Web Notes Online

Last week we were supplied with a brief (20 second) video to go with a story on our Life section front about a scientist from Horn Point studying turtles and toxic algae in Australia.

I’m keeping the story active in the Life section for at least another week. Check it out.
When you click on the story, you’ll “video clip” over in the area on the right were images are listed.

The file is small so we loaded it directly onto our Website. With larger files I use YouTube to house the material with links back to our site to play the videos.

Speaking of YouTube, check out their politicians channel. Called “YouChoose ‘08” it is an effort by YouTube to help you face the candidates. There are a dozen candidates with their own areas complete with their video messages and links to sites of interest.

Candidates are beginning to see the Internet as a tool to share their message. In the past it has been a sore-point for many politicians and public figures as their efforts came under close scrutiny from legions of bloggers. The swift boat attacks on John Kerry is just one example. Dan Rather’s departure from CBS following the questioning of information used against President Bush and his National Guard service, is another example of the web of bloggers keeping a story lit until it caught fire.

Politicians have found it important to stamp out a fire quickly before it gets too much momentum. By creating their own web presence, they are providing their own channel to disseminate information. Of course it can also be disinformation, too.

A satirical ad poking fun at Hillary Clinton was revealed to have been done by a person on the Barack Obama campaign (unbeknownst to the candidate). It was a take off on the Apple ad that introduced the Macintosh to the world more than 20 years ago. Which in itself was a satire on 1984 and a regimented society it portrayed. (Instead of “Big Brother” would she be called “Big Sister?”) It was extremely well done. It got quite a bit of play. When it was discovered to have been done by someone in the Obama campaign, the staff had to leave.

You can find it on YouTube using key works like Hillary Clinton, 1984 and vote different.

Are you tired of writing checks to pay your bills? Maybe you are using your computer to send your payments by the Internet, but even that can be a nuisance at times.

Customers of the Cingular Wireless portion of AT&T (remember AT&T recently purchased Cingular) will soon be able to manage their accounts and pay bills electronically by using their cell phones.

AT&T is signing agreements with several banks to provide the service. Some of the banks mentioned in an article on CNET news by Reuters include Wachovia, BancorpSouth, Regions Financial and SunTrust Banks. Just as online banking has become popular, the cell phone application should also spread and become a routine function with most banks as well.

On the CNN cable show “Reliable Sources” last week, there was another acknowledgement of the impact of the Internet on our culture. One of the panelists made the observation that news outlets used to ignore the Internet. Now the news is often driven by the Internet. His comment was in part, in response to questions on why so much gossip-type news was showing up on network and cable broadcasts. It could be a missing boy scout or the fate of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, it would be broadcast with follow up after follow up.

Well, now that we know how Smith died maybe they’ll shut up for a while. But I guest there is still the question “why” she died isn’t there.

Stay tuned for updates—only not from here.

As always, you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com or my blog accessible from stardem.com.

We’d like to thank those of you who have participated in our recent Web polls. Last week we ran a question regarding possible monorail service across the bay to relieve traffic congestion on the Bay Bridge. A strong majority of 58 percent favored the idea while 42 percent were opposed.

That poll was on our home page. In sports we asked which No. 1 seed was most likely to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. That poll started tightening up as of this writing. Florida had 50 percent of the votes early on with North Carolina and Ohio State divided with 25 percent each. Kansas had zero votes. Now Florida is favored by 36 percent, North Carolina by 32 percent, Ohio State by 23 percent and Kansas 9 percent.

This column is being prepared before the Thursday games. All four were still in contention as of this writing.

This week we decided to ask your opinion on the future location of the hospital in Easton. We ran a story last week about an offer by the County to provide 90 acres near Route 50 and the Community Center. A strong majority of 57 percent favored the move, 20 percent prefer the hospital to stay in Easton, while 22 percent feel other sites should be considered. I’ll leave this poll up through Monday. If you haven’t voted, go to stardem.com and mark your choice. You don’t have to be registered to participate.

If you think that everything on stardem.com is restricted to subscribers only, you are mistaken. There are is a lot of material open for any visitor to see. All of the content in the community area is open. Some of the material in the Life area is also free access. In sports the sports briefs, sports scoreboard and many of the high school sports previews are open to all. You’ll even find some stories on the home page open.

So don’t think you need not visit stardem.com because you don’t have a subscription. You can find a lot there. If you haven’t already tried it, you can signup for a 10-day trial subscription to see if the site interests you. If you have a print subscription, you should signup so you can read the paper when you are away from home. We put up the A and B sections each day as PDFs. With a free program called Acrobat Reader, you can view the paper online just as it appears in print.

I attended the Mid-Shore Computer Users Group meeting last week at the tourism office in Easton. Jim McCormick, director of the Department of Information & Technology for Caroline County gave a presentation on broadband wireless activities on the Shore with special emphasis on Caroline County.

McCormick brought his military and computer networking experience with him to Caroline and has developed a remarkable boardband network for local government agencies. He had participated in the creation of a mobile broadband network in Afghanistan several years ago and some of that expertise came in handy as he developed a network for rural Caroline County.

The system allows local law enforcement officers to access critical data while in their patrol cars. They can fill out forms without having to return to their offices. This was the first application of this type of broadband network in the country. It is now used in a number of areas and an area-wide service is in the works.

Next month when the group meets on April 19 the discussion will be led by Sandi and Roy Droege of St. Michaels. They will discuss efforts to refurbish computers in Talbot County as a part of a computer literacy program for children.

I’ll talk more about this is a future column.

As always, you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com. Or on my blog accessible from the stardem.com Website.

I need to note a couple of changes to the stardem.com Website. The PDF versions of the newspaper sections are now back to being restricted to subscribers only. The PDF’s had been accessible to all since we changed to the new look.

The special section and supplement PDFs are still open to all. They can be accessed through a link at the bottom of the right-side column. Look for the “STAR DEMOCRAT SUPPLEMENTS” title. It is just above the access point for my blog.

Several special supplements are set off by themselves under “Special Sections” in the news story column. The most recent Waterfowl Festival program and the current Passport to the Arts are available in PDF form.

We’ve also reinstituted the polling feature on the site. We currently have two polling questions active. On the home page we as your opinion on the proposal to have monorail service over the bay to relief traffic congestion. A narrow majority of 56 percent to 44 percent favored the proposal as of this writing. In the sports area we ask with of the No. 1 seeds in the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament is most likely to win. Florida led in the balloting 67 percent to 17 percent for both North Carolina and Ohio State. No votes had been tallied for Kansas as of this writing.

I’ll leave these polling questions up for a couple of days after this column appears in print and report the results next week.

If you have a suggestion for a poll question, email it to me (rpolk@chespub.com) and we will consider it for inclusion.

Now, if you hate animated gifs, let me apologize up front. You’ll probably encounter some of these little gems when you visit the site. I’m having a great time playing with them. I know, like anything else, they can be overdone. Share your thoughts on this.

We’ve also added a number of advertisers to the site in recent weeks. Check them out. There are some links to some pretty innovative Websites. I was surprised at how sophisticated some of the sites are.

I subscribe to a number of tech oriented podcasts. I often interesting tips on Websites of interest. Here are a couple I’ve heard of recently.

Ever wondered what a house in your neighborhood sold for? Would you like an estimate of what your house might go for? Or would you like to know what a house sold for in any community in the country? You should visit http://www.zillow.com. Enter your address in the address field and it will give you a “Zestimate” of your home’s value. Type in a town and a map will appear with flags of different colors. A click on a flag and you’ll get details on sale or asking price. It is quite interesting and a little depressing.

As a lark I checked on an area of Sunnyvale, CA where we lived when my dad was stationed at Moffett Field Naval Air Station back in the 1960s. We had to move early because he got transferred back to Washington, D.C. when another officer had to retire early due to illness. The short of it is my parents had to sell our home quickly to be able to invest in a home in Northern Virginia. It went for something in the high 40’s. I checked on zillow and found that the house next door recently when for $895,000. What a difference 40 years and the transformation of the area into what is now called “Silicon Valley” makes. Sigh.

Another site you might find interesting is http://flightaware.com/live/. This site lets you track commercial aircraft. It opens with a map of North America that is covered with little red dots. It is fascinating to see how many planes there are in the sky at any one time. You can also keep track of activity at various airports. Try it out.

These are just a couple of the stops you can make on the World Wide Web. I’ll share some other interesting ones in future columns.

SimulScribe thinks it has the answer to your voice mail woes. The New York company has announced that it can translate your voice mail to text. It uses voice recognition software to transcribe the spoken word into text.

This way you can scan through your voice mails quickly and not have to wade through each one as it is recited through your service. They say it will take between two to five minutes for you to receive a written message after the voice mail message is left. But you can also listen to your voice mail the old fashioned way if you miss the spoken word or to clear up any garbled portions.

After a free trial period, the service will cost $9.95 a month for 40 messages. It will work on any cell phone.

Remember the old Commodore computers of the 70s and 80s? The brand is trying to stage a comeback as a gaming platform. It plans to unveil its new incarnation at CeBIT a computer expo in Hanover, Germany later this week. If you remember the Commodore, you probably have grown kids of your own by now.

The Mid-Shore Computer Users Group will meet this Thursday, upstairs in the Talbot Tourism Center in Easton at 7 p.m. Jim McCormick will talk on broadband wireless and cooperative efforts between Caroline County and the county’s board of education. He will also describe some of the activities of the Lower Shore Broadband COOP and the Maryland Broadband Cooperative.

Another cautionary tale about emails: remember the astronaut and her diapers who drove 900-miles to confront a romantic rival? She apparently became aware of more than a dozen emails sent to her one-time boyfriend by the rival. He apparently even received one while on a shuttle mission in space, according to an Associated Press story.

You never know were what you write might turn up.

On a much more pleasant note, we have received a number of thank you notes on the Website for the story about “Operation Morale” that appeared in the print edition and online on March 2. The effort started as a Talbot County Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals project. The effort has sent an estimated 250 boxes of items to the soldiers of Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry from Fort Drum, N.Y.

Soon after the article appeared I received a phone call from the wife of one of the soldiers in the company. I helped her locate the article online and set it up so the families in the unit could all see it. As you may or may not realize, Fort Drum is in that area of New York State where all the snow has been piling up. It is a good place for the mountain troops to train, but it can be a tough place for the families back home when their loved-ones are deployed.

“I can’t thank all of you enough! Thanks for all the effort and just knowing that others care. Sometimes I feel like no one knows our military is doing and what they do for us,” wrote Lois Boukelif, one of the wives, in a comment posted with the story.

“Programs like yours help this country be involved and think of others besides the material world we live in. Thanks, thanks, thanks! May God bless everyone of you,” Boukelif says in closing.

Another wife, Tori Eversmann, wrote: “Thank you for the great article and support of Operation Morale. Those guys need all the support and prayers they can get.”

It is heartening to know that we can reach up into cold, snow-bound New York State and over into Iraq as well. The ability of the Internet to spread information can be aw inspiring.

If you have any thought about a story, you can add your comment to it online. We do ask that you identify yourself and keep it civil. As always, you can attach your comment to this story on the Website, email me at rpolk@chespub.com or comment on my blog which you can reach from the homepage of stardem.com.