HelpNet News January 2003
HelpNet is on the web at <http://www.ptfolkschool.org/helpnet/>
This month's editor: Paul Schroeder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CONTENTS
1. Inaugural issue, introduction
2. HelpNet - the month in questions
3. HelpNet resources
4. Upcoming events
5. Newsworthy in the month of December
6. Editor's column
7. Coordinator's column
1. Inaugural issue, introduction.
Hi to all HelpNet members and readers. At the last HelpNet general meeting,
attended by about a dozen participants, we decided to continue the monthly
newsletter idea that Jon Falk had begun at one point but did not continue,
due to the "I'm only one person" pattern. In order to have the benefits of
continuity this might bring, as well as a way to get us to know each other
a little better, we decided to approach this via monthly volunteer editors
who will share the work as well as have an opportunity to feature their own
organizations, projects, concerns etc. This is issue #1 of the "new series"
HelpNet news.
I thought over a couple of alternatives for format, but decided just to
compose it as a default e-mail message without graphics or other formatting
(though with links where appropriate), and see how that is received. We
already have five more editors coming up who can take all the comments and
their own reactions to content and let this evolve as needed. I like the
idea behind HelpNet, and hope that this newsletter takes it one more step
toward positive actualizations of its potentials.
2. The month in questions.
HelpNet as a question forum, and the List as the basic central event of
place for this - a small alcove in the vast arcade defining the plaza where
the Net as agora, creating an information commons, is happening. The List's
conversations are archived at
<http://www.ptfolkschool.org/helpnet/archives.htm>, so there is no need to
go into great detail. There is another way to read recent archives, at
<http://www.topica.com/lists/folkschool-list/read>
The two main questions that came forward during the month were sort of two
different types. The first, how to associate a file type with a program to
run it, was pretty specific, and Cynthia, who asked the question,
summarized the steps that she found out were needed, showing that the
answer actually worked for her. The second question was more open-ended,
also posted by Cynthia, regarding keeping track of various websites, hints,
etc., "snippets" of what we call information, generally. Jim Campbell
replied with suggestions about some generic tools available for Mac and
cross-platform, including shareware solutions; Steve Hoad replied
suggesting folders for e-mail, allowing windows to be kept open for several
topics at once. (Ed. note: I've been using Axon, the Idea Processor - only
works on Windows - pcs) A subsidiary question about the value of using two
monitors came up in this thread but did not seem to be answered on the List
- maybe it was answered by side message.
A couple of questions held over from November, one of which was helpful to
me. I had asked about backup media, and several solutions were suggested -
I have now ordered an external hard drive to be connected through a
FireWire USB2 card that upgrades my onboard USB connection - all of which
together is $250 but seems worth the investment. At the same time my laptop
battery died, and the replacement was $150. Total those and you have 1/3
the cost of a new, "better" machine ... However, since everything I have
done for the last 4 years has gone through this machine, I'm reluctant to
replace it until absolutely necessary ...
Any other questions or successes from December you may want to add, please do!
3. HelpNet resources.
Jon Falk sent a couple of general resource notes during the month (see also
"Coordinator's Column" below), one announcing the discontinuance of support
for Win95, and another about holiday e-cards, very timely. Overall,
remember that HelpNet has a set of "Answer Pages" at
<http://www.ptfolkschool.org/helpnet/answers.htm> where the corporate
wisdom of this endeavor is collected. Especially those new to the List
should check these out.
4. Upcoming events.
I'll leave this mostly an open space, for people to "fill in the blanks"
with their announcements and suggestions. An important outcome of the last
HelpNet meeting was bringing the alternative media center and BairNet
together into a discussion involving NelpNet. It was decided to have a
joint informal meeting probably in early February, possibly a putluck
supper involved, to get to know other members of these projects a little
better. HelpNet, even though very locally / regionally based, still is made
up of people who mostly don't know each other. So, keep some time open in
your calendars for this upcoming meeting, though the date is not yet fixed.
I am not aware of other events in the works directly related to HelpNet. I
think the notion of a "Maine progressive media calendar" has been discussed
- may even exist? That would seem to be a strategy for announcing events.
Our dept. at the University has begun a calendar at Yahoo that is managed
by the administrative assistant (good to have one gatekeeper for this);
this sends automatic reminders to us about upcoming presentations etc. If
something like this were to be attempted by us, it would require (ideally)
a paid person - certainly could be the task of an intern, if one could be
recruited to serve Bangor area progressive electronic media projects.
5. Newsworthy in December.
It was sad to say goodbye to December, because it was the end of a
three-year group during which many dates came up with only 0, 1 and 2 in
the dates - a digital sort of pattern - maybe the dreaded Y2K bug just
distributed its effects over these three years. In that case, goodbye to
all that! This year started with the 1-2-3 day (01/02/03), that I took as
being auspicious for the launch of good things - 1-2-3-Go! It could also be
written 03/02/01 (no actually that would be Feb. 1 - we still have it to
look forward to). That's a countdown/launch day. Could it be that I still
remember the launch of John Glenn into space, causing an interruption in
our school day ...
Last month, in terms of issues relevant to HelpNet, I think the biggest
event was Maine Freedom of Information's citizen survey of public access to
local information (MFOIC's news page is at
<http://www.mfoic.org/news.htm>). This has been discussed extensively in
the print media, with a 3-day special report in the Bangor Daily News and a
couple of editorials - the most recent today, with the very solid advice
that the way to preserve freedoms is to exercise them. The statewide audit
only scratched the surface of this issue - local municipal offices, school
districts and police. The whole issue of access to state information has
not been touched, and the very important issues surrounding access to
electronic information have yet to be surveyed, though the MFOIC has begun
a next phase regarding these.
On a more national level, the establishment of the federal TIA Total
Information Awareness program, conceived and led by John Poindexter, has
caused very real concerns - however they are getting submerged in the many
other initiatives coming into being, as supposedly justified by the War on
Terrorism. Again, the BDN had an editorial in December (Dec. 2) critical of
this initiative, titled "You are being mined." Their concluding sentence
again is very solid, "It is projects like TIA, not law-abiding Americans,
that need to be watched." For an excellent overview of the future of data
mining, listen to the NPR audio online archive, story of 12/30, to be found
at <http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=896769>.
On a local note for myself, continuing a 3-year involvement in (against)
the development of Ayers Island in Orono (related to which I submitted at
least three FOI requests), the Island's developer George Markowsky has now
proposed total motion detection and intrusion surveillance as the future of
the island. The multi-billion boondoggle of homeland security research is
coming home in the form of projects like this. For details, see the
"Intelligent Island" website at
<http://homeland.cs.umaine.edu/intelligent_island.htm>.
If there were other December events of note, please post them back to the list.
6. Guest editor's column.
Here's where those who volunteer to guest edit get to sound off even more
than they do in the rest of the sections. This month I did a major cleanup
of my e-mail files, sending lots of project-related messages to their
relevant folders, deleting many along the way. This is part of a general
personal reorganization, required as part of finishing my degree and
getting the dissertation done. In the immediate present, working from a set
of visualizations that have been emerging for the past 6 months (toward
structuring "conversation spaces" within context of a project called New
Directions in the Earth Sciences and Humanities, see
<http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~schroedr/newdirections/ndde.html> (seems to
be down today...), have been working on visualizing, building models etc.
of Buckminster Fuller's tensegrity structures. Along the way I learned that
Fuller was a lifelong Maine summer resident, family owns Bear Island near
North Haven, and apparently summering on the island as a nearly-blind child
significantly influences his spatial structural visions.
Perhaps closer to HelpNet concerns, I've been trying to piece together a
"question-centered information system" approach, in contradistinction to a
"knowledge-based approach" - all aimed at structures that allow questions
and their resolutions to be regarded as singular events in a system of
common coordinates. I think tensegrities will help!
Here are some recommendations, "editor's choice" for book and website for
the month:
Featured book of the month: Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking
Science of Networks, by Mark Buchanan. There is lots to like and think
about in this popularized account of research that has gone into the "small
world" hypothesis. Buchanan begins with a geometric solution that helps us
to understand why "weak ties" are so powerful in establishing meaningful
connections. We know about how these work across networks of people - they
also seem to work in terms of associating ideas and concepts. The value of
browsing in a traditional library is a "weak ties" phenomenon - and weak
ties seem to be very important in creativity and the search for new solutions.
Featured web site: Maine Environmental Policy News,
<http://www.meepi.org/>. I really like what they do. The concept is simple
- cull environmental stories from the online versions of Maine news media.
However "someone" has to do it - which is why it is important for those who
benefit from this to become member, send a small contribution etc. Which is
also essential if HelpNet is to continue to flourish!
7. Coordinator's column, by Jon Falk.
I'm sure I sometimes sound like a broken record, with my constant reminders
about virus protection, security updates, etc. Here's a different
approach: in PC Magazine's most recent survey of its readers (a fairly
tech-savvy group), 7% reported that "they rely on faith in a higher power
for network protection." And I don't think they were referring to Microsoft.
On a slightly related subject, I've been playing with a Popfile, a program
that takes an interesting approach to dealing with spam, allowing your
Email program to automatically filter spam and put it in its own folder,
for you to read or dispose of at your convenience. Popfile is a free
program, still in its alpha/beta development stages, which uses Bayesian
statistics to classify mail messages. I actually started college as a
math major, but I got over it quickly, so I can only give a very general
explanation of what this means. Basically, you can set up folders in your
mail program for incoming mail (like work, personal, spam), and then you
"train" Popmail to recognize which mail goes where. It does this by
comparing the words in the incoming messages to the frequency with which
they appear in the folders you've set up. I get very little spam, so the
training is going slowly, but it seems to work as advertised, and I'm
intrigued by the approach. I especially like the fact that I control the
program, rather than relying on some mysterious "blacklist."
Popfile has pretty good instructions for setting up and configuring the
program, although it gets a little tricky if you have another program (like
Norton Antivirus 2000 or 2001), which changes your E-mail server
settings. You can get Popfile at <http://popfile.sourceforge.net/> --
there is a Windows version, and a cross-platform version that will run on
any system that is running Perl.
**Folkschool-list archives are at:
<http://www.mint.net/folkschool/helpnet/archives.htm>
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