Monday, December 08, 2003

Utah Legislative News now available as in RSS The Utah Legislature has created an RSS channel with general interest news items including notices of the Legislature's Interim Newsletter, audit results and other significant content changes on their website.  They envision many other uses for RSS in the future.  I am really excited about this development.  We now have quite a few RSS channels, including utah. gov news, Utah business news, the Governor's news, Utah library news, etc.   I am hoping to put together a subscription page at some point in time that will make it easier for interested users to subscribe to the various news channels. 5:13:09 PM    comment []

Scrolling RSS News Feed from Utah Business News *test* 3:27:41 PM    comment []

Systemwide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange The Markle Homeland Security Taskforce proposes a new decentralized network for homeland security.  Their latest report calls for the President to set forth the structure for this network in a series of executive orders.  The DHS would be the lead agency charged with implementation, but the report also outlines responsiblities for the FBI and other agencies with homeland security responsibilities. Advanced copies of the principles and action plan documents for the World Summit on the Information Society which meets later this week are now available.  This may become a contentious session as others try to wrest more control of the internet away from the U.S. More concerns about e-voting December 2003 Fiscal Survey of the States 2:06:32 PM    comment []

The Leavitt Legacy The latest in a series of articles on the Leavitt legacy appeared in yesterday's Deseret News.  This one focuses on the technology legacy.  (this picture is from one of many magazine covers that discussed Governor Leavitt's vision for e-government) It ends with this quote from Governor Leavitt:  "I would like to be viewed as the governor who guided Utah through the transformation of the Information Age. All that really matters is that I feel I have done my part." So be it... 8:34:02 AM    comment []

December Infragard Meeting The Infragard meeting on 12/17/03 will be at the Salt Lake City Public Library, 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, UT in Conference Room B, Level 1.  The speakers for this month's meeting have changed slightly.  The speakers and their  topics will be as follows: Ken Crook - "Terrorism - The Threat" Karl Schmae - "Securing the Homeland and Terrorism Indicators" 8:07:37 AM    comment []

Wireless Resources There is a growing number of excellent resources focused on the development of wireless networks.  Here are a few of my favorites. Daily Wireless Wireless Developer Network Community Wireless WiFi Planet O'Reilly Wireless DevCenter For those who get involved with the UWIN project that do not have a background in wireless, I would recommend PSWN's primer on managing wireless networks. 7:59:14 AM    comment []

Location-Based Services According to the PSI Group, "If there is a single Web-enabled function that defines the leading edge of egovernment implementation, it is the presence of online GIS applications."  The effective use of GIS is key to being able to provide location-based services.  In a recent meeting of our wireless citizen portal team, we discussed location-based services as one of the key components for a wireless portal.  In the future, the wireless government portal will recognize the location of the user and respond with relevant services and information.  This will include voice, data, video, etc. depending on the needs and requirements of the user.  PSI's recently published whitepaper gives many examples of how GIS is being used creatively by local government. I recently wrote about Provo City's online parking ticket appeals service.  Charles Kaylor of the PSI Group responds: My organization, the Public Sphere Information Group maintains the Municipality eGovernment Assessment Project (www.psigroup.biz/megap), which tracks 75 some odd performance dimensions that relate for the most part to specific online services and features (some odder than others as it turns out).  One of them is contesting parking tickets. So here's some data from our second wave of observations of all cities over 100K (conducted in 2001 -- Wave 3 will be released soon, I'll keep you posted): -- 3 other cities with interactive parking ticket referees:  Charlotte, NC; Cambridge, MA and Stamford, CT -- 9 cities make a "contest your ticket" form available for download (Berkeley, CA; Des Moines,IA; Escondido, CA; Modesto, CA; New York, NY; Raleigh, NC; Riverside, CA; San Jose, CA; and Winston-Salem, NC) -- Another 25 provide contact information or some other information about parking ticket contestation. That's a total of 37 cities out of 239 offering this feature (a distinct minority to be sure -- 15.4%) I really only consider the first to be a real e-government online service and unique from providing a form or information.  That could just as easily be provided, and often is, when the ticket is received. 7:33:38 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David Fletcher.