Heather writes in with details about an April 1st “Internet Safety Event” at Decatur High School…

Decatur High School Theater, Thursday, April 1st, 6:30-7:30 p.m.,  Free childcare- registration info below!

The City Schools of Decatur, in partnership with the Decatur Children and Youth Services, invite all parents and community members to attend a program entitled “Internet Safety and Social Networking in the Digital Age” at Decatur High School on Thursday, April 1st, at 6:30 pm. Hoke Wilcox, Ed.S., an Instructional Technology Specialist from the Educational Technology Center at Kennesaw University, will be our presenter for the evening.

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How will Decatur, a city of just 18,000, make itself more appealing to Google’s “Fiber” project, which is looking for communities from 50,000 to 500,000 to shower with insanely fast broadband speeds?

Create a partnership!

At tonight’s city commission meeting, Lena Stevens, the city’s Resource Conservation Coordinator, announced a partnership that the city has created with four other DeKalb cities – Avondale Estates, Chamblee, Doraville and Dunwoody – to make up the “Atlanta Urban Area Partnership”, to boost the population count on the application and hopefully get Google’s attention.  Stevens says that the city is also currently talking with Emory to also get them on-board.

A Facebook page supporting the partnership will launch this evening – I’ll update this post once I have the address.  The city has also hired Decatur eLife’s Andrea Berry to produce a video to promote the effort.

Has everyone already heard about the great, new bicycle option in Google maps’ directions?  I’m a day behind.

Google admits these particular directions will take time to refine, since cyclists also must consider topography and street traffic when deciding a route, but with time they hope to refine routes for “hundreds of major U.S. cities”.

A quick look at directions from Decatur Square to the AJC building downtown looks promising.  It keeps you off DeKalb Avenue and recognizes the Freedom Path as a viable route.  Not bad.

As you’ve probably heard in the national press, cities across the country are pulling out all the stops to get Google’s attention in the company’s search for communities interested in participating in “Google Fiber“.

Thus far, the most successful way to get noticed has been to temporarily change the name of your city to “Google”.  Topeka, Kansas was the first to roll-out this eye-rolling, but eye-catching idea.  And Sarasota just renamed its “City Island”, “Google Island“.  Here’s a piece of Sarasota’s strategy…

A proclamation creating Google Island may be a little nutty, but the overall attempt to include Sarasota in the network is deadly serious. The Ringling College of Art and Design coupled with Sarasota’s eclectic collection of well-heeled snowbirds are key assets to the proposal, layered on top of a budding Net-oriented entrepreneurial sector that includes Inc. 500 growth leader IntegraClick and other vibrant technology companies.

But while a Google-renaming will get the attention of the press, what will ultimately sway Google?

Decatur has said it is looking into submitting an Request-For-Information form to Google on the project, but we’ve yet to hear the city’s decision.

If it does, the city has some tough competition, as evidenced by this unofficial list compiled on zettaphile.  Additionally, Google’s RFI states they’re looking to “offer the service to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people”.  Will Google entertain a small Georgia city of just 18,000?

And if that wasn’t enough, after the jump, read an excerpt of PC World’s David Coursey’s argument AGAINST jumping on the Fiber bandwagon.

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UPDATE: City Manager Peggy Merriss confirms in a comment that the city is looking into the application.

“City staff downloaded the application yesterday (Wednesday) and will be evaluating it to determine whether to apply. The deadline is March 26, 2010.”

Andrew and Kristian wrote in this morning and pointed out that Google has put out an request-for-information (RFI) to local communities across the country who are interested in participating in the Google Fiber experiment.

What’s it all about?

Cities looking to fill out an RFI and residents looking to nominate their community and should CLICK HERE.

If it does, I haven’t figured out how to make it work with an iPod Touch yet.

I can get to the Decatur Wi-Fi access page, but then I can’t click any of the buttons.  Has anyone ever had success connecting to Decatur Wi-Fi with ANY mobile device?

Is it just an issue with the free access?  Do I need a monthly subscription?

OK, so I feel like there are still a lot of open questions out there about Decatur Wi-Fi, not least of which is “why do so many people think I’m Decatur Wi-Fi tech support?”  So using the power of the internets, let’s answer some of the questions I’ve been hearing as of late.

First, I’m curious to know how many people have even tried the service.

Secondly, how many people have tried one of Get the Speed’s wireless modems to improve their signal? (like InDecatur recently did with marked improvement)

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Click over to the Decatur Minute and read how the city is helping 15 Decatur Housing Authority families online.

I love when the city toots its own horn.  They should do it much more often.  Lots of great things going on behind the scenes that we never hear about.

Full disclosure: this story is about two-weeks old.  On top of that, Taylor emailed it to me two weeks ago and I lost it in the shuffle.  This morning, Lump reminds me.

Along with “Hello Kitty Online” and a couple other truly NSFW MMOs, Virtual Decatur recently earned the dubious distinction of “Most Disturbing MMO” by GameSpy.

After pointing out the proposed game’s unfortunate acronym, the article restates much of what we’ve already discussed…

Specifically, you want to start an MMO where the admins physically live in the same town as the players? Really? Do you have no self-preservation instincts? Have you not seen the Internet? It is a place notorious both for its disproportional rage, and the horrors perpetuated behind its pseudo-anonymity. And nobody is more hated than the people in charge.

Forget fruits and vegetables.  Online rage is the elixir of life.

Here’s another really great example of a local business looking to give back to its community.

Justin at Onyx Consulting writes in about their new foundation, which sells “OCF Certified” used Mac and PC equipment through its web-store at a discounted rate (around 25%) and gives all proceeds to the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center on Church Street in Decatur.

To find out more info about this new Foundation click here.  Or jump directly to Onyx’s web-store and see what’s currently for sale.

If you have computer equipment you no longer use and would like to donate, click here to find out Onyx’s minimum requirements and to fill out a donation form or click here to read about potential tax benefits from donating.