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Nonprofit spotlight: The Computer Learning Center
Written and produced by authors and editors at CustomGuide,
Inc.
Copyright 2005
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Issue 45, September 2005
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Nonprofit spotlight: Computer Learning Center
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The Computer Learning Center, a service of St. Paul's Church By-the-Lake in Rogers Park, Chicago, IL, provides computer training classes to improve the job skills of area residents ages 6th grade to adult. Students are sought through referrals from community groups and schools in the area, and instructional charges are waived for children and low-income, senior citizen, and out-of-work students. Classes are open to all, regardless of religious affiliation. Programs |
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Open computer lab hours on Saturdays provide students with a time to practice on their own.
Challenges and needs
The Computer Learning Center is staffed by five unpaid, volunteer instructors,
and they currently have six workstations and an overhead projector for
use in classes. Some of their challenges include helping students achieve
a basic level of typing skills, as well as overcoming occasional language
barriers. They welcome cash donations to help buy office supplies—especially
paper for printing out student workbooks—and to cover software updates
and computer service agreements.
How you can help
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Center, please visit their website.
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Thanks to the collaboration of Apple and Motorola, now music lovers can transfer up to 100 of their favorite songs from their iTunes jukebox to their cellular phone.
Similar to the iPod, the Motorola ROKR ($250 - $350) lets you listen to playlists from your iTunes library, shuffle songs, browse for music by song, artist, or album, and view album art and song information while a song is playing. Music is transferred to your phone via a USB cable that comes with the phone. Once your phone is connected to your computer, simply choose the songs you want to sync, or let iTunes choose a random selection from your music library.
Pros
The ROKR features a color display for viewing album art, menus similar
to that of an iPod, and simple navigation and playback. Music automatically
pauses when you receive an incoming call, and you can choose whether to
take the call or continue listening to your music. If you're on the road
or simply want to share your music with the world, unhook your headphones
and listen on-the-go via dual built-in stereo speakers. And as if the
whole music thing wasn't enough, the ROKR also includes a camera, speakerphone,
video and picture messaging, and Bluetooth wireless technology. You can
also transfer and listen to audiobooks and Podcasts.
The ROKR's battery life is superb, offering more than 15 hours of listening time with headphones or 12 ½ hours of continuous talk time.
Cons
Unfortunately, the ROKR does have its limitations.
For one, the ROKR only pairs with one computer. For example, if you connect your phone to your computer at home, and then try to connect your phone to your computer at work, all of the songs from your home computer will be erased from your phone. There's also a software-imposed cap of 100 songs, which means the length of the track doesn't matter; even if you're listening to 2-minute tracks vs. 4-minute tracks, you'll still only be able to store 100 songs. The sound quality isn't anything to write home about either, although it is decent and improves when the ROKR is used with higher quality headphones than the ones included.
Perhaps the most disappointing drawback is the ROKR's extremely slow (USB 1.1) music transfer speed. According to PC Magazine, 51 songs (totaling 251 MB) took a whopping 26 minutes to transfer. Apple's iShuffle only took 2 ½ minutes to transfer the same amount of songs.
System requirements
To use iTunes on the ROKR, Mac users need to have Mac OS X 10.3.6 or later
and iTunes 4.9 or later installed on their computer. Windows users need
to have either Windows 2000 with the latest Service Pack, or Windows XP
and iTunes 4.9 or later installed. If you don't have iTunes on your computer,
download it for
free.
Most ROKR phones come with 512 MB flash cards, which allow you to store up to 100 average-length (4-minute) songs. If your phone does not come equipped with 512 MB of available storage space, you must have at least 128 MB free to store and play songs, although you won't be able to fit as many songs as if you had 512 MB of space. A 128 MB flash card only stores 25 average-length songs.
To buy, or not to buy
Although many phones have built-in MP3 players, the ROKR is the only one
with iTunes—making it the only phone with an easy way to sync both
songs and playlists. The phone itself is worth the purchase, but if you're
looking solely for a phone that can also play your digital music, give
it a few months. If the ROKR is anything like the now-extinct iPod mini,
it'll be replaced within the year by something smaller, sleeker, and smarter.
For more information on the Motorola ROKR, visit www.apple.com, www.hellomoto.com, or www.cingular.com.
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E-mailers of the world, rejoice. New services are pushing the envelope of access and efficiency for both work and personal e-mail. First, Nokia's Business Center mobile phone technology provides an affordable way for employees to connect wirelessly with office e-mail. In the personal e-mail realm, Yahoo's new user interface aims to provide more convenient e-mail access for the masses.
The corporate connection
While web-based e-mail accounts like Hotmail have been accessible via
cell phones for quite some time, Nokia has taken a leap forward with their
new Business Center technology, offering a cost effective way to keep
all workers, not just upper-level executives, connected by cell phone
to their corporate network e-mail system.
The new service comes in two levels: Standard and Professional. The Standard service is free to employees when the business purchases a server license. The license covers 400 people, and allows users to send e-mails using their corporate e-mail account and receive e-mail on their cell phone as it arrives in their inbox. The Professional service, which requires an additional one-time fee per user, allows even more connectivity to the corporate network, including the ability to access and synchronize with a calendar and contacts list, manage e-mail folders and appointments, and view and edit large attachments.
Besides providing easy connectivity, Nokia touts an industry-leading low price that makes it affordable to keep workers at all levels in the loop. Nokia plans to license the technology to several different phone manufacturers.
Yahooooo! Free and easy
Yahoo is also rolling out a product designed to make e-mailing a more
efficient, yet affordable experience. The company is testing a new version
of their free e-mail service that offers a more dynamic design—one
that rivals the look and feel of desktop e-mail applications like Microsoft
Outlook.
Topping the list of new features is an inbox format that lists e-mails at the top of the page and provides a pane for reading e-mails below. The one-page layout makes it easy to quickly scroll through and skim e-mail messages, unlike the old method, where you had to click back and forth between web pages to get from the inbox to an e-mail's content. Users will also be able to drag and drop e-mails between folders and the new system will include better search features, including the ability to search e-mail and attachment contents.
Although the new Yahoo e-mail will look more like it's run off a software application located on your computer, it will remain Web-based, requiring no software downloads to be installed. Yahoo is currently inviting a portion of its users to try the new service, and hopes to eventually convert all users.
Visit www.nokia.com and www.yahoo.com for more information.
Sales of mobile phones rose to over 190 million units in the second quarter of 2005, making it the second-best quarter on record. Nokia gained 2 percentage points to retain the lead. Motorola, in second place, also gained 2 percent, Gartner said.
According to BURST! Media, the PC is rapidly replacing television and other media as the entertainment center. Of the respondents 24 years and younger, 39 percent say the Internet is the primary way they listen to music and another 9 percent say it will be in the future. Thirty-one percent say the Internet is the primary way they play games and 12 percent say it will be in the future. Fifty-three percent also say they use the Internet to watch movies and other video programming.
Cable-modem service was, on average, 76 percent
more expensive than DSL in August 2005, up from a 53 percent gap in July
2005. While phone carriers cut prices (the average DSL price decreased
by 9 percent) cable companies raised them. SG Cowen estimates
that cable companies will capture about 47.3 percent of net new broadband
subscribers in 2005.
According to a Pike & Fischer report, there are 21.8 million broadband cable lines and 14.7 million DSL lines in the US. Cable companies' share of the US broadband pie has dipped below 60 percent for the first time.