I really thought that Google Wave would be a great tool for using to get people together and collaborating. But it has seemed to peter out after all the initial buzz.
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2009 witnessed the rise of grass root citizen activism with millions of ordinary citizens turning out to tea parties all over the country. Without a doubt, history is in the making. So how does the newly energized citizen activist document it? Fortunately, we are living in the midst of a tech boom, especially digital recording and communication. Today’s activist has an astounding array of digital choices for documenting and disseminating the tea party message.
Attending conventions and tea party rallies, I find there’s a great knowledge gap between tech super users and newly energized citizen activists. I spend a fair amount of time evaluating digital technology used to document tea party rallies and have put together a ’starter kit’ for the citizen activist seeking to document history happening in their own backyard. This kit cuts through the clutter and tells you exactly what you need to purchase – without having to apply for a federal bailout loan. Let’s start with a list of items you will need; Digital Camera, Digital video recorder, Netbook, Blog, Business Cards, and Local News Media.
As I said in the earlier quick review, I give the Nexus One a big thumbs up.
There are many things to like about the Nexus One. The speed of the internet compared to the Pearl I had is like night and day, and it is also a full browser. Also I love the WiFi connection ability, even thopugh the 3G connectivity is pretty fast also. The only problem with the 3G or T-Mobile connectivity is in my house if I am in the basement. But any phone will have problems connecting there, I have not had a phone work that well there anyway.
The iPhone may have more apps in their market, but how many apps can you have. I have many for traveling, such as the DC Metro app for when I am in DC later this year for CPAC. And many others for sports scored, and even one to steam up the screen on the phone. So the Android Marlet has pretty much anything you want. I still have not really tried any of the games, but I am sure there are many good ones there also.
The Phone itself works great as a phone. I can hear clearly the voice on the other line and the best thing it has is the microphone noise cancellation, so the people on the other end can hear better if you are in a loud place. So as just a phone it works as good or better than most other phones.
Pros and Cons:
Pros:
1. The screen is very clear and you have 5 home screens to place all of the apps you want to use to easily find them
2. The great web browser that displays a full website, now using wap. I am sure that some of the other new phones are just as good also
3. With a 5 megapixels camera, the pictures you can take are very good. And if I want a better picture I can always use my digital camera.
4, I can also use WPtogo app to post on the various blogs I post to that use the Word Press platform
Cons:
1: Battery life is not that good. On my old Pearl I did not have to charge it for about 2 days usually, but with all the power and apps on the Nexus One, it is going to use battery life faster.
2: The spealers are on the back of the phone. So it sounds better if you have the phone laying on a table better than holdoing it up. But to listen to musio, it is better to use the ear phones anyway.
3. This is a con for now, but the online keyboard is hard to get use to. But I am sure that eventually it will get easier.
But the Nexus One is an excellent phone for anyone that wants to have a powerful phone for using the internet. Google Maps also is very good on the phone and with the GPS you can find almost anything you want to visit.
I have not gotten paid for any of this review and have no connection to Google or HTC.
Over the past few months, I’ve been busy test driving two camcorders; the Creative Lab Vado HD camcorder and the Pure Digital Flip Mino HD. Both are powerful, inexpensive tools for bloggers, journalists or anyone interested in stepping into HD video recording – especially parents.
Released in 2008 by Pure Digital, the Flip Mino is the world smallest HD video recorder. The camera can record 720p high definition video for approximately one hour. It comes with 4 gigs of onboard memory. The image sensor is CMOS, with a frame rate of 30 fps. The camera has automatic white balance, automatic exposure control and dynamic exposure compensation and fixed focus lens.( To my photography friends you can equate that to a prime lens – more or less) A NTSC cable is included, and has joined the other NTSC cables I have collected over the years. There is also a port for an HDMI connection, but no cable is provided. The camera also comes with a velvety pouch for storage. The online Flip store allows for custom designs of its HD models. For a great example, check out Lord Matt’s design.
The Vado HD marketed by Creative Labs provides 720p high definition video for two hours. The software allows the user to select a standard definition video setting as well. There are 8 gigs of memory on board the camcorder, along with software to do basic video editing. A CMOS sensor shooting video at 30 fps. A wide angle lens and 2x digital zoom come standard. Like the Flip, I consider it to be a fixed lens as well. It comes with an HDMI cable and plastic protective cover, along with the unrestrained adulation of Chris Pirillo
Anyone that gets online should be protected from all the malware that is out there. Without a good anti-virus, computers will get bogged down in malware,which is programs or code that are put onto a computer without the owners knowledge).
There are many good anti-virus products out there. Many are free and easily downloaded.
AVG is a good one that I have used often on computers that I have worked on for friends and family. The best part is that it is free.
Avast is another one I have used often.
Both AVG and Avast have free versions and paid version. The paid versions have a little more bells and whistles, such as anti spyware for identity protection.
Spyware is another form of malware that tried to collect information from a computer. Such as login and passwords for banks and other sensitive sites people use everyday. People can take over your bank accounts, email accounts and other private matters with spyware. So some of the paid anti-virus packages are a good thing to have.
But if you are cheap like me there are also many free spyware products.
Spybot Search and Destroy is one of the best out there. We use it at my work all the time.
Ad Aware is another free one that is out there and is very good.
There are many other good anti virus and spyware protection products out there. But the best way to not get any is only going to well reputation sites and not opening email from unknown people. But even with avoiding all the bad sites out there and not opening unknow emails, spyware and malware gets into computers. Some can be on well reputation sites in ads that the owners have no idea that they are there. So it is a good practice to always have both a anti virus (which is anti-malware in reality) and anti-spyware on your computer
