TIPS Bi – Weekly Meeting Minutes
Big Stone Gap: Harry Morris
MCR: Min Kim
AR: Mike Dunn, Bill Winters, Lisa Kosareo
KFO: Bill Card
WR: Tonya Blackburn, Lou Hamm, Dawn Trudeau, Jessica Villanueva (note taker), Al Wilhelm, Paul Clark, Karyn Evans, Bruce Swartz, Greg Morlock, Bob Welsh, Janine Ferarese, Mary Greene, Cathy McNish
Priority
TOPIC: Upcoming Team meeting final preparations
DISCUSSION: Presentations will be given by the work groups – please be prepared to discuss where you are at with that. Bill Winters needs an account number (Dawn gave him the number 1T 6410 43D) for this meeting. Karyn Evans should be getting meal information from you, please e-mail them or call her with that information as soon as possible. Dawn is taking care of ride arrangements from DIA to Breckenridge for the out of town folks . Lois’ plan is to make car rental arrangements for AR folks. Karyn will be bringing the conference phone for a small meeting on July 20th. If anyone plans on having side meetings, please let her know.
Status Reports
TOPIC: Hardware Purchases
DISCUSSION: (Bob Welsh & Lou Hamm) The equipment purchase list was finalized last week by the regional representatives and sent out to all Service Managers. Bob – regarding requisitions half of $140,000 has been used for the explorer tablets. The requisition for the emergency purchase for VA already went to out. Alabama AML has a need for an emergency purchase. Many thanks to the MCR for providing the quotes on the items that were needed.
Lou wants the service managers to be aware of what is on the table that was sent out last week. We are working with Steve on the changes with the budget.
TOPIC: Software Distribution
DISCUSSION: (Cathy McNish) USB Hard Drives are out…
We are behind schedule on software distribution, we are working so hard on getting this done, but what software do we have that is ready to be distributed? We have Galena and GMS. ERDAS 9.0 has been distributed. ArcGIS will be out within a couple of months. Earth Vision with be distributed in a couple of months. AutoCad is months away.
Side discussion about ERDAS 9.0 - already went out on discs three weeks ago. Lois should be getting 8 or 10 copies but only received one copy. The Stereo Analyst has an open GO issue. Windows Plug & Play driver cannot be used to run Stereo Analyst. Have to use the manufacturer’s driver. WR’s computers are not ghosted but they are having the same problem with Stereo Analysts shutting down ArcGIS. Bill Winters will have Susan Stoyek call Dianne Osborne about this issue.
Bill Winters - What are we going to be doing with the hard drives that we have already? Al Wilhelm has a note that says that ESRI is going to be using the USB Hard Drives.
Why can we NOT put TIPS software on the internet? Greg is okay with it. Bruce is not okay with this only if we get legal authorization from the vendor then we can do that then we will but it is not safe. Sending it out by CD or DVD is more controlled. Bigger software packages would be easier to download from the internet than from CD’s.
If we were to go the DVD route, do we know if any of the customers have issues with this? It all depends on the hardware issues and Windows 2000. Fifty percent of PA does not have to DVD running capability. Another alternative (Al Wilhelm’s suggestion) – get external DVD drives for the PA folks. WR does not have the capability to replicate DVD’s, maybe sending out to a contractor to have them burn DVD’s. Put out a notice to Service managers asking who has the capability to run DVD’s. Cost analysis on upgrading out CD copier to DVD copier or contracting that out. Upgrading the hardware here to do that would be about $8,400. Producing CD’s takes a week or more when we do it at the WR office. It takes so long to burn the discs. Contractors may ask for a week or more as well, with the label designs and etc.
Lou - What is your recommendation? Cathy says that we can easily copy the applications from CD to DVD then we can test them here. Put out notice from Service Managers. Get a cost analysis for buying external DVD readers. Need to find out how many software packages have multiple CD’s, might be ESRI (part of their software comes out in CD’s and DVD’s).
Karyn – if you are looking for a long term solution, maybe getting the software on the internet. Look at other government agencies that may have to done this.
Bruce – it would be cheaper to do this on the internet, but there are legalities and troubles. Are hard drives not going to be used? Possibly going the same route as USGS (Cathy will call her contact at USGS), Visual Basics script from USGS citing 330 hours for replications.
Other items
Karyn - Training needs survey data is in and she is converting the codes to class names and then will be able to share the information with all of us.
Mary – GMS software needs to be distributed and should be done.
Lou – Galena software needs to be sent out as well.
Next Meeting Thursday, August 3, 2006