September 2009 Archives

Andrea Smeltzer's son was killed Thanksgiving in a one-car accident as a passenger.

The driver was charged with vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, careless driving, reckless driving, speeding and disregarding traffic lanes, and has since been cited for violating his plea agreement with prosecutors.

Smeltzer saw an opportunity to help a niche in the community but also a welcome distraction from her grief.

Last spring when contemplating what to do with daughter Lauren's barely worn prom dresses, the Cinderella Project of PA was born. Her basement collection has now grown to more than 800 dresses.

Flash video is a universally compatible format for desktop browsers and a universally lame format for mobile phones.

YouTube fixes this by processing dual streams - Flash for the desktop and 3gp for mobile applications.

Solution: Publish a high resolution video (480x382) from the BlackBerry Storm directly to Twitter (via YouTube) using only the handset.

1. Create a YouTube account.
This provides you with an email address specific to you (xxxxxx@m.youtube.com) that you can send your video to YouTube for processing.

2. Upload the video from your phone via your email account. The BlackBerry email system that synchs all your email accounts allows for a maximum attachment of 3 mb with Verizon. A stand alone app for an email service might have larger download capability. I find that 45 seconds of 480x382 video is under 3 mb.

3. Go to your YouTube account in the BlackBerry browser after the download and copy the page address of your video to the clipboard in the phone.

4. Using Übertwitter, I paste the YouTube URL of my downloaded video into the Tweet. Übertwitter supports embedded link shrinking using bit.ly. It's a one operation click off the BlackBerry key after pasting in the long link.

5. Send video tweet

Now you have a shortened link to a mobile browser page that will open and play your mobile video from any mobile browser and most desktops.

On Mac destops the 3pg video file opens in QuickTime. On PC's you will be asked to open the file in whatever video player on your PC that plays 3gp files, like QuickTime or RealPlayer. You may already have this file type associated with a player on your computer. Windows Media Player traditionally doesn't play 3pg files out of the box.

As an added bonus, you can track statistics and promote your video. It is universally search-able, can be sent and embedded by viewers.

paulkuehnel Youtube direct download tweet test via BlackBerry http://bit.ly/2hOxQ3 http://myloc.me/NMkt

The official dedication for the York County Vietnam Memorial will be Oct. 3, 11 a.m. at the York Expo Center

It will stand 16 1/2 feet tall. The black granite column will include the names of more than 100 soldiers from York County who were killed during the Vietnam War.

"Welcome Home" is carved into the base of the memorial -- something too few soldiers heard when they came home, said Tony Stabile, a member of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee.

Vietnam veteran Bill Fissel talks about his experience returning home and what the monument means to veterans.

It's a partnership of public and private forces bridging a gap. It's a path connecting city and country. It's a gas free commuter route to center city York; an oil free way to get out of town for the weekend to visit a bed & breakfast in Emigsville.

It's a new way of thinking.

The Kinsley Education Center teamed up with the York County Rail Trail Authority to build a bridge across a small creek along the northern extension of the York County Heritage Rail Trail in Manchester Township.

The beefy bridge looks like a small model of a PennDot bridge because that's basically the specs that designed it. For the students, it's the chance for real world experience without the state road involved.

The public will enjoy crossing this educational bridge for years to come with a piece of mind knowing that one more thing didn't raise their taxes.

I just tried the beta version of the Opera's Mini 5 beta mobile browser released September 16.

It can be downloaded at http://m.opera.com/next

I am impressed with the speed of the downloads !

It has some nice features like tabs and the look of the big brother's home page with Opera's "speed dial" function.

When you download through the BlackBerry browser on the Storm, a warning comes up from Opera saying the beta version Mini 5 has not been tested to run on the BlackBerry Storm, but it downloads and runs just fine.

Another beta tester for compact browsing that runs on the BlackBerry is Bolt

Now we need a browser on the BlackBerry that runs Adobe Flash. It's rumored to happen next year.

Interesting study by the Environmental Working Group that rates radiation of hundreds of cell phones. The Blackberry Storm was rated as a low emitter while the study hinted that many very popular phones like the Apple iPhone 3G and Blackberry Curve 8330 emit much higher levels of radiation.

These studies, usually not very popular with the cell phone industry, have been going on for years.

Recent studies find significantly higher risks for brain and salivary gland tumors among people using cell phones for 10 years or longer. The state of the science is provocative and troubling, and much more research is essential. (ewg.org)

The effects of electromagnetic radiation is a long-term health study, which translates into the reality that those of use who use handsets the most next to our heads are the test subjects of future clinical studies.

With any phone limiting exposure to the head can be accomplished with using a blue tooth ear piece (that emits a fraction of the radiation of handsets), the phone's speaker and texting.

Maybe 30 years from now we will be talking about the effects of electromagnetic pollution.

The Senate defeated Amendment 2371 by a margin of 59-39. railstotrails.org

Casey (PA) and Specter (PA) voted to preserve funding.

Rail trails are as much about recreation as much as they are about potential.

Strips of public land interconnected for moving people and whatever else the mind can dream of centuries from now.

Hard decisions to be made in the face of crunching budgets. Rail trail funding threatened by Amendment (greenmesh 9/15)

We can't cut bailouts to banks or a corporate health care system that has increased costs 9% (wsj.com) in a year when inflation for the rest of us has been flat.

Real median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008 (U.S. Census).

These are the sacred cows of capitalism and a type of blackmail that has grown out of combining greed with our respect of life.

This is also the thinking that railroads our ability to thrive by funding innovation.

Today, Senators John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) issued two amendments to the FY10 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. If passed, these amendments would eliminate the majority of available federal funds for trails, walking and bicycling.

Amendment 2370 would prohibit the use of federal funds for pedestrian or bicycle facilities, efforts to reduce vehicle collisions with wildlife, or other specified Transportation Enhancement (TE) projects if the Highway Trust Fund cannot cover unfunded highway authorizations.

Amendment 2371 would allow states to eliminate spending on TE, the nation's largest funding source for trails, walking and bicycling. Congress currently sets aside a portion of federal funds for TE to support these projects in all states. railstotrails.org

Giant Food Stores has blended energy saving technology into their new Manchester, Pa. store.

Skylights are balanced with florescent lighting automatically.

As the store gets darker from cloud cover, the lights automatically compensate. On a sunny day, the main overhead lights stay off.

The freezers are illuminated with strips of white LED lights and LED arrays are used in several display lights. The freezers also are designed not to use heaters in the doors to prevent fogging.

Water-free urinals cut down on water use and sewer plant processing.

Locally grown vegetables cut energy to transport produce long distances and push money into the local economy.

The grand opening is tomorrow.