J. Palmer

Kentucky State Police Instant Messaging Application Wins International Award 
Excerpts from: http://techlines.ky.gov/2007/dec/kywins.htm
The Commonwealth has a new toy for emergency personnel, and it’s been catching eyes:

The Kentucky State Police (KSP) recently received an international award for the Kentucky Wireless Interoperability Network System (KyWINS) Messenger, a statewide instant messaging system for use by all emergency responders in Kentucky.  The award was accepted by Major Brad Bates, KSP chief information officer, at the 114th International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA.

The article continues:

The KyWINS Messenger system was created by KSP with coordination and support from the Commonwealth Office of Technology, Kentucky Office of Homeland Security and the Center for Rural Development.  Utilizing Jive Software’s Openfire open source product, which was modified to meet the system specifications, KyWINS Messenger provides one unifying and central communication tool across several areas and disciplines in the commonwealth where uninteroperable mobile message switching applications are being used.

By using an Internet connection or the statewide 800 MHz wireless data communications infrastructure, immediate text communication is available to authorized users, regardless of location. The system not only provides mobile-to-mobile communications but also allows personnel at dispatch centers across the commonwealth to quickly communicate with each other in the event of an emergency. These quick avenues of communication help avoid radio traffic congestion through both one-to-one and one-to-many communication, with the later being based on the system’s group conferencing feature.  In addition, KyWINS Messenger can broadcast an immediate message to all online users in order to spread important information rapidly and requires little technological knowledge to use. In order to ensure complete security and confidentiality, all system messaging traffic is encrypted.

It’s a nifty little toy, but needs a lot of work. Trust me…

Not only did Google add colored labels to Gmail today, they’re rolling out AIM compatibility in chat, too. The new AOL Instant Messenger support lets you log into your AIM account to chat with your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. Not sure yet if your AIM chat history is stored in your Gmail account the way GTalk convo’s are. Update: AIM chat history does indeed get stored in Gmail. Rock!We’re not seeing it just yet, but being an AIM over GTalk user, I’ll keep refreshing till I do. To try it out you’ve got to be using the new version of Gmail in IE7 or Firefox 2. Sign into Chat and hit the Options menu to see the “Sign into AIM” option. Any readers out there get AIM in Gmail yet? Let us know how you like it. Image via Zoorgloob.

CountryGeek passed us a link to a story in the Birmingham News, saying that schools in the Alabama city will be the first US students to make use of the XO laptop. The piece touches on a bit of the project’s history, and seems to indicate the Birmingham school district is ready to make a serious commitment to these devices. “Langford has asked the City Council to approve $7 million for the laptops and a scholarship program that would give Birmingham students with a C average or above a scholarship to college or tech school of their choice. The City Council has not yet approved the funding. The rugged, waterproof computers will be distributed to students on April 15, Langford said, and children will be allowed to take them home. If a computer is lost, the school system can disable it, rendering it useless, Langford said. Students will turn in their computers at the end of their eighth-grade year.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

College grad Jon Morrow busted his butt to get straight A’s in college, but his 3.92 GPA didn’t do much for him in the “real world.” Now he regrets spending all that time worrying and working on his grades.

I was told that having a high GPA would open all kinds of doors for me. But you know what? I interviewed with lots of companies, received a total of 14 job offers after graduation, and none of them asked about it. They were much more impressed with stuff like serving as Chief of Staff for the student government and starting a radio station run by 200 volunteers.

Of course, a high GPA is important to students going onto grad, law, or medical school, but for the rest of us, it looks like being a well-rounded student will do more for you in the long run than being a straight-A student.

Six Apart has sold its hosting blogging platform LiveJournal, which it acquired in January 2005, to Moscow-headquarted SUP (pronounced “soup”), the company said this evening. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. SUP previously acquired licensing rights in October 2006 permitting them to manage LiveJournal in Russia, where the platform dominates blogging culture.

“This allows Six Apart to focus on their remaining three brands (Vox, TypePad and MoveableType)” CEO Chris Alden told me this evening. LiveJournal, created by Brad Fitzpatrick in 1999, was the lone service not built in house. “We have very ambitious plans for our remaing brands going forward” he added.

Since the 2005 acquisition, Live Journal has grown from 5 million to over 14 million accounts. But overall unique visitor and page view growth has been static for the last year. In October 2007 Comscore says LiveJournal had 13.8 million worldwide unique visitors generating 475 million page views. That’s up only slightly from the 11.1 million visitors and and 408 million page view per month a year ago.
Article source:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/02/six-apart-sells-livejournal-to-sup/

Writers striking over Internet reject $130 million offer
Source: Valleywag
Hollywood studio bosses, in the guise of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said they offered writers striking over Internet video payments a three-year deal which amounts to a $130 million increase over the $1.3 billion they currently receive each year. Writers quickly dismissed the offer calling it “dispiriting news” and a “massive rollback.” The strike continues, offering writers the chance to make more funny videos for YouTube, like this one, starring Christina Applegate. Has anyone pointed out to them that they’re not getting paid for these videos either?