Category Archives: technology

CT Bites Invites: Something New To Chew On

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 2 Comments

When Ellen Bowen launched the Southern Connecticut territory for Living Social — the website offering daily discounts to subscribers — she liked working with restaurant owners to design enticing deals.

But, she soon realized, the website got a lot better deal than the merchants.

“It brings in traffic,” she says of the discounts. “But most people were spending only the value of the coupon. And there wasn’t a lot of repeat business.”

Her now job — event curator at CTBites.com — is much more satisfying. The Westporter has helped site founder Stephanie Webster move beyond the wildly popular restaurant reviews.

Amy Kundrat, Stephanie Webster and Ellen Bowen (from left) represent CT Bites at last fall's Blues,Views & BBQ Fest in Westport.

Ellen and Stephanie have introduced CT Bites Invites. Each week, the website offers readers a special culinary event. Because Ellen works closely with owners and chefs, the results benefit everyone: the restaurants, those who work there, and Fairfield County’s enormous population of “foodies.”

“We get very creative,” Ellen says. For example, Bobby Q’s paired great barbecue dishes with craft beers.

“You can’t just walk in and ask for that,” she notes. “It’s insider access.”

There’s insider access to chefs too. A 10:30 cooking demonstration by DaPietro’s Pietro Scotti was followed by a special 3-course lunch.

Pietro Scotti of DaPietro's wows his CT Bites Invites guests.

Beyond the great food and behind-the-scenes activity, Ellen says, “It’s very social. People invite their friends. And it’s really creative.”

Since CT Bites Invites began in November (with a pairing of exotic tacos and various tequilas), every event has sold out. Some are so popular, extra dates have been added.

Feedback (ho ho) has been great. And Ellen is having a good time too.

“I’ve learned a lot about food, chefs and restaurants,” she says.

One example: Iberico, a very rare ham. It comes from special pigs in Spain. Raised only on acorns, they’re “happy and totally stress-free,” Ellen says. “Even when they’re slaughtered, there’s music playing.”

The result is “the most tender and delicious ham you can imagine.”

(Also, very expensive.)

Barcelona Restaurant paired Iberico ham with cheeses, wine and sherry. “It was very successful — and educational,” says Ellen.

On January 25, Bonda in Fairfield features an evening menu tasting with chef Jamie Cooper. Participants will give insights — and the results will help shape his next menu.

“For a foodie, learning about chefs’ training, watching them in action, talking back and forth — it’s heaven,” Ellen says.

“This goes way beyond ‘honey, where should we go for dinner tonight?’”

Good food, conversation and education await CT Bites Invites guests.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Restaurants, People, technology

Tagged , , , , , ,

All Candlelight, All The Time

Posted on December 22, 2011 | 4 Comments

If you love the Staples Candlelight Concert — and who doesn’t? — what could be better than hearing it again on radio?

How about hearing the last 11 Candelights played non-stop, beginning tomorrow (Friday) afternoon and continuing straight through early next week?

Candlelight 2011 (Photo/Lynn U. Miller)

The Candlelight Concert — the high school music department’s annual gift to the town — is a soaring, inspiring and beautiful collection of vocal, orchestral and band music. There are hymns, carols, Hanukkah and African music, and a lovably schlocky production number.

Now, thanks to the miracle of modern technology – and the good, old-fashioned hard work of media instructor Jim Honeycutt — every Candlelight from 2001 through two weeks ago will be streamed live on the internet on WWPT, 90.3 FM. (It will also run in the background as part of the school district’s stream — and will be broadcast as background music on Cablevision Channel 78.)

The Staples Media Lab began recording the concerts — actually, the final rehearsal — in 2001. The idea for the CDs — and help with the initial recordings — came from student Robert Anstett.

The program design was used for the 1st CD covers. Quickly though, the art department got involved. Now students in the Advanced Design and Technology class create the covers.

Honeycutt and his crew work hard to produce CDs in time for each year’s shows. Profits are donated to the media, music and art departments. Some of the money went to purchase a new stereo microphone preamp, making this year’s CD “the best-sounding ever,” Honeycutt says.

9 Candlelight covers. (Collage created by Jim Honeycutt)

Why does he do it?

“Maybe because of my love of music,” Honeycutt muses.

“Maybe cause I think the memory of these wonderful concerts should be preserved. Maybe because I have the most amazing job in the world. I don’t know — but I’m happy to do it.”

The reward, Honeycutt says, comes from the faces of audience members leaving each concert, who are thrilled to have CDs of the impressive performances. One mother owns every one.

Now, musicians, alumni, parents, Candlelight fans — and anyone else with an internet connection — can enjoy 11 years’ worth of wonderful concerts.

It’s the music department — and Jim Honeycutt’s — gift to the world.

(Click here to listen live to WWPT-FM. And — though this has nothing to do with the Staples Media Lab — hard-core Candlelight addicts can listen to the 1972 concert, available through Westporters.com — click here, then click on the lower left corner.)

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Arts, People, Staples HS, technology

Tagged , ,

Breaking News — WWPT Voted Best Station In The Nation

Posted on November 19, 2011 | 9 Comments

This just in from Naperville, Illinois:

WWPT — “Wrecker Radio” — has been voted the best high school radio station in the United States.  The announcement was named at the 2011 John Drury Awards, which honor high school radio across the country.

In addition, ‘PT — 90.3 FM — won 7 out of 9 Drury Awards for sports broadcasting.  That includes Ben Myers’ and Ben Greenberg’s work on the boys soccer FCIAC finals.

And WWPT took both 1st and 2nd place for broadcast of a radio drama — the “Dracula” show the Staples audio production class did in conjunction with one of David Roth’s acting classes.

But wait — there’s more!  Remember Monday’s “06880″ post on Wyatt Davis’s radio show?  A news piece by Hannah Foley won 2nd place, highlighting “The Wy-Master’s” amazing triumph over muscular dystrophy.

Congratulations to WWPT advisor Mike Zito; to all who participate in Wrecker Radio — and to 2011 graduates DJ Sixsmith and Eric Gallanty, who helped make it all possible.

Click here to hear the best high school radio station in the nation!

→ 9 Comments

Posted in People, Staples HS, technology

Tagged , , , ,

The Amazing Wy-Master

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 5 Comments

Staples sophomore Wyatt Davis gets around.

He’s at every Wrecker football game.  He’s been to dozens of concerts, from Springsteen and Jimmy Buffett to Sugarland and Kenny Chesney.

He takes a full course load, but really enjoys TV production.  He’s an active member of the Photography Club and Best Buddies.

He loves the Yankees and — to his Giant-fan father Brett’s dismay — the Patriots.

He hosts a popular Tuesday afternoon show on WWPT-FM.  Calling himself “The Wy-Master,” Wyatt develops a theme each show; finds an eclectic assortment of music fitting that theme, then writes out a script tying it all together.

Not bad for someone who — because of cerebral palsy — cannot use his extremities.  And is unable to speak.

Wyatt Davis, at the WWPT-FM controls.

Wyatt has been a well-known and popular Westporter for years.  He and his twin sister Kate were born 14 weeks prematurely.  Nearly a decade ago — as a 1st grader at Coleytown Elementary School — Wyatt’s spirit impressed Pete Caliguire, a member of the Staples football staff.

Pete invited Wyatt to be on the sidelines of the big Thanksgiving Day game against Greenwich.  Since then, he’s a regular presence at games, practices, even film sessions.

Wyatt was active in the Coleytown variety show, and in middle school became adept at using an adaptive camera.

All the while, he was in a “power chair.”  A technological marvel, it’s got a laptop and speaking device.  With very limited motor skills, Wyatt controls his world by moving his head.

At the end of 8th grade, Wyatt went with his class to a Staples orientation session.  Media production teacher Mike Zito found him, and got him involved.  The rest — as WWPT listeners know — is history.

In addition to concerts, Wyatt attends as many big sports events as he can.

Each of Wyatt’s shows has a theme — colors, the seasons, whatever.  Using iTunes he, his father and sister choose 14 to 16 songs.  Then, Wyatt and his aide Sharon Magera — an amazing woman who has been with him since 1st grade — make the final selection, and burn a CD.

He imports what he wants to say into his computer.  When the show begins, the device speaks Wyatt’s words.

“The Wy-Master” is one of WWPT’s most eclectic shows.  Wyatt’s tastes range from U2 to Duke Ellington.  “The genre doesn’t matter,” his father explains.  “In our house, if the music’s good we listen to it.”

Wyatt has always loved music, his father says.  He sits in on his sister’s guitar lessons.  And every day, he listens to his fellow broadcasters’ shows on ‘PT.

Brett says that Wyatt’s opportunities and experiences at Staples are “beyond incredible.”

His mother, Vicky, adds:  “Hopefully after graduation, a job at a radio or TV station can be part of his life.  Meanwhile, almost every day, something different or wonderful happens.”

The next wonderful thing might come this Saturday.  Members of the WWPT  staff travel to Naperville, Illinois, for the Drury Awards — an annual recognition of excellence in high school broadcasting.  The Staples radio station is national finalists in 12 categories — more than any other high school station in the country.

One of the nominations is for “Best News Feature Story.”  The subject is “The Wy-Master” show.

It aired as a newscast on WWPT earlier this year.  It was produced by Hannah Foley, Eric Gallanty — and Wyatt Davis, “The Wy-Master,” himself.

A little snow doesn't stop Wyatt Davis from enjoying the slopes.

(Wyatt Davis’s show airs every other Tuesday, 12:30-1:30 p.m., on WWPT-FM, 90.3)

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, Staples HS, technology, Teenagers

Tagged , , ,

DJ And Jim

Posted on October 23, 2011 | 12 Comments

During his radio and broadcast career at Staples, DJ Sixsmith covered football — and soccer, basketball, volleyball, indoor track, rugby, everything except (I think) Ultimate Frisbee — with the skill and professionalism of pros like Jim Nantz.

Which, last summer, brought him to the attention of — Jim Nantz.

Stamford Advocate sportswriter Dave Ruden (a Staples grad) had taken an interest in DJ.  Dave asked his friend Jim (CBS’ star broadcaster, and a longtime Westporter) to meet with DJ and his WWPT/Wrecker radio colleagues Eric Gallanty and Brandon Edelson.

“Jim is so busy.  We expected a half hour lunch at Gold’s,” DJ says.  “But he spent 2 hours talking about sports and TV.  It was amazing he took that much time for us.”

DJ Sixsmith, Jim Nantz, Brandon Edelson and Eric Gallanty hang after lunch at Gold's this summer.

At Staples’ Back to School Night this year, DJ’s mom saw Jim.  She introduced herself, thanked him for his help — and was surprised when he suggested DJ join him in an NFL booth.  Jim gave her his email.

DJ had just begun his 1st year at Fordham University.  Most freshmen start at the bottom at WFUV, the school’s highly regarded radio station.  Thanks to his Staples experience, DJ was already covering women’s volleyball, and helping with football broadcasts.

Seizing the opportunity, he emailed Jim.  The broadcaster quickly invited him to last Sunday’s Giants-Bills game at the New Meadowlands Stadium.

On Friday, DJ spent hours in the production truck.  He watched all the planning sessions, and asked plenty of questions.

Two days later he was in the CBS booth.  The sightlines were fantastic; the inspiration, intense.

He met Phil Simms — Jim’s broadcast partner — then went back down to the truck for the 1st half.  During the 3rd and 4th quarters DJ stood a few feet from Jim and Phil, wearing a headset, listening to and watching them work.

“It’s a view almost no one has,” DJ recalls.  “And there I was, in my second month of college.  It blew my mind.”

He was awed by how easy the broadcasters made everything look — and how difficult calling a game is.  “You’re not following a script,” DJ says.  “You really have to be alert and creative, all the time.”

He was also impressed by the number of people involved in the telecast, from graphics to ads to go-fers.

Not to mention the food.  “No one went hungry,” he laughs.

“It kind of made our little operation at Staples seem like a different world,” he says.

DJ Sixsmith prepares to broadcast Fordham women's volleyball, from Rose Hill Gym.

The experience “reaffirmed how much I want this as my career,” DJ says.

“Jim was so happy, so enthusiastic about what he was doing.  I realized that’s how happy I am too.”

Back at Fordham — and college women’s volleyball, not NFL football — he says, “I’ll continue to hone my skills however WFUV wants to use me.”

He is thankful for the boost Mike Zito and Jim Honeycutt gave him at Staples — and for the kindness Dave Ruden and Jim Nantz are showing him now.

It’s no stretch to say that one day he will pay it forward to a Staples student — perhaps yet unborn — who wants to be a star broadcaster too.  Just like his hero, DJ Sixsmith.

→ 12 Comments

Posted in People, Staples HS, technology, Teenagers

Tagged , , ,

Steve Jobs, According To Pogue

Posted on October 12, 2011 | 8 Comments

When Steve Jobs died, many Americans felt they lost someone they knew.

David Pogue really did know him.

Last week Pogue — the Westporter who is arguably the most influential tech journalist in the world — honored Jobs’ memory on CBS Sunday Morning. 

As usual, Pogue nailed it.  You can read his comments below — including the intriguing tidbit that Jobs occasionally called him at his home near Cross Highway, to rip (or praise) something Pogue had written or recorded.

As a journalist myself — and an Apple fanboy — that makes me feel even more connected to Steve Jobs than I was.

And sorrier for his passing.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Mak

This week, Steve Jobs passed away. And we lost four of this country’s greatest minds.

That’s not a joke. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest designers to come along in decades—and one of the greatest marketers, and businessmen, and visionaries. All of those things.  In one person.  One in a million.

As a designer, he was obsessed with purity, simplicity, perfection.  Obsessed in a way that no other CEO has ever been.  He dictated the color of the power cords, the placement of the buttons, the iPod colors.  Did you ever notice that every single Apple product has gracefully curved corners?  The screens, the laptops, the phones, the tablets, even the windows.  That’s all Steve.

Now, beautiful components cost more.  There’s never been a $400 Mac.  But Steve Jobs didn’t care.  Beauty was more important than price.

Then there was Steve Jobs the marketer.  This guy was hypnotic.  People used to call it his “reality distortion field”—how when you were in his presence, everything he said seemed persuasive.  You saw his vision.  You wanted what he wanted.

Who else could have convinced the record companies to let us download individual songs for $1 each?  Download TV shows for 2 bucks?  That’s the reality distortion field at work.

He’d even try to sway the media.  He’d call me at home to rant about something I’d written that he disagreed with—that I got “completely wrong”—or, sometimes, to praise me for seeing the big picture.  A CEO calling a reporter at home to yell at him?  Sorry, that’s really not done.

And then there’s Steve Jobs, the businessman.  The guy who made Apple the world’s most valuable company, tied with Exxon Mobil.

Steve Jobs

Nobody would have bet on Steve Jobs to be that guy.  Never finished college, never went to business school.  Wasn’t exactly known for being warm and fuzzy.

And he violated every shred of conventional management wisdom.  You don’t micromanage.  You don’t price your product at twice the going rate.

And you don’t keep taking out features!  He took away our floppy drives, our dial-up modems, our DVD drives, our removable laptop batteries.  He wouldn’t put Flash on our iPhones and iPads, software you need to watch videos on the Web.  All because he sees these as dead or imperfect technologies.

But the greatest loss is Steve Jobs, the visionary.  This guy never conducted focus groups—he knew what we wanted before we did.  He could look at some brand-new, clunky technology—like the mouse, or the CD-ROM, or WiFi—and immediately get what it could become with some polish and a little Apple-ilification.

These days, every electronics company tries to imitate Apple’s products.  There are enough iPhone and iPad clones to pave the earth six times over.

But now that Steve’s gone, I’d like to suggest a different tack.  Instead of trying to copy Apple, why don’t we strive to emulate what made Steve Jobs unique?  See the potential in raw new ideas. Keep questioning why do things the old way.  Build beauty into everything we do.

I know, I know—that’s just not done.  But if Steve Jobs the designer, the marketer, the businessman, and the visionary showed us anything, it’s that you can make beautiful, elegant, simple things—and still make billions in the process.

The world will miss you, Steve.  In a thousand different ways.

(To watch David Pogue’s CBS tribute to Steve Jobs, click here.)

→ 8 Comments

Posted in People, technology

Tagged ,

Westport Engineer Prevents World War III

Posted on September 22, 2011 | 3 Comments

For over 10 years, Marty Yellin was a control systems engineer at Perkin-Elmer.

Starting in 1965, the longtime Westporter helped design key elements of Hexagon — a reconnaissance spacecraft that, one NASA official says, “helped prevent World War III.”

For over 4 1/2 decades, Yellin was forbidden to talk about any aspect of his work.

Until last Saturday.

That’s when — 25 years after the top-secret, Cold War-era mission ended — Hexagon, and 2 other satellite programs were finally declassified.

The public got its first view of the Hexagon spy satellite last Saturday, at the National Air & Space Museum. (Photo courtesy of Roger Guillemette/Space.com

Last weekend Hexagon — along with Gambit and Gambit 3 — were open to the public.  The one-day-only event was held at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s Dulles Airport center.

According to MSNBC.com, a throng of joyous National Reconnaissance Office veterans were “finally able to show their wives and families what they actually did ‘at the office’ for so many years.”

It was quite a lot.

MSNBC.com says, “the Hexagon’s panoramic cameras rotated as they swept back and forth while the satellite flew over Earth.”  Intelligence officials called this process “mowing the lawn.”

“Each 6-inch-wide frame of Hexagon film captured a wide swath of terrain covering 370 nautical miles — the distance from Cincinnati to Washington — on each pass over the former Soviet Union and China. The satellites had a resolution of about 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to nearly 1 meter).”

The 60-foot long, 30,000-pound Hexagon carried 4 spools — a phenomenal 60 miles’ worth — of high resolution photographic film on its space surveillance missions.   The spools weighed 3,000 pounds.  Every few months a spool was dropped by parachute from the satellite to a waiting plane, which hooked it and reeled it in.  The force of the giant film would drop the plane 10,000 feet.

From there, the film was sent to an ultra-secret Kodak lab.  It was so sensitive to light that only blind people could work on it, Yellin says.

The developed film was sent to the Pentagon for analysis.

Between 1971 and 1986, NRO launched 20 Hexagon satellites from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base.

“The final launch in April 1986 — just weeks after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion —  also met with disaster,” MSNBC.Com says.

The Titan 34D booster “erupted into a massive fireball just seconds after liftoff, crippling the NRO’s orbital reconnaissance capabilities for many months.”

Of course, no one outside a small circle of political and military leaders ever heard about this catastrophe.  Marty Yellin, his fellow engineers — and everyone else associated with the spy satellite program — was sworn to secrecy.

Until last Saturday.

This week, Yellin looked back with pride at his decade of work on Hexagon.  He notes that the technology led directly to breakthroughs like the Hubble Telescope.

At the same time, he is awed and humbled by comments like this, from NASA’s Rob Landis:

“You have to give credit to leaders like President Eisenhower, who had the vision to initiate reconnaisance spacecraft.  He was of the generation who wanted no more surprises, no more Pearl Harbors.”

In fact, Landis continues, “I think that Hexagon helped prevent World War III.”

That scares the hell out of Marty Yellin.

“I wonder,” he says.  “What if it didn’t work?

“Would we all be dead now?”

→ 3 Comments

Posted in History, Looking back, Organizations, People, technology

Tagged , , , ,

The Fine Print

Posted on September 6, 2011 | 20 Comments

Alert — and squinty-eyed — “06880″ reader Dick Lowenstein recently received the new AT&T “white pages” phone book.  He writes:

Last year it covered Westport (including Weston) and Fairfield.  This year, it adds Norwalk and Wilton in a book about the same number of pages.

How do they do it? Well, for one thing, the type size is 1-2 points smaller.

One reason is fewer subscribers, as more people drop their land lines.  But the small type size? It’s hell on the eyes..now I must use a magnifier.

Of course, I can also use the internet.  The trouble is that more of the so-called free sites are charging for phone numbers.  Even the Westport Library reference department isn’t certain what sites are still really free.

Is using a phone book old-fashioned?  What do your readers think?

Feel free to weigh in on this issue — though you’ll probably take this discussion in some other AT&T, free market economy, or what’s-wrong-with- education-today direction.

Click “Comments” to contribute to the discussion.

→ 20 Comments

Posted in technology, Totally random

Tagged ,

Heavenly App

Posted on September 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

Just a week ago today, Hurricane Irene pelted us with wind, rain and storm surges.  Nearly every Sunday event in Westport was canceled.

But Green’s Farms Congregational Church — which turned 300 years old this year, and in 3 centuries has never missed a service — kept that incredible record intact.

Green's Farms Congregational Church

At the height of the storm, the faithful — though fewer than usual — populated the choirloft and held prayer books.  It was just like any other  Sunday, since decades before the United States was born.

But parishioners from 1711 –  even 2001 — may not have recognized every aspect of the service.  Minister Dan England preached from his laptop, while congregants shared smartphones to read their pieces and prayers (from notifications they’d received the day before).

Green’s Farms Church adapted to the times.  The colonial met the technological.  And it will be ever thus, no doubt through Sundays in at least the year 2311.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in religion, technology, Weather

Tagged ,

90.3 FM — News You Need, Now!

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 Comment

Whichever way you listen to radio — in a car, on your computer or through a plain ol’ battery-operated set — you should tune in to 90.3 FM.

WWPT — “Wrecker Radio” — is playing a continuous loop of a post-hurricane briefing by fire inspector Nate Gibbons.

Clearly, succinctly — but very comprehensively — he delivers a spectacular amount of information, advice and tips to all Westporters.

Well contamination, generator safety, how to ensure the electricity is turned back on in flood-damaged homes, clearing debris from private roads — it’s all there, to learn from and pass along.

WWPT-FM is the Staples High School radio station.  Right now, the fire department has commandeered its airwaves to pass along crucial, hard-to-find information.

At a time when “local radio” is almost non-existent, here’s one more reason to be thankful for what we’ve got.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in People, technology, Weather

Tagged , , ,