AI Identifier |
Person(s) Assigned / Description of Action Item / Status of AI/Comment |
Person(s) Assigned: Kevin Gallagher and Donna Hector-Sabin Issue: Password Management Issue Description of Action Item: Kevin and Donna will look into a common USGS password policy, trying to match other government systems that we have no control over, including change cycle, frequency, consistency, and rules for allowable and required characters. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- Donna Hector-Sabin, who initially owned this action item, reported that Kevin Gallagher forwarded an update on this to Paul Exter; unfortunately, the issue wasn't really addressed. [Reference e-mail dated 3/15/05 from Donna Hector-Sabin to ITAC.] Terri Moore now owns this action item and will follow up on this issue. 5/27/05 update - ongoing Reference Tom Wood's 5/26/05 e-mail on Lotus Notes Client password. This was discussed at ITEM. A Microsoft employee/consultant suggested to have different passwords for everything. Action for ITAC? Need to have conversation with CTO... Need to keep it on front burner. ("Is it okay to put passwords in wallet as long as such lists are away from computer workstations?") Ken Lanfear can talk with Tom Wood to see if CTO is taking action on this. Need to take to the Dept., relate it to AD. Can put out policy. KeePass is a "positive" solution to this problem; can put passwords on a memory stick and keep it with you. Reference Terri Moore’s 5/31/05 e-mail to ITAC. 6/17/05 update -- Terri will send a note to Ellen Erickson, to get update on this - either by an e-mail or a call-in. No real details in e-mail message from Tom Wood. There may be a security issue. Ellen can at least give a briefing, and give the status of working with Lotus Notes staff. A lot of people are using KeePass. 7/29/05 – update – Terri Moore is still working with this. Ellen Rierson and Roy McCullough will call into Maine meeting. (Trying to control passwords that we can.) We do have control of Lotus Notes one. DOI recommended 90; Lotus Notes 60. BITSM Team to come out; tools? KeePass? Lester North looking at something else. Still working with this. Formal reply will come via e-mail. 8/18/05 update - COMPLETED |
|
Feb2005.GA.2 |
Person(s) Assigned: Terri Moore Issue: KeePass Description of Action Item: Terri will make sure KeePass gets e-mailed to ITAC members. SAs will notify users that it is available. Status of AI/Comment: COMPLETED - Reference Terri's e-mail of 2/25/05. |
Feb2005.GA.3 |
Person(s) Assigned: Sandy Williamson and Jim Bettandorf Issue: MS Enterprise Agreement and Desktop Cost Savings Description of Action Item: Sandy and Jim will estimate and communicate, according to the MS Enterprise agreement, per server and per desktop cost, and recommend strategies for cost center consideration. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- Waiting for Paul Exter to reply with "numbers." 4/15/05 update -- Ongoing -- Paul Exter has not asked for help. Jeff Stoner will try to contact Paul. 5/27/05 update - Sandy and Jim had conference call with Paul Exter – We are paying roughly $200/year, per server per desktop. Headquarters is paying this. When AD is installed (FY06), it’ll be more. Not sure if it’ll be “cost-recovered” or not. (Reference Sandy’s 5/27/05 e-mail to ITAC—follow-up on MS Office/XP/server Enterprise Agreement costs.) Sandy suggested sending an e-mail to cost centers and SAs outlining parameters. Katherine Lins suggested a memo should go out to cost centers (much as the cost-recovery memos go out). If this communication comes from Water it should be from OWI. If not the message should come from the GIO. Katherine will draft the memo and will discuss with the GIO how to communicate the message. 7/29/05 – update - Katherine suggested GIO put out communication; Paul Exter said not until sometime in August. COMPLETED (from ITAC standpoint) |
Feb2005.GA.4 |
Person(s) Assigned: Donna Schiffer and Brian McCallum Issue: Serial Port Information for Laptops Description of Action Item: Donna and Brian will review serial port information on laptops used in the field -- to see if it's needed -- as requested by Paul Exter. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- ongoing 3/23/05 update -- Per e-mail from Brian, he has started the process of trying to get the HIF and Paul Exter linked up to talk about serial ports on laptops, but has not been able to touch base with Bill Davies at the HIF. In response to Brian's e-mail, Paul will forward the spec for the optional laptop category to HIF. Reference continued 2/11/05 e-mail thread. 4/15/05 update - COMPLETED |
Feb2005.GA.5 |
Person(s) Assigned: Chris Leeth, Brian Reece, David Boldt, and Sonja Sebree Issue: Planning Dynamic Web Pages and District Web Page Design Description of Action Item: Chris, Brian, and David, with Howard Perlman assisting, will help to pull technical group together to investigate/build a business case to "scale" Perlman's Web site/needs - not replicate it. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- [Note: Feb2005.GA9 was combined with this action item.] Dynamic Web page is still being worked on, with help of David Boldt; not much to report yet. Comparing PHP (zero cost and it's already on NatWeb) vs ColdFusion (CF). Brian Reece and Sonja Sebree volunteered to be on the team with Chris Leeth and Howard Perlman. Sonja contacted Wyoming and Missouri Districts about their Web pages. Ken Lanfear will be working on this too. He said the Vis-ID designs work well. Sonja will report back on this at the August meeting. Meanwhile, we can use the Water Web template, while waiting for HQ template, which was supposed to be out by the end of 1/05. (New date 3/29/05?) Ken will send out Web page template to ITAC. [See Mar15.2005.Telecon.1.] 4/15/05 update -- Chris Leeth thinks ColdFusion (CF) is the way to go. It's better for the smaller districts. The Dept. uses it. Safety training is done in CF. Chris is moving forward with it. Brian Reece said CF can make dynamic Web pages. Database isn't available in NatWeb directly, but NatWeb is working on it; it's something they need. There is a firewall/C&A issue. 4/15/05 update -- Merged with Mar15.2005.Telecon.1. COMPLETED |
Feb2005.GA.6 |
Person(s) Assigned: Jeff Stoner via ITAC summary notes Issue: Recommend ITEM Monday Sessions to District Chiefs Description of Action Item: Status of AI/Comment: COMPLETED - Reference Jeff Stoner's 2/25/05 e-mail of ITAC summary notes to District Chiefs. |
Feb2005.GA.7 |
Person(s) Assigned: ITAC members Issue: Computer Performance of DOI Online Training Description of Action Item: ITAC summary notes will include an announcement of reported improved system performance. If District users continue to see system performance problems, contact Bob directly (Robert_J_Veltkamp@nbc.gov) with a cc to your RGIO for their information. ITAC members also will review testing plans for future DOI online training, and recommend that DOI look into other media options (i.e. CDs) and best methods for testing by particular Bureau focus and ownership and (or) optimize or remove graphics/audio extraneous to learning experience. Status of AI/Comment: Reference Jeff Stoner's 2/25/05 e-mail of ITAC summary notes to District Chiefs. 3/15/05 - COMPLETED - Mission accomplished; DOI is getting feedback. They got the message. [See Mar15.2005.Telecon.2.] |
Feb2005.GA.8 |
Person(s) Assigned: Greg Allord, Scott McEwen, Jeanne Robbins, and Brian Reece Issue: 24x7 Network Support Description of Action Item: Greg, Scott, Jeanne, and Brian will review the draft Web page for 24x7 network support, as requested by Kevin Gallagher. Scott McEwen will report to ITAC the recommendations from the NWIS 24x7 Adhoc Committee. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- Scott to come up with checklist that districts can use before contacting someone in NWIS. Katherine Lins will check with Kevin Gallagher on the Web page to be reviewed; it will then be sent to ITAC for review. 4/15/05 - COMPLETED |
Feb2005.GA.9 |
Person(s) Assigned: Sonja Sebree Issue: District Web Page Design Description of Action Item: Sonja will come up with checklist of content and advice on designs that work for a Water Web page. Status of AI/Comment: Combined with GA.5 |
Feb2005.GA.10 |
Person(s) Assigned: Chris Leeth and Katherine Lins Issue: Paperless Forms Data Tracking Tool Description of Action Item: Chris and Katherine, using Jeff Stoner's District perspective, will follow up on using paperless forms as a tool for tracking data and explore whether other Districts have an interest. If they do, then Katherine will explore with Water Admin. if there is further interest. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- Katherine Lins talked with Gene Summerhill, Senior Management Officer for Water, about this. There may not be a Water wide need. Many districts use their own. Chris Leeth will continue working on it and see if other districts want to adopt it. 4/15/05 update -- Chris Leeth is using ColdFusion (CF) on this. Some problems with digital signatures. They (Georgia Water Science Center) are working with Form Router. They have the forms up and running; they just don't have the signatures, but they are moving forward on it. They will have something more concrete within the next month. 5/27/05 update - Chris Leeth has a working form that will accept digital signatures using the Formrouter software. One can go on the Web, edit the form and have the data, and a copy of the original form including the digital signature, placed on a local machine. However, the data must reside on the Formrouter Server for a short time period. This would not likely be consistent with personnel rules, need to discuss this. In addition, it is necessary to "buy in" to long term maintenance from Formrouter of a couple of K a year, but the "backend work" of populating the local database is painless. Also, Leeth contacted Adobe and they may have a solution, but would likely be costly for a local district, because of initial server costs and learning curve. Maybe this can be demonstrated through a cyber seminar. Some issues have to be resolved first. Chris will have different demo products by the Maine meeting to show us. It really can be a timesaver, even though there are these difficulties in the beginning. Chris will continue with signature issue. Greg Allord suggested he use our Adobe contact, Tim Conrad. 6/17/05 update -- Chris Leeth did not attend the teleconference to give a status report. 7/29/05 – update – Chris is dealing with FormRouter representative; they changed their pricing model. Main problem: Personnel data has to reside on his server. There’s also a problem with CF and digital signatures. They’re moving forward, but are at a standstill right now. There will be a presentation of FormRouter at Maine meeting, where inhouse functionality will be demonstrated. 8/18/05 update - To be updated at next ITAC teleconference. 9/16/05 - update - Ongoing. Chris is working on actual digital signature portion; can't get implemented to store the data. 10/21/05 - update - It was agreed to put this topic onto Idaho meeting agenda as a small discussion. 11/18/05 – update – ongoing. Will leave on agenda for next ITAC meeting after Idaho. Discussion: Need to streamline records processing—science and administrative. Water can still offer advice on this issue. 1/27/06 update - Chris was not present; he will review this action item. 2/10/06 update -- Chris utilizes it in his office, however, not sure how to push out. Communications from the field to the lab and District to District. This could be enterprise wide. Donna Hector-Dabin would be willing to take a look at it. Donna will give us feedback. We will make the decision on the March call. 3/15/05 update -- Katherine Lins talked with Gene Summerhill, Senior Management Officer for Water, about this. There may not be a Water wide need. Many districts use their own. Chris Leeth will continue working on it and see if other districts want to adopt it. 3/13/06 update - Chris has tried, however no Bureau support. CLOSED |
Feb2005.GA.11 |
Person(s) Assigned: Greg allord, Brian McCallum, Mark Landers, and Chris Leeth Issue: Map2PDF Demo Description of Action Item: Greg, Brian, Mark, and Chris will continue to explore the applications of Map2PDF technology and seek the support of Eastern Region to develop this prototype for demonstration at Pubs 2006 Conference. Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- Chris Leeth bought a copy of the Map2PDF program ($995) and he's experimenting with it now. 4/15/05 - COMPLETED |
USGS :: ITAC :: Water :: Water Intranet :: WICAS
Kym Burns, ITAC Executive
Secretary
(703) 648-5609