A great deal of planning and fund raising has been going on to help get the Loop trolley back on track and running in St. Louis.

St. Louis ran Peter Witt-type streetcars from 1927 to 1951. The Delmar Loop originally got its name from the streetcar turnaround which occupied two oblong blocks on the north side of Delmar east from Kingsland Avenue.

The loop was used by the Olive-Delmar line. The Creve Coeur line coming south up Kingsland also terminated at the Loop, with the cars backing into it from Kingsland.

Restoring the trolley will be a wonderful addition to the vibrant Loop district.

Take a look at the Loop trolley website for full details.

 http://www.looptrolley.org/index.html

See the full story at “CBSlocal”:

 http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2012/02/17/update-loop-trolley-funding-falling-into-place/

Good news Friday – As an ongoing plan to relate positive stories every Friday, here is a wonderful testament to a company that understand the significance of our service men and women and is taking proactive steps to help them with employment in one of America’s great companies.

General Electric (GE), plans to hire 5,000 veterans over the next 5 years.  They already employ more than 10,000 veterans throughout the company.

Their CEO, Jeffery Immelt heads up President Obama’s jobs council which includes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AOL co-founder Steve Case and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

The jobs council and GE are helping increase manufacturing and job creation in America.

As a small business owner and a US Air Force veteran, I applaud efforts that are focused on helping the men and women who defend the rights and freedoms we cherish in this country.

See the full story at “The Washington Post”:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ge-to-hire-5000-veterans-over-next-5-years-invest-580m-to-expand-aviation-business/2012/02/13/gIQA9rDcAR_story.html

Rumors and leaks from inside information are pointing to a new product from Google around the end of 2012.

The product will be a pair of glasses with heads up display (HUD).  Based on the Android operating system, the glasses will have a small screen a few inches from your eye, use a 3G or 4 G connection and have sensors for motion and GPS.

The display will show other information in the area and provide data with location based insight.  With all the data that Google has amassed you can just imagine what types of service and images could be relayed through the glasses to the user.

See the full story at “The New York Times”:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/google-to-sell-terminator-style-glasses-by-years-end/

Using tunneling microscopes and a single red phosphorous atom, researchers from The University of South Wales in Australia have been able to accurately create a single atom transistor – that is small.

Moore’s Law states, and has held basically true, that transistor density would double around every two years.  That pace is considered to be reaching a road block since current manufacturing technology is reaching it physical limits.

With atom level transistors the density and power for computing could be greatly increased.

These are early stage developments but the ability to precisely and accurately create the atom level transistor is very encouraging.

See the full story at “CNET”:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57380455-76/single-atom-transistor-built-with-precise-control/

Just like you computer or network it is vital that you secure your Smartphone and use some simple techniques to prevent theft or account abuse.

Also like your computer there are some simple procedures you can take to help avoid being gamed.

Here are some simple suggestions;

-       Password lock the screen

-       Use a “find my phone” app

-       Don’t leave the phone lying around

-       Don’t let strangers use your phone

-       Make sure all updates are installed

-       Manage your location apps

-       Make sure new apps are from trusted sources

-       Watch out for attachments

-       Encrypt phone data

See the full story at “Informationweek”:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/mobile/232601089

Sometimes all that technology information just gets boring and simply misses what is really important.

I found a wonderful site called www.goodnewsnetwork.org that is just that – good news and great stories about wonderful people making a difference.

To support that effort I plan on posting a “good news” story every Friday.

The inspiration for these postings is my late mother, Emily Johnson.

My mother used to frequently say “I am going to write them a letter” whenever she came across something that needed to be fixed but more frequently when an action needed to be praised. Every morning, with her cup of coffee in hand, she would sit at the typewriter and type a letter to someone mentioning events or people she came in contact with.

Every day, without fail, she wrote a letter.

Emily was a lifelong contributor to charities of all kinds and devoted untold years of her life helping others.

While I could never hold a candle to all the great work she did during her life, I can help by continuing in her spirit – Here’s to you Emily, with love from Lars.

This story typifies the type of work Emily would get involved with, grass roots organizations that just want to give back to their community and people around the world who are less fortunate – take a look, share and contribute where you can.

These wonderful ladies hold pot luck dinners and use the proceeds from “Dinning for Women”, or DFW, to raise money for needy around the world.  So far they have raised over $ 1.5 million, one dinner at a time.

Read this wonderful story and visit their site to see how you can help, every small contribution makes a difference;

www.diningforwomen.org

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/most-popular/potluck-dinners-transform-lives.html

Thank you Emily for all you gave and thank everyone out there who selflessly contribute time, money and positive energy to those who are less fortunate!

Telecommuting has shown to be a great benefit to all size companies.  Space usage studies show that only 35 – 40% of office space is being utilized creating a big opportunity for savings.

There are not only savings available but workers will be happier and usually more productive in this flexible environment.

Technology today allows for safe and secure access to all files on your network by remote users so they can access all the resources just as if they were sitting at a desk in your office.

American Express Open Forum has more information on how to take advantage of this trend;

http://www.openforum.com/articles/send-employees-home-to-reduce-costs-and-boost-productivity?intlink=us-openf-nav-gallery

The closing stock price of $ 493 on February 9th propelled Apple to wild new heights and a market cap of nearly $ 460 billion!

That market capitalization is now larger than:

-       The combined market caps of Google and Microsoft

-       The gross domestic product of Sweden, as well as Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Norway, Iran, Austria and plenty more countries

-       All the gold in the Federal Reserve, and then some. ($350 billion)

-       All the illegal drugs in the world, and then some ($321 billion)

-       More than 2.5 Apollo space programs ($145-$170 billion apiece)

-       Three times the entire U.S. clothing industry ($150 billion)

See more statistics and the full story at “CNN Money”:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/09/apple-is-now-worth-more-than-the-gdp-of-sweden/?source=yahoo_quote

In a recent Symantec Intelligence report findings show;

69% of email is spam

One in 370 emails is a phishing attempt

One in 295 emails contains malware

At the end of the report are some great suggestions on how to keep your work or personal systems safe, here are some highlights;

- Use a modern anti-virus product

- Make sure you keep the virus definitions up to date

- Run the program frequently

- Have a good password policy

- Think before you click, it is easy to be fooled by “trusted” logos or websites

- Avoid banking or shopping on public computers

Down the full report here;

SYMCINT_2012_01_January_FINAL-en

Apple showed this ad during the XVIII Super Bowl in 1984 as the launch of the Macintosh.

The advertisement has been deemed by some as the greatest ad of all times, certainly a harbinger of the great inventions that followed.

IBM was about to launch the new PCjr computer for the home market. The Apple Macintosh would be launched later in the month, surpassing the Apple ][. This ‘teaser’ was designed to alert viewers to the new era in personal computers, long enough to stop them from investing in the IBM. The whole advertisement represented the capacity for the Apple color screen to outdo the monotone world of the IBM.

As noted in WikiPedia:

"Ted Friedman, in his 2005 text, Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, notes the impact of the commercial:

Super Bowl viewers were overwhelmed by the startling ad. The ad garnered millions of dollars worth of free publicity, as news programs rebroadcast it that night. It was quickly hailed by many in the advertising industry as a masterwork. Advertising Age named it the 1980sCommercial of the Decade, and it continues to rank high on lists of the most influential commercials of all time [...] ’1984′ was never broadcast again, adding to its mystique.”