Texas Internet Service in Disaster Areas

Representative R.D. "Bobby" Guerra introduced H.B. 1426 on February 6, 2019 to amend Texas Government Code 418.194 to prevent reducing mobile Internet service in a disaster area.

Learn more about Representative Guerra and his current bills.

Track H.B. 1426.

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to mobile Internet service access in an area subject to a declared state of disaster.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1.  Subchapter H, Chapter 418, Government Code, is amended by adding Section 418.194 to read as follows:

Sec. 418.194.  MOBILE INTERNET SERVICE IN AREA SUBJECT TO DISASTER DECLARATION.  (a)  In this section, "mobile Internet service provider" means a person who provides mobile Internet service to a wireless communication device as defined by Section 545.425, Transportation Code.

(b)  A mobile Internet service provider may not impair or degrade lawful mobile Internet service access in an area subject to a declared state of disaster under Section 418.014.

SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 2019.

20 Google Search Shortcuts

A list of Google shortcuts that are hidden behind the search engine giant search box.  Give them a try, please. Provided by LifeHacker.

Handheld Librarian: Online Conference

HANDHELD LIBRARIAN VI ONLINE CONFERENCE
FEBRUARY 1-2, 2012

Mobile solutions for libraries that work!

Register at http://www.handheldlibrarian.org/.

Individuals: $65 for both days; Group: $95 for both days
The conference will feature professional development for librarians by librarians. This is the grass-roots nature of our highly successful program. Handheld Librarian VI will build on the success of prior conferences in which an array of presenters share their experiences and insights on topics addressing themes such as ebooks, location-based social networking, lending devices, reference and mobile technologies impacting society. You can see the quality of the content by looking through our past archives.

Our exciting one day conference, February 1, will feature presentations from your peers, along with two keynotes from respected thought leaders in the library world.

Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University, will address the conference in the morning. His research focuses on use of emerging technologies in libraries and technology learning programs. He currently writes the monthly column “Office Hours” in Library Journal exploring issues, ideas and emerging trends in library and information science education. Stephens has spoken about emerging technologies, innovation, and libraries to audiences in over 26 states and in five countries, including a 2009 speaking/research tour of Australia. Our afternoon keynote features Stephen Abram. Stephen has over 30 years in libraries as a practicing librarian and in the information industry. He has visited hundreds of libraries in many different countries and is uniquely positioned to spark ideas and insights. Stephen is currently Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Markets at Gale Cengage in Toronto, Canada. He has been Vice President Innovation for SirsiDynix and the Chief Strategist for the SirsiDynix Institute, VP of Corporate Development for Micromedia

Before Netscape: the forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s

Before Netscape: the forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s

I remember Gopher, FTP, Mosaic, Lynx, early Netscape, Compuserve, AOL...

Reflecting on Chrome as browser hits third birthday

Reflecting on Chrome as browser hits third birthday Ars Technica article on Google's Chrome browser.

Snippet:

According to statistics from StatCounter, the browser's marketshare hit 10 percent last year and continued growing to 23 percent, as of this month.

Webstarts

Webstarts is a do-it-yourself website builder without having the knowledge and skills of Hmtl and CSS. Interested in creating your own website? You can sign up for a free account.

Why We Need Libraries in the Digital Age

Mark Roosa, Dean of Libraries at Pepperdine University, explains even though we are entrenched with internet researching with Google and Wikipedia along with Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Twitter, there is still a need to have libraries. Read more of this article.

More lawsuits over infringment

Enforcing Copyrights Online, for a Profit

By DAN FROSCH
Published: May 2, 2011
New York Times
More about the company, Righthaven, that has been suing bloggers and others who have posted materials without permission.

60 Apps in 60 Minutes 2011

60 Apps in 60 Minutes 2011

iPhone J.D.
April 18, 2011

Presented at the ABA Tech show

Inside Google's Instant Autocomplete

SearchEngineLand.com has an in depth look at how Google's instant autocomplete feature works. It is worth the time to read it.

Eggs in a basket

The recent break-in and subsequent spams from companies using Epsilon services for email marketing has Greg Lambert at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog musing about the risks and benefits of putting your virtual eggs in the same virtual basket.

A short roundup on net neutrality

Here's a short list of recent article, blog posts, and opinion pieced on the proposed FCC net neutrality rules.

Republicans on new FCC net neutrality rules: kill!

Ars Technica
By Matthew Lasar
12-22-2010
Reactions to the FCC net neutrality rules.

What Do the FCC's Net Neutrality Rules Mean for You?
By Chloe Albanesius
PCMag.com
12-22-2010
An explanation of what the proposed net neutrality rules would and would not do.

The Net Neutrality Coup
By John Fund
Wall Street Journal
12-21-2010
Opinion piece on net neutrality.

Winners and losers of net neutrality
By Sara Muller
MSNBC
The Last Word Blog
12-21-2010
Post with opinions on who would win or lose under the proposed rules.

A Net Neutrality Timeline: How We Got Here
By Stacey Higginbotham
Gigaom.com
12-21-2010
A timeline of events leading up to the proposed FCC rules.

FCC Adopts Basic Net Neutrality Rules
Law Librarian Blog
12-21-2010
Summary of the proposed rules and question on what happens next.

Net Neutrality

Ars Technica has a brief post about the Federal Communications Commission considering an Open Internet Order to preserve the level playing field for Internet access.


FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for December 21st Open Meeting.
News Release: Word | Acrobat

Will other papers follow FT.com?

This article from the New York Times made me start wondering how many other papers will start charging for articles and restricting access via our other channels.

The Paper That Doesn’t Want to Be Free
By ERIC PFANNER
Published: August 16, 2009
New York Times

Not long ago, when other media executives were convinced that the only way to succeed on the Web was to give away their content, The Financial Times played the eccentric.
...
In another effort to generate additional digital revenue, the newspaper restricted access last year to its content through databases like Factiva and LexisNexis, requiring users to buy special licenses to read archived articles. More than 600 corporate customers, with a total of about 50,000 users, have done so.

continued

Fake CNN emails

I've seen multiple emails in my daily spam filter report - if you have too, here's an article that explains why not to click on the link in the email.

Massive faux-CNN spam blitz uses legit sites to deliver fake Flash
More than 1,000 hacked sites serving up phony update; Adobe issues warning
By Gregg Keizer

August 6, 2008 (Computerworld) More than a thousand hacked Web sites are serving up fake Flash Player software to users duped into clicking on links in mail that's part of a massive spam attack masquerading as CNN.com news notifications, security researchers said today.

The bogus messages, which claim to be from the CNN.com news Web site, include links to what are supposedly the day's Top 10 news stories and Top 10 news video clips from the cable network. Clicking on any of those links, however, brings up a dialog that says an incorrect version of Flash Player has been detected and that tells users they needed to update to a newer edition, said Sam Masiello, vice president of information security at Denver-based security company MX Logic Inc. (cont.)

FCC rules against Comcast

Seen on PCWorld.com:

FCC Rules Against Comcast P-to-P Throttling
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Friday, August 01, 2008 9:10 AM PDT

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has ordered Comcast to stop interfering with peer-to-peer traffic on its broadband network, with officials there saying the cable provider was "invasive" in its network traffic management.

In a victory for net neutrality advocates, the FCC on Friday voted 3-2 to order
Comcast to stop slowing P-to-P traffic by the end of the year and to come up with a new network management plan. If Comcast refuses, the company could be subject to an injunction and other regulatory penalties. (cont)

Is it reading or not?

Seen in the New York Times:

Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?
The New York Times
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: July 27, 2008

Rich writes the first of a series of articles discussing how the Internet and other technological/social forces are changing people's reading habits. If teens are reading fan fiction on the net, is that the same as reading novels? Do students understand the difference between a reliable web site and a hoax?

The Virtual Chase is closing

Genie Tyburski will be closing The Virtual Chase after twelve years to return to full time library management. See her entry for July 24. The entire web site is slated to go offline by May 2009 or sooner.

Good-bye, and thanks for all the research tips.

Blackberries and deposition ethics

Read on - this article is funny, but brings up very interesting points about whether or not it is ethical for attorneys to check/reply to emails during depositions.

Whacked Out on BlackBerrys in Depositions

By Jerold S. Solovy and Robert L. Byman
The National Law Journal
June 19, 2008

...Our BlackBerrys keep us connected. We are in a service business and these wonderful devices let us render service to our clients in real time, every
waking moment. But here is a caution -- when we use them at a deposition to
check and return and compose e-mails, we may be violating ethical rules. ...
(cont)

MySpace wins antispamming case

Seen on Law.com:

MySpace Wins Another Anti-Spamming Verdict
Brian Bergstein
The Associated Press
June 17, 2008

MySpace can collect $6 million from a notorious Internet marketer accused by the popular online hangout of spamming its users.

An arbitrator has ruled that Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Media Breakaway LLC of Westminster, Colo., must pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in attorney fees for barraging MySpace members with unsolicited advertisements. Media Breakaway and its employees were also banned from the site. (cont.)