NetJourneys

Early voting starts Monday for the August 26, 2008 Election

2008-08-08T11:00:00.002-05:00

The web has not yet arrived in all elections campaigns: Here is a list of candidates web sites: Collier County School Board, Sheriff & District 5 Collier County Commissioner. That's all I found, please let me know if you found others not listed. NFN.Webmaster's shared book marks, "Elections" delicious.com/NFN.webmaster/elections

Technorati

2008-06-17T12:10:00.002-05:00

Technorati Profile Technorati has some great tools to make your blog more visible on the Net. Also Technorati offers a great search tools for the blogs out there on any topic. After you register as a publisher with technorati, they will walk you through on how you claim your blog and tie it to your profile. It's a good way to market your site beyond the normal and ever crowded search engines.

Naples History Month

2008-05-13T20:52:00.002-05:00

May is being proclaimed the official History Month in Naples, and you're invited to help make history. Naples Cultural Landscape will be honoring the oldest banyan tree in the City of Naples at a celebration on May 31 at the Naples Backyard History Celebration. This particular Banyan is located at the corner of Gordon Drive and 12th Ave. S, in front of Paul Arsenault's house. Leading up to the May 31 event, the Phil Fisher Gallery will host an exhibition from May 15-31 of images featuring Beardy Banyan. Viewers of the exhibition will vote for their favorite image, and the People's Choice Award winner will be featured on the cover of a book commemorating the exhibition. Do you have a painting, photograph or other artistic representation of this significantly cultural landscape? If so, please pick up an application at Phil Fisher Gallery, 824 5th Ave. S #6, by May 13. For more information, call the Phil Fisher Gallery at 403-8393.

2nd Annual Regional Career Recruitment Expo

2008-04-10T10:37:00.002-05:00

What: Regional Career Recruitment Expo – over 50 of Southwest Florida’s premier employers and over 100 hard to reach human resource professionals under one roof. Where: Alico Arena (FGCU campus). Once on the campus we will have directional signs. There are driving directions on the website at www.SWFLeducation.com When: April 15, 2008 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Parking: Parking is free and the earlier you get there the closer you will be able to park. Expectations: The participating businesses are among Southwest Florida’s top employers, therefore expecting a job offer the day of the Career Expo maybe a little unrealistic. In today’s job market, employers usually will conduct more than one interview, conduct some sort of background check, verify past employment, and contact references. However, you will have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with over 50 of Southwest Florida’s top employers in one afternoon (an effort that would normally take months) and this is a great opportunity to network, discuss corporate career ladders and exchange business cards and resumes Dress: Dress to impress, you’ll get a second change to make a first impression. (by Jim Wall, Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board)

April Charity Golf Events & New Sites

2008-04-03T10:04:00.009-05:00

First Tee of Naples The local chapter of First Tee has published an extensive Life Skills program calendar on their web site. This program is for elematary age children as wll as for high school age students. Application form is online available and you can get more information from executive director Cindy Darland at tftnaplescollier@aol.com. When you visit the web site also check out the information on the The First Tee First Pro-Am Tournament April 14 at Fiddesticks Country Club. It will be great fun!

GolfCaptains.com If you set up the tee times, keep track of who can play when, put together the parings, decide the game and then email or call everyone You Are a Golf Captain! Volunteers running golf leagues or tournaments receive now online help big time! A new website supplies the means to organize a lot of administrative tasks online, and automate some of the routine communication needs with members. It automates team selection process, allows to set tee times and maintains a member ship roster and keeps track of each player's availability and schedule. Test the site and login with eh user ID: guestcaptain@gc.com and password: guest.

This month Charity Tournaments
If you know of a tournament we missed, please add a comment to the entry.

Back Packs for Kids, Susan G. Komen Fund, and The Interfaith Caregivers the charities of choice for Books Charity Golf Tournament on April 4 - April 6, 2008. Learn more Call Michael Zigler 444-2103 or at gm@springrun.com

Marine Corps League of Naples will hold their 10th Anuual golf tournament at Glen Eagle Golf & Country club on April 5th, 2008. Call Joe Johnston at 417-9343 or e-mail joe.johnston@comcast.net

Jim Near Center for Families and Children at Guadlupe in Immokalee will receive proceeds from the 16th annual Maynard Cup on Sunday, April 6th, 2008. Info & reservations Patsy Graham 947-4149

National Kidney Foundation of Florida Golf Classic held at The Twin Eagles on Monday April 7, 2008. Contact tournament chairman, Anthony DeFeo at 514-7388.

6th Annual Krista Kaye Cambridge-Nevins Golf Outing will rais fund for the benefits the scholarship fund for local high school students at the named charity. Saturday April 12th, 2008 Arrowhead Country Club. Contact Dick Thornton 596-3498.

African Caribbean American Community Center will hold its Charity Classic tournament on Saturday April 12, 2008 at Verandah Club in North Ft. Myers.Contact 461-0233 or e-mail ihernandez@afcaam.org

The Coalition to Salute Americ Heros benefits from the The Dodge Celebrity Invitational on April 16th - April 19, 2008 at Flamigo Island Course at Lely Resort. More information at the tounaments web site: www.dogecelebritygolf.com

What a Free iPod Might Cost?

2008-03-23T07:28:00.012-05:00

I was testing a Facebook application of which I will write in a future post. Today I want to let you know what happens after that.

The last screen was typical prose 'This is what you can also do with this awesome application' and what caught my eyes was the red flashing "You Are A Winner! You just WON one of 12 iPod touches given out today!" and normal Facebook button to "Get your Prize".

O hey, who wouldn't want to have another iPod? My brain wasn't as fast on the pick-up as I would have wanted it to be. Why would I, who never wins anything in a raffle, be the one of 12 winning an iPod in a social network of 66 million?
My only excuse is that I was still very curious, so I clicked on it. Now I have left Facebook entirely and it was all made look pretty clean and focused, "Test and Keep an iPod Touch! Give us your e-mail address and claim your prize." with "Delivered by FedEx" Button and all. For these occasions I have a "IknowIsubscribedToSpam" e-mail address, which I put in there and on the next page, they asked me for my mailing address and phone number. And of course, I would need to give them all that information, if the iPod-Touch should ever arrive at my home, right? Alright, I sat up straight and went through typing in my information into the fields on the screen.

I read carefully through the options next to the checked boxes underneath the form. It was a list offering text messages on my cellphone, and more messages from other partner firms and so on. And I unchecked all of them, except my agreement to the site policy and the privacy policy. This is usual procedure and I am always trying to avoid exponentially increasing the spam. Then I was ready to click on the "Click here to continue" button, when I looked at the text printed right above it, which was very neutrally formatted like the other instruction on the form that make you just fill in the right information:

"By clicking on the "Continue" above I am requesting to be contacted by CustomerXXXX.com (name changed, put in your most favorite customer direct savings company) offer sponsors and marketing partners regardless of any DNC List registration."

What does DNC mean? It's an acronym for "Do-Not-Call-List". And it finally registered! What a sneaky way! In other words, this is an information collection page, where those direct mailing and telemarketers collect information of people, and then they will cross-reference it against the "Do-Not-Call-Lists" around the nation and kick all the people off, who clicked "continue". They then will share that information with other marketing companies and then you are the fat prize for them:
First they think you gave them the permission to give you unsolicited phone calls, despite the fact that your information is listed on a Do-not-call-list, then they have an e-mail address AND a mailing address so they can cross reference now every data they might have with your mailing address and link an e-mail address to it, which is quite an accomplishment, if you ever want to do target marketing by zip code via e-mail and do that via a Direct Advertising Company. And they know you are a live person, and no robot, and on of top of that your are an early adopter, because they found you on Facebook, and if that link really works, they know more about you than your mother will ever know.

Clicking on that button would have been "something stupid very fast". Now, I know that my information is out there, I have an ever growing spam folder to prove it. I have been on the Internet since 1996 quite visible and I have never hidden, and I have bought way too many things online that my e-mail address and mailing address couldn't be matched otherwise before. So I am the last person to lament about lost privacy on the Internet.

But the Do-not-call list? Come on , people! My husband and I have done a fine job keeping our phone lines free from solicitation calls ever since Florida and Federal DNC lists were implemented. Apart from the occasional non-profit organization none of those telemarketers disturbs us at dinner time or any other time. And here with one click our peace would have ended just because I like gadgets, especially new ones, and it would have come for free.

Now that would be a prize way to high for me and my marriage to pay.
Updated: April 10, 2008: edited for brevity - bph.

A jewel: Podcasts of the Public Library

2008-03-15T20:07:00.009-05:00

Who would have known? Is it just me or did a lot of people miss the great interviews done by the Library and posted on the Net? Heat up your audio equipment and listen to our local Library Radio Shows! You'll find interviews with Vic Tommarchi, of Night Train Band, with Jennifer Rogers, coordinator of TEAM Ocean Collier County, with writer, editor and presenter Laurie Nienhaus, who reflects on the life and poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay and with local writer and actor Janina Birtolo. Other broadcasts talk about the upcoming events in the various branch offices of the public library. Since January 2008 various members of the library teams have put together great quality shows with background music, great sound mixing and well done scripts. A real pleasure to listen to. And now that the public library is forced to reduce the opening hours, you can still hear their voices. Listen to the (almost) weekly Internet radio programs from your friendly neighborhood librarians, always trying to serve you better each and every day. Don't miss another issue and subscribe to their RSS Feed, too.

Naples Press Club: Authors & Books Festival: April 5 & 6, 2008

2008-03-14T13:35:00.004-05:00

Von Liebig Art Center, Downtown Naples. Learn more about the Naples Press Club

Kevin Rambosk for County Sheriff

2008-03-08T00:53:00.004-05:00

Another public servant candidate web site, this one with a higher Web 2.0 factor, it's a Blog and has an RSS feed and for those that look closer and know what to look for will also find a link to his facebook profile on the site. Of course, you can only look at a facebook profile if you have a facebook profile yourself. So get one if you are curious, it's easy. Kevin Rambosk, for those who really don't know him, is Don Hunter's Undersheriff since 2005 and is a former City of Naples Manager, City of Naples Chief of Police and has lived in Collier County since 1978. You'll find the rest of his bio on his web site. There you also find some video footage and more. Listed at the Supervisor of Elections site are two opponents for the Sheriff's posts in the upcoming election: - Angiolillo, Vincent 'Vinny', Republican - Ortino, Victor P., Republican As all candidates are Republicans, the election will actually be decided in the August 26, 2008 Republican primary. So if you are a snowbird, a registered voter in Collier County, don't forget to apply for absentee ballot and make sure your signature that is at the Supervisor of elections office matches your current signature. As long as there is not independent candidate or Democrat running for the Sheriff's office, the Republican primary in August will be open for all Collier County voters. Learn more about Absentee Voting

501 Tech Club SWFL Blog

2008-02-24T11:24:00.006-05:00

The 501 Tech Club of SWFL's Blog started, and published the slideshow of the GNL Community Service Fair and the Hand-out. The slide show shows the Software as a Service fo Google Apps, and Constant Contact some introduction on Techsoup Stock and on NTEN. And the Hand-out has a list of 30 Web 2.0 Sites that are worth looking into, as well as a page of background and definitions information. Even if you don't think you want participate in the Tech club and learn more about the technology as a strategy component for any nonprofit organization, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog where some of the announcement and news will be posted as well.

Janeice Martin for County Judge

2008-02-24T09:19:00.008-05:00

This week in the paper (NDN) I found the announcement that the president-elect of the Collier County Bar Association Janeice Martin is running for County Judge. I took a look at her web site. It's a bit scarce still and I am hoping that she will soon also have an RSS feed so I give her a spot in this collection. A political online campaign, that does not have an RSS feed will not keep the online audience engaged, especially not in this political season which will be loud and noisy. Campaign Manager Cathleen Couratelo has found an excellent graphic designer and obviously a great and large campaign team. The jurisprudence community is behind Janeice Martin, now they have to get out the vote, too. First step: get a link to the NDN article on there, as it tells the story of Janeice Martin much better then the web site does.

Clyde and Nikki in the Everglades

2008-02-15T16:18:00.004-05:00

img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" src="http://clydebutcher.com/shopcart/Images/7CabCutTb.jpg" border="0" alt="" /> Clyde Butcher is at it again, photographing the Everglades. Nikki will keep us fans up to date with the progress. Tune in! My husband and I are great fans of Clyde Butcher's photography and have several prints in offices and at home. His recent exhibition "America The Beautiful" expanded the special viewfinder view of Butcher's vision onto the wonders of nature through other areas of America. When you visit his gallery in Ochopee, make sure to look for photos from this exhibition.

The Bigs of Blogs

2008-02-14T14:23:00.002-05:00

In FastCompany's Dec 2007/Jan 2008 edition they list the mostpopuilar places in the blogoshpere, accordingin to technoraty, as measured by the number of links to those blogs during the past six months. You can read about them by following above links, among them however is "Huffington Post" the No 1 political site with Naomi Klein and Charlie Rose blogging or "Ars Technica" which as always some interesting tech-biz news

Web 2.0

2008-02-10T21:33:00.004-05:00

In preparation (my preparation not student's preparation) for the next series of Web 2.0 classes here are some links: (there are a ton of links on del.icio.us as well, it just shows you that I am just not ready yet) Q&A: The creators of Digg, StumbleUpon and Netvibes on Web 2.0's future 'Content is king,' says Digg.com's Kevin Rose The Complete Web 2.0 Directory And here is a quasi-arty Video that shows what Web 2.0 is, and also shows in a Web 2.0 way how easy it is to include a YouTube video in a Blog. It's way cool!. (BTW, this is how you embedd a YouTube video in you blog post without leading your visitors away from you blog/web site, and without having 'related videos links show up next to the video' show up over which you don't have any control.) More on this in a later class on "How to use Blogger" with the Naples Free-Net...

LVIT's Blog-o-sphere

2008-02-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

The Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology and Technical High School are very big on blogging. Media Center of LVIT and read many good book suggestions and other media tips. From the Principal's Desk Jeanette Johnson. The blog about education and life of a prinicpal, I guess. I have had the pleasure and meet Ms. Johnson last weekend at the AAUW Math & Science conference for 5th grade girls and their parents and she gave a wonderful talk about today's trends on education. Here blog is under the motto: "Challenge your mind, pursue your passion!"

Naples Social Action

2008-02-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

Ted and Jane Coine are the force and soul behind the Naples Social Action. They are a bundle of energy for the greater good of Naples. Here are the different kind of blogs or newsletters you might want to subscribe if you are interested in the Not-for-profit world of Collier County: Newsletters of the Naples Social Action (2/2008) Naples Social Action Calendar NSA Charity Job Bank a great way to get the word out about your job offer! And there is Ted Coine's personal Blog And then the newest foundation: The Naples Institute A think tank. Fighting for social justice.

Greater Naples Leadership Fair Special

2008-02-06T10:40:00.007-05:00

Don Gunther, Dawn Montecalvo and Todd Foege of the Naples Child and Education Foundation, talked about the inner workings of their organization beyond the publicity of the Naples Wein Festival and what happens when the festival is over the grants are given and the help is provided to the Children in need of Collier county.

Keith Hammonds and Felipe Vergara talked about Innovative Approaches to Financing: Ahoka.org RSS Feed 2007 FastCompany Social Capitalist Awards

William Franz, EVP & COO of the Community Foundation talked about Community Group Funds, a way to utilize the resources of the Community Foundation while building a nonprofit or while focusing on programs and leaving the administrative task to the fine oiled office machinery of the Community Foundation staff.

Jeanne Bolds and I talked about Software as a Service, Google Apps, Techsoup Stock and the new 501 Tech Club SWFL See the presentation:

| View | Upload your own

New Hope Ministeries on Top of Audio Tools

2008-02-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

Only as an example how one church uses the internet tools available, the web site of the New Hope Ministeries offers plenty of audio tools to get the word of the Lord out to parishioners and those who might want to join the church on Davis Boulevard. You can listen to the last sermon on Windows Media Player, in your iPod, on iTunes. If neither is your player of choice you can subscribe to RSS Feed and never miss a sermon again. To find the RSS Feed, though you have to scroll down in the middle frame ... it's a bit hidden.

Blogger Writes about Wine Festival

2008-02-01T07:55:00.000-05:00

Alex Glazier, a 1985 Naples High graduate, came back on a Journalist FAM Tour for the Wine Festival. He is one of the new breed of journalist, who write for a blog, the backroadwine.com and it wasn't easy for him to be included in the high caliber journalist tour, the Convention & Visitors Bureau has organized. But he has a point, "The thing is, it stays up forever." And which of the print media can say this for itself today? Read the Naples Daily News article online

Marco Island SunTimes

2008-01-31T20:25:00.000-05:00

The Marco Island SunTimes it seems has a higher distribution than the Marco Eagle, and they also have an RSS feed page that is quite extensive and helps you select the topics that you are interested in. Check it out and subscribe to your favorite RSS Feed.

ABC-7 Blogs

2008-01-29T12:31:00.001-05:00

The staff reporters from ABC 7 also write about back stories of their news stories on their blogs. Some of them quite regularily some of them haven't written in month. I guess the demographics in SWFL are not always the blog readers, given the general age composition, but some are quite interesting. For instance the story about how AP erronously reported the Fred Thompson was in Naples when he announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race and that it first didn't take 30 seconds that it was around the world and every other news outlet was asking ABC-7 if they covered it and that it took hours for every one to figure out that AP actually made a mistake. That story you can find on "View from Collier" by Sean Brown. You will also find quite an active blog by Noah Pransky of ABC-7 Sports. Have fun.

CCSO:The Traffic Stop

2008-01-28T14:32:00.001-05:00

The Naples Daily News reported today that the Collier County sheriff's office started a new traffic blog, where you can sign on and receive updates on traffic issues within minutes on local traffic situations. But this is not all that you can find on this blog, Deputies also inform on other traffic related topics: Today you find Traffic Enforcement Spots listed, othere days reminders on Road Rules or Traffic Public Safety Announcements. The Collier County Sheriff's Office also has another blog: Behind the Star

Google Pages Test Page

2008-01-24T21:22:00.001-05:00

http://birgit.pauli.googlepages.com/

First test of a Google Apps Page Creator page, combined with other Google Tools like Picase Web albums and Blogger RSS feeds. It's nothing more than a proof of concept for a collaboration site, that can get a new initiative off the ground with a lot features in place and all for free. It's pretty amazing and I could play all night, but of course it's time for me to get back home. Tomorrow is Friday and that is swim practice at NCH with the Naples Aquatics, 5:30 am. Good
night.

501 Tech Club SWFL

2008-01-24T20:35:00.000-05:00

During this month board meeting the Naples Free-Net approved that we sponsor this region's 501 Tech Club and start facilitating meetings and online communication. The 501 Tech Club is an initiative of N-Ten the Non-Profit Technology Network: www.nten.org. Stay tuned for further announcement of online web site, e-mail listserv, blog etc. And of course, the announcement of the first meeting. I have agreed to be the organizer of the meetings and be the contact person for NTEN in SWFL. My experience working with local not-for-profits let's me believe that there is a great need in sharing resources, knowledge and also a great need for education not only of the 'accidental techies' but also of the not-for-profit leadership. Technology, and the implementation of new technology is not anymore the business of IT people alone the whole organization is affected by technology decisions. It becomes more apparent when the decisions were poor decisions, but then many operations home to a halt and the repair and aggravation is double work on staff and volunteers. So help is one the way, with online seminars by NTEN more education through Techsoup and more information through online communication via 501 Tech Club and more personal exchange through local techies, non-profit managers, volunteers and the technology communities as well as the technology partners.

Google Apps: A Heap of Online Tools

2008-01-24T19:57:00.000-05:00

This week I got in contact with a marvelous group of artist around the industrial section of the Trade Center Way, the North Naples Arts Alliance. They are the same artist that also hold the Wednesday night Underground every first Wednesday of the month from 6 to 9 pm in their studios. They asked me for advice regarding a web site for their group. (see NDN article) I pointed them towards Google Apps, a groups of online tools that is just fabulous and easy to use and can be hardly match with any other company. And the best thing: it's free. Especially for a group of artists, where everyone is so individualistic. They can even use a Blogger Blog as an overall site and the individual artists could use their own blogs and feed the groups blog. Blogs are free from Google as well like this one. And when you look at this blog, I have put the Naples Daily News Restaurant Section as a feed on my blog so everyone who comes to my blog and doesn't find anything new at least learns more about the Naples Restaurant scene and it's automatically updated, because it uses Naples Daily News publishing capabilities. Think of it for a moment. How cool is that?