day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate, to be her friend on Facebook. I hadn't even done it cold, either; a friend of mine had recommended to me that I friend … |
| | If you like using Google Maps and Google Earth in your applications, you're about to get better access to imagery. GeoEye Inc. of Dulles, Va., launched last Saturday a [URL="http://geoeye.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=304"]satellite[/URL] intended to provide high-resolution black-and-white and multispectral imagery. GeoEye and Google announced in [URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2837224420080829"]August[/URL] that Google had purchased the online … |
| | No sooner had the echoes of “Sarah *who*?” faded than the blogosphere was on the job, showing that even for an unknown person from a remote area, there was plenty of readily accessible information available – and not only perhaps doing a better job of vetting than the McCain campaign … |
| | If you were one of the just seven people in the first half of the year who went to the Washington State Department of Transportation web page using free wifi from the rest areas along its highways, you're out of luck -- the state dropped the little-used service as of … |
| | Why prebuying Google sponsored ads might be a bad idea. Google "lieberman mccain." Or, click [URL="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=lieberman%20mccain&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8"]here[/URL]. The result, at least as of this writing? Sponsored Link Lieberman & McCain JohnMcCain.com/lieberman Senator Lieberman Joins McCain's Team. Learn Why You Should Join! Clicking the link takes one to "Citizens for McCain," an … |
| | When one thinks about high-tech states, one typically thinks of places such as California and Massachusetts. But....Alabama? The Southern state was the only state government on CIO Magazine’s top 100 institutions for excellence in information technology. According to CIO, the state provides more than 130 e-government applications through the [URL="http://www.alabama.gov/portal/index.jsp"]state's … |
| | With gas still hovering at $4 a gallon, the Arctic ice caps melting, and our waistlines expanding, walking is more important than ever. But how to figure out whether a particular home or work location is a good one for walking? Well, there's a way. [URL="http://www.walkscore.com/"]www.walkscore.com[/URL] is another one of … |
| | A website purporting to encourage improved broadband Internet access in the U.S. runs the risk of undercutting its argument by playing games with statistics. [URL="http://www.speedmatters.org/"]www.speedmatters.org[/URL], a project of the Communications Workers of America, has released its second survey of broadband Internet speeds in the U.S., noting that there has been … |
| | Both the Democratic and Republican national conventions -- scheduled for next week and the following week, respectively -- will feature major roles for bloggers, giving them the same access as traditional press. Hundreds of bloggers are slated to attend the Democratic convention in Denver -- 500 alone paid $100 for … |
| | Ever wondered how the U.S. diplomatic corps keeps track of all of its quickly changing information? Turns out, the same way all the rest of us do -- through Wikipedia. The diplomatic wikipedia, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopedia"]Diplopedia[/URL], is not available to the public, though examples of pages are included in a [URL="http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2007/proceedings07/johnson.pdf"]publicly available … |
| | The state of Maine has found an innovative way to find funding to supports its technology industry – the state issued $50 million in bonds and just awarded $30 million in grants, with the remaining $20 million to be allocated this fall. Funding for the Maine Technology Asset Fund was … |
| | It's been a long-running joke that Republicans don't understand technology, what with United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) trying to describe the Internet as a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes"]"series of tubes"[/URL] and President George W. Bush referring to [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internets"]"the Internets."[/URL] However, a new generation of Republicans is not only learning to use technologies … |
| | If you sent out a Twitter or email message after Tuesday's Southern California earthquake, you had a lot of company. As is typical in technology-heavy California, the moderate earthquake generated a following seismic [URL="http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/07/29/picture-internet-told-me-there-was-earthquake"]wave of Internet messages[/URL] of people checking in with each other. In fact, [URL="http://www.emsc-csem.org/Doc/EMSC_DOCS/EMSC_RT_activities_2007.pdf"]one study[/URL] indicates that … |
| | Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, swept to the role of presumptive nominee through support from fans on the Internet, is learning that the Internet can just as easily be mobilized against him, even after he has already voted on an issue. The issue is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or … |
| | In an example of throwing the bathwater out with the baby, a number of ISPs are dropping the alt.* hierarchy, or Usenet altogether, ostensibly to comply with a demand from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that they [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2584.html"]rid the Internet of child pornography[/URL]. Some observers, including the [URL="http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9638/EFF+-+Blocking+UseNets+Alt+Hierarchy+Would+Violate+First+Amendment"]Electronic Frontier …  |
| | While the full story behind [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2842.html"]San Francisco city government computer engineer Terry Childs[/URL] hasn't yet come out, one thing is certain: the mainstream media is ignorant about technology. Moreover, either the city government and prosecutors are deliberately painting things in as negative a light as possible in order to force … |
| | Claiming he was protecting San Francisco city government's computer system from incompetent coworkers, computer engineer [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/BAGF11T91U.DTL"]Terry Childs[/URL] changed the system's passwords and then for more than a week refused to give them to anyone, even after being arrested. Childs was under four felony counts for blocking administrative access to the … |
| | Sean Tevis needed 3,000 people willing to donate $8.34 to his campaign for the Kansas state legislature. Instead, he's up to 5,298 -- and still going. He did it with a [URL="http://seantevis.com/kansas/3000/running-for-office-xkcd-style/"]single website[/URL] in the style of [URL="http://xkcd.com/"]XKCD[/URL], the geek comic strip that has replaced Dilbert on many office doors, … |
| | San Francisco is implementing a wireless network using transceivers on the ground that theoretically will help drivers find parking spaces in the congested city. The technology, called Streetline from the [URL="http://www.streetlinenetworks.com/site/index.php"]company of the same name[/URL], uses wireless transceivers glued on the street in front of each parking space, which form … |
| | ""I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it." -- Judge Potter Stewart, Supreme Court Justice, 1964 In … |
| | Of course, it makes sense. After all, I'm following him (along with 43,485 people at this writing). But it still gave me a little thrill, a few minutes later, to get the message that he was now following me (along with the 42,084 other people he follows). Is it automatic … |
| | Just weeks after EarthLink pulled out of a project to provide wireless Internet throughout the city of Philadelphia after the city refused to take over management of the network, a group of investors has agreed to run the project. According to the [URL="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/news_breaking/20080617_Free_WiFi_will_remain_in_Philadelphia.html"]Philadelpha Inquirer[/URL], a group of investors temporarily called … |
| | Lee Chubb was ticked off. As a year-round, 15-year resident of Ketchum, Idaho – the city associated with the tony Sun Valley ski resort, Chubb has watched a lot of efforts to over-develop the area in a way that would not only take away the small-town feel that he loved, … |
| | [I]Even on a slow day, I can have a three-way chat with two women at the same time -- Brad Paisley, [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcVnhNjWV0"]Cooler Online[/URL][/I] But what if you work for the government? Particularly if you're a teacher? A number of [URL="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flpfacebook0601pnjun01,0,7309360.story?page=1&track=facebook"]teachers in Palm Beach County[/URL], Fla. -- some of them 20somethings … |
| | The city of Santa Fe, N.M., is finding itself [URL="http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/05/allergic-to-wif.html"]fighting a group [/URL]that wants the city to ban wireless Internet signals from public buildings, claiming the signals are making them sick. The group, calling themselves "electro-sensitive," say they are allergic to the waves generated, and say that Santa Fe's attempt … |
| | Google told Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to [URL="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/05/dialogue-with-sen-lieberman-on.html"]pound sand[/URL] Monday -- politely, of course -- after the Senator [URL="http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=8093d5b2-c882-4d12-883d-5c670d43d269&Month=5&Year=2008&Affiliation=C"]called on Google[/URL] to remove all "Internet video content produced by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda" from YouTube. "YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. … |
| | It had such promise -- a wifi network, treated like a city utility such as water or sewer, providing broadband Internet to everyone in the city, anywhere in the city, for a low monthly price. Yet vendors in cities such as [URL="http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/05/12/daily55.html"]Portland[/URL], and even the municipal wireless flagship [URL="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/tech/20080513-0914-wirelessphiladelphia.html"]Philadelphia[/URL] are … |
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