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DTV
PortFolio Magazine Featured StoryWritten by Tom AnthonySeptember 1, 1998 Like or not, the way we all watch television is about to change. Some say DTV, or Digital Television will be as big a milestone to our generation as the popular use of radio was to our grandparents. “There is one important difference,” says Keith O’Malley, Director of Engineering for WTKR TV, “The government didn’t come out with a law that would turn all books into blanks.” That’s what local television broadcasters are faced with in the immediate future. The federal Communications Commission has mandated that all television stations, public and commercial, begin digital broadcasting no later than 2003. Local stations…
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This is the Family Channel… Signing Off
Tom AnthonyPort Folio Weekly August 18-24 1998 There is no more Family Channel. At least not the way you knew it. Master Control at the CBN complex in Virginia Beach ended the satellite uplink of programs from here to the world at large last week. Only the 700 club will continue to emanate from CBN land. Scores of local people have received – or very quickly will receive pink slips from the company Pat Robinson built and just sold to Fox for over one Billion dollars. That’s Billion, with a capitol B. Outside of the income related upheaval for hundreds of your newly unemployed neighbors, the impact on national television…
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Adventures in TV Land
Port Folio Weekly Cover Story August 11-17 1998Adventures in TV LandTom Anthony There are five big TV sets in the office of Ed Munson, the President and General Manager of WAVY TV 10. They are installed right in the wall so that just the screens show. On the top are two sets side-by-side with WVEC – channel 13, and WTKR – channel 3 – blinking out at the world. Just below are monitors showing WAVY – channel 10, WVBT – channel 43, and the Local Weather Station – or LWS, which originates from the channel ten studios but is not a true broadcast. Like LNC, which is the WVEC and…
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News at 11…errr.. At 10
Note: All of this archive came from my personal notes and not everything I wrote for PortFolio Weekly was published as is. The extra bit at the bottom (marked Hewitt) looks like it included extended quotes I originally sent to the Editor. PortFolio Weekly August 4-10 1998 Issue“News at 11…errr.. At 10”Tom Anthony Shows like Ally McBeal and the X-files are not the only thing that will begin on August 31st at Channel 43. As a basic part of their agreement with Fox, WVBT will begin broadcasting live local news for the first time. “The late news early.” says Chris Nesbitt, WVBT general Manager.“There is going to be a Fox 43…
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Tech 49
PortFolio Magazine Technology ColumnWritten by Tom AnthonyMay 29, 1998 Is it just me, or are the new computer models superseding the old ones so quickly that it seems to be a blur? Recently I mentioned to the guys at my favorite computer store that I would be building a new PC to replace the three-year-old dinosaur in my home office. Once, the day I brought the cute little DX66 computer home, it WAS fast. Compared to the computers at work it was like a lightning bolt. I’m not entirely sure it was my imagination, but it seems like it has been gradually slowing down every day since. Way back when…
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Tech 48
PortFolio Magazine Technology ColumnWritten by Tom AnthonyMay 19, 1998 Pick up most any newspaper and odds are there is a story somewhere about doing business on the Internet. You would think that just about everybody is making money hand over fist on this global computer network ‑ but that’s not really true. Some companies are doing exceedingly well selling everything from books to mailing lists. However, most of the business on the web involves selling exposure, not products. Some of that gold lies in the form of the banner ad, a rectangle of information usually about the width of a postage stamp and about three quarters as wide as your screen. …
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Tech 47
Tech May 11, 1998 Who’s got a handle on the difference between Cellular and Digital phone service? If you go to a technician, you may learn all about the fascinating world of analog. That’s the traditional method of modulating radio signals so that they can carry information. Yawn. Analog comes in two flavors – AM and FM – but you can just call it radio. The other approach is Digital Modulation. It’s roughly the same principal, except the information is transmitted in binary code ‑ the zeros and ones of computer language. It’s the like the difference between old vinyl recordings and the present-day CD. Yawn. Like I said –…
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Tech 46
Tech 9814April 13, 1998 After turning on the coffee pot and pouring a bowl of fruit and fiber in the morning, many of us click on the TV set and watch the local news. There it is all laid out for us, weather – traffic – and headlines. All made possible by some pretty neat technology. “For me it starts the night before. When I get up, first thing I do dial up the private connection to the WTKR news computer from home. I can check my office e-mail and even send instructions back to the station that the producer on duty gets right away. Next I’ll get on the…
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Tech 44
Tech #9812March 30, 1998 Why do you think it is that we love to hate Microsoft? Personally I believe it’s because we’re all – myself included – really jealous of Bill Gates in his role as the richest guy in the known universe. Some may argue that Windows ’95 doesn’t work up to expectations. Others simply may be being defensive of their first and true love – Apple. Whatever the reason, if in fact you have something against the computer King Fish, you probably won’t like this review of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 4.0 package. I took the time to download the entire IE 4.0 package from the Microsoft web…
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Tech 45
Tech 9813April 6, 1998 My Fiancé’s daughter Traci will be going off to Law school this Fall and in preparation is shopping for a notebook sized laptop computer. They have a technical name by the way, Notebook. My guess is that since she still hasn’t finished her education, Traci has some small amount of naivete. That could be the only explanation as to why she asked me of all people to help her look. Actually we both learned a lot. We started at the big computer store with the cow hide painted on the walls. Each of the select few computers on display was bathed in it’s own spotlight on…