Marco Island SunTimes

The Marco Island SunTimes it seems has a higher distribution than the Marco Eagle, and they also have an RSS feed page that is quite extensive and helps you select the topics that you are interested in. Check it out and subscribe to your favorite RSS Feed.

ABC-7 Blogs

The staff reporters from ABC 7 also write about back stories of their news stories on their blogs. Some of them quite regularily some of them haven't written in month. I guess the demographics in SWFL are not always the blog readers, given the general age composition, but some are quite interesting. For instance the story about how AP erronously reported the Fred Thompson was in Naples when he announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race and that it first didn't take 30 seconds that it was around the world and every other news outlet was asking ABC-7 if they covered it and that it took hours for every one to figure out that AP actually made a mistake. That story you can find on "View from Collier" by Sean Brown. You will also find quite an active blog by Noah Pransky of ABC-7 Sports. Have fun.

CCSO:The Traffic Stop

The Naples Daily News reported today that the Collier County sheriff's office started a new traffic blog, where you can sign on and receive updates on traffic issues within minutes on local traffic situations. But this is not all that you can find on this blog, Deputies also inform on other traffic related topics: Today you find Traffic Enforcement Spots listed, othere days reminders on Road Rules or Traffic Public Safety Announcements. The Collier County Sheriff's Office also has another blog: Behind the Star

Google Pages Test Page

http://birgit.pauli.googlepages.com/

First test of a Google Apps Page Creator page, combined with other Google Tools like Picase Web albums and Blogger RSS feeds. It's nothing more than a proof of concept for a collaboration site, that can get a new initiative off the ground with a lot features in place and all for free. It's pretty amazing and I could play all night, but of course it's time for me to get back home. Tomorrow is Friday and that is swim practice at NCH with the Naples Aquatics, 5:30 am. Good
night.

501 Tech Club SWFL

During this month board meeting the Naples Free-Net approved that we sponsor this region's 501 Tech Club and start facilitating meetings and online communication. The 501 Tech Club is an initiative of N-Ten the Non-Profit Technology Network: www.nten.org. Stay tuned for further announcement of online web site, e-mail listserv, blog etc. And of course, the announcement of the first meeting. I have agreed to be the organizer of the meetings and be the contact person for NTEN in SWFL. My experience working with local not-for-profits let's me believe that there is a great need in sharing resources, knowledge and also a great need for education not only of the 'accidental techies' but also of the not-for-profit leadership. Technology, and the implementation of new technology is not anymore the business of IT people alone the whole organization is affected by technology decisions. It becomes more apparent when the decisions were poor decisions, but then many operations home to a halt and the repair and aggravation is double work on staff and volunteers. So help is one the way, with online seminars by NTEN more education through Techsoup and more information through online communication via 501 Tech Club and more personal exchange through local techies, non-profit managers, volunteers and the technology communities as well as the technology partners.

Google Apps: A Heap of Online Tools

This week I got in contact with a marvelous group of artist around the industrial section of the Trade Center Way, the North Naples Arts Alliance. They are the same artist that also hold the Wednesday night Underground every first Wednesday of the month from 6 to 9 pm in their studios. They asked me for advice regarding a web site for their group. (see NDN article) I pointed them towards Google Apps, a groups of online tools that is just fabulous and easy to use and can be hardly match with any other company. And the best thing: it's free. Especially for a group of artists, where everyone is so individualistic. They can even use a Blogger Blog as an overall site and the individual artists could use their own blogs and feed the groups blog. Blogs are free from Google as well like this one. And when you look at this blog, I have put the Naples Daily News Restaurant Section as a feed on my blog so everyone who comes to my blog and doesn't find anything new at least learns more about the Naples Restaurant scene and it's automatically updated, because it uses Naples Daily News publishing capabilities. Think of it for a moment. How cool is that?

New Class: Feed Me; Using RSS feeds to control your Internet

Tomorrow I start a new class at the Naples Free-Net: Feed Me; Using RSS feeds to control your Internet Discover a better way to use the Internet

Hands on class for the Internet User. Discover a better way to browse beyond the noise of advertising and the vast amount of web addresses. Get yourself a personal assistant to keep you posted on the newest information about your current topics of interest. All this without using your e-mail. Students will learn how to use available online tools, locate lists of regional and local RSS feeds, learn how to subscribe and unsubscribe so you maintain control. Learn how to receive information somewhere besides in your overflowing mailbox. Put your computer to work for you, getting the right information at the right time.

Classes are: 1/18 - 2/1 and 2/15 all 9:30 am - noon.

I will use some of the Web 2.0 Online Tools: Del.icio.us: All Links will be publically shared via my del.icio.us account: http://del.icio.us/nfn.webmaster Of course the links will be web2.0-y tagged... And I will demonstrate online Tools as feed reader so user will not be required to download any programs to their computers at home. They can use the account they create during classes. ie at www.Bloglines.com or at Google.com, I discovered www.netvibes.com, which is pretty cool