Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Blogging in DC Phil Windley has been blogging at the Universal Access Collaboration Expedition workshop in Washington, DC.  He presents some great information for government on: the Open GIS Consortium XML Collaborator Web Services Collaboration and Co-sourcing Free and Open Source Software Federal Enterprise Architecture Web Indexing Speaking of open-source, I am going to push for several more open-source tools to be included in the State's software standards documents. Meanwhile, Jim Stewart is dreaming about fiber to his home.  I've got it (just like most of American Fork) but am wondering when the city will ever re-activate it. 6:59:01 AM

Quasi-government Agencies The Utah Transportation Authority (UTA) has developed an award-winning trip planning service.  The online service allows you to enter your home address (or another location) and your destination.  It can be another address or a landmark (such as the State Capitol).  The system then calculates how long it will take you to walk to the nearest bus stop and the time it will take to get to your destination (you can specify the time you want to arrive and it will find the best alternatives).  It uses a lot of GIS data and keeps track of your preferences so that the next time you search, any address you have used previously is a selection box option. In Utah, UTA is considered to be a "quasi" governmental entity.  They receive some government funding and the legislature exercises some controls, but they are not really part of the executive branch.  Other quasi governmental agencies have some nice online services as well.  For example, you can order tickets online for the Heber Valley Railroad, manage your account if you are a Utah Housing Corporation homeowner, or manage your 401k portfolio if you are a member of Utah Retirement Systems.  Although these agencies are not strictly part of the executive branch, we need to include them in developing portal applications that service specific constituencies. 6:43:58 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.