Chapter 2 Assesment

Blog assesment 2:

1) Grab a copy of FlickrDown a utility that allows you to download hundreds of photos from Flikr.
2) When you trash a photo it doesn’t actually delete it; instead it tosses away the address of where to find it. The file space itself just sits there until new data is added which will eventually overwrite the previous files. You can use a recovery program and pull the files from the trash.
3) You can choose from thousands of copyright free sound effects at Freesound project. 3 examples would be a scary wind sound, a boing sound and a screeching car sound.
4) So far over 30,000 books have been converted to digital format. Top five Ebooks downloaded yesterday: • The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) by J. Arthur Thomson (615)
• Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob (573)
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (438)
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (428)
• Illustrated History of Furniture by Frederick Litchfield (364)
5) Three ways for getting better search results which I would use most often are: wildcards, searching within a site and searching for specific types of documents.
6) Several firefox extensions that I would be interested in are: Videodownloader, forecastfox and FoxyTunes.

record assignment

I asked Heinz public relations department for their CRS report. CRS stands for Corporate Responsibility Report. I wanted to see exactly what the report was about. I thought I was going to recieve a brief documentation, but to my surprise, I opened my mailbox to a large manila folder. Inside, was a 37 page publication covering all aspects of the report. The basics of the report is how Heinz is working on beoming a more responsible corporation and is concentrating on the safety of the enviroment

Open Records Challenge 2007

I reviewed the open record laws and tried to contact the office to my old superintendent. When reading the assignment I realized in light of the recent weather if theres anyone I want to get info from it would be the person who used to decide if we got snow days! The superintendent is Linda Firestone. I tried to obtain some sort of a contract involving her duties as a superintendent. When I called they seemed kind of confused as to why I wanted anything considering I wasnt under their school district anymore. I said I needed it for class and wont be using it for anything published and that it was just a type of survey. The lady in the office said she would get back to me and took my name and telephone number down. But she never did. She was very polite but she didnt really seem to want to be bothered with the information I wanted.

My open records experience

When I read the assignment I thought it would be easy to go get the minutes from a school board meeting. I was also interested in seeing the minutes from the meeting because of some rumors floating around my town. I called to request them and no one answered. I called again the next day and the women said she would get back to me when she got them together. I left her my name and number. By the time she got back to me, I was already back to school.

Open Records Challange

For the assignment I contacted the City Clerk's Office of Pittsburgh to obtain the minutes for the last two city council meetings. When I called I requested the minutes and was asked to wait a moment. The woman on the phone, Denise Wilson, called me maam and was very polite. In less than a minute she had acquired the information, telling me they are available on their web site. I asked for her name, which she gave readily and without question.

The experience was painless. I had already found their website to look for the appropriate number to call and followed links to find the minutes for the last two minutes. Although she did not give me the exact site, I had not requested it and if prompted I'm sure she would have provided me with the information.

I was surprised she didn't want to know my name or why I was calling. I expected her to be rude and resistant in giving out the information. It was refreshing not to be met with these reactions.

In my JRNL 328 News Reporting class, we've been discussing the difficulty surrounding accessing public documents. I was told that accessing police logs were among the hardest documents to obtain, which piqued my interest. For another story, in order to "localize" the soon-to-be amended statewide Right to Know Law, I contacted the campus police with a request for their 24-hour logs. I was told to make a formal inquiry in person, but was not interrogated or treated suspiciously. I had fewer problems than the Indiana Gazette reporters who covered the Right to Know Law in 2005 and did the same thing -- perhaps because they'd set a precedent and knew how to deal with document requests.

Open Records Assignment

I decided that I wanted to find the minutes from the last two public school board meetings. I thought calling the school district's office would be my best bet. I talked to a secretary and introduced myself as a resident of the school district. I asked her what I wanted to know, and she kindly directed me to a website. The minutes from all of the public meetings were right there.