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U.S. News & World Report/HealthDay News reports that seniors who participate in Medicare Part D’s will likely notice significant changes during this year’s open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 15. “Monthly premiums will rise 11 percent to $38.94, on average, according to an analysis published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s up 50 percent from 2006, the first year that Medicare Part D drug benefits were offered.” Seniors can enroll in a private prescription drug plans if they’re enrolled in traditional Medicare or if they have Medicare Advantage, they can get Part D benefits through that plan. “Seniors will get little relief, however, from cost-sharing requirements.” In addition, costs resulting from the Part D “donut hole” will increase, “starting after a beneficiary has incurred $2,830 in drug spending. Coverage resumes for drug costs above $6,440.” U.S. News also notes that “The House of Representatives on Nov. 7 passed a sweeping health reform bill that provides gap relief beginning in 2010 and eliminates the gap by 2019. However, the Senate must act before any health reform legislation is enacted” (Pallarito, 11/13). In a separate story, U.S. News & World Report reports on broader changes to the Medicare program (Moeller, 11/13).

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On Sunday, I joined a group of young Arab women at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) to discuss the importance of educational opportunities and the value of public service for women in countries around the world.

I stressed the benefits to the security and development of every society that come from the advancement and equality of women around the globe. I told them that President Obama and the United States are committed to working with our international partners to help ensure that all women have opportunities in education, public service and the global economy — a big part of the reason why we formed the White House Council on Women and Girls.

The students at Zayed University responded with questions about everything from U.S. foreign policy to the challenges and excitement of running for office. They were especially interested in what it was like to become the first female U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. I told them it was an honor to serve alongside the numerous extraordinary women who serve the Obama administration in Cabinet-level positions.

I also had a chance to learn from the students. They told me about the progress the UAE has made in advancing educational opportunities for women, encouraging public service and expanding the roles of women in society and government.  My hosts told me that, in recent years, the UAE has undertaken extensive education reform efforts in order to enhance the nation’s growing economy and culture and provide young Emiratis with a competitive option to complete their studies at home rather than abroad.

After working to advance equal opportunities for women throughout my career, seeing the progress women have made in UAE firsthand was exciting. These young women are poised to become the world’s next generation of leaders, and their success — whether in economics, security, or public service — will benefit us all.

Janet Napolitano is Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Although this might not seem like it should be a problem, figuring out where to start the narrative section of a proposal can sometimes be difficult: do you write to the evaluation criteria, to something labeled “narrative,” or to a series of text boxes? Federal programs are particularly fond of hiding the salami, as anyone who has had the misfortune of sitting down with a freshly issued, complex RFP can attest.

Novice grant writers often start writing to the wrong section, and Isaac described one example of this occurrence in Professional Grant Writer At Work: Don’t Try Writing A Transportation Electrification Proposal At Home. As he said, “The problem is that [review] criteria are invariably hidden somewhere in the bowels of the RFP and may or may not be referenced in the RFP completion instructions.”

You can see a particularly pernicious example of this in the Broadband Initiatives Program, whose application guide is available at the link. Oh, and you can also read the NOFA that was included in the Federal Register.

There are a few different areas within the NOFA and application guidance you could conceivably respond to. Check out page 16 of the NOFA, which says, “1. BIP Infrastructure Projects. a. General.” It has some point totals, which we usually write against when dealing with, say, YouthBuild. In the case of BIP, however, that would be logical, but wrong, because the application guide has more detailed instructions. If you look in it, you’ll be tempted by page 8 (though it’s labeled “7″ in the hard copy) because it has scoring criteria similar but not identical to what’s in the NOFA.

Confused yet? Me too. But if you keep looking, you’ll find that the the place you actually want to start is page 14 (which is labeled 13) in the guidance, which says “Executive Summary.” As far as I know, however, no part of the NOFA or the application guidance actually come right and say, “write to the questions/criteria starting on page 14, which is actually labeled page 13 in the hard copy!” If you don’t take the time to study both the application guide and the NOFA, you could end up with an incomplete and totally wrong application on which you’ve spent dozens of work hours.

There’s another amusing part of the BIP NOFA, which has implications for this and other programs. It says, “Describe the methodology, source of data, and analytical approaches used to determine whether the proposed funded service areas are classified as “unserved,” ”underserved,” or for BIP, at least 75% rural.” But the NOFA already describes what “unserved” and “underserved” mean on page 7:

Specifically, a proposed funded service area may qualify as underserved for last mile projects if at least one of the following factors is met, though the presumption will be that more than one factor is present: 1. No more than 50 percent of the households in the proposed funded service area have access to facilities-based, terrestrial broadband service at greater than the minimum broadband transmission speed (set forth in the definition of broadband above); 2. No fixed or mobile broadband service provider advertises broadband transmission speeds of at least three megabits per second (‘‘mbps’’) downstream in the proposed funded service area […]

And it goes on from there. The most obvious maneuver to answer this question is to copy the exact language from the NOFA and spit it back in the response. They’ve given you the answer: you just have to use it. This isn’t a college exam, where you get extra credit for creativity; you get extra credit for staying in the lines. Save your imaginative powers for writing novels or composing software—in many grant writing exercises, imaginative powers will be wasted and possibly harmful, because your job is often to stack one two by four on top of another two by four to build the application following the RFP blueprints. The only question is where you need to build your foundation, and that’s what I’ve tried to answer in this post; the foundation issue will have to wait for another.

Oh, and the best part of all this: the narrative section for our client turned out to be around 30 pages long. The application guide is 72 pages long. I would propose a test of an RFP: if it takes longer to explain how to apply to a program than to describe what the applicant will actually do, the RFP writer has failed in some significant way.

It’s a rare day when we post a web comic on MobileCrunch. To my knowledge, we’ve only done it once before. But you know what? This one’s just too good — and too topical — to pass up.

The Qualcomm FLO TV is a nifty little device. It plays TV content on a 3.5-inch screen, which could be great for some. But you have it’s $8.99 a month for the service and pay the $249.99 initial cost. And it results in yet another mobile device for you to carry even though your smartphone can playback videos.

Six months of the service is included with the purchase, and after that, you’re out $8.99 to continue watching TV on the go. But if you must have live TV and not pre-recorded content downloaded onto your smartphone, Amazon, Best Buy and Radio Shack will be pimping the FLO TV starting today.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday, Microsoft launched Windows Marketplace for Mobile’s Web component, a version of the store fully accessible through any browser.

I lamented that Apple had not yet created a similar face for the iTunes App store, even though it is the most popular download shop among the smartphone competitors. Users who want to browse the contents of the iTunes store, be it music, videos, or applications, must have the iTunes desktop software installed or otherwise browse it on their iPod Touch or iPhone (in which case they’re almost guaranteed to have iTunes installed on their PC anyway.)

So the problem was that there was really no way to browse the iTunes store if you didn’t use the iTunes software.

One reader was quick to point out that I didn’t cite iTunes Preview, a Web-based iTunes store which was rolled out less than 24 hours after Microsoft’s announcement.

So in the interest of fairness, let’s talk about what Apple has brought to the table with iTunes Preview.

As I said before, iTunes Preview is a Web-based iTunes storefront which finally begins to address the accessibility gap created when Apple’s downloads are only browsable within iTunes itself.

So now, users can browse the entire iTunes catalog by genre or artist name, and read album reviews as well as customer reviews and ratings.

But things run into a bottleneck very quickly when it comes to actually consuming music. There is no way to preview songs within iTunes Preview (ironic, I know), and no way to purchase and download music. These can only be completed if the user hits “View in iTunes,” which launches the desktop software.

So iTunes Preview creates a sort of “look, but don’t touch” window into Apple’s downloadable music library if you don’t have iTunes installed.

While it’s currently for the music portion of the iTunes Store and not the movie/tv or app sections, iTunes Preview is actually a step in the right direction that arguably should have been taken long ago.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

We at CrunchGear love you. Yes you. Not anyone else reading this. Listen. We’re going to give you free stuff from November 15 until December 20. It’s going to be so amazingly great you won’t even believe it. Here’s what’s going to happen.

We’re going to post and Tweet comment contests from November 15 until just before the holidays. The prizes will include but won’t be limited to watches, cameras, strange things I find in my ear, and calculators. What do you have to do? Watch this space for more instructions on Monday and start following us on Twitter.

Good luck!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to aim to get a health care reform bill to the floor next week, his spokeswoman said Friday, MarketWatch reports. “No date has been set to bring the bill to the floor for debate, she said, adding that Reid wants to bring it up ‘as soon as we can.’” In the meantime, Health Care for America Now has begun running ads urging Senators in Arkansas and Nebraska to let senators begin debate on the bill. “Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, haven’t yet agreed to let the bill come up for debate” (Schroeder, 11/13).

Politico reports that Democrats are likely to kill the anti-abortion Stupak amendment that was attached to the House health care reform bill “if they go to Plan B on passing health care — using a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill — budget experts say.” Democrats would likely only use reconciliation if they fail to get close to the 60 votes they need to pass a health care reform bill. Using reconciliation “would require a bare majority but limit the scope of what policies can be adopted” (Allen, 11/13).

Assassin s Creed II is quickly shaping up to be one of the year’s blockbuster releases. We’re just days away from launch, but for those of you who st…

This Moderncat Spotlight focuses on a very special organization in central Ohio in celebration of their brand new cat adoption center. Colony Cats is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization whose primary mission is to address cat overpopulation in central Ohio through public awareness and spay/neuter efforts. Since 2002, the organization has facilitated spay or neuter of over 6,324 animals. They also have a network of foster homes for friendly, adoptable cats and kittens that have been rescued (as well as dogs and puppies that are encountered while assisting cats).

Just last week, Colony Cats opened an innovative, contemporary cat adoption center in Columbus, Ohio. This adoption center is very unique! Instead of being in a free-standing building, the center is conveniently located in a storefront at a busy shopping center — what a great way to introduce the cats to potential adopters! The design of the facility is also quite special. Cats and kittens are not in cages, but rather in one of five open “living rooms” that provide open views and plenty of space for the cats to mingle with visitors. Potential adopters can visit the cats in the living rooms or take them into a private adoption room. The center offers a library with educational materials to help adopters fully understand cats and cat behavior, ideally reducing the risk of returns.

The cat rooms are full equipped with some of the best Moderncat accessories available, thanks to some wonderful sponsors who donated items to the new center. A BIG thank you to Modern Cat Designs, Cat Livin’, Urban Pet Haus, Marmalade Pet Care, Square Cat Habitat, and Caboodle for contributing products for the new center! These kitties are definitely living in style while they wait for their new home!

Here are some of the residents enjoying their accessories: a Wedge scratcher from Cat Livin’; several Cheeky Chaises from Marmalade Pet Care; a tall cat condo from Modern Cat Designs; Caboodle carboard cat habitats; Curve perches from Urban Pet Haus; and a Buddha wall perch from Square Cat Habitat.

Fine art and photographs featuring cats adorn the walls at the center. The works are by local artists, who are donating 30 percent of the proceeds to the center for any piece sold. There is also a giving tree where people can add a leaf for each donation made. This handsome black kitty seems to enjoy the top of the giving tree.

The interior design work on the new center was donated by John Wilson of CRI Interiors, Inc. What an amazing job! The Colony Cats adoption center is located at 2740 Festival Lane on the south side of Highway 161, east of Sawmill. If you’re ever in Columbus, please stop by and take a look!

Fundraising Giveaway: Enter to win a set of Curve perches from Urban Pet Haus!

In conjunction with the grand opening of the new Colony Cats adoption center, we have another great fundraiser giveaway for you! The folks at Urban Pet Haus have generously donated a set of their brand new Curve perches for the giveaway! The set includes one large and one small perch. As you can see above, the Curve perches are quite popular with the kitties at the adoption center and I can tell you, we have some at my house, they are wonderful. The perfect size and shape! Your cats will love these and so will you.

To enter the drawing, please visit the Colony Cats fundraising page on GiveForward and make a donation of any amount and you’ll be entered to win. The winner will be chosen in a random drawing on December 1 and notified via GiveForward. Let’s try to reach the goal of raising $1000 for this awesome organization and their new facility!

>>Make a donation now and enter to win!

NPR host Michel Martin interviewed KHN’s Julie Appleby on the program “Tell Me More” about what the abortion amendment would mean.

This one’s from a few months back, but still quite interesting. Danny submitted this story of a series of lawsuits between a musician and a town tourism board over a song the singer apparently wrote. The backstory is that the musician, Cheryl Janky, was a member of a doo wop band called Stormy Weather (perhaps that should have been a warning), who had, as a founder and singer, a guy named Henry Farag. Janky wrote a song called “Wonders of Indiana.” With Farag’s help, the song was modified to become “Lake County, Indiana,” “a doo-wop ode to the border county that rhymes ‘ethnic diversity’ with ‘Hoosier hospitality.’” Farag then did a deal with the tourism board of Lake County, who bought 1,500 copies of the band’s CD to sell in its gift shop, and used the song as hold music for callers. The tourism board also had the band (with Janky in it) perform at the opening of of the tourism board’s new center. That all happened in 1999.

In 2003, however, Janky left the band, and suddenly was pissed off about how “her” song was being used. She filed a lawsuit in 2003, and since then:

The case has spawned at least three lawsuits, thousands of dollars in judge-ordered sanctions against the woman’s attorneys, a three-day trial, estimated legal fees of more than $500,000, reams of paperwork and a subpoena issued to a federal judge.

And for what? Farag notes that the band sold less than 2,000 CDs total (most of which seem to be from the tourism board’s purchase). And yet, Janky continues to pursue the case, with her lawyer insisting she needs to do this to “stand up for her creative rights.” Meanwhile, this is the same lawyer who apparently “has been sanctioned twice by separate judges in the case for filing frivolous claims and last month was ordered to put down a $5,000 deposit before filing more lawsuits on Janky’s behalf ‘to cover the high probability of additional sanctions.’”

Ah, the crazy things that a misunderstanding of copyright makes people do.

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The Eye-Fi card is famous for being a cool, fun way to upload, inadvertently, images of you and your friends naked or on the toilet. Now, however, you can upload those naked photos to your local FTP/FTPS server. This service allows you to bypass standard photo-sharing sites like Flickr and dump your stuff up unfettered by the limitations placed upon us by photo sites.

Here are the instructions. Happy uploading and be sure to make those images public!

This also, admittedly, allows you to run your own photo sharing service and to keep your photos completely private.

via WiFiNetNews

The Associated Press reports that the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services “received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors (on suspected Medicare fraud) over three years during the Bush and Obama administrations but didn’t respond to half of them, even after repeated letters.” The news story was based on records received from Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office. “A July 2008 warning said organized crime had infiltrated the system and was costing more than $1 million dollars for each phony Medicare provider license the crooks obtained. The letter got no response, Grassley said.” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said CMS usually responds promptly to fraud warnings, but that she was not satisfied that some fraud alerts were getting a sufficient response. “Grassley wants the agency to respond to future fraud warnings within two months and Sebelius agreed” (Kennedy, 11/13).

I’m apprehensive to even post this since I, myself, have an American Express card and will absolutely be fighting against the rest of you barbarians for this very deal, but my commitment to reporting the news is just barely stronger than the urge to get $200 back on a $500 electronics purchase. Just barely.

So the deal is that at some unknown, magical point of the day on Wednesday, November 18th, registration will open up for American Express card holders. There will be 50 slots available and the first 50 people who register their card will get $200 credited back to their statement when a $500 or more purchase is made at Best Buy using the card.

Purchases must be made between November 18th and December 31st, and the $200 credit will apparently show up on your statement “within 3 to 5 days of the date you completed your qualifying purchase.”

There will also be another similar deal going on the same day: $40 back when you spend $100 or more. There are 125 registration slots for that deal.

Daily Wish [AmexNetwork.com]

Back in the days, having a firewall was a decent option if you wanted to secure your network against incoming attacks from the outside, but these days not just any firewall will do. Wiresoft, being a leading provider of affordable, high performance network security products for small and medium-sized businesses, has just unveiled Firegate, where it is touted to be the industry’s foremost “unbreakable” firewall delivering enterprise-level security plus disaster recovery without breaking the bank – perfect for such an economic climate. Just to get a better impression of how “steady” and reliable it is, the Firegate’s core technology platform has never been penetrated in either laboratory or market conditions to date. In order to underline its robustness and security, Wiresoft has issued a challenge, offering up to $24,000 in prize money to anyone who can hack Firegate within 24 hours. Dubbed the “Hack Us If You Can” challenge, it will be open to all from November 16 onwards, and you can check out the rules of the game here. Guess there will be plenty of coffee being passed around by a group of ethical hackers as they vie for 24 grand, no small sum even by today’s standards as that can get the winner a brand new ride or a super souped up gaming rig with more than enough cash to spare. Firegate is a unified threat management network security product, where a solitary platform will help protect companies against all network security threats. It offers firewall, individually configurable spamwall, unlimited VPN support, content filtering and anti-virus protection, where it has been included in a single price point without any hidden charges or add-ons. Any takers?

© 2007 Freakitude dot Com.

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