Citizen Will

Category: Technology

  • The page cannot be displayed…Chapel Hill’s Website Woes

    I use the our Town’s two websites, Townhall.TownOfChapelHill.org and TownOfChapelHill.org, quite extensively to keep up with our local governance. More and more I’ve run into: The page cannot be displayed Explanation: There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed. Try the following: Refresh page: Search for […]

  • Community Networking: Profiting from Poor Leadership Clearwire Gains a Toe-hold

    Profiting from Council’s continued inability to craft effective technology policy, Clearwire, a wireless Internet service provider utilizing proprietary spectrum, has gained a toe-hold in our community. These days, it’s hard to imagine getting through high school without the Internet. However, there are at least 100 students at East Chapel Hill High School whose families cannot […]

  • The Other Citizen

    Looks like one of our community’s cooler cats is out of the bag. The Daily Tar Heel reports today on pioneering on-line journalist, State political analyst, former editor of the Indy Kirk Ross’ ( Exile On Jones Street) latest venture: The Carrboro Citizen. Why create a new media outlet for Carrboro? “It’s got 17,000 people, […]

  • Proprietary Public Policy: Chapel Hill Streaming Video Goes Live?

    In reviewing this evening’s notes on increasing the Town’s election contribution limits ($200 to $250) and lowering the standards of disclosure ($25 instead of $20), I noticed that Internet video is now available. The Town’s proprietary Windows Media-based solution from Granicus was opposed by a number of members of the since dissolved Town Technology Advisory […]

  • Carrboro’s New Media Experiment

    There’s been a small discussion over on SqueezeThePulp about the declining efficacy of local media outlets in covering our community. I suggested that new media outlets will soon move into this long fallow territory – intensively covering local events – to the possible detriment of traditional news outlets. It appears that Carrboro is the center […]

  • GoogleEarth Experiment: RAM Development Flybys

    This is still very raw, but I thought I’d put out this demo to stir some thought within the community. Visualization tools like GoogleEarth (GE) can help remove some of the difficulty in assessing the visual impact of new development. Our town’s planning department has the raw data needed to create a GoogleEarth representation of […]

  • Municipal Networking: Nary a Citizen Advocate to be Found

    An update on the muni-networking task force prepared by UNC’s Shannon Howle Schelin, PhD, one of our stronger advocates for 21st century infrastructure. On November 13, 2006, an exploratory meeting was held at the Town of Chapel Hill to discuss the Town’s interest in pursuing a wireless strategy. The goal of the meeting was to […]

  • Herald-Sun Editor Robert Ashley gets an earful from CitizenWill…

    Went to an interesting Downtown Partnership sponsored Safety Forum this morning, the notes of which I’ll post later… While there I had the pleasure of meeting the Herald-Sun’s Robert Ashley. Poor guy. He probably wouldn’t have sat next to me if he’d known I was going to give him an earful about the Herald-Sun’s on-line […]

  • 53rd and Falling: Our Free Press

    I’ve been thinking quite a bit about citizen journalism of late. Exemplary reports by BlueNC’s own SouthernDem, Greensboro’s release of the “secret” RMA report detailing the reasons for their police chief’s discharge, commentary from real journalists at the recent ConvergeSouth unconference, the Sunlight Foundation’s key assistance in outing congressional nepotism and revealing federal earmarks have […]

  • Here comes the Judge: Superior Court District 15B Oct. 16th Bar Forum

    There were 20+ folks tonight – with a couple from the media – maybe 4 or 5 organizers – some town staff and the balance being interested citizens. I was already convinced that District 15B voters have a heck of slate of candidates before them – tonight I was more impressed than ever. Very simply […]

  • Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Opening

    Opening statements. I botched Mr. Stein’s statement. Later this week I hope to retrieve a video copy from the cable telecast. youTube link to opening statements.

  • Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Judicial Temperament

    youTube link to video on judicial temperament.

  • Oct. 16th Superior Court 15B Forum: Staying Current with the Law

    youTube link to video on staying current with the law, the legal profession and trends thereof….

  • Greensboro’s Chief Problem: Transparency in the Hands of the Blogsphere

    Via Ed Cone, the consultant’s report (RMA) I posted on earlier is in the wild. An anonymously redacted and posted version is available on Greensboro101. Guarino has a nice precis of the report – says that the report is “remarkable because of its relatively narrow scope”. Now, the big question, at least for blogactivists: will […]

  • Daily Tar Heel’s Excellent Use of Technology

    Even the forward looking journalists at this weekend’s ConvergeSouth could learn a trick or two from our local university’s Daily Tar Heel. What a great mashup of raw data on drinking violations and mapping technology to simply demonstrate an evolution of a problem. Well done Tar Heel.