In Episode #25 of the Compuschmooze Podcast, we interview Travis Todd and Scott Scheyer of GrowVotes.org, a social networking website devoted to local politics across the US; and Nathaniel Wice, co-founder of Mishare.com, which offers the Mishare device that enables iPod owners to copy the contents of one iPod to another one, legally. Sponsor: The CompuSchmooze podcast is brought to you by GoToMeeting.com. Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts. mpt = new Date();mpts = mpt.getTimezoneOffset() + mpt.getTime();if (!document.layers) {document.writeln(""); } else {document.write("" ); } Download the podcast file here (41.9 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:30:32 length). Keywords: compuschmooze, lubetkin, cherry hill, jewish, voice, ipod, mishare, growvotes.org, scheyer, todd, politics   Produced in the studios of Professional Podcasts LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ

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In epsiode #24 of the CompuSchmooze podcast, we speak with Voice Editor and General Manager Harriet Kessler about the Voice's new website at http://www.jewishvoicesnj.org. We also speak with Stephen Larson, founder of Our-Hometown.com, the service that builds and maintains websites for community newspapers like the Voice.   Sponsor: The CompuSchmooze podcast is brought to you by GoToMeeting.com. Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts. mpt = new Date();mpts = mpt.getTimezoneOffset() + mpt.getTime();if (!document.layers) {document.writeln(""); } else {document.write("" ); } Download the podcast file here (34.4 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:25:05 length). Keywords: del.icio.us Tags: compuschmooze,jewish community voice,kessler,harriet,larson,our-hometown.com,website,jewishvoicesnj.organizing,lubetkin You can read the full text of the related "CompuSchmoozeTM" column as it appeared in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.

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In epsiode #23 of the CompuSchmooze podcast, social media and internet entrepreneur Jeff Pulver discusses his commitment to early-stage investments in startup technology companies in Israel. We spoke with Jeff during a recent social media breakfast gathering he hosted in Princeton, NJ. Steve photographed with Jeff Pulver at the Philadelphia breakfast. This podcast is based on an interview conducted at the Princeton meeting. Sponsor: The CompuSchmooze podcast is brought to you by GoToMeeting.com. Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts. mpt = new Date();mpts = mpt.getTimezoneOffset() + mpt.getTime();if (!document.layers) {document.writeln(""); } else {document.write("" ); } Download the podcast file here (20.0 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:14:36 length). Keywords: del.icio.us Tags: compuschmooze,lubetkin,cherry hill,jewish,voice,pulver,internet,entrepreneur,Israel,angel,early stage investing,vc,venture capital,high technology Here's the text of the related "CompuSchmoozeTM" column as it appeared in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.CompuSchmooze? March 2008: Internet Entrepreneur Supports Israeli Start-Up Tech CompaniesBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2008 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 660Internet entrepreneur Jeff Pulver discovered the Israeli high-tech sector as an early adopter of technologies that enable web surfers to transmit voice conversations over an Internet connection.Pulver, founder of Pulver.com and a millionaire who sold several Internet companies, recently launched PulverTV, a 24/7 Internet television channel.He became an avid user of voice technologies in the late 1990s, and a company he started, Free World Dialup, obtained a milestone decision from the Federal Communications Commission in 2004 that protected Internet-based voice technologies from additional federal and state regulation. The decision is often referred to as the ?Pulver decision.?Later, as chairman of PulverMedia, organizer of conferences under the ?Voice On the ?Net? banner, he recognized that the Israeli military and high-tech sector had made a major contribution to the growing success of Voice over Internet applications, but no one else seemed to be giving Israel due credit.Israeli companies were attending the conferences regularly and chasing opportunities in the rest of the world, Pulver said.Voice over Internet technology was largely developed for internal use by the Israeli Defense Force in the 1980s, Pulver explained in a recent interview during a ?social media breakfast? in Princeton.In 2005, Pulver organized his first high-tech mission to Israel that culminated with recognition ceremonies in Jerusalem for 23 Israelis responsible for making voice technology commercially viable.?If I?m ever looking for inspiration or for what?s happening next in technology, there?s no better place that I?ve ever found to go,? he said.Pulver runs what he calls a ?dream fund,? a small investment fund to make early stage investments in Israeli high-tech firms.?Typically it?s below the radar of any professional venture capitalist or angel investors,? he said. ?I meet with people who are just absolutely brilliant, they have to have an idea that I can connect with, and I?m investing in helping them build their idea.?During 2008, Pulver said he?s raising money for a microfund of $3-5 million for investment in Israeli technology companies.Pulver says right now his investments focus on video embedded in Internet sites, social networking applications, and a new approach to information gathering called the semantic web, or Web 3.0.The semantic web simplifies how a web browser will collect and display seamlessly all the different ways people refer to themselves online, so that a comprehensive snapshot of an individual?s online presence can be pulled together automatically.Most of the small firms in which Pulver has invested are still in ?stealth? mode, not yet ready to discuss their technologies.?I?m hopeful that a bunch of the companies that we?re nurturing will be able to grow,? Pulver said. ?What I really enjoy is seeing the seed of the idea, even helping to incubate it myself.?Pulver makes his first of a planned seven 2008 trips to meet with Israeli startup companies in March. A VON conference is slated for April in Tel Aviv.While he?s there this month, he will also host a Tel Aviv seating of his continuing series of social media breakfasts. At these informal gatherings, online devotees of Facebook, Flickr.com, and Twitter get to meet Pulver and each other face to face, often for the first time.Pulver held the first of the breakfasts this year in Philadelphia and Princeton, later moving on to Washington, Providence, RI, and Fort Lauderdale.Pulver acts as party host, and provides breakfast participants with ?real-time? social media networking kits containing stickers, Post-It Notes, labels and markers to use for what he calls real-time social tagging. Participants write tags or keywords and paste them on each other, as if they were adding bookmarks and keywords in an online environment. By the end of the meal, everyone is adorned with multiple tags and labels, and some even have larger labels or ?walls,? where people have written messages, like they do on Facebook or MySpace.com.# # # #

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This podcast features a report on the breakfast for social media devotees hosted by Jeff Pulver in Philadelphia on January 31, 2008. Steve attended along with about 50 other social media users including bloggers, podcasters, videobloggers, web designers and others. Watch for an additional podcast coming soon from Jeff's Princeton social media breakfast, where we interview Jeff about his early-stage investing in Israeli high-tech companies. Steve interviewing Jeff Pulver More photos at Steve's Flickr site Download the podcast here (17.4 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:12:42 duration). Send comments to steve@professionalpodcasts.com or call our podcast comment line, +1-856-861-6146 (Europe and UK, +44 020 7193 6146) Keywords: lubetkin, cherry hill, philadelphia, business, social media, pulver, breakfast Produced by Professional Podcasts LLC.

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In epsiode #22 of the CompuSchmooze podcast, we have two interviews and spotlight some podsafe music. Download the podcast file here (53.8 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:39:14 length).First, a conversation with Mrinal Desai, one of the founders of CrossLoop Software, which provides a free software tool for allowing one computer to take control of a remote computer to provide tech support, manipulate files, or other activities.Mrinal DesaiFeatured Music: A new item in our podcasts will be a spotlight on podsafe web-music. In this episode, we offer "To Be," by Levi Yatan.For more information or to purchase the LeviYatan CD, see the links below.Levyatan "To Be" (mp3) from "Mystic Heart" (Onward and Upward Inc.) More On This AlbumIn the second part of the program, we speak with Brian Conley, head of the AliveInBaghdad.org website, which delivers video documentaries about daily life in Iraq, produced by native Iraqi video crews. Late last month, Brian learned of the death of one of AIB's correspondents, Ali Shefiya Al-Moussawi, a 22-year old reporter killed in an Iraqi security raid one day before his 23rd birthday. In our interview, Brian talks about Ali's death and efforts to keep AIB operating with limited resources.Brian ConleyAliveInBaghdad.orgKeywords: compuschmooze, lubetkin, cherry hill, jewish, voice, crossloop, desai, conley, baghdad, aliveinbaghdad.orgHere's the text of the related "CompuSchmoozeTM" columns as they appeared in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.CompuSchmooze October 2007: Free Program Makes Remote Control of PC EasyBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2007 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 613My mom lives in Freehold and does pretty well using her computer to play card games, surf the web, and exchange emails with her friends around the world. But as computer users all know, occasionally something goes out of whack, and that usually requires an intervention by “tech support, ” also known as “my son.”The problem is that many computer-savvy folks are helping other family members maintain their computers long distance. Minor breakdowns mean an unscheduled road trip to fix the problem, mainly because it’s hard explain how to fix it over the phone when you can’t see the other person’s computer monitor. In my case, it takes about an hour to get to mom’s house and I can usually fix the problem in a few minutes.Now, a free, easy-to-use program called CrossLoop (www.crossloop.com) eliminates the need for emergency road trips. CrossLoop lets two computers connect over an encrypted Internet connection so that one computer can take control of the keyboard and mouse and operate the other computer.Mrinal Desai, a founder of CrossLoop and currently the company’s vice president of sales and business development, said the Monterey, CA, company developed the technology because one of the firm’s software designers, located in California, was keeping an eye on his father in Seattle, just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Other family members on the east coast also wanted to be able to control the father’s computer so they could operate his web camera, Internet telephone service, and other functions that would let them stay in touch with him.Desai said the company is relying on a viral approach to marketing, by giving away CrossLoop for free. It’s being used in more than 140 countries so far, and Desai says the company’s plan is to generate revenue by adding premium features like text chat for corporate users. One of the biggest challenges in creating CrossLoop was ensuring that the program could communicate through firewall security software, Desai said. The program currently only works on Microsoft Windows computers, but there are plans to expand it to Apple and Linux platforms, he added.“Even though it’s a free product, we want to give people excellent service, ” Desai said, noting that the eight-person company sends personal responses to emails received from users. “We really love our users.” To use CrossLoop, both parties need to install the program, which is relatively small (under 3mb), and has a very simple, easy to read interface with large type. There are two tabs, “Join” and “Host, ” and a dialog window containing two text boxes, labeled “Name” and “Access Code.” To connect, the user whose computer needs to be controlled remotely clicks on the “Host” tab. The name of the local computer appears in the first text box, and a 12-digit numerical code appears in the second text box. At the other computer, the user selects the “Join” tab, and types in the numerical code as read to them by the other person. Both parties press the “Connect” button, and in a few seconds, the remote computer displays a window showing the contents of the host computer’s monitor. Moving the mouse and typing works exactly like using your own computer – except it controls the remote machine, letting you change and delete settings, install software, or anything else you may need to do to get the computer back in working condition. It’s that simple. There is a small icon of a gear that permits access to some advanced settings, but you’re not likely to need anything more than what you see on the screen. The program surveys users after each CrossLoop session, and results in a follow-up email from a live person at CrossLoop.# # # # CompuSchmooze January 2008: Web-based journalism web is no less risky than broadcast newsBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2008 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 622Inhabitants of the blogosphere are mourning the tragic loss of a brave young Iraqi news correspondent, whose death -- unreported in the mainstream news media until now -- is giving new visibility to a web-based videojournalism project reporting on real life in Baghdad.Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi was a 22-year old correspondent with the video blog Alive in Baghdad (www.aliveinbaghdad.org) which provides unique video reporting on the daily lives of Iraqi citizens. Ali was killed in a security raid December 14, the night before his 23rd birthday, under circumstances that are still unclear, according to Brian Conley, one of the founders of Alive in Baghdad. Making the death even more tragic, Ali's father and two brothers were killed in a suicide bombing in 2005, leaving only his sister and mother as survivors."He received a death threat about a week before he was killed, " Conley said. "Ali, for whatever reason, had chosen not to inform us about the threat, and we found out about it from his cousin after he was killed."Conley spent two years building a network of native Iraqi videographers able to move among the citizens, documenting stories of their actual lives. "Alive in Baghdad was originally founded as sort of a documentary project, " Conley explained. Raising money for a one-off documentary is difficult, and Conley and his partners quickly moved to a model combining elements of public broadcasting with traditional news wire services. Individuals and organizations can subscribe to Alive in Baghdad through the online payment service, PayPal. Other income is generated by licensing video footage and creation of short reports commissioned by mainstream broadcast news organizations. But it's not easy.Conley said the large bureaucracy in the broadcast networks makes it hard to identify people who can finalize licensing and content arrangements."If you value the work, if you are interested in the content, consider sending a few dollars a month to support Iraqi journalists, " Conley said. Donations currently cover about one-third of the cost of supporting the project's journalists working in Iraq, he said. Alive in Baghdad's reports are produced by a team of four professional full- and part-time correspondents, who include Sunnis, Shi'as, and Kurds, Conley said.The stories range widely. Topics include Iraqi refugees working in Syria; Iraq's Royal Cemetery; an interview with militia leaders loyal to Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army, and a piece about the Iraqi government's decision to close a Baghdad printing company that was printing official government documents, throwing 900 people, including women, out of work. All of the videos are available for viewing for free at the Alive in Baghdad video archive, (aliveinbaghdad.org/category/video/).In the two years he spent in Baghdad, Conley traveled widely, he said, and was able to gather interviews with individual Iraqis, but local journalists are better able to get visuals known as "b-roll, " to illustrate the stories.Iraqi team members ship their videotapes to the US, and post-production of the videos take place in Alive in Baghdad's South Philadelphia facility.Conley is in almost daily contact with the team's Baghdad Bureau chief, Omar. Once tapes arrive from Baghdad, they are transferred to computer editing systems, translations are prepared, and then final programs are edited together and uploaded to the web.If Alive in Baghdad is not quite on the radar screen of the mainstream media, it is certainly well-known in cyberspace. Within a matter of hours after Brian reported Ali's murder to hundreds of "followers" on Twitter.com, a web-based instant messaging system, participants responded by mobilizing an online effort to collect money for Ali's funeral expenses. In less than two weeks, donations of more than $2,000 poured in via the Alive in Baghdad website. # # # #

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In epsiode #21 of the CompuSchmooze podcast, we have two interviews and spotlight some podsafe music. Download the podcast file here (55.0 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:40:02 length).First, a conversation with Stan Schwartz and Lisa Moore, creators of Toonamation, a software plugin for graphic design programs that can change a photo or a video into a cartoon.Lisa Moore and Stan Schwartz, "Tooner Lisa" and "Tooner Stan"Toonamation version of LubetkinFeatured Music: A new item in our podcasts will be a spotlight on podsafe web-music. In this episode, we offer "Swingset Chains" from Loquat. The song has appeared on One Tree Hill, the WB Network series. For more information or to purchase the Loquat CD, see the links below.Loquat "Swingset Chain" (mp3)from "It's Yours To Keep"(Jackpine Social Club) Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at eMusic Stream from Rhapsody Buy at Rhapsody Buy at Napster Buy at GroupieTunes More On This AlbumNanotechnology is being built into many of the consumer products we buy, from tennis raquets to suntan lotion, but what do we really know about chemicals and substances that are being engineered on the molecular and atomic levels? Not very much, according to surveys conducted by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and Consumer Reports. We chat with Evan Michaelson of the Project about nanotechnology and how it's being integrated into everyday items.Evan MichaelsonKeywords: compuschmooze,lubetkin,cherry hill,jewish,voice,nanotechnology,toonamation,loquat,one tree hill,pew charitable trusts,michaelsonHere's the text of the two related "CompuSchmoozeTM" columns as they appeared in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.CompuSchmooze September 2007: Toonamation Turns Videos into CartoonsBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2007 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 563In 1985, the Norwegian band a-ha scored a popular music video hit with ?Take On Me,? which relied heavily on a video-to-cartoon special effect called rotoscoping. You can see the music video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=379399441132904905.Rotoscoping is very time-consuming. It involves a cartoon artist more or less tracing the cartoon drawings on a projected live action video, a frame at a time.That?s why the online video world is starting to get very interested in ?Toonamation,? a digital photo/video technology being developed by computer graphics guru Stan Schwartz, his programming partner Seth Aaronson, and Schwartz? wife Lisa Moore.Schwartz was demonstrating Toonamation at the tail-end of the Blog Philadelphia conference in Center City in July, and was expecting to be hawking the program again at PodCamp Philly September 7-9 at Drexel University.Toonamation rapidly converts live videos and still photographs into a wide range of cartoon-like images. The video cartoons look very much like the expensive, hard-to-produce rotoscopes.Schwartz said he created Toonamation to be able to animate presentations quickly. ?I wanted something that would look cool right away,? Schwartz said in an interview.Schwartz and Moore live in the Philadelphia area, and collaborate with Aaronson from his home base in the Boston area.Schwartz has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, and later, to help a psychology colleague, taught himself the high-level 3D mathematics behind digital video special effects like changing the lighting in a photo, or stretching a face in a picture. He quickly became engrossed in the math, which coexisted fruitfully with his artistic sideHe spent some time doing artificial intelligence research in medical technology, and later applied his mathematics expertise to his experiments in painting.He?s now applying this expertise to computer animation. Aaronson, whom Schwartz met through a social networking site, is a software engineer, and Schwartz says Aaronson is able to build ?industrial strength? software around his concepts for computer generated images.?I always had this need to ?roll my own,? because I wasn?t satisfied with what was out there,? said Stan. ?There are a lot of things in PhotoShop that you can get very cool effects, but they take multiple iterations and lots of tweaking, and I wanted something that would be several orders of magnitude faster.?There is a plug-in version of Toonamation available currently for the Adobe PhotoShop family of digital photo products, at http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toon/toon_main.html. You can see samples of videos that have been turned into cartoons, and download the plug-in software for a demo.Stan applied Toonamation transformations to a video created by Lan Bui (http://www.lanbui.com). Bui attended the ComicCon comic book conference and set his digital still camera to capture rapid sequences of photos which he then stitched together into a continuous video.The resulting cartoon version of this ?picture video,? as Bui calls it, is an intriguing animated short subject that looks as if it started out as a cartoon, not real pictures. You can see the original picture video at http://www.videoofthemoment.com/2007/07/comic-con-2007-picture-video.html, and you can see the interview with Bui about the Toonerized version at http://stevegarfield.blogs.com/vlogsoup/2007/08/vlog-soup---lan.html.While you?re visiting Lan?s video blog, you also should take a look at Lan?s picture video of Kristen and Kevin?s Wedding. It takes wedding photography into the music video genre in a very ntertaining way.You can see some examples of Toonerized photos from the Blog Philadelphia conference on Stan?s Flickr site.CompuSchmooze October 2007: Nanotechnology makes its way into consumer productsBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2007 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 698If you are of a certain age, and someone mentions microscopic technology, it might conjure up the 1966 movie, ?Fantastic Voyage,? in which Racquel Welch and the less-memorable actors Donald Pleasence and Stephen Boyd lead a team of miniaturized scientists in a high-tech medical submarine that gets injected into a scientist colleague so they can repair a blood clot in his brain. Along the way, they battle white blood cells and other elements of the body?s defenses. They only have an hour to complete their mission before they will return to normal size.While ?Fantastic Voyage? was science fiction, the development of technology at the microscopic level is not only real, but is being used in a wide array of consumer products already.The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (www.nanotechproject.org), sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts, is keeping an eye on the potential health and environmental implications of incorporating tiny technologies into our everyday products, according to Evan Michelson, a research associate with the project.Nanotechnology, Michelson explained, involves ?the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things usually between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.? At this small scale, materials take on different properties and behave very differently from their normal-sized cousins, he said.Although the Project estimates that more than $50 billion in products incorporating nanotechnology were sold globally in 2006, fewer than one in 16 Americans indicate they have heard ?a lot? about this tiny science.?Efforts to inform the public have not kept pace with the growth of this new technology area. This increases the danger that the slightest bump ? even a false alarm about safety or health ? could undermine public confidence, engender consumer mistrust, and, as a result, damage the future of nanotechnology, before the most exciting applications are realized,? said David Rejeski, director of the Project. ?If they do not effectively engage a broad swath of the public in steering the course of nanotechnology, government and industry risk squandering a tremendous opportunity.?While exploring the beneficial use of nanotechnology to improve, say, the efficiency of batteries, or the durability of textiles, scientists are also concerned about health effects, because these materials often behave differently at the ?nano? level, leading to unknown or unexpected effects on individuals, Michelson explained.The Project has developed an inventory of consumer products that incorporate nanotechnology. The list started in March 2006 with about 200 products. This year, the list has grown to more than 500 products ranging from sporting goods, stain resistant clothing, dietary supplements, and automobile parts.Among the products in the inventory, Daewoo Electronics offers a vacuum cleaner whose ?Nano Silver-coated 'Cyclone canister' ? has the effect of removing bacteria and a plethora of dust particles, inhibiting odour, allergy-inducing spores, and other harmful debris.?Behr Premium Plus Kitchen & Bath paint includes ?Nano-sized additives? that ?lend greater density to the water-based acrylic latex carrier,? the manufacturer says. ?As the carrier dries, the NanoGuard additives help create a harder, more durable film resistant to water, mildew, stains and grease.?Land?s End?s ThermaCheck Scarf incorporates ?Nano-Tex,? described as ?a nanotechnology (molecular science) applied to each fiber in the fleece,? that ?resists static cling and shock, repels lint and pet hair.?There are currently no standards for special handling or labeling for nanomaterials. For example, many sunscreens are using nano-engineered titanium dioxide which ensures that the lotion applies smoothly to the skin, goes on clear and dries clear, Michelson said. But there are no requirements that manufacturers using nanotechnology have to label it as such, and none of the sunscreen manufacturers indicating to the Project that they use nanoengineered chemicals give any indication on their labeling.?Large scale commercialization is already happening,? he said. ?There are more than 20 countries with products in our inventory, and we think this will increase over time.?The Project?s website also includes a series of audio podcast programs, ?Trips to the Nanofrontier,? ( that include interviews with leading nanotechnology researchers; video podcasts, a newsletter, and a downloadable version of the report, ?NanoFrontiers: Visions for the Future of Nanotechnology."# # # #

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In this edition of the CompuSchmooze podcast, we present a collection of interviews:1. Reporting on the floor of BlogPhiladelphia, the first of two "un-conferences" being held in Philadelphia this year.2. Interview with Chris Stramiello, director of product management for Nuance, about Dragon Naturally Speaking version 9.3. Mark-Jan Harte, founder of collectorz.com, at right with partner Alwin Hoogerdijk.4. Interview with Kristin Golliher, public relations representative for Otterbox5. Mary Madden, Pew Internet Project, about teenagers' use of social media websites. Download the podcast file here (73.8 mb stereo MP3 file, 53:48 length).Keywords: blogphiladelphia,dragon naturally speaking,otterbox,podcamp philly,collectorz.com,Pew,philadelphia,cherry hill,compuschmooze,voice,jewish,print,mediaProduced in the studios of Professional Podcasts LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ.

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In epsiode #19 of the CompuSchmooze podcast, we have a conversation with Matt Kleinschmitt of Ipsos Insight Research about his TEMPO study of digital music downloading behavior, and we talk with Brad Meador of ClearContext Software about a new add-in program for Microsoft Outlook that helps prioritize email.Matt KleinschmittBrad Meador, VP, Operations, ClearContext Download the podcast file here (42.5 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:30:11 length).Here's the text of the two related "CompuSchmoozeTM" columns as they appeared in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.CompuSchmooze? December 2006: Organizing Outlook EmailBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2006 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 626Digging out from the avalanche of email that arrives every business day requires an automated solution to filter and organize the torrent. ClearContext Information Management System is one of a growing genre of programs that install itself directly into the Microsoft Outlook program's screens. ClearContext adds its own action buttons to Outlook to help you quickly categorize email and schedule related appointments and tasks.The program indexes and analyzes your email messages, ranking the frequency of your email conversations. It presents a color-coded, priority organized view of your email inbox. Very important messages are highlighted in red, important ones in blue, normal ones in green, and bulk or junk mail in black or grey. The messages are reorganized in descending order of priority. You can adjust the formula used for this ranking through a series of control panels.It takes a while to get comfortable with this display, because it isn't in the reverse chronological order that most of us use. And until you do some fine-tuning, you could miss some important messages that may not be color-coded correctly. But Clear Context goes a long way to help you focus on truly important emails rather than getting distracted by the less important ones.There are several different custom views of the inbox, including a "threaded" priority view grouping related messages together, so you can quickly review an entire email conversation over time.ClearContext also can assign a "topic" to a group of related emails, but you can only assign one topic per conversation. A nice feature automatically schedules a followup email message for a later date, right at the moment that you are sending your initial message. The followup is automatically cancelled if your recipient replies in time.The biggest drawback I found using ClearContext was that, like other Outlook add-in programs, the extra weight of its database engine seemed to make Outlook run dramatically slower, getting in the way of productivity rather than improving it. I'm uninstalling some other add-ins I don't use, and I'll let you know if that helps.# # # #CompuSchmooze? January 2007: It?s for you, your phone is singingBy Steven L. LubetkinCopyright © 2006, 2007 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.WORD COUNT: 565At this gift-giving time of year (if you need to ?re-gift? something, check out www.regift.net), many people use the holidays to upgrade technologies like cellular phones, and the newer phones, like Verizon?s ?Chocolate,? or T-Mobile?s ?Sidekick? have the added ability to substitute for a digital music player. These new phones integrate the ability to download and complete MP3 digital music files with the ability to make phone calls and send emails. But how likely are we to use our cell phones to download music? A recent survey suggests there is a long way to go before we are leaving our MP3 players at home and relying on our phones for our music.Only about four people in a hundred have actually downloaded MP3 files with their cell phones, even though nearly three quarters of cell phone owners are aware that there are phones with this capability, according to a quarterly digital music tracking study by Ipsos, a technology market research firm. A press release about the study is available online.?Awareness of the possibility of digital music downloads is very strong,? said Matt Kleinschmit, Vice President for Ipsos Insight and author of the study. Given the low level of actual downloads, however, Kleinschmit acknowledged that downloading to a phone is still a ?niche activity,? but he says the proportion of people downloading music has ?doubled since 2005.?Similarly, few people are downloading video clips to their cell phones, with only about 3 people in 100 indicating they have done so. Cell phone users are interested in adding multimedia capabilities to their phones, but not as a way of replacing other digital multimedia players they already use, he added.?I would not be surprised to see that a mobile phone that plays music is very much able to coexist alongside a standalone MP3 player, two, three, or four years from now,? he said.Downloads are mostly appealing to 18-24 year olds, with males slightly more likely than females to download music or video clips, Kleinschmit said. Young people in this demographic like to share their music files with each other, but that makes it difficult for online music companies to generate revenue from the practice.?Getting them to pay to download music, whether it be via (Apple?s) iTunes or a mobile service provider, has really been a challenge,? he noted. However, Kleinschmit thinks cell phone providers might be able to capture young users as paying customers, if they can provide a unique music purchasing experience.Cellular service providers are stepping up the pressure for subscribers to consider adding digital download subscriptions to their phones. Verizon now features VCast, its video and audio download service. The system uses Microsoft?s Windows Media Audio (WMA) digital file format to store music files. Users who upgrade to the VCast service and who previously downloaded MP3 music files onto Verizon phones, will need to convert those files to the WMA format to keep playing them on newer Verizon phones, which don?t have MP3 capability. Music purchased through VCast incorporates Microsoft?s version of digital rights management (DRM), an encryption system that limits a user?s ability to make copies of individual files.The T-Mobile Sidekick 3 can act as an MP3 player, without the DRM limitations imposed by the Verizon system. # # # #

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In this podcast we present excerpts of remarks by Max Soliven, publisher of the Philippine Star newspaper, from his presentation to the Public Relations Society of the Philippines at the 13th National Public Relations Congress in Manila on September 28, 2006.This podcast is being cross posted to Lubetkin's Other Blog Podcast and the CompuSchmooze Podcast Feeds.I met Max when we both spoke to the PRSP conference, and was impressed to learn of his journalistic career, which began when Vietnam was still called Indochina. As a "newsman in the trenches," Max covered the French military disaster in Indochina, the US military conflict in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and went on to cover insurgencies and uprisings all over Southeast Asia. He was jailed for a time during the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines, and was charged with criminal libel by President Corazon Aquino for a story his paper published claiming that she hid under a bed during the military coup that overthrew her regime.As publisher of one of the largest newspapers in the Philippines, Max wrote a 2,000 word column six days a week. Max Soliven died of a heart attack in Japan on November 24, 2006.His last column, "Is a jingoistic Japan on the rise under Abe? Or is this aging powerhouse no longer dangerous?" filed from Japan, expressed concern about the rise of a new nationalism in the Japanese government.His newspaper, The Philippine Star, captured his essence in a tribute the next day. Download the podcast here (38.8 mb stereo MP3 file, 00:27:37 duration).Max Soliven speaks at the Public Relations Society of the Philippines 13th National Public Relations Congress, September 28, 2006.Max Soliven speaks at the Public Relations Society of the Philippines 13th National Public Relations Congress, September 28, 2006.Max Soliven answers questions at the Public Relations Society of the Philippines 13th National Public Relations Congress, September 28, 2006.Max Soliven, second from left, chats with Matt Lussenhop of the US Embassy and Steve Lubetkin (far right) at the Public Relations Society of the Philippines 13th National Public Relations Congress, September 28, 2006. At left, face obscured, is Maloli K. Espinosa, vice president of corporate communications, ABS-CBN Television, chair of the PRSP National Public Relations Congress.Max Soliven chats with Matt Lussenhop of the US Embassy and Steve Lubetkin (far right) at the Public Relations Society of the Philippines 13th National Public Relations Congress, September 28, 2006.

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