Stephen's Untold Stories

Another step forward in the spread of Wi-Fi.

All it took was a wireless demonstration utilizing a base station configuration that provided Wi-Fi coverage over 13 miles to prompt the Coeur d’Alene tribe to install Broadband Internet access to cover the tribe’s entire reservation in Idaho.

The installation of 16 high-powered Vivato base stations will provide Internet access in and around the reservation. “Having access to broadband technology will change our lives as dramatically as having horses changed our ancestors’ lives,” said Valerie Fast Horse in a statement.

Link to Article

June 30th has had some good ones.

• 1908 — At 41 years, 3 months, Cy Young of the Boston Red Sox pitched the third no-hitter of his career, an 8-0 win over the New York Highlanders.
• 1970 — Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati was dedicated, but Henry Aaron
  spoiled the show for the crowd of 51,050 with a first-inning homer off
  Jim McGlothlin as Atlanta beat the Reds 8-2.
• 1998 — Sammy Sosa hit his 20th home run in June, extending his own
  major league record for most homers in a month, with an eighth-inning
  shot for the Cubs against Arizona.

Here are the others.

One of my colleagues (Thanks, Kris!) sent me this article. It basically says that you should carefully consider using some of Google’s services. There are both pro-Google and anti-Google sites out there, and this article is a balanced look at some of the issues.

Google’s strength, of course, is in its ability to sort, index,
categorize, and make useful massive amounts of data. But there’s an
obvious risk when you include your personal, private, and/or corporate
information (such as in E_mail, or in indexing the contents of your
hard drive) as grist for Google’s mill.

Some users are going to end up with essentially everything they
do on their PCs at work and at home indexed and categorized by Google’s
bots. In fact, a large percentage of their information may actually
reside on Google’s servers, and nowhere else: Consider Gmail’s gigabyte
of free storage, for example. That’s a lot of E-mail and attachments,
and it will all reside on Google’s hardware. That poses obvious privacy
risks.

Link to article

You can view the frontpages to 438 newspapers in 45 countries. A very cool use of Flash!

Link to Site

My Google stock looks to be destined for greatness!

Google’s 52 percent search referral rate — the amount of total
traffic sent by search sites to other URLs — was more than double its
nearest competitor, Yahoo, and over four times that of MSN.

In some countries, Google holds an even tighter lock on the search
market. In the U.K., for instance nearly three-quarters of all search
referrals are generated by Google, while in Germany, Google holds an
astounding 91 percent market share.

Link to Article

Are you ready for this?

Google Earth puts a planet’s worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more.

• Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in.
• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
• Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations.

The University of Florida is recommending Firefox, and included it on their software disk for students.

David Carlson, director of the UF Interactive Media Lab, is one of the estimated 64 million people who have switched to Firefox.

“A lot of people are looking for an alternative to Internet
Explorer,” Carlson said. “To me, it is really the enhanced security and
the tabbed browsing that sets Firefox apart.”

Link to Article

Here is a very nice mosaic of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

I haven’t heard some of these in a long time. Most are available for downloading.

Top 100 Speeches Online

I thought I had seen just about every possible video of 9/11, but I just found these. The 3rd one shows just how fast the 2nd plane was going when it hit.

Link to videos

I’ve seen some paid programs that do this, but I’m looking forward to trying this one since it’s FREE!

With ATnotes, you will never miss important events or lose information.
You can organize your notes by using folders, set alarm, change color
or font and send your note to your colleagues.

Here is the link

Need to know something about an airport? Look no further!

World Airport Guide

My dad is working in Wisconsin this week, so I came up to visit him in Milwaukee. We went to the Brewers/Twins game last night. I’ll post some pics when I get back. We’re about to head to a famous place called Giles Frozen Custard for lunch and then we’re heading down to the waterfront.

I’ll post a full review when I get back!

I’m sure that my female friends would agree that I am not typical of most of these!

• Men who listen to classical music tend not to spit. (This one is true about me)
• All men are afraid of eyelash curlers. (Right on!)
• All men look nerdy in black socks and sandals. (I never do that!)
• Men forget everything. Women remember everything. That’s why men need instant
      replays in sports. They’ve already forgotten what happened. (Huh? What?)

Link to entire list

(Thanks Tom!)

Yes, you can read the entire works of the Bard online. Here’s a favorite:

For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.

Here is the link

Now this is really something!

This tropical island off the east coast of Africa is best-known for its
white-sand beaches, its designer clothing outlets and its spicy curries.

But tiny Mauritius is about to stake a new claim to fame. By year’s
end, or soon afterward, it is expected to become the world’s first
nation with coast-to-coast wireless Internet coverage, the first
country to become one big “hot spot.”

“If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s us,” said Rizwan Rahim, the
head of ADB Networks, the company installing the wireless radio network
across the 40-mile-long island. “It’s a small place, so for a wireless
network it’s manageable. For us, it’s a test. If it’s successful here,
we can island-hop to [mainland] Africa.”

Link to full article

This is very cool, even if you hate Unix!

JS/UIX is an UN*X-like OS for standard web-browsers, written entirely in JavaScript (no plug-ins used). It comprises a virtual machine, shell, virtual file-system, process-management, and brings its own terminal with screen- and keyboard-mapping.

Link to site

I generally try to keep things really light, but this is something that I just had to share.

American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the city, but censors at the  Occupation’s General Headquarters refused to allow the material to be printed. Weller’s stories, written in September 1945, can be found below.

Link to Full Report

American Reporter George Weller

More wireless news!

AT&T Corp. is determined to make a case for fixed-wireless WiMax technology for urban, corporate environments.

In October, the Bedminster, N.J., carrier will roll out a WiMax
trial for several customers in Atlanta, with hopes of following that
with commercial services.

In Atlanta, four WiMax towers will be linked to a mesh backhaul of LMDS
(Local Multipoint Distribution Service), using a spectrum that AT&T
owns in the 38GHz range.

Link to Article

This is very helpful. You can see videos which show how to sign thousands of words.

Link to Browser