Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Voice on the Internet According to Jeremy Allaire, "people are now finally understanding that "Voice" is just an "application on the Internet", rather than it's own whole infrastructure universe."  Back in the mid-90's, Tribal Voice supported a product called PowWow - probably my favorite internet application of all time.  I would chat most of the night with people from Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia, Hong Kong, even Russia discussing new ideas and concepts associated with the internet and what they were doing in their countries.  We learned html together on Geocities.  Voice was a feature early on, also with products like Freetel.  Bandwidth helps with the quality issues, but VoIP is still in its infancy.    5:46:47 PM    comment []

Provo City's IT Focus Three public forums on iProvo will be held, beginning today.  The forums will discuss the benefits of fiber optics and financial information related to this ambitious municipal broadband project.  Provo's mayor, Lewis Billings lists the city's most significant accomplishments during 2003.  Here are a few that interested me: In addition to the FTTH (Fiber to the Home) demonstration project, the system is connected to approximately 500 apartment units and 15 businesses with services from a retail provider. Provo is helping and benefitting from telecom connections to other non-Provo projects such as the Canyon Meadow development (60 units), the Parkway Crossing development (188 units), and data services to Spanish Fork and American Fork. A new one-stop business registration program was successfully initiated in cooperation with Salt Lake City, Sandy City, a number of state agencies, and the IRS to develop a system through which a new business owner can register with all necessary agencies at one time. The annual budget and Comprehensive Annual Financial Report were distributed on CD and made available on the Provo City web-site, saving on printing costs and increasing their usability. Usage of the procurement card program, which streamlines the purchasing process and saves administrative costs for the City, increased by 183%. A major upgrade to the Human Resource Management, Payroll, and Benefits software programs was achieved, converting the system to an Internet architecture.  A new enterprise management system (CA Unicenter) with Network and System Monitoring, Asset Management, and Software Deployment was installed. An upgrade to the Public Safety backroom area was completed which included the replacement of servers, upgrade of the NetRMS report management system, installation and conversion of the existing Police CAD system, installation of a new firewall and router on the state WAN, and a new VPN solution for secure remote access to police records. All CDPD systems in police vehicles were upgraded to GPRS for 5x increase in speed and improvements in coverage.  This also included upgrading and enhancing the PSI software for patrol cards to allow near-realtime dispatch information and department-specific search capabilities. A wireless network for patron laptops was installed (City Library) This really is a pretty impressive list (I've only mentioned a fraction) and demonstrates that Provo is still a pretty progressive place. 7:39:29 AM    comment []

Immigration Karl Nelson says that a single sign-on / authentication system is a must-have for any "decent-sized" organization.  He reports that the University of Washington has such a system (UWID).  He also mentions Keith Robinson's efforts to use Movable Type as the key infrastructure for a hospital intranet. Looking for a response from Presidente Vicente Fox of Mexico to President Bush's announcement on immigration reform.  El Presidente has a column called Fox Contigo directed at the general citizenry.  I guess I'm ahead of things a little since Bush hasn't even made his speech yet. Immigration.gov doesn't exist anymore.  You will find US Citizen and Immigration Services at uscis.gov.  The Data Management Improvement Act Task Force submitted its second annual report to Congress in December.  There's a lot of interesting stuff here, including a section on data interoperability. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, posted his resolve for 2004 on www.state.gov.  On free trade: We also made important strides in 2003 toward a more open international trade and investment climate, signing free trade pacts with Chile, Singapore and the countries of Central America. In 2004 the president will lead the effort to reinvigorate our global free trade strategy, and to advance regional and bilateral free trade as opportunities arise. His proposal to develop a Middle East free trade agreement is high on the agenda. BNA has some interesting stuff on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.  More on USTR.gov 7:04:46 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David Fletcher.