Category: Technology

Virginia & Prince George are growing

Carol Dois WoodwardLeave a comment

The Weldon Cooper Institute at UVA has recently released its population projections for Virginia and its localities through 2040.  Though these are projections and subject to lots of variables , but there are some interesting tidbits …

  • by 2040 Virginia will have surpassed New Jersey (now 11) and Michigan (now 10th) to become the 10 most populous state in Virginia
  • the population center of Virginia in 1940 was in Cumberland County.  By 1970 the population Center was in Richmond.  Now it is in Caroline County and, according to projections, by 2040 the population center will be near or in Fredrickburg
  • the population of Prince George will be 38,379 in 2020, 40,816 in 2030, and 42,640 in 2014
  • School age children in Prince George will be approximately 17-19% of the total population in 2020, but in the two ensuing decades the percentage of school age children will trend slowly downward, more like 15-17%
  • By contrast the Prince George population age group of 65 to 85+ will grow from abut 15% of the total population in 2020 to 25% in 2014

Prince GeorgeRemember that these are just projections but population trends have tremendous influence on politics, budgets, crime, education, health, transportation, all aspects of life, really. Do we need to have more smaller schools? Do we need to address health and transportation needs if the senior citizens. What about transportation in general? Are we going to continue to be an automobile reliant community? What other infrastructures demands do we need to plan for.  Your thoughts are welcome.

 

Visit the link above to visit the report from the Weldon Cooper Institute and some other interesting sources are statchatva.org and Bacon’s Rebellion (focuses on a variety of Virginia trends, politics, and history.

Brave new world … a new theme … a new layout

Carol Dois WoodwardLeave a comment

Libre is the new WordPress Theme I am adopting for my Xena blog, jettisoning Chateau.

The change is the result of one of my assignments as a participant in WordPress’ Blogging 101 program. Each day during the week participants receive a daily assignment to guide them through the various content and programmatic options available as wordpressers.

I ‘dropped out’ of Blogging 101 once before and I think it was a result of this very assignment. I had stumbled through setting up my blog a few years before and was fearful of making any changes to the look and feel of the page.  So this time, upon the advice of our blog tutors, I set up a dummy blog and used it to try on various Themes.  They suggested trying on no more than 10 (there are probably hundreds available) so that I wouldn’t get lost.  I made it to 6 and fritzed out.

I did learn a few things about myself and my interests … I am partial to a more text oriented display with only occasional images … I am also partial to a serif type face, but not too much serif … and I like simplicity in the layout without too many independent places for the eye to drop.

What am I not sure about … everything.

Notice this entire blog is not about content, but about style?

Any comments?

AOL … not so fuddy-duddy afterall

Carol Dois Woodward2 Comments

The news is abuzz with the probable purchase of AOL by Verizon.

Dear Reader:

The news of the pending purchase of AOL by Verizon for $4.something billion has amused me this last day or so.

A few years ago a headhunter told my husband to not use an AOL email address in his resume or business cards because it would make him appear technologically stodgy. Hubby is a technologist in the computer services industry and didn’t quite buy into that opinion, but he did create a gmail address.

He told me about the advice and I snorted.  I jumped from CompuServe in 1994 to AOL when it became an ISP and, also, I may have had a crush on Steve Case.  Initially, a person’s screen name was limited to 7 characters. When it was possible I changed to a longer screen name  so that I could be more easily identifiable.  Yes, I have had an email address on my business cards since 1994 and before that I had my CompuServe ID number on my cards.  Do you remember those long stringy number IDs?

I needed to maintain a certain continuity in my email address for professional reasons, thus I stuck with my AOL address as my primary address through all these years.  I have two email address pet peeves.  People who change email address often and then use complain that they are not being included on communications.  The other pet peeve has to do with those cutsy (or so they think), inane, email addresses that give no clue as to the identity of the owner …  “squawwoman” and “mustangannie” come to mind. Maybe as I wind up my practice, I may become”xenachick”.

So I stayed with AOL as it morphed from ISP to content provider, to publisher, to entertainment portal, to news portal and now as internet video innovator.

AOL and I  may not be so stodgy, after all.

Sincerely,

woodwardcd@aol.com