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In Waynesville, meter readers going the way of milkmen

fr metersJake Flannick • SMN Correspondent

Some homeowners in Waynesville might have started wondering why a certain visitor who had routinely appeared in their yard is no longer coming around: town public works employees, pen and paper in hand, jotting down readings on their water and power meters.

Coding for the rest of us

If the very thought of trying your hand at computer programming or writing software code is intimidating, Dr. Jonathan Wade has got an event for you.

There’s an app for that: If not, a growing number of students are learning to create one

coverImagine you’re a college student in the summer of 2010. One of your professors offers you a job. He has just acquired 30 of the newest android phones. Your assignment? Just fool around with them. See what they can do. Sweet.

That’s what happened to Chris Blades the summer before his senior year at Western Carolina University.  

SEE ALSO: At WCU, an app to keep students out of the rain
SEE ALSO: Student profiles
SEE ALSO: Coding for the rest of us

 

Swain targets education, infrastructure and high tech with $2 million grant

Swain County residents have finally learned where exactly its $2 million in grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation will go — to schools, job training and infrastructure.

Patrol car laptops should aid Jackson deputies

fr copcomputersIt’s not quite Robocop, but the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office is getting a law enforcement boost thanks to technology.

Speak up if you want high-speed internet in Jackson

Jackson County wants to bring high-speed Internet service to a greater number of residents, but doing so means convincing an Internet service provider there’s enough potential customers to make it worth their while.

More hellos than goodbyes: Topography forces cell phone companies to weigh cost-benefit of erecting new towers

coverAs long as Realtor Sammie Powell leans back in his chair in his home office, he can talk on his cell phone all day long. But as soon as he stands up to reach for something across his desk, his service goes from good to nonexistent.

“I could be sitting at my desk, and if I lean over, I might not pick up,” said Powell, who lives and works from his home in Villages of Plott Creek neighborhood in Waynesville.

New high-tech training center to be a feather in Franklin’s cap

A state-of-the-art training facility built by Drake Software is the latest addition to Macon County’s economic landscape.

Life in the blogosphere

Go to scoopscott.squarespace.com on the Internet and you enter the world of Macon County resident Bob Scott.

Looking in on the iPod cocoon

It is now official. I am not young anymore. I guess I should have paid more attention to the signs, and perhaps it wouldn’t come as such a shock, but I didn’t and it does. My youth has expired, gone out of date like a carton of milk forgotten in the back of the fridge. When I reach for my youth to get a refreshing drink of it, the stench is unbearable. I play one game of pick-up basketball with the kids at school — these are college students and here I am calling them “kids” — and the next morning my legs feel like a mob guy tied me to a chair and beat my thighs all night with a laundry bag full of navel oranges until I finally admitted I was middle-aged.

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