An Excellent App & Website for the Birds: And sorry about the title! However, I really couldn’t resist! In actual fact the app and website mentioned are not for the birds at all but instead are excellent resources for human birders! NPR’s current All Tech Considered podcast, and accompanying article, discuss how technology is transforming the pastime of bird watching. And as far as the excellent website and apps go…Cornell now has a live BirdCast feed, available through their website that allows you to watch birds in an up close and personal manner and the National Audubon Society has an great app that features thousands of bird songs so if you’re birding and want to verify
The NPR article and short podcast may be accessed via the following link:
Net Neutrality: Net Neutrality, in a nutshell, may be described as two people living in the same town and mailing the exact same item, that is two items that are the same — the exact same weight and packed in the same #10 envelopes from their town to an address in another city and paying the same first class rate of postage; as compared to being charged different postage rates for that same first class mail based upon the fact that the two different individuals live in the same town but on different streets so they are charged different rates for the mail they are sending out. To be more precise consider th eThe New York Times description of Net Neutrality; it states that: “The concept of “net neutrality” holds that companies providing Internet service should treat all sources of data equally.”*
And essentially, the lack of Net Neutrality allows Internet Service Providers to charge consumers and/or companies a different rate for data sent via the Internet because of the type of data being sent or the way the data is accessed. This issue is a big deal for a variety of reasons including the fact that inflated Internet access rates make it difficult for people with lower incomes to afford home Internet access; and, because as the streaming of movies and TV shows via the Internet gains popularity with consumers Internet Service Providers (who tend to frequently also be cable TV providers) raise the price of their Internet access if the access is provided by different ways (apps) or different devices. Thus you may pay more to stream movies of TV shows from the Internet via The Hulu app on your Xbox (The Xbox is Microsoft’s combo gaming and internet streaming device) than the Xfinity app on your Xbox simply because you’re Internet provider charges you more to access that content from Hulu than it does via Xfinity and even though in both cases you’re accessing TV shows and movies through your Xbox and your home Internet connection!
Here’s a link to a New York Times article, titled Keeping the Internet Neutral, which discusses this subject in more depth:
A Pocket Sized Cell Phone Re-Charger: Lilliputian Systems has developed a pocket-size cell phone re-charger that will allow purchasers to connect their cell phone to it, via a USB cable, and re-charge their cell phones while on the go. The Portable Fuel Cell has enough power to re-charge a cell phone for up to two weeks. CNET offers an in-depth discussion of this new cell phone recharger in an article titled Pocket-Sized Fuel Cell Charges Phone For Two Weeks. Here’s the link:
http://asia.cnet.com/pocket-sized-fuel-cell-charges-phones-for-two-weeks-62215008.htm
Linda R.
* Here’s the link to the New York Times page that offers an in-depth and specific definition of Net Neutrality:
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 
Howdy! This is kind of off topic but I need some help
from an established blog. Is it very hard to set up your own blog?
I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick.
I’m thinking about making my own but I’m not sure where to start.
Do you have any points or suggestions? With thanks