CamelCase

Microsoft Office products often include terminology with capital letters in the middle of words. For example PowerPoint. Power point would be an incorrect spelling of this product and confuse the reader as to what you are really saying.
“CamelCase (or camel case), also known as medial capitals,[1] is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound and the first letter either upper or lower case—as in "LaBelle", "BackColor", "McDonald's", "iPod", or "GaGa". The name comes from the uppercase "bumps" in the middle of the compound word, suggestive of the humps of a camel. The practice is known by many other names.

An early systematic use of medial capitals is the standard notation for chemical formulae, such as NaCl, that has been widely used since the 19th century. In the 1970s, medial capitals became an alternative (and often standard) identifier naming convention for several programming languages. Since the 1980s, following the popularization of computer technology, it has become fashionable in marketing for names of products and companies, and for 1990s online video games where players use pseudonyms (when spaces were not allowed). However, medial capitals are rarely used in formal written English and most style guides recommend against their use.” (Wikipedia.)

Apparently, due to the fact that the naming convention in popular programming languages includes media capitals, Microsoft and other companies have begun using common words as product trademarks by using two words together and media capitals in the words. This is normally done by combining two words together to make one new word while capitalizing the first letter of the second word. For example, word art would normally be two words while in the CamelCase it is WordArt and means something specific (a Microsoft product feature.)

Using Word as an Editor

Microsoft Office includes a magnificent editor with built in spell and grammar check called "Word." Many people use Word as an editor and save the file as a complete edited file when they are finished. However, word can be used for much more than that.

For example, when posting to a discussion or forum that does not have a built in spell check or grammar checker write your post in Word. Then, copy past the post to the discussion without saving the Word document. You can then go back and forth as you post additional comments. (This is where a double monitor or wide screen comes in handy.)

You can also use Word as an editor for a chat utility that does not support spell or grammar check.

At the bottom left corner of the Word task screen is a number that indicates Word count. For discussion assignments that require a minimum number of words you can use this word count if you use Word as the editor for your post.

Finally, it very handy to keep Word open and on your task bar if you need a handy spell checker or thesaurus. Just open the Word task screen and type in your word to check it.

This post was written in Word 2010 to check for errors and look how good it looks!

Digital Utopianism

Larry Downes recently wrote in Forbes magazine here: http://blogs.forbes.com/larrydownes/2011/03/10/is-digital-utopianism-dead/ an article on Network Neutrality (NN.) His article is titled "Is Digital Utopianism Dead?"

My answer is quite simply “Yes!” However, when was it ever alive?? Just as in any other daydream of utopia, they simply do not exist and never will. We dream about them but should never kid ourselves into believing that they ever will or are even possible.
Mr. Downes compares the open non proprietary protocol, TCP/IP, used on the Internet with the business model followed by cable TV companies. Come on Mr. Downes! Who do you think you are kidding? The former is an advertising based financial model while the latter is a charge for use model that is not based on advertising. The cable TV content companies do not talk about monetizing content as Internet content providers do simply because they do not have to.
Does Mr. Downes forget that without the extensive FCC oversight of advertising based broadcast TV that advertising based models of the networks (ABC, NBC, CBS et al.) would not exist at all? The same applies to the free advertising based Internet. It would become a charge based model the same as cable TV. Who wants that?
Making the availability of information charge based contributes to the schism created by the digital divide where only the wealthy will have access to information and will seek to perpetuate their wealth and class while the poor will have no access and get poorer.
Mr. Downes article is clearly elitist and transparent. In the past Forbes has been a bit more subtle about manipulation of the middle and lower classes by the wealthy in our country. Too bad Mr. Downes opted for blatant intellectualism in the hopes that only the wealthy would understand it.