Governor Perry Knew

Internet Speed Enhancement

I hope that everyone has noticed an improvement in internet speed on their workstations in the office starting last week. As part of the move to the cloud for email services I was able to improve the internet speed for all DHCP clients from 3mbps to 25 mbps.

Enjoy workmates.

June Technology Class

I hope to schedule out next employee technology class for mid to late June 2011. The class will cover our new email cloud services in detail which will be a lot of fun. if anyone has any other topic ideas please post your ideas to me by commenting here.

Blogger Status Report

As everyone is aware this blog has been very quite lately. For all of my dedicated readers I apologize. These past several weeks (6-8 I believe) have found the majority of my attention with with Microsoft in an effort to migrate our mail services to their cloud. For the most part this transition has been accomplised, although I am still working on getting out "corporate compliate" archiving up and running.

I thank everyone for their patience during this process, especially my entire communication officer staff who continue to amaze me with their professional and independent work ethic!

I hope to make more regular blog entries from this point forward. Keep your fingers crossed!

Report from the Cloud

Ok it's been about 2 weeks now since the Borough of West Chester moved their email services from an on-premises exchange server to Microsoft's cloud with "Exchange Online". So far so good. During these first 2 weeks we have had everything. As we all know nothing is 100% perfect, except perhaps "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn" (I will explain this later). After migrating everyone over to the cloud and on the eve of heading to Disney World for a much needed break Microoft began experiencing what they call "service degregation". This meant that mail flow during the early hours on May 12, 2011 stopped. The good news was that I noticed this at about 5:50 AM and quickly contacted Microsoft Online Support. A technician reported that they were aware of the problem and working on it. A work-around was offered but before anyone arrived in the office the "cloud" was back in service.

New technology can be a little scary and no one really likes change. However I believe that today's world economic situation demands bold and visionary decisions in respect to keeping cost down while striving to offer the best that technology has to offer. The "cloud", I believe will be critical during the next several years, providing organizations with the ability to keep technology cost down while (at the same time) providing high end technological services.

As the "service incident" on May 12, 2011 demonstrates nothing is easy and we will need to learn to "roll with the punches" during these hard economic times if we are to move even more services to the cloud in the future.

We can do this! In the decades past, business was done without the internet and email services. If these services are down from time to time, pick the phone up, reach out and talk to eachother. I do not expect service interruptions to be normal, however we should always be prepared. Keeping cost down is mission critical in these times, and working together the Borough of West Chester will find success and efficent government.

The Borough of West Chester maintains an information technology cost (capitol & salary) that is only 1% of it's annual budget. That is something we can be very proud of. Migrating adapatable services to the cloud will help the borough to sustain such a small cost in this area which is something every taxpayer will be thankful for.

Fair Share for Clean Air

If we can't have this, can we can at least join all the other communities in North Texas that have gotten on board with the Fair Share for Clean Air Campaign?

Communities and Counties Now on Board (in order of participation):

Dish

Dallas County

Flower Mound

Bartonville

Communities planning to join the campaign shortly:

Southlake

Grand Prairie (hopefully)

Rescuing an old bike

circa 1978 ish

(not sure)

It is not easy finding a good used bike for a fellow 7' tall. My son lives in NYC and wanted a bike. My other son got on the Net and looked and looked and looked. Finally an old Miyata steel frame 69 cm was found. Above and below are before and after pictures of a phenomenal restoration done by a local bike enthusiast. Parts were found after scouring ebay and the Net and finally it all came together.

restored to its original glory with updated parts

new derailleur, new handlebars, seatpost, cables, tubing, tires, tubes, brake pads

headset, stem, shifters and a good clean job, hubs repacked

and the list goes on and on