General Articles

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semo.net Continues To Get High Praise for Support Team

June 11, 2009 in Business, Features, General Articles by Brian Becker | 1 comment

After every technical problem a customer has with our company, our system automatically sends out a survey to the customer asking for their feedback. We can count on one negative comment each week, but the amazing thing is that people go out of their way to express their appreciation to our Support Agents.

Here is a sample of the comments we received this week:

SUPPORT AGENT: Bridgett (received an Excellent rating)
“The “tech” I talked to was very helpful. She talked me through hooking up my dial-up internet, adding a desktop icon, and gave me an estimated timeline for when my DSL might be up and running again.”
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An Evening of Baseball

June 9, 2009 in Features, General Articles by Brian Becker | 1 comment

If you enjoy a good baseball game, then I strongly suggest you contact your local parks department and find out when games are played in your local area (in Poplar Bluff games are played at McLane Park from 5:30-9:30 Monday-Friday). For the baseball fan, watching the 8 – 14 year old youth play the game with such enthusiasm is inspiring.

You will see a wonderful display of baseball talent and future stars. You will see the joy of victory, the sadness of defeat and the amazing revelation that snacks after a game unifies all the participants.

So even if you don’t have a child or grandchild in the baseball program, I strongly urge you to come out and enjoy America’s favorite past time: Baseball!

Brian Becker on Rick Carl & Company

June 3, 2009 in General Articles, Technical or Geeky by Brian Becker | Comments closed

Microsoft’s Project Natal
Project Natal is a new controller for the XBox 360 that uses a 3d camera, depth motion sensors and voice recognition to control your games. This takes interaction to a whole new level.

Microsoft Windows 7 Release Date Set For Oct 22
MS will release W7 just in time for the holdiay shoppers. Though there are rumors about MS considering a discounted price for Vista users who “need” to upgrade to a viable operating system, MS has not given any details about the plans.

Kids Programming Class
Ben (10) & Jack (8) Becker will be teaching a kids programming class starting next Tuesday (June 8) using the Scratch programming language developed by MIT.

New Image Search Engine
Not using keywords, but actual images, this new search engine uses recognition software to find similar images on the net. For now they are touting it for copyright infringement, but it could be used to find where that photo of you in college has been posted.

Kids Programming Class Starts June 9th

May 24, 2009 in Business, Features, General Articles, Technical or Geeky by Brian Becker | Comments closed

There’s still time to sign up for the Kids Programming Class in June. Your child, age 8 through 11, will learn how to program your computer with the language called Scratch, developed by MIT. Kids can program games like this one developed and designed by Jack Becker:

Scratch Project

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The Now Network — Big Brother?

May 19, 2009 in Features, General Articles, Technical or Geeky by Brian Becker | 4 comments

Surely you’ve heard the latest Sprint commercial about the “Now Network.” It is a yellow-color schemed advertisement that discusses statistics related to what is happening right now on their network. Sure, we all have wondered whether our information providers are monitoring our messages, but this advertisement blatantly says “WE ARE READING YOUR TEXT MESSAGES!!!”

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My First Impressions of Windows 7.0

May 12, 2009 in Features, General Articles, Technical or Geeky by Brian Becker | 2 comments

Late this year, Microsoft will release its next version of operating system labeled “Windows 7.” To get ready for the move, I’ve been testing Windows 7.0 for over a month now. I’m biased about the Windows product because I started with Windows 1.0 in 1986.

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Swine Flu Info Much Better Now

May 7, 2009 in Features, General Articles, Human Interest, Medical, Political/Government, Uncategorized by Brian Becker | Comments closed

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Brian Becker on with Rick Carl & Company

May 6, 2009 in Business, Entertainment, General Articles, Rick Carl & Company, Technical or Geeky by Brian Becker | Comments closed

New Kids Interactive Game – Swinxs
This new game keeps track of the players by using bracelets with RFID chips. Both active and educational games are among some of the games that Swinxs allows the kids to play. Even better is the ability to time races and determine the winner, group record, etc.
For more info: http://www.swinxs.com/en/info/

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Do the Policies of Poplar Bluff Schools Promote the Spread of Infectious Disease?

May 3, 2009 in Features, General Articles, Human Interest, Medical, Political/Government by Heather Nagy | 10 comments

As a parent of a child in the Poplar Bluff R-1 School District, I have always had concerns about some policies that seem to promote school attendance for sick children. The recent swine flu epidemic has prompted me to express my concerns publicly. As of today, 430 schools in the US have closed. Our government is recommending any school with confirmed cases stay closed for at least 14 days because children can be contagious for 7 – 10 days. The CDC is advocating standard, common sense precautions in order to stop the spread of the disease. Per the director of the CDC, “If your children are sick, have a fever and flu-like illness, they shouldn’t go to school.” Maybe if more people followed this advice, we wouldn’t have to close schools in the first place.
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Why Won’t They Say Where?

May 2, 2009 in Features, General Articles, Human Interest, Medical, Political/Government, Science by Brian Becker | Comments closed

[Update: As of late Saturday, the Missouri Dept of Health and Senior Services released that the two probable cases are from Howard County.]

I’ve been trying to help our online community by providing Swine Flu information for Missouri as it becomes available. However, it has been frustrating to say the least because the Missouri state agencies responsible for releasing the information won’t be specific. It took scouring several posts to find that the first probable case was near Kansas City.

Yesterday, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced that two more probable cases were discovered in “Central Missouri” (a 50,000 square mile target) but no specific counties or cities have been named. The official reason for not releasing more information is found in the following quote:
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