Some "entertaining" facts facts about Thanksgiving, from the fun folks at the U.S. Census Bureau.
The National Archives and Records Administration has released an online version of the Warren Commission Report, presumably in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the JFK assasination last week (link via beSpacific).
The reminds me of a couple years ago when the Starr Report was published online and so many millions visitors hit the site. It was, for many people, their first interaction with eGovernment. People love a scandel, but if it encourages the citizenry to interact, ask question, and become aware of resources otherwise unfamiliar, I'd have to say that's a good thing.
I've been doing a little reading about the use of top level domains (TLDs) by government agencies. Some use .com, others .org, and others .gov, and that makes it difficult to a) find information you need, and b) judge the authenticity of information once you find it. The last I've read of the ICANN rules, .gov domains were meant for federal agencies only, but the format should, technically, be something along the line of "whatever.gov.us", which is how other nations configure their systems.
I ran across a list of all the official state websites (via the eGovernance Institute. About half the states use a format of "state.two state abbreviation.us" - for example "www.state.al.us" for Alabama. It is great to see the beginings of uniformity with the URL naming conventions. Unfortunately, the rest of the state sites use any variety of formats - including some that incoprorate marketing speak - like TennesseAnytime.org and YourOklhaoma.com.
Personally, I'd like to see something along the lines of "TwoLetterStateAbbreviation.gov.us" for states, "city.TwoLetterStateAbbreviation.gov.us" for city and county governments, and "agency.fed.gov.us" for national government. But maybe that's just me.
As the bill currently stands, Congress will approve only $3 million to go to the E-Government Fund, which is a pool of money that all Federal agencies draw from for their department's eGov initiatives. That figure is down from $5 million last year, and $52 million less than was slated for the fund when it was created by the E-Government Act of 2002.
A number of Federal intiatives are budgeted with their own line items, and several of these will receive significant funding, including $35 million for NARA's Electronic Records Project, and $56.3 million for the GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy.
The first batch of outdoor Internet pay phones debuted in New York City earlier this week. The phones allow users to make voice calls at the usual rates, but also provides high speed internet access at 25 cents per minute. People can check email, visit websites, though pornography is blocked (it'd be interesting to learn what filtering method they use), and even send digital photos via the built in webcam for an additional charge.
What makes this news relevant here is that (although it wasn't mentioned in the article) access to the City's website is available for FREE through these terminals. There are hardly enough of these terminals to significantly bridge any digital divide. Imagine stopping into one of these phones to check traffic conditions, pay parking tickets immediately after receiving them, always be able to locate the nearest subway station, or any number of other services available on the City's website.
A UN sponsored report looked at the municipalities across the world and rated their level of eGovernance based on number of metrics. The study looked at 80 large cities and analyzed them using 92 measures in five core areas: 1. Security and Privacy, 2. Usability, 3. Content, 4. Services, and 5. Citizen Participation.
Four of the overall top five cities came from Asia (1. Seoul, 2. Hong Kong, 3. Singapore, 4. New York, and 5. Shanghai).
The full report is available here, and a table listing the cities in their rankings in each category is available here.
Washington Technology, a subdivision of the WaPo released a list of the Top 100 Government IT Contractors. I'd be interested to see how they defined "IT" considering that most of the names on the list are the usual suspects, as far as government contractors go (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc). Each of the 100 is described, and several of their projects discussed. Here is the article describing the list. But, more interesting is the list broken down by industry (no surprise, defense companies take up 6 of the top 10 spots, and represent half the dollar value of the top 100 contractors).
Not that anyone was likely to have missed me, but I'm back to work on the site, here on my own, new domain.
I'll be implementing a new design as soon as I get a little time, but I thought it important to actually get back into the swing of things as soon as possible, rather than waiting on any formalities like that.
I'm also going through the older entries and categorizing them, which should help people comming to the site find stories of interest, and help me to discover my own interests.