Turn out lights on LIPA boss

Now LIPA’s chief has something in common with thousands of Long Island residents — they’re out of power.

Interim CEO Mike Hervey — who still has 45,000 total customers without electricity after Hurricane Sandy — will step down at the end of this year.

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees I have accepted his resignation, with regret,” said LIPA Chairman Howard Steinberg.

Hervey resigned the same day Gov. Cuomo authorized a commission to “investigate the response, preparation, and management of New York’s power utility companies with major storms hitting the state over the past two years, including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee,” according to a statement from the governor. The commission can issue subpoenas and examine witnesses under oath.

AP

LIVING IN THE DARK AGES: Virginia Portella lugs a cart full of groceries up to her third-floor apartment in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Houses yesterday as the elevator remains out and residents are forced to live without electricity more than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy struck.

LIPA customers aren’t the only ones still in the dark.

Neighborhoods and buildings across the region are still without electricity 16 days after Sandy struck and utility companies are sticking some of the blame on powerless residents.

About 424,000 customers in the Rockaways, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, Staten Island, the Lower East Side, Midland Beach, Coney Island, Nassau, Suffolk and New Jersey still need juice, utility officials said yesterday.

About 39,000 of those outages, mostly Con Ed and LIPA customers, could get power, but an electrician needs to inspect their home equipment first.

It’s a slow and confusing process.

Richard Aloi, 57, a Staten Island landlord, had power restored to two of his Midland Avenue buildings yesterday, but not before he shelled out $400 to have an electrician inspect four meters that he said were not even touched by water.

“They’re afraid to get sued — they misled me on everything!” Aloi said.

In Manhattan, Knickerbocker Village residents are still freezing as they wait for electricity to get turned back on after flooding in the basement.

“Some days it’s warmer outside than it is in the house,” said Debbie Felice, 43, an MTA station supervisor, who lives in the Lower East Side facility.

“It’s like we’ve been forgotten about over here. It’s tough trying to get up and go to work when it’s freezing in the house and there’s no hot water, there’s no heat. I still have no electricity in the apartment either. It’s terrible.”

Con Ed has 4,000 customers waiting to have their homes inspected.

And those numbers grow considerably when Con Ed factors in affected public housing complexes where a “customer” can be hundreds of residents.

As of Sunday, 30,000 New York City Housing Authority residents didn’t have power — though that number has dropped since then.

Still, a Con Ed executive declared yesterday, “We essentially have power up in all areas.

“The only issues that exist now is if customers are able to take the power from us,” spokesman Bob McGee said.

As for LIPA, 10,000 people in Nassau and Suffolk still have outages, and another 35,000 in the Rockaways, Nassau and Suffolk need inspections.

And in New Jersey, only 78 percent of 1.7 million PSE&G customers have power restored — 375,000 remain in the dark due to downed lines.

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the city will open seven centers in Far Rockaway, Gravesend, Coney Island, Staten Island, Red Hook, Breezy Point and Throggs Neck-Pelham to connect residents and businesses with financial, health, environmental, nutritional, FEMA and residential services.

“There are a lot of residents who are going to be without power for a long time. Rather than complain about it or even write about it, we’re trying to do something about it,” Bloomberg said.

As for NYCHA houses, he said they “see the finish line” for power.

And Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a $20 billion initiative to protect the city from storm surges, with a sea wall, bulkheads, dunes, wetlands and floodgates.

In other developments:

* Bloomberg said gas rationing will go on for at least five more days.

* The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opened one lane for cars.

* Alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations will be reinstated in most areas.

* Nassau County police are investigating an assault of a Florida utility worker — here to help Sandy relief efforts — who was beaten outside an East Meadow restaurant as he got out of his truck.

Tomorrow, President Obama will visit many areas without power, such as Staten Island, the Rockaways and Nassau.

“He should definitely come [here],” said Brenda Pratt, 49, of Coney Island. “This is a disaster. He should look at what Sandy did to us. I gave him my vote, I want to see him.

Additional reporting by David Seifman, Sally Goldenberg, Liz Sadler and Kieran Crowley

leonard.greene@nypost.com

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No touch screen? Stick with Windows 7

Q. I recently had to replace my 9-year-old Windows XP computer, and am having trouble adapting to Windows 7.

What are the advantages, if any, for me to upgrade to Windows 8, which I’ve read has touch-screen capability and works with other equipment besides desktop computers? Since I don’t have a touch screen, I’m wondering if there is any point in upgrading.

Peter Robinson Chaska, Minn.

Different versions of Windows 8 are being offered on PCs, tablet computers and smartphones. But in every case the new operating system is primarily aimed at people who are using touch-sensitive screens.

So unless you’re planning to buy a touch-screen device in connection with upgrading to Windows 8, you’re probably better off continuing to use Windows 7. By most accounts, using the touch-screen-oriented Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard is more difficult than using previous Windows versions with a mouse and keyboard.

In addition, if you find the changes in Windows 7 to be challenging, I suspect you won’t enjoy the more radical changes embodied in Windows 8 (i.e., much different start screen.)

I’m not saying you should never upgrade to Windows 8; just let Microsoft deal with some of these usability issues first.Q. I disagree with your warning to never click the unsubscribe link to put a stop to spam emails. Totally inundated with spam, I began unsubscribing and cut my spam down from more than 50 a day to one or two.

Some spam senders were more difficult to shake than others. I threatened a nonexistent Florida corporation that I would go to their state attorney general’s office, but never heard from them again. I gave a dental company a taste of their own medicine until they finally stopped sending me email. Others just took me off their lists pronto. It has been well worth the effort.

Deborah Gray Mitchell North Miami

Your strategy will work with legitimate companies and with spammers who can be located and threatened with legal action.

Unfortunately, most spam producers are neither legitimate nor traceable. When you respond to their emails, you confirm that yours is a working email address, and therefore fair game.

At the same time, you’ve essentially challenged some spammers to a duel, a risky business because they know your email address. Make sure you have a strong email password to prevent tampering.

Congratulations on your success, but I can’t recommend your approach to others.

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Miami police: Two found shot inside a car

Two people were found shot in a car early Tuesday morning, according to Miami police.

Investigators are at the shooting at Northwest 11th Avenue and 43rd Street.

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.

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One Direction on What They Look for in a Girl

Ellen DeGeneres is holding her biggest outdoor concert ever with British pop sensation One Direction on Thursday, and we have an advance clip.

RELATED: One Direction Plays Catch with Super Bowl Champ

During the sit-down portion, the boys answer the crucial questions: Which members are single and what do they look for in a girl?

"I like someone that's cute. Someone I can have a laugh with. And I also like people that are American. And you all qualify," said Niall Horan, 19, sending the crowd of teenage girls into frenzy.

Tune in to The Ellen DeGeneres Show November 15 for the full interview and concert. The band's sophomore studio album Take Me Home is available now.

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Queens school’s student exodus

UPI

Debris from damaged homes lies piled up across the street from the shuttered PS 114 in Belle Harbor.

Hurricane Sandy scattered hundreds of students from one Queens school — to locales as far away as Nashville.

At least 230 students from Belle Harbor’s PS 114 have enrolled in public schools in other parts of the city — the most by far of any storm-struck city school — while dozens of others are now in schools in Long Island, Connecticut, Virginia and Tennessee.

The school was among more than a half-dozen in the Rockaways battered by the storm — which damaged many houses in the surrounding neighborhood as well.

“My closest friends and my family either all live in Rockaway or [the hard-hit Long Island town of] Long Beach, so we didn’t really have places to go that were not two hours away,” said Monica Kalfur, who sent her 9-year-old daughter to live with a cousin and attend parochial school 900 miles away in Tennessee.

The mom, whose house was severely damaged by the storm, said just one student in her daughter’s fourth-grade class has shown up at an alternative site set up by the city in Glendale, Queens, 12 miles away.

“It just worked better trying to keep her in one place while we’re trying to work on the house,” Kalfur added. “She’ll come home right after Thanksgiving, and we’ll figure out where we’re living.”

Some parents said the city’s solution for their damaged school building — sending kids there, then having them board shuttle buses at 7 a.m. to one of three alternative sites — just didn’t work.

Attendance for PS 114 students at the three sites last week ranged from 2 to 10 percent.

“We weren’t given any information on our school or any idea when it is going to open... so all of the families immediately scattered,” said Missy Reder, who needs to wake up at 5 a.m. at a friends’ home on Long Island in order to get her four kids to the shuttle bus.

Other PS 114 families are driving in from Staten Island or renting apartments near the temporary school sites, according to posts on a Facebook page.

“The problem is nobody knows where they’re living the next week,” added Reder. “Most of us, we’re bouncing around.”

As of today, about 18,000 city students are still in relocated schools.

Officials said PS 114 would be among 31 schools they expect to fully repair by month’s end. Six other damaged schools - including PS 207 in Howard Beach - won’t be ready until 2013.

Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello

yoav.gonen@nypost.com

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Noven’s niche: The Miami company is key producer of transdermal patches

At the Noven Pharmaceuticals plant in southwest Miami, scientists and technicians use highly specialized machinery to blend prescription medications and adhesives to make layered transdermal patches that release precise quantities of drugs over time after being applied to a patient’s skin.

Noven, a subsidiary of Japan’s Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical, has about 700 employees nationwide and ranks as a relatively small player among pharma giants. Nonetheless, the company, a leading research and development center for medicinal patches, produces a line of specialty pharmaceuticals and is the U.S. market leader in sales of estrogen patches for women.

“By industry standards, Noven is a small company,” said Jeffrey F. Eisenberg, Noven’s Miami-based president and CEO. “But we have a line of specialized products that competes successfully in the U.S. and overseas. We are experts in developing transdermal patches and produce other pharmaceutical products.”

In one key market — estrogen patches for women — Noven holds about a 68 percent share, he added. And the company has a robust research and development department in Miami at work on a variety of new drugs.

Medications may be delivered to patients orally, via injection or through transdermal patches, which can administer drugs slowly over an extended period of time. While Noven makes products other than medicinal patches, it devotes an important share of resources to transdermal patch technology.

“We have a talented group of scientists who are at the forefront of this specialty,” Eisenberg said. “We have M.D.s, PhDs in biology and chemistry and chemical engineers who specialize in pressure-sensitive adhesives and polymer chemistry.”

Noven has won more than 30 U.S. and 100 international patents and is developing several new drugs. The company recently announced it is making progress on studies to evaluate a new, amphetamine-based transdermal patch for treating Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents. Currently, there is no such patch approved for use with ADHD, the company said.

Noven also has applied to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for approval of a new oral, non-hormonal medication to treat menopausal hot flashes.

Making patches is a complex process that requires the design and development of an ideal combination of drug, adhesive and backing, Eisenberg said. Patches must be formulated so that they will deliver a safe and effective dose of medication over a period of time and adhere to the skin as required.

At the Noven patch facility, which has the capacity for making 500 million patches per year, active drug compounds are mixed with custom adhesives in large, specialized kettles. The mix of drug and adhesive is then applied to sheets of release liner material under very precise tolerances. Noven removes a blending solvent from the compound and applies the backing material, making a three-layer patch. Laminate rolls subsequently are sent to punching, pouching and packing machines (Patches are punched into different sizes.). All of this occurs under strict quality control procedures and is not open to the public.

Noven was founded in 1987 by Steven Sablotsky, a chemical engineer, who had worked for another pharmaceutical firm and was an expert in transdermal patches. Noven went public in 1988 and operated as a publicly-traded company until it was taken over in 2009 by Hisamitsu, a Japanese pharmaceutical company that also manufactures and markets transdermal patches. (Salonpas, an over-the-counter analgesic patch widely advertised in South Florida, is made by Hisamitsu.)

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Keys substitute teacher facing 130 child-porn counts

A now-former substitute teacher in Keys schools has been accused of possessing a huge cache of child porn.

William Britt, 55, formerly of Cudjoe Key, is charged with 123 counts of possessing child pornography and seven counts of possessing a photograph of a sexual performance by a child. All are felonies.

Records provided by the Monroe County School District's Human Resources Department indicate Britt earned $100 daily substituting at Horace O'Bryant Middle School, Sugarloaf School, Key West High School, Marathon High School, Poinciana Elementary School, Glynn Archer Elementary School and Gerald Adams Elementary School.

He was taken to the Monroe County Jail on Thursday on $145,000 bond.

In some cases, Britt, who started working as a sub in 2010, worked with prekindergarten and special-needs students.

In a prepared statement Friday, schools Superintendent Mark Porter said "at the time of his original hire, Mr. Britt was subject to and successfully passed all of the background screening and fingerprinting efforts that the School District requires of all employees. In fact, there is no indication in Mr. Britt's background of any prior criminal misconduct.

"There is also currently no evidence or indication that Mr. Britt committed misconduct in his role as a teacher or substitute teacher."

Monroe Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin said Britt came to the agency's attention after his former landlord saw child porn in a box as he was helping Britt move out earlier this month. The landlord called authorities.

Britt was arrested following a search of his recreational vehicle, parked at the U.S. Navy's Sigsbee Park, where he reportedly moved from Cudjoe. In it, Herrin said, detectives found the child porn along with a sawed-off shotgun and a loaded handgun.

During an interview with a detective, Britt said he knows he is "sick" and that he works at schools "because he enjoys the company," Herrin said.

Deputy Anthony Fuentes wrote in a report that pictures he saw from Britt's collection were "extremely disturbing," depicting naked children as young as age 6 performing sex acts. Evidence includes photographs, videos, computer hard drives and other digital storage devices.

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BBC says its news chief, deputy have 'stepped aside' due to child abuse scandal fallout

LONDON — The BBC says its news chief and her deputy have 'stepped aside' while the broadcaster deals with the fallout from a child abuse scandal that forced its director-general to resign.

Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news and current affairs, and her deputy, Steve Mitchell, have handed over their responsibilities to others for the time being, BBC media correspondent Torin Douglas said Monday.

There was no formal announcement from the corporation.

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Self-publishing industry explodes, brings rewards, challenges

The publishing world is being upended, and reinvented, by people like Hugh Howey, Ily Goyanes and Kristy Montee.

They are part of a movement using the power of e-books and the Internet to lead publishing into a new frontier, and through the biggest upheaval of the industry since Guttenberg’s press.

“It’s the Wild West,” Montee said. “It is literally changing at the speed of light.”

Howey is a writer who authored, designed, formatted and self-published all but the very first of his 14 novelettes and stories as e-books — and saw his Wool series of sci-fi stories make the Top 100 Kindle Best Sellers of 2012, above J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy and the four-book bundle of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.

Goyanes is one of a new breed of independent publishers filling the void between self-publishing and traditional publishing giants, offering technical, marketing and distribution help for do-it-yourself authors.

Montee is a Fort Lauderdale-based writer better known to her readers — along with her sister and writing partner, Kelly Nichols — as P.J. Parrish, the pseudonymous author of the Louis Kincaid and Joe Frye thriller series. She’s among the new “hybrid authors,” with a foot in both traditional and the self-published worlds.

“For a long, long, long time in our business anything that you published yourself just had a stench of amateurism about it,” she said. “That was just for desperate people who couldn’t make their way through the labyrinth of the New York system, so they resorted to paying pretty much scam artists to publish their books for them at great expense. And then, Amazon came out with the Kindle, which pretty much changed everything.”

With the stigma fading, and Amazon’s help, self-publishing has exploded. On its website, Publishers Weekly last month cited a new analysis of data from Bowker, which shows the number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287 percent since 2006, with 235,625 print and e-titles released in 2011.

As a “mid-list author” with 13 moderately successful books to her name, Montee felt the pressure when her publisher began trimming its author list to reduce costs.

“So a lot of us, and this includes a lot of my friends,” began looking for ways to survive independently, Montee said. “Amazon made it extremely easy and very attractive to go self-publish through their model.”

She and her sister regained rights to two of their early books to re-publish and have a novella in the works they plan to self-publish.

The advantages, and the profits, can be huge. The downside, of course, would make a Vegas gambler sweat.

“The largest, by far, percentage of authors are making less than $500 a year self-publishing, because there’s a glut,” said M.J. Rose, a best-selling novelist and founder of the writer’s marketing company AuthorBuzz.com. “There’s over 350,000 books being self-published every year and readers are not finding them. There’s just no way to expose people to all of these books.”

Howey, however, who spends mornings writing at his home in Jupiter, might be the perfect example of what “making it” looks like in this thoroughly modern twist on every writer’s dream. He began writing while working at a bookstore, and he received a modest advance when a small press picked up his first novel.

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Course to explore Jewish communities in Asia, Africa

Florida International University research professors Nathan Katz and Tudor Parfitt, considered to be the world’s leading authorities on Eastern Jewish communities, will explore the Jewish experience in Asia and Africa in a new, 13-week course to be offered at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, 301 Washington Ave. in Miami Beach.

The course will look at the Jewish experience far beyond Florida, which has been the traditional focus of the museum. Among the Jewish populations of Africa to be explored include the Lemba of Zimbabwe, the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and the Ibo of Nigeria. The Asian communities include the Jews of Kochi; Mumbai and northeastern tribal peoples of India; Shanghai, China, a home in the 19th century to Sephardic Jews seeking business opportunities and refuge in the 1930s-40s to European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution; and a "Judaizing " movement in Papua New Guinea.

Classes start in January and are open to both degree-seeking FIU students and community members interested in taking it on an auditing

basis. The class will be the first FIU offering at the Miami Beach museum, which recently joined the FIU family.

The classes will feature guest speakers, including a visiting member of Zimbabwe’s Lemba Jewish community.

Before joining FIU earlier this year, Parfitt was director of the Jewish Studies Center at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, where he was dubbed "Britain’s Indiana Jones" for his pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant and his discoveries of remote Jewish communities.

Katz is Bhagwan Mahavir Professor of Jain Studies and is director of FIU’s Program in the Study of Spirituality. He spent many years living in South Asoa and is a recipient of four Fulbright research and teaching awards. He was instrumental in bringing the Dalai Lama to Miami three times and has played an influential role in the interreligious dialogues between Jews and Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.

Degree-seeking FIU students may register for the class though Nov. 18. Community members who want to audit the class should contact the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education at 305-576-4030, ext. 128 or by emailing carlaspector@caje-miami.org. The cost for the 13-week course is $295.

Books club at the garden

The Green Book Club will begin its monthly meetings on Nov. 13, at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Center Dr. in Miami Beach.

My sources tell me the meetings, which are from noon to 2 p.m., are a great place to meet new people and become a better reader/writer by experiencing books in a whole new way.

The group reads and discusses environmentally-themed books chosen and read during the month preceding each meeting, which is on the second Tuesday of every month. This month’s pick is "Vita’s Other World: A Gardening Biography of V. Sackville-West," by Jane Brown (Viking, 1985).

Also, floral design classes, taught by accredited floral designers, will begin at the garden on Nov. 27. The designers will combine lectures, demos, and critiqued hands-on workshops to develop an understanding of the art of flower arranging. The class runs from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is the first part of a six-part floral design study hosted by the Miami Beach Garden Club.

The cost is $26 per class, or $150 for all six. A certificate from the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs will be awarded those who complete the six courses. Lunch is included in the cost. To register, email Nina Worth at ninanevanu@gmial.com or call 305-532-9987.

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