Minutes 04/16/08

Approved 05/21/08

Pete Jones, Ken Curley and Lucy Edwards were present when the meeting 
was opened at 7:15 pm.

The first item of discussion was the pdf creation software that Pete had located.  This free download will allow a user of Microsoft office software to create pdf documents using a virtual printer, as Linux and Mac users already do.  Documents that are posted to the town website, except for minutes which we need to have searchable, and documents sent to other users, such as agendas, are best shared in a pdf format.  The files are smaller and are not easily altered.

The committee hopes that having this software available to all town employees will create a culture where people are used to the idea that they can create such documents, share them, post them on the website, and understand when this is appropriate and useful, without having to ask someone else to assist each time.  It was agreed that the rollout would involve getting the buy in from the Board of Selectman, delivering a CD to the town administrator with the necessary information, and having him, the finance administrator and the office assistant help others install it and set it up and train them to use it.

One reason to use a CD instead of a direct download is that downloads to town hall computers through the cable connection are very slow. It is possible that implementing the use of a wireless routers in parts of the building would speed this up, since some of the users are connected through a series of hubs which may be slowing things down. However, the plans for this are not finalized, we still need 
to figure costs and how to get the changes made.

The backup tapes are being stored at the police station.  Pete will check to make sure the storage is in a safe location for such media.

Next we discussed some potential e-mail problems.  There have been requests from the planning department to have off-site access to their town e-mail.  This involves storing their e-mails on the server at the host, rather than on their workstations at town hall.  There is a limited amount of storage space on the server at the host with our current contract.  We again discussed using the Google e-mail program, which is free, and provides much more storage space.  No final decision was made for a recommendation to the board.

Short term goals were identified as:

1. Getting the pdf software up and running
2. e-mail migration to a different host
3. partially wireless set up for town hall LAN (local area network)
4. data organization policy
5. purchasing/procurement policy (Bill Tappan was identified as the best 
   person to write this)

Minutes of the February meeting were amended and approved.

The next meeting will be on May 21, 2008, 7 pm at Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted
 Lucy Edwards