NALIT Newsletter
Winter 2005
Inside This Issue:
Chair's Corner
Virginia Legislature – Learning the Blackberry Prayer
Louisiana Legislature Moves to FTR Gold
Minnesota Senate Implements Wireless
2005 NALIT Professional Development Seminar
NALIT at the NCSL Annual Meeting
Idaho Offers New Web Site Design
Nevada Legislature – Securing the Future
Kansas Technology Update
Arkansas Legislature – The Scourge of Spyware
2004 NALIT PDS: Mischief in the Mountains
Editor's Corner
NALIT Executive Committee (Officers and Directors) and Committees
Chair's Corner
By Andy Kraus
Recent changes within NALIT have allowed me the opportunity to become your Chair a bit early, so I would like to use this Chair’s Column to outline my strategy for the next year and a half. First, though, I would like to extend a big thank you to Todd Jewell. I am speaking for everyone when I say that we appreciate your service on the NALIT Executive Committee.
We are currently in the process of finalizing committee assignments for this year. Committees are really the core of NALIT because much of the “grunt work” is done there. You will find a list of the committees, including the description, later in the newsletter. I would really encourage you to look through the list and see if anything piques your interest. At the same time, we have identified a list of “candidates” who we think would be a good fit for the committees, so we will contact you soon. Between the volunteers and our list, we will have many fine people on the committees this year.
One of my immediate goals for NALIT will be undertaken by the Outreach Committee. In order to continue NALIT’s growth and the search for varied sources of information, it is important to include as many people as possible. The Outreach Committee will find ways to attract more international participants and speakers to the Annual Meeting and Professional Development Seminar. They will also work on ways to include states that have not been involved with NALIT in the past. The bottom line is that the more people and organizations we can include, the more we will all benefit from our pooled knowledge.
A longer-range goal I would like to set for NALIT is to transform our organization into a source of information for the other NCSL staff sections, in addition to our respective state legislatures. The first step is the formation of the “IT Seal of Approval Exploratory Committee.” As the committee description notes, the committee’s first year will consist of establishing a way to implement a technology review system that will allow our panel of experts to examine existing systems and methodologies and publish “opinions” on what makes them work so well. When new products or systems come out, this committee will find out who the experts are and work with them to learn and share the knowledge with the rest of NALIT. I am really excited about this project’s potential. We will start small this first year, and once we determine a target scope, we will march ahead next year. This idea is still in development, and I have already received some excellent suggestions for tweaking it. Nonetheless, I want to put the idea out there so we can all start considering its possibilities. I will try to keep you all updated via the listserv as things develop, and to give you an opportunity for feedback.
Finally, the “PDS Site Selection Committee” will work to select the seminar locations for 2006 and 2007. If your state is interested in hosting either of these seminars, you should let the selection committee know. If you want to have a say in where we meet, then please consider being on this committee.
I am honored to serve as your Chair. Be assured that I am always happy to talk to you and find out what’s on your mind about our great organization. If there is anything I can help you with, please feel free to call, e-mail, or if you are in Topeka, stop on by. This is a great time to be involved with NALIT, so here’s to another great year!
Virginia Legislature – Learning the Blackberry Prayer
By Sharon Crouch Steidel
As is sometimes the case in a legislative environment, you don’t always get to choose the timeline of projects. Such was our case when we received a request for the integration of a Blackberry server with our Domino mail server. The request came the week before our 2005 session began, but we decided to give it a try.
As mentioned, we are a Domino (Lotus Notes) environment. We needed to configure mail and calendar events to auto synchronize to mail boxes in two distinct mail domains. Technical staff from Nextel assured us this would not be a problem, so we embarked on our journey to deploy the Blackberry Enterprise Server. Nextel estimated the installation would take approximately two to four hours. The installation itself only took about 45 minutes, but to say things were flowing perfectly at that time would be a drastic overstatement. In fact, initially, we spent one afternoon from 1:00 p.m. until about 8:00 p.m. on the phone with technical staff from RIM, who makes the Blackberries. After 30 or so hours of phone support, a few edits to our registry files and many different configuration edits (most of which failed), we had a fully functional BES server.
To their credit, Nextel and RIM remained steadfast in their support. There were several multiple-hour conference calls as we were trouble shooting the quirky problems that persisted, and RIM hung in there to insure that we were fully operational. There are still some lingering quirks that we are ironing out, but all in all the project has been successful. We now have the staff of the House and Senate Budget committees, Speaker’s Office, and some House Clerk’s staff using Blackberry 7520’s – walking the halls practicing what is sometimes called the Blackberry Prayer – heads bowed down to the Blackberry, thumbing away at the next important message. Since we were already a Nextel customer, those staff carrying Nextel phones were able to easily move their phones over to the Blackberry device. To anyone considering a similar project I would suggest allowing a month for installation and testing. After many hours chatting with RIM technical support staff, we did find out that the server we were deploying had just been released a few weeks before. Perhaps that contributed to the additional tweaking required.
So, has the Blackberry improved productivity in our office? It has definitely proved useful in providing around-the-clock support to members during session. As an example, one recent Sunday afternoon I was sitting on a car wash bench, my dog asleep at my feet, when I got a call for help via email. Within 10 minutes, I had coordinated a solution with other Blackberry-carrying staff and, as we confirmed a successful resolution to this particular problem, the phrase “Blackberries Rule” was transmitted. Of course, the greatest advantage of the device is also its biggest flaw – it is an electronic tether that can keep you attached to the office until you choose to hit the power button. And as the devices’ nickname “Crackberries” suggests, it is evident that many users cannot ever bring themselves to hit that power button. To that end, I am providing two articles I found recently about these devices that may be food for thought.
I, for one, am enjoying the ability to leave the office, comfortable that if a problem comes up, I will know about it. I can browse the web, send email, check my calendar, and stay in touch with the office and home from anywhere. It’s a very handy tool when stranded at an airport for most of the day – as I was a few weeks ago. It is the ultimate, all in-one, portable office.
But as I sit down to dinner with my husband, I do have to remind myself that there is a power button….
Resources:
Blackberry or Crackberry: A PDA Culture War
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4279486
Blackberry Jam
http://www.govexec.com/features/1104-01/1104-01s2.htm
Avoiding Addiction
http://www.govexec.com/features/1104-01/1104-01s2s1.htm
Louisiana Legislature Moves to FTR Gold
By Gary Schaefer
In 1999, the Louisiana Legislature began using FTR version 3.3 (For The Record) to record its committee meetings. FTR was implemented because it provided all staff and legislators with the means to listen to any recorded meeting on their PCs in the Capitol. Recordings can be annotated to locate the discussion on a particular instrument and the testimony of a specific witness. Annotations also allow staff to find specific portions of a recording, which facilitates meeting excerpt duplication requests.
Although FTR provided more flexibility and capabilities than the old cassette recording system, some problems were experienced. The most common complaints from personnel staffing the meetings were: the system would freeze and lock up randomly, difficulty in starting and stopping a recording, cumbersome to monitor a meeting while in progress, and unable to edit annotations during the meeting. The most significant problem occurred when meetings in multiple rooms were being recorded simultaneously. A user in one meeting could inadvertently stop another user’s recording. If users were not extremely alert, they did not realize their recordings had been stopped until their meeting was over.
Following the 2003 regular session, the Legislature initiated an upgrade to FTR Gold software. An upgrade was necessary because software support for version 3.3 was being phased out, and Windows XP was being installed, for which version 3.3 was not designed.
The FTR Gold version purported to allow:
• better control over starting, pausing, and stopping a recording,
• easier methods for annotating the meeting,
• flexibility to add notes to a meeting,
• enhanced audio monitoring during a meeting to ensure the system is functioning properly,
• improved storage capabilities utilizing less disk space (i.e., the ability to store more meetings on line),
• ability to convert existing recordings and annotations to the new more efficient format, and
• more options for providing audio copies of the meeting (e.g., cassette tape, CD).
The upgrade to the new FTR Gold product was implemented for the 2004 regular session. Senate staff responsible for the recordings and duplication requests has had very positive comments concerning the new software. The purported improvements have been realized, and the new software is more user-friendly. Procedures for starting and stopping a recording are much simpler, and users cannot inadvertently stop another recording. Annotations are entered more easily and annotation text wraps automatically. Users also have the ability to correct text for an entered annotation, and add text to an annotation while the meeting is in progress. The old version required such editing to be done as a “post” annotation. In version 3.3, the time stamp associated with annotations was not always correct. This caused problems when trying to locate a particular instrument or specific testimony. There have been no problems with the time stamp when using FTR Gold. Users report increased flexibility when playing a recording to transcribe minutes and when performing post annotations.
Senate staff responsible for duplication of these recordings has also been very satisfied with FTR Gold. They particularly like the fact that they can duplicate a recording from their PC versus going to another location and a dedicated PC to create the copy. The audio quality is much better, and CDs can be produced in several different formats: a file for use with the FTR Gold player; a “.wav” file for use with RealPlayer, Windows Media Player or “GearPlayer;” a “.wma” file for use with Windows Media Player; or a “.cda” file for use with car and home CD players.
The only unresolved issue is the FTR file conversion of recorded meetings from 1999 through 2003. PSA (Public Systems Associates), the Legislature’s computer consultant, reports that the recordings must first be “archived” to CD in order to convert the old file format to the new file format. When FTR was implemented, the Legislature decided to keep all recordings on line for easy access. There are approximately 3,000 recorded Senate and House committee meetings in the old file format totaling 300 GB of disk storage. PSA estimates it will take one year to archive and convert all the old files. Until all files are converted, users must keep both versions of the FTR player on their PCs. Overall, Senate staff is very pleased with the implementation of the FTR Gold product.
Minnesota Senate Implements Wireless
By Jim Greenwalt
The Minnesota Senate has finally begun implementation of wireless access in the State Capitol Building. Initially, access is available in the six major senate hearing rooms of the building. The Senate Chamber, having already been hardwired, is not included.
Wireless access will be provided on three levels: (1) members and senate staff; (2) other legislative and state agencies; and (3) the general public.
The architecture is built around the Airespace Wireless product (recently acquired by Cisco). It consists of a redundant wireless access network in each of the hearing rooms. In each of these areas, for senate members and staff, we are using the 802.11a protocol to give us the best coverage, with the fastest access, and with the smallest chance of being interfered with by other wireless networks in the building. Using 802.11a will also eliminate anyone from walking from the street with a handheld and connecting to the network. 802.11b and 802.11g service is available on the system for the others without investing in additional hardware.
In each of the hearing rooms we have installed two wireless access point radios, each connected to a different switch, giving full redundancy of hardware and access in each area. This also allows for double the bandwidth and double the number of available channels in each area.
For security, we are implementing MAC address lock-downs for senate users and authorized agency users. This will keep any new devices not setup by the Senate IT staff from connecting to any “non-public” state networks.
Access for each level of user is directed through VLANs set up on the senate’s network. One is exclusively for members and staff, allowing access to the Senate’s network and all applications and data necessary for users. Another is for other legislative or state agencies, directing them to the appropriate state network for which they are authorized. For the public, the senate will broadcast an 802.11b/g signal, which will allow anyone within range access to just the public internet. The public can then access legislative information through the Senate’s public web site, or their e-mail through their Internet providers.
There is no charge for access by agencies or the public. The Senate accepts NO responsibility and provides NO maintenance for the service they receive.
The Airespace solution, reasonable in cost, was very easy to implement. The systems can be easily and seamlessly integrated with most vendors' switches. It has proved to be very scalable, allowing us to implement in stages and provide a variety of services with a single solution.
2005 NALIT Professional Development Seminar
October 5-8, 2005
Rapid City, South Dakota
By Lou Adamson
We are very excited about hosting the 2005 seminar. Tentative plans are to have an authentic Native American cuisine dinner at the Crazy Horse Memorial, visit the Mount Rushmore Memorial and travel to Historical Deadwood for dinner and, if desired, a little gambling. Unfortunately, due to the distance between Rapid City and Pierre, it will not be possible to take everyone to our beautiful State Capitol Building. However, if anyone would like to stop for a tour on their way through, Scott or I would be very happy to accommodate you.
If you have any suggested speakers or items you would like sessions on, please contact:
Pam Greenberg (pam.greenberg@ncsl.org),
Scott Darnall (scott.darnall@state.sd.us), or
Lou Adamson (lou.adamson@state.sd.us).
Any suggestions will be welcomed.
Hope to see you all in October.
NALIT at the NCSL Annual Meeting
August 16-20, Seattle, Washington
Mark your calendar for the 2005 NCSL Annual Meeting, to be held Aug. 16-20, 2005. The preliminary schedule for NALIT and other staff sections begins with meetings from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 16. On Thursday, Aug. 18, NALIT will meet from 11:45 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The traditional all-staff luncheon, where legislative staff achievement awards are presented, is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 19 from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., to be followed by NALIT meetings from 2:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
In addition to these time slots, NALIT may sponsor additional sessions during other times. In addition, tours of Seattle or Olympia-area hightech firms or organizations may be scheduled.
Additional information about the NCSL Annual Meeting is available at www.ncsl.org/annualmeeting. Watch for more details about NALIT sessions at www.ncsl.org/nalit.
Idaho Offers New Web Site Design
By Brenda Wilkening
The Idaho Legislature has a new and improved web site. Over the interim, the Legislative Services Office web group along with the Idaho Department of Administration redesigned the web site to be more accessible, useful, and aesthetically pleasing. The new site went live the first part of January, just in time for the legislative session.
The web team determined the use of rollover menus greatly decreased the amount of clutter on the web pages, and allowed easier navigation throughout the site. The designers utilized style sheets to create the menus which insures complete accessibility and allows viewing from any browser.
The introduction of ColdFusion into our website has been one of the best improvements, generating many of our pages dynamically. The use of this tool has greatly reduced errors as well as the amount of time it takes to update legislator and staff information.
Currently, the Idaho Legislature web site spans across three servers. The Idaho statutes, constitution and legislation are held on a Linux Apache server, while the search criteria for these documents is hosted on a Windows 2000 Advanced server. The remainder of the website is on a Windows 2000 server.
Looking ahead to future improvements, the web team plans to combine all pages to a single server, extend the use of ColdFusion and, utilizing XML, push legislation and statutes to the web site from our new bill drafting system currently in development. (Stay tuned for more information about that topic once it hits production.)
Having spent several months and countless hours on the new design, the web team is considerably proud of the finished product. However, we will continue to take advantage of new technology available to better serve the citizens of the state of Idaho and beyond.
Securing the Future--Nevada
By Eric Dugger
During the last year the Nevada State Legislature has gone through a rebirth of its IT infrastructure. Facing changing times and more demands for IT services, it was determined that a complete upgrade was in order. A new network consisting of the latest switches, routers, firewalls, and VPN products would be the base of the upgrade. Upon that was a move from a Windows NT 4.0 domain to a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory structure as well as a new mail server and anti-spam gateway along with an internal instant messaging server. Might as well just do everything, right?
Having the opportunity to do everything new allowed for a clean, secure design. With a group of four people, we had around half a year to plan, configure, install and tune, which towards the end seemed to be not enough time! Our first move was to a Windows 2003 Active Directory domain structure. This foundation allowed us to do many new things, including an upgrade to Exchange 2003 mail server. The new Exchange is much more stable and secure than the old 5.5 version, and allows for much more control and growth. Outlook Web Access alone is worth the upgrade if you have remote users. The features of 2003 Active Directory allow our group of four to manage over 500 users and their PCs, 30 servers in our main Carson City location, and our remote office in Las Vegas.
Our old network infrastructure was comprised of Cisco 2600 routers and a Cisco Catalyst 5500 switch. We only had 200 Mbps to each of our hub rooms, which serve upwards of 100 users per room. This configuration was both slow and inefficient, therefore we wanted our new network to provide more bandwidth, redundancy and security. New Cisco 3550 switches in the hub rooms and a Cisco Catalyst 6500 as the backbone were the answer. Dual gigabit fiber connections allow for 2 Gbps of throughput to each hub room while still providing active redundancy. Utilizing VLAN’s, ACL’s and QoS also provided a secure way of segmenting our users and providing the appropriate level of service for each group.
Wireless by nature is not secure, therefore we wanted to implement new technologies and procedures to improve security. We consolidated our two wireless networks (one for the public and one for internal users) into one network outside of our firewall. We selected the Cisco 1200 APs running A/B/G and split the users into two SSID networks, one running A for faster speeds for our users and the other running B/G at slower speeds for the public users. We incorporated Cisco’s WLSE and ACS to help manage the network of 40 APs as well as keeping it more secure. This system is projected to have over 200 users online during peak times.
Due to the move of the wireless network outside the firewall and the additions of remote offices, we were forced to take VPN seriously. Cisco’s 3000 VPN concentrator allows our staff to connect seamlessly while on our wireless network. This makes wireless a secure option while giving our legislators the flexibility to do their own thing when not connected to the VPN. When connected to the VPN, staff and legislators will receive the latest Windows patches and antivirus system updates.
Security was implemented everywhere it could be. On the domain side, we are using Microsoft’s MOM server to monitor all servers for any security or hardware faults. We also use policies to make sure any PC that logs onto the domain is updated with the proper patches. On the network side we use MAC authentication where needed and ACL’s to secure traffic flows. This helps each division within the Nevada Legislature maintain the type of operating environment they want without having multiple domains and networks, which can become very expensive. Our next step is to create an intelligent network by integrating our intrusion detection/prevention systems and policies with our network devices to create a dynamic infrastructure that reacts to changes in its environment, making it more secure.
The Nevada State Legislature Operations Team consists of Manager Randy Dumbauld, Rich Tillis, Scott Corbett and myself, Eric Dugger.
References:
Microsoft 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/family.mspx
Cisco Catalyst 6500
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/index.html
Cisco VPN 3000
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2284/index.html
Cisco Wireless
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps430/index.html
Cisco Enterprise Security Solutions
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns171/networking_solutions_packages_list.html
Kansas Technology Update
By Dave Larson
Three interesting initiatives are occurring at the Kansas Legislature.
First, the electronic committee experiment will continue this session. This project was started last year when the House Health and Human Services Committee and the Senate Utilities Committee acquired Tablet PCs, software, wireless networking equipment and multimedia facilities to conduct a totally paperless, electronic committee. Feedback and lessons learned from last session were factored into revisions to be tested this session. Some of the lessons learned were:
• Legislators, no matter the initial skill level, eventually overcame their resistance and adopted the technology. The largest complaint from legislators was the prohibition on using state resources in campaigns, therefore they could not put their campaign material on the state-provided tablet.
• Legislators who indicated they were computer literate, overestimated their abilities. More training is required than was anticipated.
• The process moves too fast for search technology to be employed effectively. Push technology is required.
• The tablets were used over traditional laptops for two reasons. First, it was anticipated that handwriting recognition would smooth the transition for the non-computer oriented legislator. Second, using the PC in tablet mode kept the legislator from hiding behind the screen and was perceived to be more courteous to conferees. Handwriting recognition is quite good today. Some legislators liked to mark up bills in handwriting mode, but ultimately, handwriting capability is not required for acceptance or success.
• The electronic process did not appear to be a disadvantage to any conferee. Nearly all testimony was submitted in electronic form. Testimony that wasn’t submitted in electronic form was scanned and entered into the document database by committee staff.
• The electronic process placed some additional work on the committee staff to prepare for the committee meeting. Significant effort was applied during the interim to relieve the workload.
• There was a temptation by the committee to coerce the staff revisor to draft amendments in committee. Staff revisors prefer to take notes back to the office and draft there. Similar pressures were experienced by the research staff.
• To be really effective, there may need to be a technician assigned to the electronic committee to manage the technology, pan the camera, etc.
The experiment was funded by a grant from the Information Network of Kansas (INK). INK is the state’s information portal manager. The State of Kansas’ information portal is called AccessKansas.
Second, the Kansas Capitol is in the third year of a 10-year renovation. As part of the renovation, a wireless survey was conducted by a Kansas City firm. Surprisingly, the survey indicated that the massive, stone Capitol building with all its nooks and crannies did not pose any significant challenges to wireless coverage. This is encouraging and indicates that the installation of wireless networking maybe easier and less expensive than anticipated. This revelation may allow us to speed up the implementation of wireless which in turn may help us manage the network through the renovation.
Third, the Legislature recently completed the latest revision of its strategic computing plan. This version was created using a new methodology called the “New Information Economics (NIE) Model.” The model was developed by the Beta Group and published in February 2004. We found the model easy to understand and implement. The model helped us focus on the true needs of the Legislature and quantify those results.
The methodology works by aligning strategic intentions to the mission of the organization. These intentions include an analysis of organizational structure and the objectives of the organizational subgroups. In turn, the objectives are used to develop information technology objectives that support the mission of the enterprise. The revised strategic plan was adopted last fall and we are busy preparing to implement the first set of priorities identified in the plan.
The Scourge of Spyware
By Lorie A. Johnson
Recently, a House member came into my office with his laptop. It would not start up and I noticed a chassis problem, so I swapped his hard drive into a spare machine. I booted the machine to check that the hard drive was working and discovered it took much longer than usual to boot. After logging in I observed several icons for a fake anti-spyware program on the desktop and a swarm of pop-ups appeared on the screen without opening the browser. It took four hours to remove all of the rogue programs. This scenario is a reflection of the fastest growing scourge on the Internet: spyware.
Spyware has eclipsed viruses and spam as the fastest growing threat to users on the Internet. Spyware can be web bugs that follow your browsing, ad servers that feed popups to your system, and key loggers which record passwords and other private information. Trojan horses are another form of spyware that open back doors to your system and enable hackers to use your system as a zombie for sending spam or distributed denial of service attacks. When you think you have managed to remove it, the creators of this software have disguised it so that it magically reappears.
Spyware can get into a computer in a variety of ways: through attachments in email, through unpatched browsers, in socalled ‘drive-by downloads’, inattentive clicking on pop-ups, in popular software like file sharing and screen savers, and even through port scans of unprotected systems. Spyware infections and compromises are less common for state and enterprise systems, since those systems are normally set up and patched behind enterprise-level firewalls. However portable systems, when connected to outside networks, become magnets for malware if not properly updated. In addition, innocent searches made from inside a protected network can lead to browser hijackers.
Currently, the spyware and malware assault is far ahead of our means to fix it. There is no single anti-spyware program available that will clean all spyware. You have to install several programs, use them in layers to get rid of the spyware, and hope it has all been removed. Enterprise level companies, like Panda and MacAfee, are finally catching up, but it has taken them awhile. Fake antispyware software is an even more sinister development for people hoping for a quick cure. A site called SpywareWarrior.com has an extensive and continually updated list of fake spyware programs, some with names close enough to appear legitimate. There are several excellent free anti-spyware programs available, such as Lavasoft’s venerable “Ad Aware,” Kolla’s “Spybot Search and Destroy,” and Webroot’s “Spy Sweeper.”
How do you clean up the messes these malicious programs leave on systems? The easiest solution is to re-image the system, but if you have systems that are not imaged, or are specialty systems, re-imaging will not work. Here are some basic steps we utilize to clean infested machines.
• First, generate a reference list of processes with Task Manager from a clean machine. In addition, use the program Hijack This! to get a reference list of Browser Helper Objects (BHOs).
• When cleaning a PC, boot into Safe Mode and get rid of suspicious programs using “Add/ Remove Programs.”
• Run Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware, and Hijack This to find and clean up any strays and recursives.
• For stubborn programs, we use “MSCONFIG” to turn off hidden programs that might run in startup, and comb the registry for other bits and pieces. We also clean out the temp files.
The key to keeping spyware infestations at bay is vigilance. Your IT security staff must stay on top of all developing trends in spyware, and keep your systems patched and protected. Constant vigilance and swift action, as well as policies and communication that educate your staff, are your best tools.
Resources:
CastleCops (formerly Computer Cops)
http://computercops.biz/
Spyware Warrior
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/index.php
Tom Coyote
http://tomcoyote.com/
Gibson Research Corporation
http://www.grc.com/default.htm
Infestation in four minutes:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/54201306
Fake spyware listings:
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm
2004 NALIT PDS: Mischief in the Mountains
By Duncan Goss
Last September, the 2004 NALIT Professional Development Seminar was held in Burlington, Vermont. Well over 100 people attended. To the 20 or so for whom this was their first NALIT conference... welcome. We hope to see you at future conferences!
Between the high quality of the program offered and the beauty of the venue, a very good time was had by all. Burlington, a small but vibrant city located on the shore of Lake Champlain, is a town with a wide variety of restaurants, bars, and other entertainment, and NALIT people, as usual, enjoyed all these facilities to their fullest.
The seminars included sessions on both technical and managerial topics. And, as always, I found myself wishing to be in two places at once. At the Managing Expectations session, Vermont Rep. Judy Livingston gave an impassioned plea on behalf of legislators everywhere for more help using the tools we provide. On the technical side, the Voice Over IP session provided real world experience in implementing this fast-growing technology from people who have actually done it. Other session topics included Embracing Security, Contingency Planning, RSS, and XML Editors.
One day was spent at the State Capitol in Montpelier, where several sessions were held jointly with both the NALIT and the Legal Services Staff Section (LSSS). One joint meeting discussed the public records implications of e-mail. If this session didn’t scare the pants off of you, you weren’t listening!
Over lunch, Dr. Frank Bryan, a professor of political science from the University of Vermont, discussed that unique institution, the New England Town Meeting, a totally new concept for many conferees, but one as familiar to me as parades on the Fourth of July. Recently, I attended our town’s 200th consecutive meeting, and Dr. Bryan’s wry observations were right on target!
On the way back from Montpelier, we visited another Vermont institution of more recent vintage, Ben & Jerry’s main ice cream factory. While this visit may not have provided any more insights into the legislative process, it certainly gave people another taste of Vermont.
The final day of the conference concluded with a visit to the Shelburne Museum, an eclectic collection of Americana spread throughout some 40 buildings. The evening concluded with a truly spectacular dinner on board the Ticonderoga, an elegant steamship located at the center of the museum grounds. After dinner, we presented Pam Greenberg with a print of the Burlington waterfront, signed by all conference attendees, in gratitude for all that she does for NALIT.
I appreciated having the opportunity to welcome all of you to Vermont and I am looking forward to next October and the 2005 Professional Development Seminar in Rapid City, South Dakota. See you all there!
Editor's Corner
By Gary Wieman
Hello to all. I do hope that this newsletter is finding all of you healthy and having a success filled legislative session. It seems that the winter edition of the newsletter is getting out later every year, but the late date of the NCSL Annual meeting this year allows me a little more time to come up with a final product.
In this newsletter I tried to present you with the latest information of what state legislative technology has to offer. I listened and took notes at the State Roundtable presentations at the Professional Development Seminar in Burlington, VT. I took this information, compared it to presentations made at previous PDS and Annual Meeting seminars, and asked for articles from states who had not presented their updates before. Some of these may have been topics that had been discussed previously, but at least they were from a different perspective.
I want to thank all the contributing authors for their time and effort in providing information that is useful to NALIT members. I would like to encourage those who have not participated before to get involved with NALIT by submitting articles, to participate in meetings, and to volunteer for committees. There are many great opportunities to meet your peers from other states through this organization and to develop friendships and exchange ideas that will benefit all.
Hope you've enjoyed the newsletter,
Gary Wieman
Secretary
NALIT Executive Committee
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