Wednesday, March 21, 2007
From polls to broadband on the Shore
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.
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.
# posted by Richard Polk @ 9:11 AM 
