davis_square | Entries tagged with internet

mem-winterhill.livejournal.com

Friends of the SPL

Hello folks: I'm not a member of the Friends of the Somerville Public Library, but I do love the library. And as a kid the library was a really important place for me.

They are competing for some learn and play kits, and have tweeted a couple of times looking for votes for their entry. I wouldn't ask if it required registration (I hate that too). You only have to select them from the pulldown menus and do a captcha for this one.

For the kids of Somerville, if you can spare a minute, go vote for them. The current totals look pretty reasonable, so a little bit of support might go a long way here. I also noted that it was possible to vote from my phone....

Here's their tweet request--also consider following them if you are on twitter: https://twitter.com/Friends_SPL/status/239090235848392704

@Friends_SPL: Can you take 30 seconds and vote for the SPL Central Branch here http://readbuildplay.com/index.cfm In the running for play/read kits. THx

Note: I looked for guidelines on whether these kinds of "vote for..." posts were allowed but couldn't find objections. If it's not acceptable please feel free to moderate away.

phpanda.livejournal.com

I moved to Somerville a year ago and got Comcast for cable and internet. I am happy with service but price just jumped $95 to $143 and Comcast says I no longer qualify for any bundle offer. RCN seems to have three year price guarantee of $79, $89 and then $99. Doe anyone have an opinion on either service and if I should switch?

mzrowan.livejournal.com

As per the Somerville Patch, Somerville to Launch "OpenData" Could-Based [sic] Portal in July.

"According to the announcement, some of the information residents will be able to access using the Socrata portal include:

- 311 work orders and related data
- Geospacial and mapping data
- Public safety data, such as neighborhood crime statistics, parking violations and moving vehicle violations
- Health and Inspectional Services Division information
- Budget and government expenditure information"

secretlyironic.livejournal.com

I've gotten a number of fliers from Clear, (edited to fix URL) offering home Internet service over a 4G wireless connection. Anyone tried it? Is it any good? It's cheaper than Comcast and they say their $50/month plan is 3-6 mbps download, which is pretty good, although not as good as wired plans...

Anyone tried it?

ron_newman

Buried in the comments of this post is a useful link to an online scanner for police and fire radio of both Somerville and Cambridge (and also Brookline, Newton, Waltham, Watertown, and Wellesley):

Wicked Local Rangecast Police and Fire Scanner

It requires Java, which takes a while to start up in my browser. You can go back in time up to three hours. This is useful if you want to know why you heard lots of sirens an hour ago.

ETA: Here's another Rangecast scanner, for Somerville, Medford, and Arlington (and also Malden, Melrose, and Winchester).

ETA2: And here's yet another, covering Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, and Arlington (and also Belmont, Lexington, and Winchester). This one's probably the most useful for Somerville residents.

ETA3: Another comment in the earlier post recommends RadioReference.com for scanner feeds.

If you know of other online scanners, especially those allowing you to go back more than three hours, please post comments here.

I've added these links to the

davis_square profile page.

lbmango.livejournal.com

I know that this is a little afield, but does anyone know if the Danish Pastry House in Medford has wifi?

bobobb.livejournal.com

I need to find some place in/near Camberville where I can use a computer, internet and printer. In the old days we had cyber cafes, now we have....??

My fiancé suggested that the Somerville library may have computer and printer access. Anyone know? Any other suggestions? Willing to pay as necessary for time of course.

Current Mood: chipper

somervillebeat.livejournal.com

Hello all! Just a quick note to invite everyone to check out a new blog about the city we love called Somerville Beat. I'm the editor and will be writing about food, happenings, longer features and more. I invite you to check it out! Thanks. :-)

mzrowan.livejournal.com

Hello community-minded people! I wanted to pass along word of a new site, nextdoor.com, that's trying to build social networks out of neighborhoods. Here is a New York Times article about it.

You need at least ten verified residents of a neighborhood to sign up within 21 days to get it going. The areas they mark as neighborhoods are smaller chunks than we're used to thinking in -- there are probably at least six surrounding "Davis Square".

Here are the neighborhoods for Cambridge:
https://nextdoor.com/find-neighborhood/ma/cambridge/
and Somerville:
https://nextdoor.com/find-neighborhood/ma/somerville/

The only one that I know for sure has gotten started is Powderhouse.

(I have no affliation with Nextdoor -- I just think it would be cool to have more of these functioning for our area.)

Edit: Since my house is on the border of their Spring Hill and Powderhouse neighborhoods, in last night's repeated attempts to sign up I volunteered to get Spring Hill rolling. As part of that, I was invited to define the borders of "Spring Hill". So apparently if you're the first to get the ball rolling on a neighborhood, you get to say where it is. I didn't actually end up doing that, as they then fixed the bug that was preventing me from joining Powderhouse. ;-)

dashford.livejournal.com

BOSTON FREE RADIO

A SOMERVILLE INTERNET RADIO STATION!

* STATION ORIENTATION FOR THOSE INTERESTED
IN HOSTING A SHOW *

MONDAY, MAY 14th 8pm - 10pm

( Read on, fair viewer... )

i-leonardo.livejournal.com

the format of yourtown.boston.com changed recently and i just noticed that it appears to be scraping headlines and linking into davis LJ (http://yourtown.boston.com/somerville). it's not clear from the website what editorial policies govern the scraping (or maybe i've just got too many content types blocked to find the information - can anyone else clarify ?). posters who are uncomfortable with that distribution channel might be advised to lock posts to this community.

ron_newman

At the beginning of this month, Newton-based Galaxy Internet Services stopped providing residential DSL Internet service, and turned all of its customers (including me) over to a non-local company, DSLExtreme.

Do any of you have experience with or knowledge about this company?

hahathor.livejournal.com

I've had Verizon Internet service for over a decade now, but over the past 6 months or so it's acting more and more like an 80-year-old man whose Viagra supply has run out. I've spent countless hours on the phone with their tech support, and have had 4 technicians to my house this summer (each one necessitating staying home from work, which wouldn't be a problem if my connection would stay up). So I'm guessing it's time to switch. I saw some discussion a while back comparing RCN & Comcast, but thought I'd bring it up again, just in case things have changed (hell, at the time of the discussion, Verizon seemed like a good deal). Also, if anyone has had any experience with Clear, I'd be interested to hear about that. ETA: RCN sent somebody over yesterday morning to hook me up. I called them Thursday afternoon & they were able to set up a 2 hour window, which they respected, the next day - I suspect they aren't as accommodating when they're already got your business. Kind words to Best Buy in the Watertown mall for completely refunding the cost of the Verizon modem I bought a couple of weeks ago. Service is definitely faster, and it's $10 less a month than I was paying for Verizon (though this will increase in a year, c'est la vie). So far I'm happy with it.

tom-champion.livejournal.com

Greetings, one and all. I’m hoping the DSLJ community can offer me a little help and advice. In my ongoing job search, the interview phrase used most frequently by prospective employers is “overqualified” – and we all know what that means. But the second most common phrase is “social media” – as in “What do you think of social media as a tool for message delivery for our [public agency, academic institution, business]?”

Now, thanks to what turned out to be an entertaining if rocky experience here on LiveJournal, I take a back seat to no one on the use of interactive media to establish a useful communications channel. Facebook and LinkedIn hold no mystery for me, either (though there's always more to learn). Ah, but Twitter is something else again: It seems like a great way to point people to more extensive or nuanced info about news, events or ideas, but much of what I see on Twitter (other than personal status reports) tends to be generic or trivial – and sometimes either downright embarrassing or self-damaging. So, for those of you who use Twitter regularly, here are my questions:

What do you recommend in the way of Twitter rules, usage and best practices?
What are your favorite examples of the best uses of Twitter as an effective communications tool?

All comments gratefully received.

LATE UPDATE: Many thanks to all for what has been, on the whole, a very helpful set of responses – especially from those of you who provided examples of specific Tweeters (Twitterers?) that, in your view, get it right or wrong. It should come as no surprise that your assistance was the subject of my first tweet. G'night, everybody.

Current Mood: curious

bobobb.livejournal.com

I thought the community, being tech-savvy, and perhaps into being old-school tech-savvy might know where I could find (locally or not) a hayes compatible dial up modem?

Current Mood: hopeful

dashford.livejournal.com

BostonFreeRadio.com is a three-month-old volunteer-run Internet radio station operating out of the studios of Somerville Community Access TV (SCATV) in Union Square. BFR has a couple of events happening next week and you are welcome to take part in them.

On Monday at 8PM there is an orientation and training session for people interested in hosting a radio show on BFR. It's at the station's studios at SCATV (90 Union Square). Any Mass. resident is welcome to host a show -- you would have to become a member of SCATV ($40 annual membership) and BFR ($20 annual membership to cover royalty payments for music played). Of course, the video resources of SCATV are also available to Somerville residents who become members.

Also, the station is having a launch party on Friday at Club Choices (379 Somerville Ave.). It starts at 10PM -- there'll be giveaways, there'll be lots of staff there, and station DJs will be spinning tunes. There is a $10 cover, but if you're a BFR member (see above) you and a guest can get in for free!

For more info, call 617-628-8826, email manager@bostonfreeradio.com, or go to http://www.bostonfreeradio.com

[Full disclosure: I am a volunteer at BFR and currently serve as Program Director]

dahdahdahdancer.livejournal.com

Can anyone recommend a dependable, reasonably-priced local web site developer who could update my current site (no design required, just some changes in content/pages), and deal with the logistics involved in transferring my current site files (from a developer who suddenly passed away) and domain re-registration?

ron_newman

My shul's rabbi has created a new mailing list for residents of Somerville and surrounding areas who are interested in Jewish activities and events. You can join it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SomervilleJewish/

( Rabbi Eliana Jacobowitz's longer description of the list is behind this LJ cut )

ron_newman

For the last couple of days, I have not been able to reach the Somerville city website - http://www.somervillema.gov . I don't have any trouble reaching other websites, and 311 doesn't know of any problem with the city website.

Other people using other ISPs can reach the city website, but I can't -- unless I use my neighbor's unsecured WiFi instead of my own DSL connection.

I haven't a clue how to fix this, or who to ask to fix it. A traceroute is below the cut, for geeky people who understand it:( Traceroute follows... )

Edit, 5:25 pm: This problem is now fixed, a few hours after I reported it to Galaxy DSL's customer support. Thanks, everyone. Here's their explanation: "OneComm (one of our upstream providers) is having some intermittent issues with specific routes to other OneComm IP's (209.113.138.134). Until they fix the issue we have it setup here so that instead of routing over the OneComm network to get to other OneComm connections the connection will now just route normally over the Internet."

enochs-fable.livejournal.com

I know Starbucks and Blue Shirt has wifi, but the former is often crowded and noisy, the latter doesn't have the most comfortable seating. The Somerville library (both West branch and main) are favorite spots for quiet study -- but the wifi is very unreliable. (I also wonder what I could do to help them improve the reliability of their network).

What places nearby do you find most conducive to studying with a reliable wifi connection when you need it?

Current Mood: frustrated

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The Davis Square Community

Entries tagged with internet

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Friends of the Somerville Public Library requests support

rcn and comcast

Somerville joining the open data movement

Anyone know anything about "Clear 4G Wireless?"

Online Somerviile & Cambridge police & fire scanner

Danish Pastry House wifi?

Old fashioned cyber cafe

Somerville Beat--new blog about Somerville!

Nextdoor.com

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

FYI: boston.com appears to be scraping davis LJ

DSLExtreme - any experience or opinions?

Suggestions for Internet service?

Twitter Do’s and Don’ts: Request for Submissions

Hello fellow nerds

Boston Free Radio - Call for DJs and a Station Launch Party!

web site developer

SomervilleJewish - new mailing list

I can't reach the Somerville city website. Who can fix this?

good places to study for a few hours with wifi

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April 2025

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