State E-cycling: HB1522 would fix Washington State’s e-waste program by making it easier for computer recyclers to fix non-working computers. This is in the Rules Committee as of this writing. Interconnections and other non-profit recyclers are encouraging passage. The City’s Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB) also wrote a letter in support of this. See more info and take action at the state legislation web site or contact Charles Brennick.

Broadband: Multiple broadband bills in the state legislature are being consolidated into one bill, 1701. The state broadband legislation is intended to position the state to be ready to apply for and accept federal broadband stimulus dollars. There has been quite a lot of wrangling over how much or little to include in legislation. There are three main components: be eligible for federal funds and declare the Department of Information Services as the coordinating entity, enable some mapping of broadband, and support deployment and adoption efforts if funds come in.

The second broadband front is commenting on federal rural broadband funds (RUS managed by the USDA) and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to be run by the NTIA in the Commerce Department. They have a request for comments out. The state is submitting comments and has a Monday deadline. The federal NTIA deadline is April 13th. The 3rd front will be applications once the NTIA criteria come out. (Probably May with a June deadline). The 4th broadband effort is a federl mandate to create a national broadband strategy within a year.

In 2008, the City's free Seattle Wi-Fi service in Columbia City, the University District, City Hall lobby and four downtown parks had 20,603 unique logins. (U-District - 12,444, Parks and City Hall lobby - 4,455, Columbia City - 3,704). In total, there were 117,803 sessions for the year. Unique logins represents the number of different computers or devices that logged in and generally corresponds to the number of unique users.

Washington CASH open House
When: April 7, 6-8 p.m.
Where: 2100 24th Avenue South, Seattle
Tech Tour open house event - Washington CASH Open house event showcasing community technology services and Washington Community Alliance for Self-Help (CASH)'s impact in the community.

Fundraising webinar
When: April 16, 10:00 a.m.-noon
Where: Online
Our final session with Susan Howlett! Learn eye-opening facts about the best sources of funding for Community Technology, and how to approach donors and funders to set up a win-win situation. Hear from Susan about tried and true strategies to outlast the down economy. Log-in details to be provided upon registration.

Hosting an Effective Open House webinar
When: April 30, 10:00 a.m. - noon
Where: Online
Our final session of the 2008-2009 training cycle. Learn best practices for describing your impact and how to make the most of CCN’s toolkit to create an engaging “Tech Tour” open house event. Hear how you can continue to stay connected to CCN's mission to support Community Technology providers. Log-in details to be provided upon registration.

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Back issues of Brainstorm including techtips and linkage are now available in our online archives. Previous TechTips and Linkage are also available. Click to revisit all previous issues.

"Insane cooling and battery backup system" was how Nick described the City’s server systems. Nick was one of five technology students visiting from Colfax High School in eastern Washington in Seattle this month for a career tour. The group, along their technology instructor, Margie Hamilton, went on a whirlwind tour of the careers available at the City’s Department of Information Technology (DoIT). They visited the data center, Seattle Channel, and help desk, and learned about seattle.gov and MyNeighborhoodMap. In Colfax, the students provide the tech support and help manage servers for the school district. Chief Technology Officer Bill Schrier shared his path to the city from a farm in Iowa and Executive Assistant Carmen Valerio shared her career path from eastern Washington. Web designer, GPS mapper, TV studio lighting designer or Chief Technology Officer: they’re all now a real part of the students' choices.

Consumers need to be vigilant when seeking employment online. The IC3, (the FBI's online scam reporting site) continues to receive numerous complaints from individuals who have fallen victim to work-at-home scams.

Victims are often hired to "process payments," "transfer funds," or "reship products." These job scams involve the victims receiving and cashing fraudulent checks, transferring illegally obtained funds for the criminals, or receiving stolen merchandise and shipping it to the criminals. Other victims sign up to be a "mystery shopper," receiving fraudulent checks with instructions to cash the checks and wire the funds to "test" a company's services. Victims are told they will be compensated with a portion of the merchandise or funds.

Work-at-home schemes attract otherwise innocent individuals, causing them to become part of criminal schemes without realizing they are engaging in illegal behavior. Job scams often provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity theft when victims provide their personal information, sometimes even bank account information to their potential "employer." The criminal/employer can then use the victim's information to open credit cards, post online auctions, register Web sites, etc., in the victim's name to commit additional crimes.

Be wary of these types of scams and warn vulnerable friends and family. If you have been a victim of Internet crime, please file a complaint at IC3.gov.

Both Deepfreeze and Steady State are good software if you are looking to keep users from being able to make changes to the computer. Deepfreeze locks the computer down to the core level of the operating system. This means you would have to reboot your computer when you want to make changes and to activate. Steady State locks the users down from making changes to the computer; you have the option of locking down the main drive of the computer.

Deepfreeze protects the computer from changes made by any users; this is helpful for malware that may get access to your administrator or system accounts to make changes, the problem with this is coordination of updates that your computer may have to perform. Steady State will lock out users when updates are being performed. Steady state runs as an application on the computer, meaning that if a software that you run conflicts with Windows or Steady State but normally would still run, it may not run. Deepfreeze is a core level software allowing it to still run in most cases.