Brainstorm is the big idea. Yes, we're clamoring for attention.

The City of Seattle's Department of Information Technology thinks that it's time we all got on the same page. We saw a need for an exciting ezine to help promote community technology programs, opportunities, issues and best practices. We wanted to bring together the organizations, lab coordinators and managers, grantors and grantees, nonprofits engaged in community technology, and all who care about bringing technology to all people.

We plan to publish monthly. This will be a web-based ezine, so we won't be jamming your email box with anything more than an email alert each time we launch a new edition. Most of you will be able to click on an embedded URL to get the latest news.

We think Brainstorm's the greatest thing since movable type, and hope you feel the same way. Help us make it work. Please email us with anything you think is newsworthy and we'll try to help get the word out in support.

The Digital Empowerment campaign was launched in mid-June as a call for continuing national leadership to ensure digital opportunities for all. The campaign, initiated by Senators Max Cleland (D-GA), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME), continues to maintain strong bipartisan support. The Digital Empowerment coalition is being spearheaded by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Policy Link, CTC Net, and the Leadership Conference Education Fund, with hundreds of organizations participating.

A main focus of the campaign is to preserve and strengthen the Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) and the Community Technology Centers program (CTC). Both programs provide matching grants to bring the benefits of technology to underserved communities across the United States.

Washington has benefited greatly from these programs. Through the TOP and CTC programs, the federal government has invested more than $6,290,562.00 locally. This federal investment led to an additional $6,085,834.00 investment from other public and private sources.

President Bush's 2003 budget proposes to eliminate these two critically important community technology programs. If you’d like to get involved to show your support for this valuable source of funding, visit Help Out.

For more information on the campaign, visit Digital Empowerment.

Leonetta Espy recently joined the Garfield CTC staff as lab coordinator. She replaces Angela Rye, who is now attending law school at Seattle University.

Leonetta is a recent Seattle U. graduate herself. She hails from Seattle, and has previously worked at Garfield as a recreation leader for the after school Key Project program.

Delia Burke is the newest addition to the City of Seattle's Community Technology team. Delia replaces Emily Bancroft, who left to join NPower. Delia’s work will focus primarily on the Technology Matching Fund (TMF) and the Information Technology Indicators project. She will also help develop resources and strategic partnerships intended to further the City’s community technology goals and encourage electronic civic participation. This includes development of the new Puget Sound Alliance for Community Technology.

Delia comes to the City with a strong passion for alleviating the Digital Divide in Seattle and experience with our Technology Matching Fund. Recently, Delia was the program/fund development manager for Digital Promise, a nonprofit organization that helps support technology access and computer literacy in low-income housing communities. While there, she managed their Transitioning with Technology TMF project. Delia still serves on their board of directors as well as on the board of the Association for Women in Computing, Puget Sound Chapter.

In addition, Delia has more than 10 years of technology sales and marketing expertise in the enterprise software industry with companies such as Computer Associates and Silicon Graphics.

At a time of staff reductions, the approval of Delia’s temporary position is significant. The Mayor felt the Community Technology Program was important enough to approve a hiring waiver for her position.

The City of Seattle is proud to announce the launch of Seattle Channel, broadcast on cable channels 21/28 and simultaneously live over the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A public service of the City of Seattle, Seattle Channel was created to inform citizens about their government and to offer them a timely opportunity to be involved in government decisions. The Channel is administered by the Seattle Channel unit of the Department of Information Technology.

The Channel has independence in programming decisions and is available for use by all City departments and agencies, including both the City Council and Mayor's office. Programming and scheduling decisions are non-partisan, equitable, and determined on content.

According to Mayor Greg Nickels, "Our goal in creating this interactive website is to help reconnect citizens to their government and community by integrating the best features of the Internet, television and other technologies to increase public awareness, understanding and participation in civic and cultural affairs. Take a look around and let us know what you think!"

How much downtime do you devote to reconfiguring?

If you're a lab coordinator or a tech support person, you know what we mean. You've got a learning environment where desktop settings and appearance must be identical on multiple computers. Innocent or guilty users often change settings, install games, or delete files. Your environment becomes compromised.

Derrick Hall, our resident PC expert, recommends that you install Deep Freeze.

According to Derrick, it's desktop security software that makes all changes to a computer temporary. With a single reboot, Deep Freeze returns desktop and all other settings to their original state. It requires no setup or special configuration. Just install, restart and it's working.

"You have the ability to lock out everything on the computer," said Derrick. "Once the computer is frozen, nothing sticks -- from setting changes to viruses that may infect the computer. The user does not know it is installed. There is no noticeable speed loss on the system. You can schedule a maintenance period so that the system will unlock during that time each day or week."

PBSLiteracy.org offers free online lessons, including Workplace Essential Skills and GED Connection.

sub/unsub

If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Brainstorm, please email Cass Magnuski. We welcome your feedback and opinions. If you have ideas for future stories, please let us know and we'll try to accommodate you.

If you receive more than one email announcement, please email us and tell us your preferred email address and we'll delete the unwanted duplicate.