Build A Digital Antenna/Converter Box For $8.00

Consumers with analog televisions who tune in using antennas will need a digital converter box, left, once television stations stop broadcasting in analog Feb. 17. Image Credit: Bebeto Matthews -- Associated Press

Build A Digital Antenna/Converter Box For $8.00

The federal government's TV converter box program runs out of funding!

Is anyone surprised? Give the government something to manage and they will manage to mess it up. Hey, why don't we have the government fix our economy that had been sent into a tailspin through the promotion of JUNK MORTGAGES backed by organizations create by .... the government? - oops!

Maybe the government can free up some of the 750 billion dollars that was supposed to be used to buy back JUNK MORTGAGES so that people in our society don't miss the new gameshow program, Million Dollar Password.

This excerpted and edited from the Washington Post –

TV Converter Program Runs Out of Funding
By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer - Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The government's billion-dollar program to help people prepare for the transition to digital television has run out of money, potentially leaving millions of viewers without coupons to buy converter boxes they need to keep their analog TV sets working after the switch.

As of this past Sunday, consumers who request a $40 coupon to help offset the cost of a converter box are being placed on a waiting list. They may not receive the coupons before Feb. 17, when full-power television stations will shut off traditional analog broadcasts and transmit only digital signals.

Members of Congress are now scrambling to find ways to allocate more money to the program.
Reference Here>>

Check out the video ... the one that teaches someone on how to build an analog to digital antenna for about $8.00, build an antenna, then watch Million Dollar Password!

SharedBook Offers Recipes For Tactile Communication

“Create-A-Cookbook” hardcover examples from Allrecipes.com using SharedBook’ reverse publishing platform. SharedBook Inc. is a technology company that specializes in integrating and publishing data from various sources into a structured book product that can sit as a flipbook on the Internet or be professionally printed. Image Credit: Compilation Of Images From SharedBook Inc. - ecj

SharedBook Offers Recipes For Tactile Communication

At Symblogogy, we are always on the lookout for tools that automate our lives, both personally and professionally.

New Media participants have always had a problem in trying to translate captured digital data to the tactile world. How does one create something that is truly tangible in a digital, bits and bytes universe?

Business and social enterprises, like Resorts, Funeral Homes, Alumni Associations, Weblogs, and etc., that cater to Audience-Of-One strategies for the capture and presentation of this digital information now have an ally in the ability to preserve and deliver published evidence of one's digital experience.

Two-page screenshot of a display showing an actual blog post from MAXINE for October 30, 2007 (click image for full size)- Content owners on Google's Blogger platform and their readers can now use the Blog2Print widget to turn posts into a printed book with a single click. Additional compatibility with other platforms and edit/format capabilities will become available throughout this next year. Image Credit: SharedBook inc. - ecj

Blog2Print allows any weblog activity to be turned into a book to be shared with others for any purpose. These books can be published in either hardcover or soft-cover and in any quantity desired. The purpose is the purpose one chooses.

For example, let’s say that one is a creative, New Media-savvy Real Estate Agent and the Agent augments the sales activity for each property with a weblog highlighting unique characteristics of the property that is being marketed. In addition to being able to direct prospective buyers to information specifically about the property, the Agent can have the weblog converted to a hardcover book for use as a reference at the house when showing potential buyers. Once the property enters into escrow, the Agent can hand the new owner a book that they can refer to while waiting for escrow to close.

On a purely personal level, first time parents are turning to the web to help them cope with the demands of disseminating information on the new Charge. Digital is nice, in that one can instantly grab a photo, and post a story, whereby the whole family can share in the developments of the growth experiences of the baby.

So, how does the Baby Boomer generation grandparent share the excitement of the new addition to others in their life’s circle? Carry around 8.5”X11” sheets of paper with inkjet streaks caused because it might have been raining the last time the photos were pulled out to show others?

Blog2Print widget - once Blog2Print has been added to your blog (link on widget), you'll make money each time a book of your blog is purchased! You'll receive 20% of the sales of the books sold from your blog. Caption & Image Credit: SharedBook Inc.

Solution - just press the SharedBook Blog2Print widget placed at the Charge’s weblog to create and order a hard or soft cover bound publication of what had been posted that month. No more worries on what to do and how to go about the difficult task of moving back to the tactile “analog” world from our shared digital experience.

Just in time for this holiday season … and beyond, SharedBook and Allrecipes.com join forces to cook up and deliver digital documentation of recipes back to a useful, tactile and shared medium – The Book.

SharedBook Logo – Image Credit: SharedBook Inc.

This excerpted from a press release issued by SharedBook Inc. –

SHAREDBOOK AND ALLRECIPES.COM PARTNER TO OFFER SELF-PUBLISHED COOKBOOKS FROM ONLINE CONTENT

Just in Time for the Holidays: Home Cooks Can Now Automatically Publish Collections of their Favorite Recipes in Professionally-Printed Cookbooks

NEW YORK – November 5, 2007 – SharedBook Inc., the Reverse Publishing Platform provider, and Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest online community food site, today introduced Create-A-Cookbook – a Web application allowing home cooks to self-publish professionally-printed hard- or softcover cookbooks from their favorite online and personal recipes. Beginning today, Allrecipes.com members can choose from more than 40,000 recipes to include in their personalized cookbooks, and then add their own recipes, notes, stories, and photographs.
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Create-A-Cookbook is an easy, one-click way to compile recipes in a book format that can be used and moved anywhere for easy access. With Create-A-Cookbook, users can also preserve treasured family recipes in the self-published on-demand cookbook, as well as share their favorite recipes with family and friends. Themed cookbooks can also be created for events such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and for single subjects like soups or Italian food.

“For many of us, recipes and special foods are closely connected with cherished family memories, especially during the holiday season,” said Lisa Sharples, President, Allrecipes.com. “Create-A-Cookbook is a unique way for our members to preserve their favorite recipes along with the stories and photographs that make them special.”

Now, with just a few clicks using SharedBook’s Reverse Publishing Platform, Allrecipes.com members can automatically flow recipes and photographs from their online Recipe Boxes into a structured cookbook that can be published in hard or softcover format. They can then choose to preview and purchase the cookbook immediately or to personalize it further. Members can edit the content, upload additional information and photographs for the covers and the inside pages, and order as many or as few cookbooks as they want.

Allrecipes.com members can also invite family and friends into their personal cookbook publishing space to contribute their comments and photos.
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For anyone hesitant to share closely-guarded recipes online, the personal cookbook publishing space provides a secure environment where home cooks can display their recipes only to those they invite.
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For more information, please go to www.allrecipes.com.

About SharedBook

SharedBook Inc. is a technology company that specializes in integrating and publishing data from various sources into a structured book product that can sit as a flipbook on the Internet or be professionally printed. The company’s collaborative on-demand Reverse Publishing Platform allows users to extract data and content from multiple sources, manipulate it, and then distribute their unique creation in digital or hard copy format. SharedBook partners include AYSO® Soccer, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Canyons Resort, CarePages, Inc. (a division of Revolution Health Group), Cruise West Cruise Lines, Exposures, 4-H, JumpTV Sports, Legacy.com, Little League International®, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Sportography, Inc., Steamboat Ski Resort, 30 Minute Photos Etc., USA Football, YAVarsity.com, and Yosemite. For more information, please go to www.sharedbook.com or http://blog.sharedbook.com.

About Allrecipes.com

Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest independent food site, is an online cooking community where home cooks from around the world share, rate and download recipes and meal ideas. With more than 5.5 million unique visitors a month and a membership base more than a million strong, Allrecipes.com is the world’s largest test kitchen, offering a nightly glimpse into the kitchens and habits of home cooks everywhere, and providing an indispensable resource for anyone seeking trusted recipes, everyday and holiday meal ideas, practical cooking tips and food advice. The site features more than 40,000 of America’s best-loved recipes. For additional information regarding Allrecipes.com, please visit www.allrecipes.com.
Reference Here>>


Drop by and see SharedBook and its publishing solutions for the digital age in Las Vegas at the BlogWorld & New Media EXPO - Booth #201 at the Las Vegas Convention Center - November 8-9, 2007.

Internet Telephony – Leveraging Assets

Keynote: Norman Stout, MITEL, CEO US Operations - Image Credit: Edmund Jenks, copyright 2007

Internet Telephony – Leveraging Assets

In Los Angeles this week, a conference and tradeshow focusing on technologies and strategies aligned to take advantage of the “New Phone” world was covered over a three day period.

INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO managed by Technology Marketing Corporation, was attended mostly by technically directed operatives. It was, however, extremely informative for those who would be familiar with some of the niche communication applications one might use every day ... but may not have been exposed to the whole picture of phone based communications and systems.

Discussions about matching up analog signals with digital, open systems verses proprietary systems, value-added partnerships, small office / home office, scalability, unified communications, access points, enterprise mobility, internet protocol television (IPTV), and more were engaged and further explored on how all of this can be applied to the internet as a business proposition for profit.

It is an exciting time for the world of business phone systems in that many of the analog systems in place require a heavy investment in infrastructure, yet the business operations that own them would like to take advantage of the digital capabilities the internet can offer.

A couple of efforts focused on leveraging assets that exist and are in use as a normal way of communication and effort management.

One company named VoSKY, leverages the proven technology used by Skype to get the most out of voice over internet protocol (VOIP).

VoSKY Exchange 91xx - Image Credit: VoSKY

This excerpted from the VoSKY website –

The company's flagship product is VoSKY Exchange

A family of enterprise-grade VoIP gateways that allow companies to optimize Skype for the business environment. VoSKY Exchange VoIP gateways seamlessly integrate with existing TDM or IP PBX phone systems and enable business-class applications that help companies reduce communications costs and improve productivity. VoSKY's product line also includes cost-effective consumer VoIP devices for using Skype on any traditional handset, mobile phone, or speakerphone. All VoSKY products have received certification from Skype.
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Overview
The VoSKY Exchange 91xx is rack-mountable and adds up to eight outgoing Skype lines without changes to existing PBX or phone equipment. Multiple Exchange boxes can be set up to interconnect multiple offices anywhere in the world, enabling free calls between locations. Calls to other Skype users are free, while calls to non-Skype users are charged at low-cost SkypeOut rates or at a flat rate when using Skype Unlimited.

Skype Trunking for your PBX
Skype is the world's largest VoIP network with over 200 million users, and the VoSKY Exchange enables businesses to leverage Skype as a trunking solution for their existing PBX phone systems. Utilizing Skype trunking as an alternative to the PSTN, businesses can substantially save on both domestic long-distance and international calls.

Works with almost any Analog or IP PBX
A major advantage of the VoSKY Exchange is its seamless integration with existing analog or IP PBX phone systems. Businesses are able to preserve the investment in their existing phone systems while enjoying the cost savings and flexibility of Skype without a major forklift in equipment.
Reference Here>>

“Forklift” is an industry term meaning to move existing equipment out and bring all new equipment in. Basically, a total overhaul of the communications system.

Another business effort that updates an existing system is able to utilize commonly available assets is Interactive Intelligence.

Instead of developing innovation from whole cloth, they asked ... why not innovate off of existing and robust software management, database access platforms, and programs developed and proven by Microsoft? This accounts for some of the vision that drives the solutions put forward by Interactive Intelligence.

Microsoft Suite Of Management Software Solutions - Image Credit: Interactive Intelligence

Excerpted and edited from the Interactive Intelligence website –

Interactive Intelligence Inc. (Nasdaq: ININ)

Provides the most innovative contact center and IP telephony products and services available.
Interactive Intelligence solutions are modular in nature, built with proven, award-winning products that push the edge of technology to deliver a truly best-of-class offering.

The company's innovation and experience maximizes customer value with a product line that helps businesses more rapidly respond to change, while reducing the cost and complexity associated with managing interactions.

From sophisticated contact center automation applications - including automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), speech recognition, Web collaboration, remote agent support, supervisory monitoring, predictive dialing, call recording, reporting and more - to SIP-based enterprise IP telephony, unified communications and messaging, and customer self-service, Interactive Intelligence offers a flexible, easy-to-manage alternative to proprietary, hardware-centric solutions.

The Interactive Intelligence product line is ideal for contact centers of all sizes, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), global 1,000 organizations, and large, distributed enterprises, including those with mobile workers. Key vertical markets include financial services, healthcare, legal, and higher education.
Reference Here>>

Interaction Client .NET Screen where the administrator can drag and drop who needs to attend the conference call - Image Credit: Interactive Intelligence

And this recent product announcement from an Interactive Intelligence Press Release –

Interactive Intelligence to Offer Interaction Message Indicator™ for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging Users
INDIANAPOLIS (July 10, 2007)

Interactive Intelligence Inc. (Nasdaq: ININ) is releasing a new standalone Interaction Message Indicator™ application, which monitors Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging mailboxes so that users are alerted to new voicemail messages via a light on their desktop phones.
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Interactive Intelligence plans to continue meeting customer demand with additional complementary applications for Exchange Server 2007 UM users, such as personal notification features, according to Staples.

Interaction Message Indicator™ can work with existing third-party phone systems, including the Interactive Intelligence IP PBX. The application offers a Web-based interface designed for easy set-up, administration, monitoring and reporting.

Interactive Intelligence first released its standards-based, single-platform business communications software in 1997 to eliminate the cost and complexity introduced by individual point products. The software offers contact centers and enterprises a wide array of communications applications, including SIP-based voice-over-IP switching, automatic call distribution, speech-enhanced interactive voice response, unified messaging, call recording, and more. It also includes pre-integrated plug-ins for Microsoft Dynamics products, Microsoft Office products, and Office Communications Server.

Interactive Intelligence is unveiling its Interaction Message Indicator™ at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, July 10 to 12, at the Denver Convention Center.
Reference Here>>

Adapting and integrating existing functional processes as a transitional strategy makes sense, especially when the weight of an existing investment in an extensive infrastructure allows for very little change.

So get out there ... leverage those assets! Together, the analog and digital waters are fine.

Digital Imaging Camera Conversion: Records To MP3

Peter Alyea, a digital conservation specialist at the Library of Congress, scans a record from the 1930s. Image Credit: Nell Boyce/NPR

Digital Imaging Camera Conversion: Records To MP3

Digital imaging technology is an amazing tool. It provides biometric information to help keep us safe, it reads symbologies so that we can get information delivered to us through a camera and sofware (up to 20 seconds of low-res video on our cellphone screens - a 4 meg file), and now this type of technology can take a picture of a round phonograph record and deliver a sound reproduction via a MP3 file converted from reading the grooves of the record.

What more versitility does one want from a technology?

Excerpts from National Public Radio -

You Can Play the Record, but Don't Touch
by Nell Boyce - Morning Edition, July 16, 2007

At the Library of Congress, in a small, white room with bright red carpet, physicist Carl Haber sits down to play a record from 1930. It's a recording of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe." But here's the strange thing: This record is broken.

"It looks like somebody just got hungry and took a bite out of it," says Haber. He has positioned the record on a turntable and fitted the broken piece back into place, like it's a jigsaw puzzle. "If we spun this thing fast, the piece would come flying off, you know, and maybe hit somebody," he says.

But this turntable doesn't spin like a normal record player. And there's no needle hovering over the record. Instead, there's a camera linked to a computer. It snaps detailed images of the groove cut into the disc, and uses the images to reconstruct the sound without ever touching the record.

Haber got the idea for this setup a few years ago, when he was driving to work and listening to NPR. He heard a report on how historic audio recordings can be so fragile that they risk being damaged if someone plays them by dragging a needle over their surfaces. It made Haber wonder if he could get the sound off old recordings without touching their delicate surfaces. He worked with a colleague, Vitaliy Fadeyev, and they managed to reconstruct sound on a 1950 recording of "Goodnight, Irene" performed by the Weavers.

This was just a proof of principle. They have now developed their hands-off technique to the point that it's being tested at the Library of Congress to see whether it's good enough to someday scan the library's vast archive of sound recordings.

One thing they've learned: A broken record is no problem. Haber clicks a mouse and the camera takes pictures of the groove on "Iolanthe."

"And by taking these pictures, it essentially just unwinds the record into a big long stripe," Haber explains.

A scanned photo image of the grooves in the record from "Hemlock Blues" by David Lee Johnson from the early 1950s. IRENE skips right over the scratched parts (as seen above) of normally unplayable records. Image Credit: physicist Carl Haber

The picture appears on Haber's computer screen. It looks like a black and white photo of a tire tread.

"Here's the break," he says, pointing to a line. "You can see, there's a little piece of dust, little scratch marks on it." The computer ignores all these flaws as it translates the images into sound.
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IRENE was installed at the Library of Congress late last year. The library has millions of old audio recordings, and many are in poor condition or use obsolete formats. Peter Alyea, a digital conservation specialist at the library, says that to play old records, you often need trained technicians who can do things like choose the proper needle out of dozens of options. But if IRENE lives up to its potential, Alyea says, anyone could make a digital copy of an old record.
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Alyea says it's like a photocopy machine for sound. "It brings the possibility of automation much closer to reality for these kinds of materials."

And given that he has thousands and thousands of records that he would like to digitize and make widely available, the prospect of automation is hugely attractive.
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Exactly how good is IRENE at making digital copies?
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One test involves a disc etched with simple tones to see how well IRENE can read some old-fashioned discs coated with lacquer. The library has thousands of these one-of-a-kind records. The format is obsolete.

But luckily, Haber says, audio engineer George Horn still makes them at Fantasy Studios in California. Horn cut some discs with well-defined tones. Haber says, IRENE can reproduce the tones amazingly well.

"The machine is not adding its own color. It's not adding anything of its own nature," he says.

Haber says IRENE does take some things away. He plays one record from 1953, a Les Paul and Mary Ford recording of the song "Johnny Is the Boy for Me." This record has a bad skip in it that's very apparent on a regular record player. But IRENE skips over the skip like it's not there.
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IRENE, an audio-recording system, can scan old and damaged records and wax cylinders ... and make digital recordings from them. Image Credit: physicist Carl Haber

IRENE isn't perfect. It removes pops and clicks, but it sometimes has a hissing noise in the background. Still, the Library of Congress finds all this encouraging enough that it has started testing the system on hundreds of discs, what Alyea describes as a kind of simulation of what a mass digitization project would be like.

When taking flat photographs, it can create a three-dimensional image of the groove on a record, or on an old wax cylinder. Haber been working with the University of California's Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, to reconstruct sound from field recordings, like one wax cylinder made around 1911 that features a Native American called Ishi.

Haber says it's amazing to hear these voices from the past. "There's this whole human and cultural component to what we're looking at," says Haber, whose main job is studying subatomic particles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. "That makes it wonderful."
Read All (audio examples of IRENE conversion compared at story source)>>

Try doing this with laser technology!