What Microsoft Plans to Do About Security on the Internet
June 10th, 2005
If it's anyone's thing, it's Kim Cameron's -- and I don't know anybody I'd be happier having it.
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Virginia Has a Mobile Version of State Web Portal
Just noticed this. Here's Virginia's regular state portal: portal.
Virginia also has a "wireless" version of their state portal. So mobile devices can browse the state website. It's here.
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Star Trek Desktops?
June 6th, 2005
Stanislaus County, Ca., is installing some dumb terminals. Pretty good story about it by the Modesto Bee.
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Tennessee Gov. Bredesen Starts a Blog
June 3rd, 2005
Phil Bredesen, Governor of Tennessee, started a blog in May.
From his first post:
I don't know if this will work. The relative informality and immediacy that makes blogs interesting are at odds with the circumspection and care that a responsible office requires and without which you get your feet tangled up real quick. I'm going to try it for a while, but if it is dull or if the political cost is too great I may need to close up shop at some point in the future. It is really worth giving it a try though.
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New Blog About Microsoft's Upcoming XML Office
June 3rd, 2005
Brian Jones, a program manager over at Microsoft, and who has been working on XML in Office, has put up a blog to talk to people about it.
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Errors Turn out Interesting Information
June 1st, 2005
Some timing errors have showed me that the Web is collecting a lot of valuable information, still relevant, even if old. Old news can become new news.
I recently found out about a blog that I won't name. I got an item from it in my RSS reader about Bill Gates backing up blogs in business. It pointed to this story. The blogger had posted the story as a new news story on his blog -- the BBC story was written a year ago. I didn't know this at first and was in some awe about this story. It seems like now is a good time for Gates to say this with the current corporate interest in blogs.
Anyways, I found the transcript of Gates' speech over at Microsoft and noticed that the date indicated that it was a year old.
I went back to the blog with the post, but the blogger must have realized that it wasn't new news because he took it off.
But I'm happy about that mistake because I'm happy to find out what Gates thinks about blogs in business. I didn't know that before -- news to me. I don't think the blogger should have taken the post off his blog, he should have just added a note that the story was a year old. It was a great blogger post.
On another incident, I was looking at the feed items in my RSS reader for the GOCC blog and for some reason my reader showed that there were a bunch new blog items, so I started looking at them. But actually my reader was wrong and they were old items, but I had already read some of the items and some of them are really interesting.
I particularly liked reading about RSSonate.
There again I was fooled by wrong dates, and happy about it because I found data I liked anyway.
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Rock Regan New Job
May 31st, 2005
Rock Regan, prior State CIO of Connecticut, is now the Director of Business Development for State and Local Government for VMware.
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Instant Messaging in State Government
May 25th, 2005
I'm looking through NASCIO's Research Brief on instant messaging in state government. Story about it here.
This is interesting:
Due to these security concerns, a best practice in the states is to block state employees' use of consumer-grade IM services in the workplace. Otherwise, these services pose risks in terms of allowing state employees to circumvent the state's security measures and the introduction of worms, viruses and the like through unsecured consumer IM services.
In general I think it is okay to stop things like this if you've got a better solution, and the research brief of course has a better solution. The brief recommends that states use enterprise-grade IM services because they can integrate with the states' network and security infrastructure.
Also:
Furthermore, they may include features that will log and archive communications, which can be of assistance in ensuring that IM messages comply with state IM standards and any applicable public records laws or regulations.
The brief gives a list of states that are using IM and that have policies about it.
According to a recent Pew Internet report 46% of the Gen Yers(18-27) report using instant messengers, while 18% of Gen Xers (28-39) use IM. The percentage is even smaller for older generations.
Reminds me of Pew's blog statistics:
Blogging is very much the province of the young. Fully 19% of online Americans ages 18-29 have created blogs, compared to 5% of those 50 and older.
It makes me think. Some governments are concerned about a lot of their employees retiring in the coming years. Maybe a large part of the void will be filled by younger folks right out of school who don't need a lot of money so much as work experience. If that happens, we could see a lot more instant messaging and blogging, and government employees with skill sets that include play station 2, and role playing games.
Update: I just found this article while reading Wayne Hall's blog: Aging to Take Toll on State Workforces. I thought it would be an appropriate article to link to for this post.
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RSS Government
May 23rd, 2005
I've been searching for government RSS feeds today. I think I'm finally going to make the transistion to using an RSS reader a lot instead of looking at Webpages. But RSS feeds are still sparsely populated among government websites.
I've been using Uncle Sam to search for government RSS feeds. Have you heard about Google's Uncle Sam? It's google's government search only search. It only searches government websites.
I found a couple interesting things. King County, in Seattle area, uses del.icio.us to create the RSS feeds for the news on the County's website.
From a New York City Technology Advisory Committee meeting:
Be it resolved:
that better communication between city agencies and between city agencies and the public can be facilitated by the use of RSS.
Therefore:
Queens Community Board 3 requests that all public information be made available in RSS and/or other comparable syndication formats.
Resident Bottom Line: RSS makes it possible to review information from a large number of city websites in a very short time.
Community Board Bottom Line: RSS permits the simple, rapid, and inexpensive distribution of reports, alerts, calendar listings, and other information to residents.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Office has a useful tool to create RSS feed links. It can be used to create a wide range of different feed links that cover information from various agencies.
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Not Much of a Reporter
May 19th, 2005
I don't think I've properly introduced myself. My name is Nick Mudge. I work for Government Technology magazine.
Everything I say here in this blog is my own opinion.
I am the GT News editor for the Govtech Web site. GT news is the news that appears on the homepage of Govtech and the news that appeared on the homepage in the past. At Govtech we have many news channels, which GT news is only one. I'm responsible for GT News and the Homeland Security channel. I've had this job for over a year now.
Since I'm talking about this, I've also got to say that there is a newsletter for GT News called Government Technology Executive News (GTEN), which I also put together. And I also put together the The Homeland Report, which contains the news from the Homeland Security channel.
I can only take some of the credit for GT News, because our Senior Editor and a channels editor, and Government Technology writers, and lots of news sources contribute to GT news on a daily basis. I'm mostly just an editor always looking for the best government technology stories everyday. Got any? Send them my way please.
I noticed that I link to a lot of stuff on the Govtech Web site. Well, I link to anything I find of interest whether it is on Govtech or not. I'm not starting this blog to talk about Government Technology, but to talk about things I'm interested in, in the government and technology spheres.
I'm interested in a wide area of topics with regards to government and technology.
Specifically, I'm most interested in Web development, RSS, XML, Web services, SOA and identity management, both as themselves and how they apply to government.
I'm also really interested in open source, blogs and community development.
What I want to find out about right now is government IT blogging. The large private sector IT companies have really embraced blogging. There's definitely a business case for companies' employees to blog. Just read the zillion blogs and Web sites about it.
Is there sense in state and local government IT employees blogging? Will public sector IT follow private sector on this one?
I always like how Robert Scoble asks his readers what they think.
What do you think?
Technology and Government Blog.
