Digital Government

Make the Internet Accessible for All

The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990, requires that government provide individuals with disabilities access to public places. If you take a walk around your state or local government complex, school or library, you'll see new ramps, wider doorways, new elevators and Braille

Digital Government

Municipal officials pushed on Internet taxation

Proponents of taxing Internet sales rallied municipal officials to throw their weight at Congress Friday at the 1999 Congress of Cities.

Digital Government

Higher Ed Turns to ERP to Maintain Software

A growing number of higher education users are adopting enterprise resource management software to eliminate problems maintaining heavily customized software or to replace systems that are not Year 2000compliant. Frederick Community College in Frederick, Md., installed PeopleSoft Inc.'s Financial

Digital Government

Phoenix shows off Web site

Phoenix city leader showed off his city's World Wide Web site and gave tips on how others can create one like it at a seminar titled Building Technology Strategies at the 1999 Congress of Cities.

Digital Government

Arizona Takes Control Over Leases

It's a question privatesector businesses face every day: Why spend big money on new information technology equipment that will depreciate and be outdated in a few years when you can lease it instead? For state and local government IT shops handling taxpayer dollars, the question is even more press

Digital Government

Marketplace

Two Strong OCR Contenders After years of widespread competition, the desktop optical character recognition (OCR) market has come to be dominated by two products: Caere Corp.'s OmniPage and ScanSoft Inc.'s TextBridge. To test OmniPage and TextBridge, we scanned the same set of 50 typewritten, magaz

Digital Government

The Virtues of Thinking Big

The short history of the information technology industry is filled with big initiatives that fell short or fell flat. The most dramatic changes usually have been the product not of grand schemes but of serendipitous events that overtook the schemes and the schemers. But state officials at the Natio

Digital Government

Urban Renewal

To look at the Edgewood Terrace community in Northeast Washington, D.C., with its bright colors, extensive, ongoing construction and hightech gloss, you would never know that less than a decade ago the same area was known as Little Beirut. The primary economic activity thriving in the povertystri

Digital Government

Pathways Connects Atlanta's Homeless, Poor to Services

Bill Matson has thought about homeless people for a long time, first as an operations manager for the Salvation Army and now as executive director of Pathways Community Network Inc., an Atlanta social services umbrella organization. Threeandahalf years ago Matson decided there should be a way to

Digital Government

The Y2K Silver Lining

Don't be surprised to see smiles on the faces of IT professionals when they talk about the Year 2000 computer datechange bug, even when you consider the possibility of a complete technological meltdown and all that it entails. They're not sadistic. More like opportunistic. Although they've spent m

Digital Government

A New Civic Center

Officials of Clackamas County, a largely rural area south of Portland, Ore., say they have found a solution to a problem that plagues many of its residents and eventually threatens to dampen the local economy.

Digital Government

The Long Arm of the Law

When a convict with a 10year history of abusing and stalking his exwife made parole in Scott County, Minn., last year, the only thing between him and his victim was an inconspicuous bracelet prison officials had attached to his ankle. He paid it no mind and headed straight for his exwife. But be

Digital Government

Nebraska airs show for agricultural market

Agricultural producers in Nebraska soon will be able to log on to find the latest market news on a weekly TV show produced by the University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension program.

Digital Government

San Diego Accepts Internet Taxes

San Diego County is now accepting property tax payments via the Internet by using electronic checks.

Digital Government

City leaders get e-gov advice

City leaders attending the 1999 Congress of Cities got advice Wednesday on how to get started on becoming an electronic government.

Digital Government

New NTIA Director Focused on 'Digital Divide'

Ensuring that all Americans have equal access to information technology tops the agenda of the new administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Digital Government

Info superhighway to dictate which cities thrive

Like the railroad and the interstate, the information superhighway is going to dictate which cities thrive in the future, city officials attending the 1999 Congress of Cities and Exposition were told Wednesday.

Digital Government

Indiana Lays Out Money for Richmond High-Tech Market

Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon (D) last week allocated $153,000 from the state's Strategic Development Fund to help bring highpaying, hightechnology jobs to the city of Richmond's telecommunications and technology zone.

Digital Government

Virginia Puts 'Most Wanted' Online

As part of an online national effort to capture elusive criminals, the Virginia Department of Corrections last week placed photos of 16 of its mostwanted parole fugitives in a document available for download from its World Wide Web site, with a brief synopsis of the individuals accompanying mug shots.

Digital Government

Clinton Calls for More E-Transactions

Monday, President Clinton called on the federal government to facilitate the growth of electronic transactions by identifying outdated legislation impeding electronic commerce, and invited state and local representatives to help find and revise such laws and regulations.