The City of Blue Lake has finally launched its new web site. Congratulations! It’s good to see the village making a place on the web. The site is broken in to three main areas: One for the city government; one for the general community; and one for Blue Lake businesses. This seems like a nice, high level structure for a site that wants to provide a platform that encompasses as many aspects of the...
For a tech guy it pains me to keep railing against tech gadgets that should make our life better. But computer based voting machines are the exception. Ever since the various systems were introduced, computer experts have clearly pointed out their inadequate security. Already, many elections that have relied on these machines have been called in to question. And now, comes “shocking” news that many of the machines already in place throughout California have...
The initial report generated by the Governor’s Broadband Task Force has finally been released. What’s odd about the article is there is no reference on where to get the report. But I’ve got yer report right here (PDF 23 pgs., app 1 MB). If you’ll recall our own Peter Pennekamp and Rollin Richmond are among the 21 members of the task force and charged with representing all of rural California. The report makes several...
Several well known and very popular web sites went down today due to a power outage at a major data center in San Francisco. The web sites taken off line include Netflix, Craigslist, Technorati and several others. Interestingly, the home page of the data center, 365 Main says “…featuring 24/7/365 power, cooling, connectivity and security capabilities to ensure mission-critical operations and business continuity for tenants.” This incident points up a couple things. Even major...
OpenLeft.com is having Senator Dick Durbin blogging live starting at 4 PM PT today. Might be wrth participating. That is if you have broadband access to begin with. Update: Here’s the actual discussion thread.
Over in Myrtletown, Marshall Sparks has upgraded his free Wi-Fi hot spot to cover more area. He claims it’s the “largest residential internet wireless hotspot” in Humboldt C0unty. That may be. I’m not sure what all the qualifiers mean. But I am happy there is more Wi-Fi access. It’s really wonderful that grassroots efforts like this are emerging. It’s baffling why city and county governments are not doing much of anything to spread low...
Is there something going on in the local web development scene? Or maybe it’s a meme out there in the larger web dev world that a couple local companies have coincidentally picked up on and are using as a marketing angle. The meme in question is this: Some web development companies have been claiming their creations (web sites created for their clients for example) belong to them and not to the client. Precision Intermedia...
According to this Wired blog, a reprieve has been granted to webcasters who would have had to start paying a huge increase in royalty fees for music they play. ,Soundexchange the entity charged with collecting the fees has agreed not to enforce the new rates while negotiations continue. Just yesterday I spoke with Ken Conlin who programs Humboldt 101 which plays easy listening music. He had no idea how the new fees would affect...
Over at Myrtletown.net, ‘Darsh’ has compiled a list of over 90 blogs based in Humboldt County complete with his personal views on many them. He rightly points out that I don’t link to other HC blogs. It’s not that I’m self-centered, so much as I’m lazy. I can’t keep up with them all, can’t read them all, so I haven’t picked a few favorites to highlight. I much prefer to just link to this...
I hope that headline doesn’t get me on a terrorist watch list. Actually, maybe I do. 15 minutes of fame! Anyway, the John Edwards campaign is promising to visit the community that offers the most demands for his presence. Eureka is currently number 2, but waaay behind Columbus, Kentucky. Whatya say, gang? Spread the word and see if we can catch up. Even if you don’t support John Edwards, wouldn’t it be an interesting...
I’m on a little vacation. So, I shouldn’t be blogging, I know. But this is sort of a hobby. Or maybe a curse. Or an obsesseion. Whatever. I am in no man’s land as far as a broadband connection. I haven’t been without broadband since Northcoast Internet started offering PerkiNet. Anyone remember that? You dialed in to the ISP through a standard modem and you got downloads over cable, but your upstream went through...
I’ve been watching the Live Earth Concerts off and on today. It’s pretty well done. You can switch from one location to another and the streaming video is crisp and smooth, at least over my Suddenlink connection. It’s worth checking out if you’ve got some time this lovely Saturday. And then join in the effort to save the planet while you’re at it. It would be a Humboldt thing to do.
Ars Technica has a good analysis of the current status of “Net Neutrality” issues. This paragraph offers a good summary of the what’s at stake, particularly for small businesses and end users: Network neutrality can be defined in several ways, several of which may in fact be bad for end users. But when companies start talking about “charging Internet firms to use our pipes” and letting “the market sort it all out,” consumers and...
We recently launched a couple new sites I’d like to mention: The first is a small site promoting a couple of unique coastal parcels just north of Trinidad. They aren’t for sale, yet, but they should become available soon. Pretty spectacular land. If you know anyone with lots of cash. Maybe an Internet mogul who wants to relocate or build a vacation home, pass it along. The other is a new site for Danco...
