Indian Country and the Digital Divide 2010

Comment

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on April 22, 2010 at 2:51am

If Skype is good enough for Digital Smoke Signals and Oprah then its good enough Indian Country. Using Skype peer to peer is free, you can even use Skype for both PC and Mac. Calls from the US and Canada on both Landlines and cell phones cost only $2.95. We are not promoting Skype but hey, it sure can lower cost if your family, tribe, tribal department or friends use Skype to call each other.
Digital Smoke Signals has been using Skype for years for calls, texting, conference calls and file sharing.

Download Skype for Windows - OSX MAC and don't forget your head phone's and speakers or you can use a headset. Also good for iPhones, Androids and Blackberrys


Pishah Yaduah (good talking)

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on March 26, 2010 at 12:07pm

How can Tribes save on long distance calls in departments that are already tight on a budget? by using Skype

Have you watched Oprah Show and how she talks to guest using Skype? Skype is a free online VOIP software that can be downloaded to your PC or MAC. Skype lets you call other users on Skype for FREE!!! Yes FREE, video conference, text messaging, call phones and cell phones, conference calls and even send files. Take a look at the added expense Skype for Business which Digital Smoke Signals has been using since 2005.

What can Skype be used for and how can it save your Tribe money?
Ten Reasons for your Tribe to start using Skype
1. long distance training
2. Education tutoring from college students in college, most colleges have high speed internet on campus and in the dorms.
3. Tribal elections
4. Tribal updates live from their chairmans office to the community.
5. National Congress of American Indians, updates from the conference by the NCAI staff setting up a booth.
6. Flute, drum, language preservation lessons from any reservation to another.
7. Economic development & finance training
8. Technology, web-development, film and graphic design training
9. e-Learning
10. Updates from our Tribal people in D.C on new ideas, grants and deadlines.

Skype how-to-videos

DSS also uses Skype on the iPhone app, makes calls without using cell minutes on any WIFI access using Skype.

Find us on Skype,
DSS Skype name is:
digitalsmokesignals

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on March 26, 2010 at 11:41am

Hello community, Digital Smoke Signals has build a online university with opensource software called Moodle. Moodle is totally free to use and customize.

Check out Digital Smoke Signals online university DSSUniversity e-Learning. This is our trial university for Tribes to move in the direction to provide their own training to tribal members from tribal members.

Tribal members go to training all during the year and this would be a good example on how to save on travel cost and outsourcing training to in-house training by the same people who are putting on the training abroad.

Checkout DSSUniverstiy
We will be updating DSS University with Research and Development to launch in the Fall 2010 semester.

:) Digital Smoke Signals

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on March 26, 2010 at 11:23am

Tribal Governments can have their own Network NOC.

What is a Network NOC?
Stands for "Network Operations Center." It is the central location where a company's servers and networking equipment are located. The NOC may reside either within a company's campus or at an external location. Smaller businesses and organizations often have an internal NOC, in which local technicians administer and monitor the servers. Larger companies may have a NOC setup at a location developed specifically to house server equipment.

Network operations centers, often called datacenters, are almost always connected to a high-speed Internet connection. Large NOCs, such as those used by Web hosting companies, are often connected directly to the Internet backbone. This gives the servers the most bandwidth possible.

While NOCs are used by all Web hosting companies and ISPs, they are also useful to companies whose services are not related to the Internet. Many companies use a NOC to manage internal communications, administer employee e-mail accounts, and backup data. Because maintaining an Internet connection is vital to most businesses today, most NOCs are monitored 24/7, with automatic alerts that notify technicians when servers or network connections are down.

Comment by Traci L. Morris on March 26, 2010 at 11:23am

Hahahahaha! That's me in the video below!

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on March 26, 2010 at 11:18am

What is a Fiber-backbone?
The fiber optic backbone can mean different things depending on the service being used. Generally, however, it simple refers to that fiber optic cable traversing the main path or route in that part of the overall network. It differs with a lateral, which would run from a backbone splice point to typically an end use premise (ie building or cell site). Backbone cables will typically be built with high fiber counts and laterals will have relatively fewer fibers in the cable since it will have less use.

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on March 26, 2010 at 11:14am

What is Speedtest.net?

Use Speedtest.net to test the speed of your Internet connection. See if you are getting what you pay for and share your results with others!

Want to host your Tribes server? Setup is easy and the requirements are a web server and an Internet backbone connection with at least 100 Mb/s available.

Testers usually select the server closest to them so you will automatically reach the people in your area. This is a great opportunity for many organizations, and we are offering sponsorships in most cities world-wide. *

Each testing host sponsor is provided with a login to our reporting system to view all results run against their server in real-time. We also setup custom DNS entries such as london.speedtest.net which always makes that server be the recommended one.

Digital Smoke Signals (DSS)

Comment by Digital Smoke Signals on February 9, 2010 at 11:19am

New Media, Technology & Internet Use in Indian Country
On November 19, 2009, Native Public Media and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative will release New Media, Technology and Internet Use in Indian Country: Quantitative and Qualita...