Author Archives: Greg Falken

Broadband Mapping in the Motherlode

By Greg Falken | Published: February 8, 2010

A-TCAA Central Sierra Connect needs your help with mapping broadband in our region (Amador, Alpine, Calaveras, Mariposa and Tuolumne counties). Please follow this link to the “crowdsourcing” module, created by Solstice Geospatial, to help map our area’s broadband footprint. On this site, you can put in your address (for home and/or business), take a speed [...]

Posted in Broadband | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Interview with FCC’s Broadband Strategy Manager

By Greg Falken | Published: December 23, 2009

David Weinberger interviews Steve Rosenberg, Manager of Infrastructure for the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative, about understanding the gaps in broadband coverage, and what it would take financially to close those gaps.

Posted in Broadband | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

For Better Content, Go Local

By Greg Falken | Published: December 15, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3QOtbW4m0″>reference

Beaver News There has been a lot of talk lately about the quality of information available online. The debate has centered around “content farms”, such as Demand Media and the current incarnation of AOL (oops, sorry, Aol.). Kicking off this round was Michael Arrington, who wrote in a post titled The End of Hand Crafted Content: On one [...]

Posted in Internet and Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who cares about your project?

By Greg Falken | Published: November 24, 2009

I recently spent two days in a grant proposal writing workshop with Harvey Chess, of The FTF Group. Harvey is very well known in the non-profit community around California and now I can see why. I gained an appreciation of the granting process that I never had before, partly because I had no particular need [...]

Posted in Network Sierra | Leave a comment

Teaching Digital Literacy

By Greg Falken | Published: November 16, 2009

The Scottish Executive, in 2001, defined adult literacy as, “The ability to read and write and use numeracy to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners.” Pete Ashton writes on his blog ASH-10: Digital literacy means being able to take digital [...]

Posted in Network Sierra | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Pining for Gold: a quick digital thinking exercise

By Greg Falken | Published: November 3, 2009

Guest post by Sharon Crost, cross-posted on GregFalken.com. Let’s do a quick thinking exercise: think for a few seconds about the Central Sierra. Do you think of history and the Gold Rush and panning for gold? Or do you think of Yosemite National Park, Bear Valley or Dodge Ridge, tasting wine, jumping frogs, or enjoying [...]

Posted in Network Sierra | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Community Access Internet Project

By Greg Falken | Published: October 29, 2009

Working with a group of committed people here in Tuolumne County, I have submitted a proposal to the Knight News Challenge. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Challenge seeks innovations that use new or available technology to distribute content in local communities. There are only three rules: Use digital, open-source [...]

Posted in Network Sierra | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Obama Promises Improved Broadband Access

By Greg Falken | Published: December 6, 2008

It’s on the record. In this week’s radio and YouTube address, President-Elect Obama has proposed improved broadband access as part of his economic recovery plan. He sees this as an important part of maintaining this country’s competitiveness in the global marketplace and notes that the U.S., the country where the Internet was invented, is currently [...]

Posted in Broadband | Leave a comment

Help Coming for Rural Broadband?

By Greg Falken | Published: November 17, 2008

The Obama-Biden Transition Team has named two strong supporters of Net-Neutrality to be the FCC Review Team Leads. Susan Crawford is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, teaching communications law and internet law. She was a partner with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) until the end of 2002, when she left [...]

Posted in Broadband, Internet and Society | Leave a comment

VOIP Over WiFi in Mountainous Terrain

By Greg Falken | Published: May 13, 2008

I ran across an interesting article about a guy who is experimenting with VOIP Over WiFi in mountainous terrain.http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14534

Posted in VOIP | Leave a comment