Water Resources Discipline ITAC Activities

I will forward the spec for the optional laptop category to HIF.

Thanks, Paul

Paul E. Exter
Lead IT Specialist
Office of Information Technology
U.S. Geological Survey
(410) 238 - 4234 Work
(410) 375 - 0120 Cell

__________________________________________

ITAC'ers,

I have started the process of trying to get the HIF and Paul Exter linked up to talk about serial ports on laptops, but I haven't been able to touch base with Bill Davies at the HIF.

Therefore, I will cc' both Paul and Bill with this email so that hopefully they will take it from there.

Brian

Brian E. McCallum, Assistant District Chief, Georgia District
U.S. Geological Survey
3039 Amwiler Road, Suite 130
Atlanta, GA 30360
P: 770.903.9127
F: 770.903.9199

___________________________________________

Hi Paul,

No, I was not aware of the memo--I guess I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the memos that pertain to my REAL job, let alone ITAC!

I am more being merely a pipeline for communications to occur. There was a concern raised at the ITAC meeting about reducing the number of waivers by making sure the field requirements were better stated in the recompete.

Steve Blanchard said below that someone from HIF can assist you with any verifying with various field instruments (see email below)

Brian,
Bill Davies of the HIF has been working on this already and will contact you about the HIF helping.

Thanks
Steve

I am cc'ing my fellow data chiefs your email so they can read the memo for themselves and hopefully between you and Bill, this issue can be laid to rest.

Thanks,

Brian

Brian E. McCallum, Assistant District Chief, Georgia District
U.S. Geological Survey
3039 Amwiler Road, Suite 130
Atlanta, GA 30360
P: 770.903.9127
F: 770.903.9199

____________________________________________

Hi Brian,

Just making sure you are aware that the ITO released a memo : http://internal.usgs.gov/gio/ito/hardware/hardware_memo5.html

which assists in easing the requirement for field notebooks.

Right now I am unsure how this may change with the recompete. Just wanted to make sure you were aware.....

Thanks, Paul

Paul E. Exter
Lead IT Specialist
Office of Information Technology
U.S. Geological Survey
(410) 238 - 4234 Work
(410) 375 - 0120 Cell

____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

Brian,
Bill Davies of the HIF has been working on this already and will contact you about the HIF helping.

Thanks
Steve

******************************************************************************
Steve Blanchard 703-648-5629
Chief, Office of Surface Water 703-648-5722 (FAX)
National Center, MS415 571-216-1423 (Cell)
Reston, VA 20192 sfblanch@usgs.gov

____________________________________________

Good morning Steve,

On behalf of ITAC, I am inquiring about the possibility of getting some technical assistance from the HIF with regards to field laptops. As you are probably aware, all laptops must be purchased from a procured contract, including those used for communication with instruments in the field. There was an oversight in the last procurement contract where a serial port was not included in the laptop specifications. The need for a serial port on field laptops is critical to communicate with the field instruments. Thus, a very large number of waivers were needed to purchase laptops for field techs.

ITAC is hoping that with a little communication between Paul Exter--who is in charge of the renewal of the procurement contract--and someone at the HIF who is familiar with all of the instrumentation the USGS uses in the field, that perhaps the waiver process can be avoided or at least reduced significantly. ITAC is also concerned about the possibility of raising the cost of ALL laptops to have this serial port included, when most office-type laptops probably don't need it. This last concern is more directed at Paul E. than the HIF.

If you are ok with this request, could you suggest someone from the HIF that Paul can communicate with?

Thanks,

Brian

Brian E. McCallum, Assistant District Chief, Georgia District
U.S. Geological Survey
3039 Amwiler Road, Suite 130
Atlanta, GA 30360
P: 770.903.9127
F: 770.903.9199