Save the RainForest

Go to the website and save the rain forest.
Try it and help save a tree !!
It's free to click and donate !!

http://www.therainforestsite.com/names.htm

Also available at this website are:

Save an animal,
promote literacy,
child health care,
breast cancer screening,and
eradicate world hunger

He is with me always, of this I am sure!

This video captures what I believe. Thank you, CREATIVERAIN for making these videos and posting them on YouTube for all of us to share!

My favorite funny video!

Growing up in Oakland

I grew up in Oakland and I lived in five different houses near Lake Merritt. However, I have never seen it from the air. I have fond memories of watching Fourth of July and New Years Eve fireworks beside this lake. And of playing here after school and all summer long. There was plenty to do at Lake Merritt. There was a Children's Fairyland that had rides, a train, and a petting zoo. There was also a science center with an active bee hive. There were swing sets and jungle gyms; restaurants and boats to rent. There was also a branch of the Oakland Public Library in the park at Lake Merritt.

http://www.oaklandnet.com/parks/parks/lakemerritt.asp

Helms Gravel Pit AKA Sparks Marina

As a long time Nevada resident, I was surprised by the new lake we claimed to be the "Sparks Marina". Here is a link to a fellow blogger with the story!
Thank you Richard Moreno:
http://backyardtraveler.blogspot.com/2008/02/gravel-pit-that-became-lake.html

Peter Goin's Picture of the Helms Gravel Pit 1990

Many thanks to Peter Goin,
For this picture of the Helms Gravel Pit, Sparks, Nevada, 1990

http://www2.oakland.edu/shatteringearth/artists.cfm?Art=31&Pic=56

My granddaughtre is here !!

Alexis arrived at 12:42 am this morning. We got here JUST in time!! I am so blessed to be a part of Jim and Jenn's life. Jenn's water broke at 4:30 am yesterday. So it was a long hard battle, but it is over now. Alexis weighs 7.2 pounds and is 19.5 inches long. She has a ton of hair and is very, very healthy. I thank God for my family.

Moving to Nevada

We are on our way to Nevada.
Our grand daughter is Due February 4th this year and we want to be back home for the grand occasion. School starts today. This is my last semester at Fresno State. I am done with my classes for my major and I am taking 4 online classes just to keep my mind active! I look forward to the adventures that are in store of us this next year!

Holy Week

I went to Reno to visit my son and daughter, a wonderful time was had by all! I went to Carson City to visit my best girlfriend, and another wonderful time was had by all. We went to the DMV, and believe it or not, A WONDERFUL time was had by all. Many thanks to Desiree for all her knowledge and helpfulness!! She was awesome! I was blessed with the opportunity to go St. Paul's (my home church) for Palm Sunday. The entire trip was "a wonderful time", I am very homesick, I can hardly wait until I am done with my Bachelors degree at Fresno State. I hope to graduate this December, however I may have to wait until next May, it depends on which classes are available. Ciao!

Mass Communications Journalism (MCJ 178)

I just wanted to share with you all, that Candice Egan is the best teacher at Fresno State for Mass Communication Journalism 178. She was ever so helpful and nice. I really enjoyed the class and learned about a lot of new and interesting things in the digital world!

Happy New Year

Just wishing everybody a Happy New Year. This has been a year of changes! I graduated from College of the Sequoias, with an Associates in Liberal Arts, in December of 2004 after attending only one semester. I did most of my undergraduate work at Bakersfield College. I went there for two years, six semesters in all, I took summer school classes every summer. I begun my California college experience in Antelope Valley Community College in Lancaster. I liked the high desert because it reminded me of home!! I started attending AVC in 2001 after taking a year long sabbatical. I took every aptitude test available to me and I took every "how to succeed" in college class AVC offered. I read every college catalog in the transfer center and decided I wanted to go to Craig School of Business at California State University, Fresno. So, here I am and doing well. Perhaps I will visit next year and let you know how things are going. NevadaD

Class Presentations

Our MCJ 178 class is doing end of term presentations. I think everybody has good ideas, but so far no one solution has really stood out from the rest. I am quite opinionated about waiting and I let my personal feelings interfere with my judgment on the subject. I will not wait in lines unless I have a book to read. That is why I refuse to go out shopping during this time of year. I make use of all the online services available to me. I buy my textbooks online, I bank online, I study online, I go to the post office online. I probably do 60% of all my shopping online. When you go "online" you don't stand "in line"!!
NevadaD

California State University, Fresno

I need to acknowledge my supervisor because she has taught me so much. I never knew about GMail before I got here, not to mention windows xp, secure netterm, advance geac clients, gpedit, reg hacks, or tech republic. I still feel as if I don't know enough, but every once in a while, I look back and I see how much I have learned. Thank you, Lynne, for teaching me so much is so short a time. I also need to thank Rhoda, who has always been an incredible help when I am at the end of my rope!
NevadaD
P.S. This will brighten up your holiday season,
go see the pretty pictures at http://www.webshots.com

Class Feedback

CLASS FEEDBACK

Today in class we read each other’s papers and got helpful feedback about what we need to do to get our papers up to par.  I have some issues with analysis and following the format for the paper.  Spelling was good, as was content, and length.  All my paper needs is some fine tuning.  The other papers I read were actually better than mine.  The students followed instructions better than I did.  Many of the things we talk about in class are cutting edge technology and I find it very interesting.  It wasn’t hard to be interested in the subject we were writing about.  But it will be a busy weekend for all of us as we whip our papers into shape.  (122)

Happy first day of autumn!

NevadaD

Podcast Notification

PODCAST  NOTIFICATION

Kinley Levack writes in Content News that Peas in a Podcast: LiveMessage Supports Podcasting Alerts.  This lengthy title heads a short article that discusses how alerts work with podcasts.  When a new blog or podcast starts; or a current blog or podcast has a new posting, this site notifies you according to the preferences listed with the service.  Alerts have been around for a long time says Mr. Levack, but previously the only way to receive alerts was through e-mail.  Now, alerts can be delivered to cell phones, pda’s, and right to your desktop.  Another good feature of the alerts is that the subscriber is anonymous, they are just a long number.  (118)
This article is located at www.econtentmag.com.

Toolbar for Blogging

Some people don’t know about the Word toolbar.  I think this link will work in my blog.  I went to Microsoft’s website and this is where the link from Microsoft takes me.

http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword-office.html

Good Luck!!  And have fun!!

Storm Clouds

STORM  CLOUDS

    Storm Clouds Gather Over Podcasting proclaims Michelle Kessler from USA Today written on August 4, 2005.  Ms. Kessler is really concerned about copyright issues.  She covers streaming video over the Internet which is really live broadcasting and is covered under traditional radio licenses.  Streaming content, since it isn’t recorded, is not as easy to pirate as podcasts.  She goes on to say that radio station in Seattle invited 14 unsigned or small label bands from the Seattle area to contribute songs to a podcast.  The station and the bands signed a contract and the podcast was a hit.  Now the radio stations are waiting for the major labels to sign on to this idea.  Some people worry that it will take years for the contracts to be worked out and this would keep podcasting from reaching its full potential.  (139)

21st Century Entertainment

From the Contra Costa Times on August 7, 2005, came the headline; Radio just got a lot more portable.  Tony Hicks writes; “Podcasting can be to radio what blogging is to books”.  Then he says if you can digest that sentence you are certified to go forward into the 21st century of entertainment.  Mr. Hicks seems to think the learning curve just got a little steeper as the latest innovation in media takes off.  He discusses the pros and cons of the “little guy” to be heard.  No more pushing media to the masses, this revolution lets everyone hear everyone else.  Tony Hicks quotes Stephen Page of Infinity Broadcasting out of San Francisco as saying “There have already been three waves of podcasters.  The first wave was techies eager to see what they could do.  Then came the former DJ’s …disgruntled over the limitations of mainstream radio.  Now….here come the ‘Mom and Pop’ DJ’s doing just about everything under the sun.”  Mr. Hicks says also that the lawyers are just waiting to see what lawsuits are in the making.  Mr. Hicks also did a podcast from Fresno.  Go Bulldogs! (189)

Podcasts and Radio Ads

        Will Podcasts kill the radio ads?  This headline appeared in the business section of the Sunday Times, London edition, on August 7th, 2005, written by Paul Durman.  He states that Adam Curry who made the first podcast last year in August is known as the Podfather.  After that first podcast it did not take long for there to be hundreds of amateur talk shows springing up all over the world, including; America, Japan, and Britain.  Mr. Durman starts out writing about how easy it is to skip over commercials in video recordings and the worries of the commercial broadcasters that people will soon learn how to edit commercials out of podcasts.  Some people see podcasting as the end of advertising on the radio, while other people believe it opens up new opportunities for advertising.  Then Mr. Durman switches from radio ads to the ban of music on podcasts because of copyright infringements.  He claims that Apple helped bring podcasting into the mainstream.  However, Apple is also instrumental protect the rights of the recording artists and the record companies.  One alternative is to limit the number of times a song could be played in a podcast.  I know this can be done; I have trial games that have a limited amount of time for the trial.  Apple needs to keep on the right side of the law in this matter or they will go down in history as something worse than Napster.  (241)    

Profits in Podcasting

              Finding Profits in Podcasting from Emerging Technology, page  47, dated August 29th 2005, and written by Laurie Sullivan.  According to Ms. Sullivan podcasting has jumped onto the leading edge of pop culture, and quickly too.  She goes on to say that Apple’s launching of the free software iTunes, had a lot to do with how quickly podcasting was propelled into the mainstream.  Ms.Sullivan also talks about all the different businesses that are podcasting such as; Oracle, IBM, Purina, Absolut Spirits Company, KFI radio in Los Angeles, Purdue University and NASA.  Paying for podcasting with advertising now rears its ugly head.  Who is willing to buy spots on a podcast?  How would a podcaster keep track of how many times a podcast was downloaded?  The Yankee Group suggests that podcasters will charge $15 for 1000 clicks or downloads.  In a European study done by Forrester Research 46% of 16- and 17-year-olds would consider paying for podcasts while only 33% of the teens surveyed said that they would accept advertising as a necessary evil to subsidize podcasting.  An alternative to advertising could be banner ads on the websites where people download podcasts.
          These thoughts had occurred to me also while I was reading about the new wave of podcasting that might the place of radio.  Market researchers have ways of pinpointing the audience of a radio station.  Some of the ways to find out if anyone is listening to a radio station include; call in contests, call in talk shows, mentioning to a business that you heard about them on the radio, and public response to a radio station’s live broadcast at a fair or a car dealership.  But how would a podcaster find out who was listening so that ads could be targeted towards the listener?  When it first started the Internet was free from ads, but as time went on, advertisers found ways to reach prospective buyers.  Much of this is experimentation to see what works.  If podcasting is to have a future, it must have advertising, there is no such thing as “free.”  (344)