Catch up on your wireless speak
Besides all the political, sociological, and psychological mind-bending impact on the planet of the information technology revolution, there’s also the mind numbing new vocabulary and acronyms the revolution has spawned. But we need to keep up. So here’s some hot “words” from the wireless arm of the revolution, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal and its “Personal Technology” column: GSM — This means Global System for Mobile communications, a technology standard in play for wireless phones everywhere around the world except in the United States; CDMA — This means Code Division Multiple Access, and is one of three standards at work in the United States. CDMA technology is used by Verizon and Sprint wireless services. TDMA — This means Time Division Multiple Access and is the second standard used in this country. Finally, there’s G3. This stands for “third generation,” the newest and most talked about technology standard. It will do everything except deliver milk to your doorstep, its supporters say. But, 3G’s performance in real life has reportedly been a little disappointing.
You can find out more by visiting the Personal Technology column online at http://ptech.wsj.com.
Testimony gives high profile to local first responders
The need to craft a “national” federal policy to fight terrorism got another boost in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management, and Intergovernmental Relations, late last month. You can read the remarks of Randall Yim, managing director, national preparedness, in Combating Terrorism: Key Aspects of a National Strategy to Enhance State and Local Preparedness, by going to www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-548T>.
Personal preparedness guide
From national to personal preparedness: A Jacksonville, Fla. multi-media production house, specializing in producing training materials, recently released a book, Chemical Biological Personal Response Guide, that claims to help “the typical American citizen deal with the physical and psychological impacts of incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.” You can find out more by going to www.steelbeach.com/chembio.shtml.
County hits tally
Now here are some hits worth noting: Go to the popular Internet search engine Lycos (www.lycos.com) and search for “county government.” You’ll find 2.6 million “hits.” The number drops a little at another popular search engine — www.google.com — to 2.3 million hits. “NACo,” by the way scored 45,783 hits at Lycos, but did significantly better at Google — 104,000. Why the difference? You can do the research on that question at Search Engine Watch, www.searchenginewatch.com.
