The blind squirrels at the FCC found an acorn!

Credit where credit is due...just as a blind squirrel find an acorn once in awhile, sometimes a government agency gets something right...

Awww. Good job, buddy. You did it.

Earlier this week, Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that the FCC would be increasing the amount of unlicensed spectrum available for Wi-Fi internet networks.

Without getting too bogged down in all the scientific details, this means that next time you're at the airport or at a conference, the wireless internet (hopefully!) will be faster.

Live-Blogging the Debate

I'll be live-blogging the debate tonight from my Sulia account. You can follow the posts on the Sunshine State Sarah Facebook page or on Twitter at @rumpfshaker.

The Romney campaign has a widget for following the Twitter feeds of their staffers. I've embedded it below:

New Square app for donating to Romney

The Romney Square card reader

I ran into my friend Justin Hart earlier today, who is part of the Romney campaign's Digital Team. He told me about a new grassroots fundraising program that they are launching using the Square card readers for smartphones.

If you haven't seen this before, Square is an app that lets any smartphone accept credit card payments. You just plug the tiny device (it's about 1" square) into the headphone jack on your phone, download the app, and you're ready to go. Lots of small businesses are using them and Square is starting to be used by campaigns and charities now too.

The Romney campaign has a special app and are giving away the card reader devices free to anyone who signs up at www.mittromney.com/square. Justin was nice enough to chat with me on video about the Romney Square app and share how it works:

Romney VP announcement coming soon...tomorrow?

 There has been endless speculation about who Mitt Romney will pick for his running mate - not just who he will pick, but when the announcement will be made. 

As TechPresident reported yesterday, watching Wikipedia to see whose biography page gets a sudden flurry of updates and edits may be a sign. Checking out airplane hangars was a source of intel in 2004, when an airplane mechanic saw John Edwards' name being added to John Kerry's plane.

The Romney campaign has launched an app for iPhone and Android, "Who Will Be Mitt's VP?", and they may have given an important clue at least about the timing of the announcement.

Want to keep up with Congressman Webster? There's an app for that!

My Congressman, Daniel Webster, announced yesterday that he has a new mobile app, available for iPhone and Android.

I downloaded the iPhone version, and it's easy to navigate, with links to Webster's YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, news updates, lots of information about initiatives that Webster supports, upcoming legislation, tours of the Capitol, and more.

You can download the app at the Android Market or iTunes.

Rubio Announces He Is Withdrawing Support of PIPA

Senator Marco Rubio issued a press release this morning, announcing that he was withdrawing his support of the Protect IP Act (from his Facebook page):

Thank you, Steve Jobs

1955-2011

The first computer my family had was an Apple IIe. I loved it. It was nothing short of magical to have a computer in my house.

Considering how the way I now earn a living is so closely tied to technology, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Steve Jobs. Innovations he pioneered at Apple completely changed not only the home computer industry, but how we communicate with each other. And because Apple is such a force, you don't even have to own any Apple products to benefit from the ideas that Jobs introduced to the world.

So, from my little corner of the internet and the bottom of  heart, I send a sincere thank you to Steve Jobs, and my prayers and condolences to those who knew him.

See also: Wall Street Journal | Steven Paul Jobs, 1955 - 2011

[Cross-posted at The Minority Report]

Morning Coffee Reading for May 17, 2011

Here's your morning coffee reading for today:

• George LeMieux gets caught being a hypocrite regarding earmarks and spending, speaking out against the stimulus bill then writing letters supporting hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars for projects in Florida. 

St. Petersburg Times | George LeMieux sends mixed messages on spending, earmarks

• Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign may be over before it even began. A voter in Iowa had some harsh words for him at a campaign stop, calling him "an embarrassment to our party," and telling him to "get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself."   

 Michelle Malkin | The Rebuke in Dubuque: Gingrich's Rocky Campaign Start Somehow Gets Even Rockier

• A new evolution in federal campaign finance law: "Super PACs" now offering contributors the ability to channel their donations to specific candidates.

Wall Street Journal | Super PAC or Pack of Trouble?

• RedState's Erick Erickson analyzes the potential Republican Presidential candidates.

RedState | Natural Constituencies

• Florida Governor Rick Scott's mom Esther is in a new web ad produced by RPOF, saying she's still proud of her son.

Orlando Sentinel | Central Florida Political Pulse | Esther Scott gives son a pat on the back

• Some background on the Herman Cain phenomenon.

Wall Street Journal | Republicans Buzzing About The 'Herman-ator'

• File this under "It's About Dang Time:" Pakistan is going to return the wreckage from the helicopter damaged during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.

The Hot Joints | Pakistan to return Osama bin Laden helicopter wreckage to US

• Here's a great heartwarming story: Florida's Department of Children and Families is using technology like twitter to help find homes for foster children.

Palm Beach Post | State agency uses Twitter postings to help find adoptive parents for foster children

Some technology notes and updates

I've been making some improvements and upgrades to Sunshine State Sarah over the past few weeks. Here's the latest:

"Your Daily Dose of Sunshine" is an email subscription that will send you a message every day I publish a new blog post (if I write more than one post during a single day, you'll get just one email). I promise I won't sell your email address and you will be able to easily unsubscribe anytime.

Click here to sign up and you'll always be the first to know what's happening at Sunshine State Sarah!

Best of all, the email subscription is totally free! Sign up now...all the cool kids are doing it.

New optimized mobile view - After some trial-and-error with several different services, I've enabled Blogger's mobile template, which makes this site easier to view on cell phones and other mobile devices.

You can view the mobile version of Sunshine State Sarah here or at the "Mobile" tab at the top of this page.

Theoretically, the mobile view should load automatically when you access the site on a mobile device, but right now that seems to be happening about 80% of the time. I'd appreciate your feedback - please leave a comment below and let me know which version loads on your device, what type of device you're using, and what you think about the new view.

New original Sunshine State Sarah videos - I picked up a little digital video camera recently so I could share more directly some of the speeches and events I get to see, along with some original interviews.

You can see my videos at Vimeo and YouTube (because of different posting restrictions, I have accounts on both sites). I'm no Spielberg (yet! haha) but hopefully you'll find something interesting.

Also, something I've learned about posting videos online: embedded videos don't always display properly on mobile devices, but direct links to the page where the video is hosted almost always work. I've made sure to add text links underneath all videos I embed on this site. Any of you who operate your own websites or know others who do, please consider adopting this practice. It only takes a minute to add an extra line of text and a hyperlink when you post a video.

Thanks y'all! Let me know what you think about these changes, or any other comments or suggestions for the site.

P.S. Don't forget to vote for Sunshine State Sarah as "Best Local Blogger" in Orlando Magazine's Best of Orlando 2011 Contest!

Here's where your money is going

[Cross-posted at The Minority Report]

Today is Tax Day, as you are undoubtedly aware. Just in case you were curious about where all your hard-earned money is going, our government has spent some of that money on a fancy little website, called the "Federal Taxpayer Receipt."

Read it and weep.

The website asks you to enter how much you paid in taxes and and then it tells you how much you contributed to our defense budget, Medicaid, and of course, the interest on our ever-skyrocketing national debt.

Of course, they haven't released how much this nifty (and completely unnecessary) website cost. Hmmm, reminds me of another useless project paid for by our government:

Maybe their next project can be a calculator to show how many jobs they could have "saved or created" instead of buying those silly highway signs.

[Hat tip to Mark Matthews at the Orlando Sentinel, who labeled this website as "You don't want to know"]

Rick Scott Twitter Town Hall - Tonight at 7 pm

Our new Governor, Rick Scott, has been making use of technology in ways beyond many other politicians.  The Florida press was in a flurry after Scott announced several key appointments, not with a traditional press release, but on his Facebook page.

Looking back, this move shouldn't have been that much of a surprise to anyone who watched him boldly refuse to sit down with any of the state's newspaper editorial boards during the election (I personally wouldn't have had the nerve, but I have to admire the audacity of what seemed like a dangerously risky move).  But somehow it still made news, with a number of journalists and bloggers noting the uniqueness of Scott's method of communication. I think I saw almost as many posts on Twitter remarking on Scott releasing  the news first on Facebook as posts commenting on the actual hires.

"They still print newspapers on actual paper?  That's quaint.
Anyway, join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and you can see what the papers will be printing in a day or two!"

Well, it should also come as no surprise that our Governor, who is still making the local press all twitchy with his nonchalant attitude towards them (that's what happens when y'all let him prove that he doesn't really need you), is continuing to use new media methods to reach out to his constituents.

Yesterday, Scott posted on Twitter the following invitation:

@FlGovScott: Join me for a Twitter Town Hall tomorrow night at 7pm. Send Q's to @FLGovScott, use #flgov. I will answer as many Q's as I can. #sayfie

So, tune in to http://twitter.com/FLGovScott tonight at 7 pm for an online town hall with Governor Scott.  Should be interesting.