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CompuSchmooze™ Newspaper Columns: A Monthly Guide to Jewish Resources in Cyberspace

CompuSchmooze

The CompuSchmoozeTM name is a trademark owned bySteven L. Lubetkin, and is the name of a series of columns published monthly in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey. These articles and associated podcasts are Copyright © 1996-2010 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.

Read the current CompuSchmooze column here.


Any commercial use of these articles or podcasts requires purchase of use rights from the copyright owner. For information on reprint rights to these articles, please send me an email message.

Monday, September 26, 2005

 

CompuSchmooze Podcast #9: Melitz Program, "Engaging Disengagement"


Melitz's "Engaging Disengagement is an interactive 90-minute to 2 hour program that gives participants a deep understanding of what the people of Israel are experiencing through the disengagement. Shown discussing the program are (from left): Alan Respler, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey; Henry Maurer, president of JCRC; and Alexandra Benjamin, educational consultant from Melitz, who facilitated the program.

The program uses an interactive role-playing format. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey, the human relations and public policy arm of the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey, sponsored a presentation of "Engaging Disengagement" at the Cherry Hill Public Library on Sunday, September 25, 2005. This program features a recording of that interactive dialogue, introductory interviews with JCRC officers David Shevrin and Gloria Fischel-Gilbert, and comments from Alexandra Benjamin, the Melitz educational consultant who facilitated the dialogue.


The program runs 1:36:36 (file size 136 mb) in stereo.

Download the program here.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

 

CompuSchmooze Podcast #8: Omea Pro: An Interview with David Booth, Executive Marketing Manager, JetBrains Software

David Booth is executive marketing manager of Prague-based JetBrains Software, maker of Omea Pro, an information management environment. Version 2.0 was released September 6. Omea integrates with Microsoft Outlook, USENET, Web bookmarks, RSS Feeds, IM Chats, and more.

http://libsyn.com/media/lubetkin/CSchmooze8-Omea.mp3

The podcast is 15 minutes (14.8 mb).

Thanks to Mamma's Rug, our GarageBand.com band of the week, for the theme song, "Wasted."

 

CompuSchmooze Article, September 2005: Omea Organizes Microsoft Outlook and the Web

CompuSchmooze September 2005: Omea Organizes Microsoft Outlook and the Web
By Steven L. Lubetkin
Copyright © 2005 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.
WORD COUNT: 728

For nearly 20 years, many of us technology geeks have regarded a long-dead program, Lotus Agenda, as the gold standard for automated organization of free-form text on the PC. Now, a new program developed by a Czech software firm may be the answer to our long quest.

Agenda could read the text of an item in its database, and assign it tocategories matching those user-selected text characteristics. Users could create multiple views of the data, and instantly see relationships that Agenda uncovered, which were otherwise not immediately apparent. Lotus abandoned Agenda, mainly because Agenda was difficult to explain.

Omea Pro 2.0, released September 6 by JetBrains Software (http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/), gives you the ability to manage information from multiple sources in a single user interface.

Instead of having to switch among Microsoft Outlook, a USENET news reader, a web browser, a blog feed reader, and an instant message client, you can use Omea as an overlay for Outlook and substitute it for these other programs. Omea integrates tabbed views of your email, websites, newsgroups, instant message chats, and RSS feeds in a single window.

JetBrains, headquartered in Prague in the Czech Republic, started out as a developer of software tools for programmers, according to David Booth, executive marketing manager for JetBrains.

In an interview conducted via Skype (which you can hear on the CompuSchmooze podcast at http://compuschmooze.blogspot.com), Booth said one of the companys founders, Sergey Dmitriev, had just completed work on a Java software development tool called IntelliJ IDEA, that dramatically streamlined programming work for software writers, and turned his attention to the overal problem of information overload.

Sergey was looking at this information overload problem," said Booth. "He thought, OK, if we build a product for these developers, maybe we can build a product for everyone else who still has lots of information but just has problems managing their sources."

The name of the program comes from the Latin proverb by the poet Ovid, Omnia mea mecum porto, which means, "I carry all my things with me," Booth explained.

Omea refers to each of these categories of items as resources, and they can be linked to each other, or associated with a Task.Email, contacts, and tasks all synchronize seamlessly with their counterparts in Outlook, so you can go back and forth between the two interfaces.

Having everything in a single interface is an incredible timesaver, but the realpower of Omea comes from its automatic category assignment feature. By creating a rule, you can test an incoming email message (or a newsgroup or RSS feed posting), and if it meets the rules conditions, it can be automatically assigned to categories you create.

For example, I create rules that identify emails sent to or from my clients, or news items that mention subjects of importance to those clients. Omea automatically assigns these items to the correct client category, and I can view or act on them all at once by clicking on that clients category folder.

One of the most powerful aspects of Omea's category matching is its understanding of the concept of category inheritance. This means that if you create a category folder that has other folders inside it, any item thats in the subfolders will also appear in the top folder as well. For example, if I have a category called The Voice, if I nest that folder inside a folder called Federation, it will also be visible in the Federation folder.

Omea integrates nicely with Outlooks email. You can drag items into Outlook mail folders youve already created, and they will retain any category assignments made in Omea. You can create workspaces in Omea to reduce the amount of information you need to look at. So, for example, you could create a workspace for each client of project, and only include in that workspace the resources that are relevant to the client or project.

You can forward blog or newsgroup postings via email, or you can easily add an item to your own blog by right-clicking on it and using a third-party blogging program, like w.bloggar (www.wbloggar.com).

The only limitations of the program are minor. Omea only integrates instant messaging from ICQ (www.icq.com) or Miranda (http://miranda-im.org); Booth says JetBrains may consider integrating other IM clients, and will probably incorporate calendaring functions in a future release. The program costs $49, and a trial version is available.


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CompuSchmooze Article, August 2005: AudioGuardOffers Cost-Effective Security Tactic

CompuSchmooze August 2005: AudioGuardOffers Cost-Effective Security Tactic
By Steven L. Lubetkin
Copyright © 2005 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.
WORD COUNT: 698

A British firm, AudioGuard, has created a highly cost-effective security tool to ward off casual potential burglars.
Its a 21st Century riff on the barking dog recordings sold in the early 1960s. You played the recording, the burglar heard the dog, and assumed that the home was inhabited, or at least protected by a vicious animal.

At least thats the way it was supposed to go. Vinyl LP recordings were only good for about half an hour, so if you were gone all day, eventually the dog would stop barking, or the burglar would hear the clicks as the turntable shut itself off.

AudioGuard (www.AudioGuard.com) has taken this security tactic to a new level with high quality digitally recorded ambient sounds of a busy household, a busy office, a home undergoing DIY renovations, and a quieter but restless nighttime household. The CDs are designed for use in the continuous shuffle or random mode in a regular CD player. The recordings have been endorsed by several police organizations in the UK.



"Having reviewed it and spoken to colleagues I am of the opinion that if used correctly it could prove to be a useful deterrent to burglary, says Paul Frances, Force Crime Reduction Officer, Gloucestershire Constabulary, in a testimonial on the AudioGuard website.

"As criminals become even more sophisticated, so do the methods of preventing their success. Modern innovative ideas and technology is needed to defeat the modern, innovative criminal. I believe this product can act as an additional deterrent, added Michael Powis, Crime Reduction Manager, Nottinghamshire Police.

Gary Hawkes, co-creator of the program, said the idea for the recordings came from observing how his parents tried to secure their home by leaving lights and the radio on.

"It occurred to me that if I knew they werent in, then Im sure a local burglar could work out when my parents were out," he said in a telephone interview.

Hawkes also said his grandmother was very concerned about nighttime break-ins while sleeping. He decided it would also be useful to have a collection of middle-of-the-night sounds that could be played downstairs whilst youre asleep upstairs.

This more subtle recording of nighttime sounds would help deter what the British call sleeper breaks, when a burglar targets a home for break-ins while occupants are asleep. British burglars are somewhat more likely to try entering an occupied home, Hawkes noted, because firearms are not widely available there, and the most they risk from a British household is a bop on the nose.

AudioGuards professionally recorded discs avoid the use of distinctive sounds like voices that can be identified easily if they repeat during a recording.

According to AudioGuard's website, all sounds have been recorded using 24-bit digital technology incorporating techniques to give maximum authenticity including vacuuming, doors and chairs moving, hammering, etc, edited and layered to create an audio deterrent when any potential burglar approaches your property.

Hawkes brother Stuart, who has recorded sessions by such musicians as George Michael, Van Morrison, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams, supervised the recordings at Metropolis Studios London.

AudioGuard further notes that All of the sounds recorded were selected for their ability to travel efficiently, allowing them to be heard easily from outside any property, and also to be able to be convincingly reproduced on low budget sound systems. As a further precaution the soundtrack also incorporates a carefully placed low-level recording, using a constant rhythm designed to add an extra subliminal deterrent.

Although the CDs create a realistic audio illusion of activity, the package doesnt include scrap lumber or building materials to be left outside the home where sounds of power tools are emanating.

"This is mainly aimed at your opportunistic thief," Hawkes said. "It's just putting that bit of doubt in their mind that will send them on to another opportunity elsewhere."

AudioGuard supplements its recordings with home security tips (http://www.AudioGuard.com/top-ten-home-security-tips.htm) and links to other UK crime prevention sites (http://www.AudioGuard.com/crime-prevention-links.htm). The four CD set,which costs $29.95, can be ordered directly from the AudioGuard website.



To hear the complete interview with Gary Hawkes, including a sample of the AudioGuard office audio program, visit the CompuSchmooze Blog (http://compuschmooze.blogspot.com) or subscribe to the RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/compuschmooze).

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Friday, September 02, 2005

 

Incredible photos of the devastation by NY Times shooter Vincent Laforet

PDNOnline has a Q&A interview with Vincent Laforet, the New York Times photographer on the ground in New Orleans, whose dramatic photos have been illustrating most of the Times' coverage of the disaster.


[PDNonline: Today's Most Viewed Articles]


There's also an article about all of the photographers covering the catastrophe, and Laforet has posted many of his photos on the SportsShooter.com website.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the people of New Orleans and all the surrounding areas. Please contribute to the relief efforts.

You can start at the Union for Reform Judaism's Disaster Relief Fund website.


 

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