Internet Safari

Column for week of July 25, 2004:

It seems as though that prior to “9/11”, the word “heroism” had started to fade from the average American’s vocabulary. During and after the terrorist attack on the United States though, the word took on a new vitality.
If one were to jump over to the online dictionary at
www.dictionary.com
and look up the word heroism, they would read the following definition:
“The qualities characteristic of a hero, as courage, bravery, fortitude, unselfishness, etc.; the display of such qualities.” 
Most of the time when we think of heroes, we are thinking on a national or global level. That line of thinking is of course very narrow isn’t it? We’ve got lots of local heroes who perform in the background and mostly go unnoticed, that is unless an occasion arises when we are personally in need of their assistance.
When I hear about the heroic actions of others I am both motivated and challenged.
Motivated to help spread the word about their deeds, and to give those heroes encouragement and praise. Challenged to contemplate on my own willingness to exercise heroism, if that opportunity were to arise.
What got me thinking on this subject is an incident that occurred earlier this week, Tuesday night to be exact. Apparently Roosevelt County (New Mexico), received quite a deluge of rain, and the method of delivery was quite intense. Intense as in heavy lightning, flash flooding, and pretty much a heavy dose of chaos for the people driving cars in an area about five miles south of the community of Portales.
To the rescue came two New Mexico State policemen, who because of their willingness to serve, arrived on scene and immediately began to render aid to the stranded motorists – totally disregarding the potential danger from the lightning.
I did not hear about the incident until Wednesday morning. It was only after Miss Susie Q. (my beloved bride) had called and asked me if I’d heard about some policemen being struck by lightning, that I knew anything at all had occurred. 
Because I had not heard about the event, I immediately jumped over to
news.google.com
and then typed in the key word search: lightning+”New Mexico”.
The search results showed that there was only one story available online at that time, and that it was at the KOB-TV Web site
(www.kobtv.com ) out of Albuquerque.
Just a few hours later though, both the Clovis News Journal
(www.cnjonline.com ) and Portales News Tribune
(www.pntonline.com )Web sites posted the story.
My thoughts upon reading the initial story were, that due to the generous act of heroism displayed bythe two law-enforcement officers, that surely they would eventually get better coverage of their deeds.
I was correct.
By Wednesday night, the news story had been posted on Web sites all over the globe; printed in several newspapers all over the country; and had even been announced on radio stations all over theUnited States,  including the likes of K-LOVE
(www.klove.com),
a very popular Christian radio service that broadcasts all over the country and over the Internet.
I sincerely thank God that those two heroes survived their encounter with those megawatts of electricity. The initial report that I read stated that one of the officers had taken a direct hit from the lightning, and that the other was injured because of his close proximity to the other man.
Eventually though, it was made clear that neither man was hit directly but were both very, very close to a strike. Did you know that those two guys kept assisting others, even after being injured?
I am also thank-full that officers Lance Bateman and Clint Varnell are both receiving the recognition that they truly deserve. We need more heroes in this world, right down to the local level, right down to a personal level.
I know that sacrifice, that the willingness to help total strangers, and the fortitude to step outside of our own “comfort zones” to help those in need are now considered old-fashioned concepts.
“Old-fashioned” sure don’t mean wrong though, not in my book “pardner.”

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and a resident of Clovis, New Mexico. He can be reached at www.trackertom.com

Column for July 18, 2004:

The realm of “Geekdom” is growing and thriving beyond all expectations - what a rush.
For every person who has ever been made fun of because of their interest in computers, networking, and the Internet – we all cry out in unison:  “take that you mere mortals.”
It was only a few years ago, that being called ageek was an insult. In most instances, folks like me would have to keep silent on our interest in fear of being made fun of or ridiculed. Now, it’s the geeks that keep the world spinning – well, I can’t really go thatfar - but we do keep the computers, networks, and the Internet intact so that everyone else can get their “stuff” done, play online games, send e-mail, and chat with each other.
We geeks can now wear our titles proudly, we can walk into a room full of strangers and merely mention the fact that we work with computers - and in just a few minutes time, have everyone in the room lined up clamoring for our attention.
So, what got me going on this tack you may bewondering?
It’s the fact that a geek has now won over one million dollars on the television game show Jeopardy – a full-fledged, certifiable geek. If you were to jump over to news.google.com -and then type in the name Ken Jennings - within quotation marks, you’d find over 800 news stories on the Web about this young man’s success on the game show. He has in fact, managed to win an average of $33,000 per his 30 or so episodes. You can also learn more about Mr. Jennings remarkable success by going to www.jeopardy.com/ - Web site visitors can also play the game online, or download a version of Jeopardy that can be played offline.
It’s time for all geeks to rally together, the timing is now just right – let’s take up our flashdrives, let us fire up our PDA/cellular telephones, let us join our wireless networks together and - conquer the world.
I write about Internet search engines all of the time and that’s because they are worth writing about – they are also very much worth learning about. The closest that you’ll ever get to finding a needle in a haystack, you will get with a search engine – they are that important.
There are times that I have been curious as to what my fellow Web surfers are trying to find on the Internet at any given time. My strange nosiness can now be satisfied at a number of different locations inCyberspace.
First off, if you are similarly inclined - you might try the “Metaspy” feature of the Metacrawler search engine by going to www.metaspy.com –you’ll have two options at that Web site; “Metaspygreen” which utilizes a filter to keep the subjects searched “family safe”, and then you’v egot “Metaspy red” which comes unfiltered – you are on your own with that one bubba’.
You can also jump over to the very popular  “AskJeeves” search engine by going to www.ask.com – and then by clicking on the “Top Searches” link at the bottom of the page.
Speaking of Internet searches, if you haven’t visited the “Dog Pile” in a while, you might checkout www.dogpile.com –although most folks consider this site to be a search engine, it really isn’t.
What the site is really designed to do is to take your search keywords, and then to apply those words to a simultaneous search of about a half-dozen major search engines on the Web.
Just make sure you wipe your feet off real good when you’re all done searching OK?

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and aresident of Clovis. He can be reached at www.trackertom.com

Column for week of July 11, 2004:

Modern and emerging technology never ceases to
amaze me.
Just about every day - I sit (or stand), with
mouth agape - as I read about or personally
experience yet another really cool service or
electronic gadget.
Case in point - as I type this column, just off to
the right of my keyboard sits my cellular
telephone. Now, you are probably thinking “Ok, big
deal” – well, it is a big deal since I’m watching
television on that cellular phone.
Up until now, I’d used mobile phones that had also
served as PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants) –
they helped me stay organized, write notes to
myself, record voice clips – you name it. I was
then able to graduate up to a cellular telephone
that allowed me to easily surf the Internet, and
to check my e-mail – life was good.
But now I have in my possession, a SprintPCS
telephone - that not only works as a “PDA”; that
not only allows me to navigate the Internet; but
now also allows me to take pictures and to share
them with folks worldwide; to watch streaming
video (25 channels in fact), and to surf the
Internet at high speed with my laptop.
Could technology possibly get any cooler than
this?
The answer is “yes” of course, for no matter how
great my new telephone is – something bigger and
better is just right around the corner.
By the way, you can check out new Sprint cellular
telephones at
www.sprintpcs.com –
and then you might want to check out the MobiTV
Web site at
www.mobitv.com/ -
now, don’t get me wrong though - the video on the
telephone is far from perfect. Streaming video
across a digital cellular network is not an easy
thing to do. But, as I’m watching this new
technology – I’m reminded of how it was to watch
streaming video on the Internet just a few years
ago. Then, I start thinking about all of the
strides that have been made in that arena so far.
It probably won’t be too long from now, that we’ll
be able to watch full-length, high quality movies
over our mobile phones.
I’ve mentioned in the past that I am not into
sports – whatsoever. I can maybe, at times – tell
you what sporting season we are in – but not very
often. It takes people like David Stevens to keep
me up-to-date on the major sporting events taking
place – and, we all know that baseball is his
game. In a recent conversation, David mentioned
the upcoming Major League All Star game that is to
be played this coming Tuesday. So, in an effort to
type “outside the box”, to expand my horizons, and
to write about something as alien as baseball and
its relationship to the Internet – I’ll try to
provide some interesting links.
As we head for First Base, we’ll slide into
www.mlb.com
which is the Internet address for the Major League
Baseball Web site.
Now, in an attempt to steal Second Base – we’ll
navigate on over to
www.baseball-almanac.com/
and pay a quick visit to the Baseball Almanac Web
site.
Getting to Third Base will be a little trickier.
We’ll need to maneuver over to
www.fact-index.com/
and then type in the word “baseball” in the search
box, at the Fact Index Web site.
Finally, if we really want to make it to Home Base
– we’ll need to pull out all of the stops. We’ll
have to do that by going to
www.fact-monster.com - and then clicking on the
“Sports” category, next we’ll need to just click
on the “Baseball” link - and we will be guaranteed
a successful course around the diamond.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and a resident
of Clovis, New Mexico. He can be reached @ www.trackertom.com

Column for week of July 4, 2004:

How many times have you scoured the Internet for
information, compiled a list of links, maybe
copied and pasted some text together in Notepad -
only to eventually lose track of all of that
information? Have you at times ever wished that
you could share your collected data with friends
and family - easily?
Things have gotten much easier to do just that.
Just sign up for a free account at
www.amplify.com
and start using their service immediately. It's as
easy as "drag and drop" - you basically pull
information (text, pictures, video, etc.) off of
visited Web sites and put it all together on a Web
page of your own. The compiled information is kept
organized together - laid out on the page just the
way you want it. The Web pages are broken up into
frames - each frame containing the culled
information. When anyone clicks on a particular
frame - the original Web address from whence the
data was pulled from is listed as an active link.
Not only can you keep and store each page that you
create, you can send its unique Web address to
anyone else who has Internet access - and they
will be able to access that page also. I can
easily see how this type of information sharing
can follow right on the heals of "Blogs" and their
popularity - only time will tell though.
I did something out of the ordinary this past week
- I went to the movies at midnight on Tuesday
night. I had heard through the grapevine that
there was going to be a sneak preview of
Spider-Man 2. A quick telephone call confirmed
that information and so I decided to sacrifice a
few hours of sleep and go watch "Spidey" in
action. The movie was pretty good, I believe the
special affects are much better in this newer film
than they were in the last. One word of warning
though, if you are planning on taking small
children to see this film - you might want to view
it yourself first. There are a couple of scenes
where I feel that the violence is just a little
too intense for young children. It seems, that in
the last Spider-Man film - the violence was much
more of the make believe type, that kids would
know it wasn’t real. In this new film though, the
violence is very realistic and seems much harsher
than before - especially during the hospital
operating room scene.
If you haven’t had a chance to read up on the
movie yet, you can jump over to
spiderman.sonypictures.com/
and get up to date. Of course, there are movie
trailers to watch and a good deal of information
about the cast members on that site.
Another great site to check out is
www.apple.com -
just click on the "Quicktime" tab at the top of
the page. Not only will you find some very high
quality Spider-Man 2 movie trailers to view, but
the trailers for hundreds of other movies also.
Any mention of Spider-Man would not be complete it
I didn’t provide the URL (Internet address) for
Marvel Comics, that address is
www.marvel.com .
By the way, the Allen Theater Web site is much
easier to locate now that they have purchased
their domain name, just hop on over to
www.allentheaters.com
from now on. You’ll also notice that they’ve
updated and improved the site.
Happy Web slinging.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and a
resident of Clovis. He can be reached at www.trackertom.com