Saturday, March 10, 2007
Users group goes wireless; thanks offered for “Operation Morale”
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.
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.
# posted by Richard Polk @ 2:46 PM 
