Calling All Filmmakers...

August 2010

Filmmakers and digital content creators wanting to get seen will have a a 10 minute chance to do so in an informal, collaborative setting. We want all Digital filmmakers to screen your content and interact. Just show up and sign up, get up and show off. It's first come, first serve in our "Open Screen Theatre." Bring your content on a DVD or a QT movie on a flash drive.Sign-ups begin at 16:15!

Thanks FCPUG

2know A Tech...

August 2010

My stepfather called me the other day and asked for a technology favor.

Our hunting dog went missing and he wanted to know if there was any way

I could place a lost and found ad for him in the paper and maybe online. The dog has been a true companion to our family for several years. I called him Dan because I was a big fan of the book, "Where the Red Fern Grows." I grew up on a farm and have been the technology bridge for our family throughout the years. Using a computer to find a dog lost in the woods, I felt was a long shot. Nevertheless, I placed the ad. I believe my stepfather could have placed the ad himself, but he knows how much I like "that kind of stuff, you know, computers and stuff".

I was 10 years old and in the fifth grade when computers were first placed in Arkansas classrooms. All of the students were pretty excited about the additional computer time during math period. Those computers were brand new at the time, but still were slower than a current Atom processor or old 486 DX2. I had been waiting for that moment since I heard the phrase, "Beam me up." With all of the cartoons and television shows talking about computers, I knew this piece of technology would change the way we interacted with our world.

Over the past 20 - 25 years, I have had the opportunity to see technology grow exponentially from our heads and eyes to our ears and hands. Currently, it doesn’t matter whether it’s 3rd screen or 4th screen pieces of equipment; technology is, now more than ever, only a click away. The binary language of computers has been integrated into just about every piece of tech on the market today. Cell phones, gas stations, ATMs, grocery stores, cars, even refrigerators can call the market and order milk when you run low. Today, information is everywhere and there's a lot of it. There are over 187 million websites on the Internet and over 200 billion emails sent per day, with over a million new viruses being created each month. Surf with caution. And a spy ware virus combo program running in the background.

Although getting online can seem to be a daunting task, there are some very simple steps to consider that will help keep you as safe as possible and ease your surfing. Never upload content to the Internet that you do not have a hardcopy of saved elsewhere. Clouds (servers) and other online storage spots are great, but they should not be your only place to keep your most prized digital possessions. Never leave your computer running 24/7 without having it plugged into a battery backup. Otherwise if you are in the middle of an important document and the power goes out for whatever reason, you can kiss that work goodbye most of the time. To ensure you retain some portion of the document, go into the app’s preferences and set your Autosave to backup every couple of minutes.

And most important of all, never give out personal information to unprotected sites. You'll be able to tell if the site is secure by the lock icon at the bottom right of most browsers.

Being informed as to the changes coming down the pipe and not writing my password down on a piece of paper stuck to the front of my computer that reads, "This is my password: password," has saved me so much worry and stress. So keep your passwords safe and secure to help prevent identity theft. I hope these small tidbits help with your navigation of the Internet and technology in general. By the way, we've had three hits about Dan, one from the paper and two from the net. Now it’s off to Google Maps to check the address of the last sighting.

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter Oh Why.

August 2010

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter Oh Why.

Finally, after you have paid your bill with Hughes, Wildblue, or Suddenlink, talked with customer service representatives and foreign speaking technical people and established a DSL connection through your home phone line or satellite, you are now on the Internet. Yayeah for you and now the bad news. You will not receive high speed internet because you do not have Comcast or Time Warner cable. That means that you will not be able to download large files over the internet or stream high definition content such as Avatar in 3D. Nevertheless, you can still check your email and search for the perfect BBQ ribs recipe for the Father's Day or the 4th of July cookout competition.

Three major players in the social networking world are Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. Myspace was the first social networking site to really grab a hold of the market share and garner main stream acknowledgement. On Myspace, you can share your likes and dislikes with your friends and other people with similar tastes. Through building a profile about yourself, you upload pictures, music, and videos that you find meaningful. When you are having an event and want to get a bunch of your family and friends together, you send out one invite with the time and place. If you simply wanted to let them know it wais your birthday in a few days or announce you are really excited about the new Apple iPad, the comments section has you covered. With the ability to approve or deny access tof your information toby a distant friend, an ex, or someone you do not know, what else can you ask for, right? Then Facebook entered the stage.

Facebook is all over the news right now for issues with its their privacy policy. The privacy policy, which we all have read word for word (yeah, right), is longer than the Constitution of the United States of America. To me, it seems that Facebook sprang up by doing what Myspace does yet for educational institutions only, since students were their primary connected users. Once Google bought Youtube for $500 million dollars, Facebook opened up all the way to bands of specific groups, companies, fan pages, everyone. Similar to Myspace, Facebook shares your current mood through live emoticons, but in addition allows you to just poke someone and bite them and send them gifts and games and suggestions. No matter the bad press and multiple design changes over the recent years, Facebook has emerged as the premier social networking site. SharesPost estimates Facebook to be worth 10 billion dollars.

Now with Twitter, which isestimated worth about a billion dollars, you type up to 142 characters of just about whatever you are doing, feeling, thinking, etcetera whatever whenever. Whether you are putting $2.89 gas in your truck or biting into a really tasty vegetable from the Farmers Market, or ROTFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my #@! off) at the Citizens Brigade online video spoof about the incompetent BP executives dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, everyone one subscribed to your list of friends will know it, instantly. With the ability of GPS tracking and smart phone "bumping" of contact information, to me Twitter is on the verge of TMI (too much information) IMHO (in my humble opinion). Will we be private citizens that possess some semblance of a individual personality in future years? I'll tweet you my answer.

No matter how vast the Internet has become and how cool the new iPhone 4.0 appears, nothing beats meeting people face to face or writing with pencil and paper. And as long as the stock market dips uncontrollably due to computerized technical mistakes and Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, can not get a dedicated internet connection during a famed Mac expo, we will not be giving up on our bread and butter of expression or communication and going totally digital too soon. When using Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter, Bbe Ccautious about what you post about yourself and who you allow to access your information online. You never know when something you said or did amongst "friends" will end up being shared with the world. FYI, Tthe Library of Congress is now archiving unprotected tweets.

Shoot for the stars, land on the Moon...

August 2010

Shoot for the stars, land on the Moon...

Did you have a chance to see the night sky this past 4th of July? It was breathtaking. The moon was in it's last quarter phase. My grandfather always said that this meant that the moon was holding water and it would soon rain. Farmers always seemed to keep track of that kind of thing. My family had gathered for the celebration of my grandfather's birthday and yearly reunion. We had a wonderful time all day simply catching up, remembering things grandmother and grandfather would do, riding 4-wheelers along the paths throughout the property and eating the most delicious BBQ this side of the Mississippi. As soon as the fireflies came out, the younger cousins began setting out the fireworks to cap off the reunion. The stars, however, were my fireworks and it has always been that way for me. I could stare up at those natural sparklers for hours and the evening the 4th was no exception. My second cousin asked me what constellation I was looking at, while my first cousin poked fun by saying I was probably looking for spaceships. I told her that I was just thinking about how over 40 years ago Americans landed on the Moon for the first time in history. My facts were challenged by the first cousin. A bet to see who would clean up all the firecracker paper was made and the two pulled out their iPhones. One went to Google and the other to Wikipedia.

Google, it started as a search engine but boy-o-boy has it multiplied. It's like Google was Gizmo the good Magwai and then it was fed after midnight and gave birth to a bunch of Gremlins including a Stripe. Google is in so many different places in the world, doing so many different kinds of things. Being the number one search engine is only ten percent of the iceberg with Google, just go to their products website. They have developed such applications as Gmail to compete with Hotmail and Yahoo, Docs to compete with the Microsoft Office Suite, Maps, Books, News, Labs, Picasa to compete with Flickr and Photobucket, Google Health, SketchUp to compete with AutoCAD, Google Talk, Translate, YouTube and list continues. Google has made such an impact upon our world in under 20 years that its made its co founder Sergey Brin the 24th richest person in the world with over $17 billion dollars. The scary thing is how Google has spread throughout our biosphere like a new alien retro-virus. Also, its close ties with governmental agencies as revealed by the new "internet kill switch" being proposed by Senator Joe Lieberman and others. Personally, I believe Google's 'Achilles' heel is being too big, but not too big to fail. Once you have typed in what you are searching, the results are blanketed by advertisers, top and right side. The links below in the center of the page are also filled with every example, iteration and variation of your search, some even linked to pornography sites. Google was an information overload, even including Michael Jackson in our quick search about the first moonwalk.

Wikipedia, a combination of Wiki, meaning fast, and encyclopedia is the one stop shop for links to everything relevant to your search. It's worth about half a billion dollars and can be updated by anyone with an internet connection. Wikipedia is truly a diamond in the rough due to the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) edit style and community of linkers. Wikipedia gives the users the power to add their ideas and opinions to the mix of links. However, if you are not careful, much like with Google's links, you can find yourself clicking down inside a never-ending rabbit hole of random links. The magic of Wikipedia is how it allows for many of the words throughout its articles to become links, even though they may not be directly pertinent to what you are searching. Never the less, Wikipedia is much more specific, if you can trust the savant that linked and edited the posting. And much like most popular social networking sites, anyone can have a Wikipedia page, from Sarah Palin to Fozzie Bear. Wocka Wocka Wocka. For my cousins' face-off, who knew the most about that summer of '69 trip to the Moon? Or, who had some unknown factoid about Michael Collins, the third astronaut, or the whole Apollo Space Program until 1975? My second cousin. She had coverage with AT&T's 3G network and that meant I was not responsible for the picking up of all the firecracker paper in grandmother's front yard. Now, back to infinity and beyond.