This past week I had an article appear in the local paper trying to explain Twitter and why it’s a such a useful tool and how to get started using it. The premise was that I keep running in to resistance to Twitter even among technically adept and adventurous people. I do admit in the article that Twitter isn’t for everyone. But I find it far more useful in so many ways than Facebook, especially for staying on top of interesting news, meeting new people and discovering very cool resources.

I got some good responses from the article, mostly from people already on Twitter. And it’s clear when I crawl out from behind my computer and venture in to RL that people are reading the article. But I’m not sure it’s made much impact. I met one gentleman on the way to a play last night who mentioned he reads my articles and enjoyed the one on Twitter. But when I asked him if he uses Twitter he said, “What? No. God, no!” And we all laughed as if that was an imminently reasonable stance. But I didn’t have a chance to ask him “Why not?”

I was slow to catch on, myself. Like so many new toys, I was fast to sign up as soon as I heard about it way back in 2007. But it was over a year before I really started to explore it. And as the service has added features and the third party tools have improved the user experience, I have come to rely on it for so many things. I can go days without looking at or posting to Facebook. But Twitter has become a regular habit. Maybe I’m just a twit (comments welcome).

One aspect of Twitter I haven’t explored yet are chats. I’ve known about them for quite a while, but haven’t had much opportunity to participate. But I found this Google doc spreadsheet that lists over 150 chats on all kinds of topics. Something for everyone?

Finally, if you’re getting in to Twitter I highly advise using a third-party tool for discovering people, managing Twitter streams and getting the most out of the service. My favorite tool d’jour is HootSuite. It’s a rich application that  can be run in a web browser, on your desktop, IPhone, Android and soon Blackberry. You can manage lists, searches, and multiple social media accounts all within one user friendly interface. And it’s free! (There is a pro IPhone version).

Post from: Talking Tech

Twitter Starter and Beyond

Technorati Tags: hoot suite, Social Media, twitter

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, let alone something about local broadband news. What can I say, I’ve been busy! Most stuff goes on Twitter these days because it’s fast. But there’s been plenty of broadband news and discussion lately, so I thought I’d gather some of that stuff together here. I’m sure I’ve missed things. Feel free to add to the information in the comments.

The Humboldt County General Plan Update continues it’s long and torturous process toward completion. The Planning Commissions will (I hope), be addressing a the new Telecommunications Element (soon to be changed to the Communications Element?)  at next week’s meeting on the 29th. The proposed document is worth a review if you have any interest in how the County might frame communications policies for the next 20 years. Folks from the Redwood Technology Consortium, Access Humboldt and the California Center for Rural Policy have been reviewing the document and are submitting written and oral comment. Access Humboldt has posted the most recent meeting where people gave oral support for the new element. Comments relative to the Communications Element begin around 1 hour and 11 minutes in to the video.

The highly hyped Highway 299 fiber build proposed by Broadband Associates a year or so ago has gone nowhere. As a result the grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) that was supposed to help fund the project has been withdrawn, making the money available for other projects. According to Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace (see the video from RTC’s June 10th luncheon), there are players ready to take up the project and that the 299 corridor fiber build has a lot of support at the state level.

In the meantime a proposal from Redwood Telephone, a company formed through a coalition of local tribes has been tentatively approved pending a comment period and a final decision scheduled for August 12. This is an interesting proposal and it’s well worth looking at as it seems to have the ambition of providing broadband to much of the region, including unserved and underserved areas and even regions already covered by the incumbent ISPs such as AT&T and Suddenlink. It’s not clear to me how this will work. Would appreciate some input in the comments.

Meanwhile the proposed middle mile fiber build along Highway 36 by IP Networks appears to be moving forward at least as far as planning, rights of way, contractual agreements and funding (some of which is also coming from CASF). According to a newsletter put out by the Redwood Regional Economic Development Commission (RREDC), “The fiber optic project is scheduled for completion by the summer of 2011.” Apparently 101 Netlink is involved in providing some local wireless service feeds off this fiber line along that sparsely populated corridor. That’s a good thing. But it’s unclear if this fiber line will provide any blanket redundancy for our region.

We’re still waiting to hear if our regional proposal to Google’s Community Fiber program will go anywhere.

Finally, I have heard an unconfirmed rumor that Charter Communications that services Del Norte County and parts of Southern Oregon with cable and Internet is in talks with Suddenlink to purchase their Humboldt County system. If it does, the story goes, Charter would build another fiber line running north-south along 101 to connect it’s fiber in the north to AT&T’s line here.

I have no idea how any of these plans and projects will play out and whether any of them will lead to more stable service, higher speeds, more coverage, or lower cost for consumers. But one can hope.

Post from: Talking Tech

Local Broadband News Summary

Technorati Tags: broadband, cable, county general plan, fiber, isp, redunancy

One of the struggles we have within our company is drawing the line between our hosting services and our web site development services. This most often comes up when we come across sites we built 5-6 years ago and suddenly the technology behind them no longer works. For example, we built sites using our own custom systems. Granted they were based in open source technology like PHP and MySQL and they worked back then. But both PHP and MySQL have advanced. And server systems have advanced. But the original scripts have not kept up with those advances.

So, when a customer calls and says “My site is broken”, we have to make a decision. Do we fix the current site to comply with server systems, or do we draw the line and say we can no longer support those scripts (that we built) and the client will have to upgrade? It’s not a clear cut decision, but it’s one that eventually has to lean toward the latter. Most often, though, we band aid sites to keep them lumbering along until the organization can find the resources to bring their enterprise into the 21st century. Given that we started our hosting service because of all the bad practices we ran in to with large commercial hosts, I tend to bend over backwards to accommodate our clients.

I like to keep our hosting services available because we do a good job customizing our servers to make things run fast and smooth for the majority of our clients. And many of our development clients appreciate dealing with a single vendor for both hosting and site development. But sometimes I wonder if the hosting side is more of a drain on our small company and we should take advantage of all the great cloud services out there and let them deal with the hardware and underlying hosting software while we focus on delivering great web sites.

Post from: Talking Tech

Hosting vs Development Services

Technorati Tags: customer service, hosting, web development

I returned from Drupalcon in San Francisco on Thursday and have spent the last few days catching up with work and life. I’m just starting to sort through all my thoughts on this great conference. First, I wish I could have attended even more sessions. But fortunately, they were all recorded and are already available on archive.org.

Additionally all three keynotes were excellent and inspiring both in terms of Drupal and for the open source and open government movements: Dries Buytaert Keynote | Tom O’ Reilly Keynote | Open Government Keynote.

This was the largest Drupalcon yet, and much was made of Drupal’s growth and its growing influence on the web. Dries’ keynote has some interesting statistics on that. Overall, there was a sense that Drupal was quickly transforming from one of several content management systems to a major player in enterprise, government and non-profit sectors. It felt good to be a small part of this community.

I came away with plenty of ideas on business processes, module concepts, the transition to the next version of Drupal due out later this year. I plan to write more about these areas in the coming days and weeks.

Post from: Talking Tech

Back from Drupalcon!

Technorati Tags: drupal, drupalcon, open government, open source, web development

The Federal government is continuing to announce awards from the USDA (just one in California and it’s not for our region) and the Dept. of Commerce (nothing for California) for the first round of broadband stimulus funds.

Now the second round of the application process is gearing up. They will be holding workshops around the country and providing live Webinars (one from Portland is going on this morning).

Post from: Talking Tech

Broadband Stimulus Funds Round 2

Technorati Tags: broadband, stimulus funds

In my most recent Tech Beat article I included a  reference to Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It! It was sort of a mini-review within a longer article. I thought I’d give the book  more thorough treatment here where word count is not an issue.

If you are looking for a blueprint for building a successful online business, you should consider reading this small (148 pp) book. It’s both inspiring and cautionary. If you can absorb both of those feelings and take them to heart you can also follow Vaynerchuck’s recommendations on how to build a personal brand and thereby create a variety of income streams both on and off line.

Vaynerchuck begins the book with his “secret to success”: “Love your family, work superhard, live your passion.” Then he proceeds to tell his personal story to illustrate how he as followed those 3 rules to build a $60 million business.

The inspiration

Briefly, he began working in his father’s local liquor store in New Jersey. He started out as a stock boy and cashier, but he eventually found a niche by reinventing how wine is reviewed and sold. Eschewing the enigmatic language with how wine was described and marketed he decided he wanted to make wine accessible to the average buyer. This helped him greatly expand the liquor store sales. But it was when he went online with his unique approach that things really exploded.

And here is where his story will be of most interest to the online entrepreneur. Vaynerchuck lays out a set of steps if you want to follow his model for building a personal brand. If you watch his videos on Winelibrary.tv or elsewhere on the web you may not think you can or want to turn yourself into another GaryVee. He is well aware that his story and personality may not be a fit for everyone. And he provides some alternative paths. He also throws out some quick examples of people in other professions who are following their passions and even offers ideas for other businesses you could pursue.

But be warned, it ain’t easy!

But the cautionary thoughts are also woven throughout the book: Don’t attempt this if you do not have a real passion for the product, service or concept you want to market because while the online tools are free or relatively cheap, the true cost is the investment of time you will need to make in order to succeed. You have to truly “live your passion” because outside of your family it will become your life. You can’t approach this casually. But if you believe in what you are doing, the work should be fun. Follow the steps outlined in the book. Do many of them over and over again. In fact, you don’t even have to buy the book. Just find a copy and memorize Appendix A where he lists 21 steps. To quote a few:

• Post your content.
• Start creating community by leaving comments on other people’s blogs and forums and replying to comments to your own comment.
• Search Twitter.com to find as many people as possible talking about your topic, and communicate with them.
• Use Blogsearch.Google.com to find more blogs that are relevant to your subject.
• Join as many active Facebook fan pages and groups relating to your blog topic as possible.
• Repeat steps 12 through 16 over and over and over and over and over.
• Do it again.
• Do it again.

Not a complete how to

This is a book to read to get you to turn off the TV and get busy. However, if you’re looking for specific instructions on how to use the various social media tools such as Facebook or Twitter you will need to look elsewhere. I plan to review other books and resources on social media and other topics here in the future. So check back.

Apparently there is also a Vook (video book version), too.

Post from: Talking Tech

Review: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck

Technorati Tags: crush it, gary vaynerchuck, marketing, Social Media

In one week I will turn f’ing 58! There is no reversing time. But you can get stuck on a rock as the river flows around you.

A friend asked me a couple weeks ago on his birthday if I ever felt like letting go of trying to keep up with new developments in technology. I have, in fact, thought about it. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. Sometimes I get tired. Always I am aware of how little I really know and how small a piece of the world of technology I am aware of and have time to follow.

But letting it all go would mean what? Maybe I would return to something more true, like writing fiction and poetry where my heart was for so many years. Maybe I would return to theater where I spent 20 years of my professional life. Maybe I would just find more time to kayak (which has it’s own interminable depths of hardware and learning and technological advances).

I’ve been doing tech for 20 years now, though, so it’s become so much a part of me, it would be hard to stop learning and trying new things. Back when I started, tech was a fun side note to my “real life” in theater and academia. Now, as with so many people, it permeates everything I do.  And I have lots of ideas and projects that will keep me moving ahead for quite a while. Still, I need to keep in perspective that all the apps and gadgets are really just a means to connect with real people, no matter how many robots I come in contact with.

Happy new year. Happy birthday to me!

Post from: Talking Tech

Getting Older, Not Giving Up

According to this Wall Street Journal blog post, the FCC is considering setting an average speed of 2-4 mbs for it plans for improved broadband coverage plan that will be released soon. While this is a much better target than the previous 200 kbs figure the FCC had previously defined as broadband, it still seems terribly shortsighted and will leave us continually trying to play catch up with the rest of the developed world.

Of course, deploying higher speeds will be more expensive, but here is the key sentence in this article:

Providing universal broadband access at 3 mbps would cost about $20 billion, the FCC estimates. The price tag for 50 mbps service across the U.S. would cost more than $50 billion.

That means for an increase of 2.5 times the cost we would get more than 15 times the speed! And while 3 mbps might be adequate for most users today, if you are building an infrastructure for the future 50 mpbs may not even a high enough target. Let’s make a real investment in the future and get a robust data delivery system. Given what the short life of the Internet has already unleashed, there is just no telling what fantastic new products and services will arise from all corners of the country. Even the rural ones.

Post from: Talking Tech

FCC Looks at Barely Adequate Speeds for Rural Broadband

I know I should be pronouncing my gratitude for health, family, friends, good fortune and all that. And I am truly thankful for those things. But who couldn’t say that? Instead, I thought I’d take today to make a categorized list of my favorite podcasts. I go to the gym 2-3 times per week, and run about 40 minutes each day I don’t go to the gym. I wouldn’t survive these trials if  didn’t have my IPhone full of stuff to keep my mind occupied while my body toils away. Because I have so many I really enjoy, I try to find other times in the week to listen to my favorite shows.

I know most people listen to music when they work out, but I use the time to stay informed on news, economics, and technology. Or I listen to interviews of writers, or stories told or read. I don’t think my collection is particularly unique. Most of these are pretty well-known. But there may be one or two you might not have heard of. I would certainly love to have your suggestions of great shows in the comments. I can always find time to listen to something new.

General News and Commentary

• Left, Right and Center: Weekly 1/2 hour commentary on the news.
• To the Point: Hour long daily analysis of the news.

News and Culture Interviews

• Fresh Air: Who doesn’t love this show?
• Bob Edward’s Weekend: Former NPR broadcaster always has interesting guests.
• Open Source: Christopher Lydon interviews a diverse range of profound thinkers in many realms.

Fiction and Non-Fictions Stories

• The Moth: True stories told live without notes.
• This American Life: Always a treasure. Although I often hear this on air instead of through the podcast.
• New Yorker Fiction: Stories from the New Yorker read by other writers who have chosen them.

Technology

• This Week in Tech: Too long for me to hear in one setting. Almost always interesting and entertaining.
• Buzz Out Loud: Daily recap and commentary on tech news.
• Lullabot: A variety of Drupal news and interviews.
• Macbreak Weekly: More from the Leo Laporte TWIT.TV network.

Economics

• Planet Money: 3 times/week. Great for explaining hard concepts. Entertaining.
• The Big Money: Good analysis of economic issues from Slate magazine.

Miscellaneous

• The Writer’s Almanac: Garrison Keillor, literature notes and a poem. 5 minutes/day.
• The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: Fun, illuminating, satisfying…if you like logic, reason and facts.

I subscribe to several others. But I can’t listen to them all regularly, and some are video podcasts, which I don’t like to watch while I’m working out. I usually watch them on my laptop. Feel free to comment on this list and to share your favorites.

Post from: Talking Tech

I’m Thankful for These Podcasts

Technorati Tags: bob edwards, buzz out loud, center, left right, lullabot, new yorker, planet money, podcasts, skiptics' guide, the moth, this week in tech, writer's almanc

Yesterday was declared the birthday of the Internet. It’s  been an amazing 40 years. And the next 40 years will be even more amazing as the developments are accelerating. But one of the roadblocks to this future online world is our inadequate infrastructure – the too thin, too fragile tubes that are supposed to carry the rising flood of data.

The 7 billion or so dollars the Federal government is supposed to pass out for broadband infrastructure improvements, particularly for rural and underserved areas holds a lot of promise. But the distribution of those funds for real projects is hellishly slow and fraught with confusion.

For example, the first announced stimulus money is going to several states to undertake studies to map where broadband is deployed and where it isn’t. More studies? Don’t we already know where better broadband service is needed?

Now we learn that the current round of proposals that were supposed to be announced in early November won’t be announced until December. Given the number of questions raised by Congress there may be further delays while those questions and issues get sorted out. What constitutes “remote” for example:

Rockefeller echoed concerns expressed in the House about the definition of remote, which is currently defined as at least 50 miles from an urban area.

Adelstein said there is a growing consensus that the 50 miles might have been the wrong figure, and that there were other ways to define remote, like population density or income.

Rockefeller pushed the issue, asking whether that change would be made. “There is really no excuse for us not doing that,” he said. Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) also has problems with the current definition. He asked for more specficis.

Adelstein said everything is on the table in what will be a top-to-bottom review of how to better define remote, but at the same time not make the definition too complicated. “We’ll help you,” said Kerry.

Pretty crucial.

In the meantime, locally,  several proposals have been submitted and are waiting to learn if they will receive funding. Apparently, there is a short list but I have not found any information on which projects, if any, are on that list. Among the original proposals is one by Broadband Associates to build fiber along 299 with local access points along the way.

A competing proposal by IP Networks along Highway 36 that would not be providing local access. The latter project has a application before the California Public Utilities Commission’s California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). (Download the PDF for this grant application) Several local entities including the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors and Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro have sent letters of support to CASF for this project.

But others in the region are concerned that if the IP Networks project is funded either by California or the Federal Government, it will preclude funding for any other projects such as Broadband Associate’s 299 fiber build. This confusion and lack of unity as to what’s best for the region suggests a need for creating a region-wide telecommunications committee that would be able to address the region as a whole and provide planning and guidance in a coordinated way. There has been some discussion over creating such an entity, but nothing formal has emerged. It would be a shame if we started working at cross purposes instead of making wise choices that benefit the most people now and in to the future.

Post from: Talking Tech

Fast Internet for All Slows to Crawl

Technorati Tags: broadband, planning, stimulus

Drupal,the open source content management system that we use almost exclusively for building web sites, is now being used to run the official White House web site, whitehouse.gov. For the general public this will mean little as they won’t see any visible difference in the site. But it’s great news for us, the Drupal community and the open source movement as a whole. But it’s also an interesting political statement by the current administration in embracing an opens source platform over a commercial system.

It’s good for us because it lends authority to our choice of systems. While we have no doubts that Drupal is a robust and flexible platform that can be used to build just about any imaginable site, current and potential clients will more easily accept Drupal as a quality solution (perhaps even if they don’t agree with the policies of the current government).  As quoted in the AP article:

“We now have a technology platform to get more and more voices on the site,” White House new media director Macon Phillips told The Associated Press hours before the new site went live on Saturday. “This is state-of-the-art technology and the government is a participant in it.”

That’s quite an endorsement. In case you’re interested, Dries Buytaert, the founder of the Drupal project keeps a pretty current list of other high visibility Drupal sites.

The current government’s use of Drupal  lends considerable credibility to the efforts of the Drupal community as a whole. Drupal has made tremendous advances in the last few years, and the next major release will again move the system out in front of the pack. These achievements have been largely accomplished by hours and hours of volunteer efforts by many developers around the world.

Finally, using Drupal for one of the most visible government web sites indicates a confidence that the open source model will make the site more secure, that the collaborative process of hundreds of developers will help the site remain on top of the tech wave rather than being drowned, and will encourage other government entities to move in that direction.

Tim O’Reilly has some more specific thoughts on the use of open source by the government.

Post from: Talking Tech

Drupal Gets a Big Wet Kiss

Technorati Tags: drupal, open source, the whitehouse

Some people think social media is a fad. It’s possible that the tools we know today such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so many others are fads. But is the trend itself going to fade? What do you think? Is it a fad a powerful shift in the way we communicate and consume information and goods?

Post from: Talking Tech

The Social Media Revolution?

Technorati Tags: consumers, fads, marketing, Social Media, social networking, trends

When the Federal government announced that $7 billion would become available to improve the broadband infrastructure, some folks around here got excited. When it became clear that much of the funding would be given to help rural and under served areas, some of those folks got to work.

At first it seemed the best approach would be to cobble together a regional proposal that would present a large enough profile to draw the attention of the funding agencies. To that end several people from HSU, the Humboldt Area Foundation and other agencies began to plan a strategy to bundle a number of possible projects that would span multiple counties, bring middle mile fiber through several paths, provide redundancy and offer access to local ISPs to serve rural areas. The idea was modeled on a regional water resources project that got high praises from state officials.

Then the Feds handed down the rules. You see, all this work was speculative. No one really knew what the rules for applying would be. But the people I met with felt a regionally organized and presented application would be preferred to a bunch of unrelated, potentially competing smaller proposals. Wrong. The Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) laid down rules that essentially derailed any kind of regional aggregated application. I won’t go in to details about those rules here.  But suffice to say that in one sense, everyone who wanted to do a broadband project in the area was on their own. How the Feds expect to sort out the potentially competing proposals, especially with our unique regional geography, demographics, economics and history of broadband activism is beyond me. And may be beyond them as well.

While the dream of a grand unified regional broadband proposal has died for this round of funding, the groundwork that was laid for such a project may not go in vain. For one, there has been a coalescing of county government and economic development people who have been attempting to vet some of the known projects being put forward. They have identified  four projects that they feel have the potential to meet many of the goals they were striving for in their own proposal. These are:

Redwood Telephone: Which would build a middle mile fiber network from Southern Humboldt to the Oregon border and connect to Charter Communications in Oregon and AT&T fiber in the south. This proposal features Fiber to the Premises along the 101 corridor and feeders in to the rural areas of the region. They also promise low cost fiber for government services.

AccessMendo: Would build a middle mile network for Mendocino County but will also extend in to parts of Southern Humboldt.

Broadband Associates: The original company that won state funding for building a fiber line along the 299 corridor. This project would provide access points for wired and wireless ISPs to offer last mile services.

IP Networks: Originally this proposal was going to build middle mile along the Highway 36 corridor. But in the last few days seems to have morphed in to a complete loop that ties Highway 36 to a fiber line along 299 and provide access points along the way. As the deadline for applications approached (originally this was supposed to be Friday, August 14) this proposal has continued to morph.

The proposals have been seeking letters of endorsement from government entities and other organizations and people of influence. But with such a short turn around time, shifting proposals and a shortage of expertise for assessing  the proposals, many have been relying on Kathy Moxon from the Humboldt Area Foundation to provide some guidance on what to endorse. The deadline for applications has since been extended to August 20, so I assume the field will change again between now and then.

Once this round of proposals get shipped out with whatever viability they can muster, people will begin planning for the next round of funding, which appears to be several months off, armed with what was learned and organized in preparation for this initial round. I have no idea if any of the above proposal will get funding, or if some others that I am not aware of will find favor with the Feds.

So much still seems to be unknown about this process. But I’m certain that by the time the next proposals are due the landscape will be sure to have changed considerably.

Post from: Talking Tech

Regional Broadband and Stimulus Funds

Technorati Tags: ARRA, broadband, fiber, nofa, stimulus funds

I’d heard from some people that work at Humboldt State University that they are moving their web sites to Drupal. But a link from a friend on Facebook (thanks Grace!) confirmed it. Not only are they moving to Drupal, but they are installing the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on the servers. So it looks like HSU is embracing open source big time. This is such a good move considering all the budget cuts the state university systems are facing.

It’s not easy converting such a big institution to new platforms. I hope the conversion goes smoothly. Would love to help them with Drupal if they ever wanted to reach out for some consulting.

Now, if only I could convince Humboldt County to switch to open source…think of the money they’d save.

Post from: Talking Tech

Humboldt State Switching to Drupal

Technorati Tags: apache, drupal, HSU, Humboldt State University, lamp, linux, mysql, open source, php

I love this article about the Boston Police Dept. using social media to track down bicycle thieves. Where are our local law enforcement services with this stuff? Anyone know?

Post from: Talking Tech

Fight Crime With Social Media

Technorati Tags: law enforcement, Social Media, social networking