Coco, our beloved two year old mixed terrier, would have been the Auza.Net mascot if not for Techsier’s seniority.  Nevertheless, everybody at home and at the office love him.  On Tuesday, June 2, 2009, at 1PM, we got worried because nobody has seen him for 5 hours already.  The next day, he was still missing.  The family posted ‘Lost Dog’ announcements on street posts and asked around the neighbors.  The search effort has covered more or less half a kilometer radius from our apartment.

At around 6PM, a relative sent me a text message saying he saw a dog that looked like Coco at house just a block away from our apartment.  The search team was sent there and to our relief, it was Coco!  He was so happy to be found that he rolled over many times in excitement.  He got to that house earlier that day and the family decided to put him on a leash.  That was a good thing because he was not able to go further away but he was not also able to go home either and had to wait to be found.

So what were the key factors to his rescue?  First, our ability to produce the poster very quickly.  When we felt that he is not going home since he hasn’t come back for 24 hours already, we decided to create a ‘Lost Dog’ poster.  I had a picture of Coco on Friendster (http://www.friendster.com/photos/44633527/1/971249606) so I copied that to an OpenOffice document, added some text and telephone numbers to contact and printed the document on our laser printer that produced a very high quality print that could be mass produced using good photocopiers.  In a few minutes the poster was completed and reproduced and a few hours later was posted around.

And second, the relative who informed me of Coco’s location wouldn’t have been able to do that if not for the ease of communicating via SMS or text messaging.  Then I was also able to pass on that information to the search team with the same ease.   When he saw the poster, he immediately recognized Coco because the print was quite good.

A decade or so ago, these capabilities may not have been accessible to ordinary people and would have been very expensive.

This is just a simple example of how technology can be put to good use and is in contrast to creating and distributing inappropriate content as discussed last week.

We thank everyone who helped in the search effort and I’m sure Coco, aside from all of us, is happy to be back at home entertaining us with his antics and chasing frogs in the evenings.