Poet Ponders the Digital

Lifestyle / Direct: Wedding Issue November 15, 2010 Deadline Wedding 2010 Issue Wedding Registries Go Virtual A friend of mine adores Williams-Sonoma, the gourmet food and cookware retailer known for unique teas, baking mixes and unusual items like cakelet pans. When she announced her engagement, she included Williams-Sonoma among her list of bridal registries. However, many specialty retailers have yet to open locations in Tulare County. Though a drive to Fresno to visit some retailers might be a nice way to spend a weekend afternoon, my unfortunate experience has been that specialty retailers do not offer the same selection in the Valley as they do in places like San Francisco or Los Angeles. Also, there are some smaller retailers we might never see in the Valley. I know some couples who have used Target’s “Club Wedd” to create wedding registries. Club Wedd’s online bridal registry is convenient, especially when you’re swamped preparing for the big day. As my wife has remin...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley October 25, 2010 Deadline December 2010 Issue Scrapbooking Made Easy Scrapbooking is a serious hobby for some people. Two of my cousins create beautiful works of art using special acid-free art papers, rubber stamps, decals and photos. Scrapbooking is an art form in the hands of serious “scrappers.” Then, there are people like me. I can’t cut a decent trim using Fiskar scissors and don’t even allow me near glue. I’m more likely to glue the photos to myself than the pages. Yet, there is hope for those of us with scrapbook impairments. Digital scrapping, also known as DigiScrappin or digiscrap, enables us to use computer software to create virtual scrapbooks that can also be printed. There are several specialized software packages available for scrapbooking. These applications sell for less than $40. Broderbund and Nova also sell special editions of their scrapbooking applications for weddings. The wedding editions include clipart and fonts appr...

The word "community" is overused in academic fields, but it is the best word for what it on my mind today. I closed a Web server this week on which I had created a Drupal and MediaWiki site on special education. The site was functional for about two years, which is an eternity online. The reality is that online communities come and go so rapidly that what was popular a year or two ago is often "inactive" now. There are dozens of Yahoo groups that are dedicated to special education. Most of these were active five years ago, but have since fallen out of favor with users. Just as the Usenet groups and most "listservs" have faded away in the last five years, so have many online forums. The Internet has accelerated the speed with which a community grows, propers, and then declines. The timeline of the Internet is punctuated by technologies and business ideas that were "hot" for a moment. When is the last time you used IRC or read a newsgroup? Remember...

I am a believer in outlining and planning before, during, and after the drafting process for most long forms of creative writing. Generally, I'm always searching for a way to better organize my thoughts. As a writer, this means I experiment with various outlining and "story plotting" tools. Two popular story plotting applications are Dramatica ( B000H774K0 ) and Contour ( B002ABL3IK ). In addition to my thoughts on these tools, you can read reviews on Amazon and various writing-focused forums. Bluntly, Dramatica Pro 4.1 is too precise and Contour 1.2 is not precise enough. Contour guides you through a serious of basic questions based on a single "Blockbuster" template for screenplays and novels. There is one, and only one, Contour story structure. You can create a basic story outline in a few hours, assuming you follow the model. Contour could be great. It looks a lot better than Dramatica, but the beauty is only skin deep. The Contour application does...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley October 4, 2010 Deadline November 2010 Issue Building a Business via Social Networks Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn and a myriad of social networking Internet technologies are reshaping how businesses develop and maintain customer relationships. Just as a Web presence became a standard marketing tool by the late 1990s, a “social network” identity is becoming an essential part of brand development. Writers, musicians and actors have to be good at self-promotion. Celebrity Twitter feeds are read by millions of loyal fans. Many celebrities also maintain blogs and public accounts on Facebook or MySpace. We can learn from the examples of celebrities, both what to do and what not to do with the power of social networking. One local mystery writer has turned social networking into an effective promotional tool. Marilyn Meredith, a Springville resident, writes a blog entry almost daily. These entries are on both the business and craft of writing. To se...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley September 2, 2010 Deadline October Issue Nurturing the Valley’s Tech Economy   “What can we do to improve, or even create, Tulare County’s tech economy?” When I receive messages after a column is published, they tend to ask technical questions. This summer, I received poignant messages about topics of special interest to me: our schools and our economy. There is no quick and easy way to nurture a high-tech economy. Sadly, there are more examples of failure than success. In the Midwest, states have been trying to transition from manufacturing to technology for the last quarter century. Driving through these states, one finds empty business parks, faltering science-focused charter schools, and cities with uncertain futures. Tax breaks, special incentives, and substantial federal aid have not produced rivals to Silicone Valley or the Route 128 “Tech Corridor” of Massachusetts. However, this summer I visited Texas, where high-tech is expanding...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley August 2, 2010 Deadline September Issue Learning to Program, Learning to Think Several times a month I create or modify computer code, but I use the skills I have gained from programming on a daily basis. The more I learn about computer languages and programming, the more I learn to think creatively to solve problems. Our schools are asked to prepare students for standardized tests, primarily on English and math skills. We frequently claim we want students to learn creative problem solving, but we test memorized knowledge. State and national tests focus on knowing such things as the meanings of words and how to solve math problems with memorized equations. I don’t question the value of memorizing Latin and Greek roots or the quadratic equation, but teaching how to think is essential to the future. Computer programming requires analyzing a problem, breaking a possible solution into small parts and then writing the code to perform the steps requir...