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Indiana Launches Statewide Productivity System
TaylorJo writes "Lt. Governor of Indiana Kathy Davis today unveiled a new technology program designed to give all Hoosiers free access to a full suite of computer software tools. The SimIndiana software permits residents to access their personal files and applications from any computer at any time. The software can be downloaded on the SimIndiana site, but requires Windows, and registration on the site, to use it. The program also provides an email address and remote storage on SimIndiana servers."
The software can be downloaded on the SimIndiana site, but requires Windows, and registration on the site, to use it.
See? They should have written it in Java.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sounds good to me. I can't think of any reason not to trust government contractors with my personal information.
Craig Steffen, former Indiana resident
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
And is offering me a ride in his shiny car.
Ride! Ride! Ride!
Oh, is it called SimIndiana because you can pretend to be a Hoosier?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
NO! Not registration! How will this site ever survive if they require registration!?
Anyways.. could this be the worst statement to try and appeal something to the /. crowd? It has Windows, registration, and remote storage all in the same paragraph.
SimIndiana is finally out? Cool, where do I get the demo and how do I send in the tornadoes?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Okay, a few more words....
Yes, you need to use Windows, and yes, we can't really trust the government (the next government, or maybe the one after that) with our personal/sensitive data/pr0n, but isn't it a good thing in principle that this is happening?
Tom.
Oh arse
Tried to create an account, but the site's getting slow. Anyway, at the whatis page says:
Every student, every parent, every business, EVERYONE who lives in the State of Indiana can use SimIndiana. The only requirement is that you register for the software with a valid Indiana address.
Can't we forge an address anyway? NY Times thinks I'm from Anchorage, Alaska.
If you create a document in SimWord® (SimIndiana's word processor), you do not have to save it to a disk or to a computer's hard drive. With SimIndiana, you have the option to save your document in your virtual drive on the SimIndiana server.
It's simply a glorified virtual hard disk service, paid for by the government.
...heard of this. I, too, would love to trust my state government with my important docs. After all, we all know they handle our property taxes soooo well.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
As a matter of fact, I'm one of the legions of programmers that lost their jobs when it was outsourced to Indiana.
I think they said it was Indiana, anyway.
Best Windows Freeware
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I really wish people would make Microsoft keep its own monopoly instead of helping them by making IE only or Windows only stuff. They could've at least given the protocol so that if somebody with a Mac or something else wanted to could make their own.
Really, I thought government was supposed to be generally non-discriminatory. It's like "Congrats! We have a super-duper new highway system. Oh, only Ford motor vehicles can use it."
This is really cool. This is the first attempt that I've seen by any state government to deliver some really useful technology to their citizens. Heck, I'm happy just being able to pay parking tickets online, this SimIndiana has online productivity apps for gosh sakes!
While I'm sure they'll get the usual criticism, I admire and salute their attempt to deliver something truly useful to the good people of Indiana. The only real problem I see with this is reaching the many people who don't have access to the technology needed to use SimIndiana. In the future it may be very useful to provide similar services that can be accessed via cel phone. Afterall, these days everyone and their grandma has a cel phone.
Again, Kudos to Indiana!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
6. User Conduct You are responsible for any content that You store, post or transmit on or through the Service. You will not use the Service to store, distribute, link to, or solicit content that:
WTF? Is this SimIndiana or SimTexas ?
Was it Regan who said, ``Government does what doesn't need to be done, poorly''?
The last bits of the article report that the system is just a 2 year trial, with possible extension. What happens at that time? Your materials will magically disappear? Thousands of warnings get sent out that you miss, and next thing you know, you life's work, written in SimWord, which can only be opened by SimWord, is gone forever? Even if you have the file, you have no license to SimWord to open it? This is like trusting any of the other dot-com gimmicks that came and went in the past 10 years. Where is the mp3.com archive today? What about Hotmail suddenly closing accounts? What if it is a SimIndiana account, and you had all your financial reports on there?
This is just too freaking dangerous to be more then just a handy accessory, but how many people will take it seriously?
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Hey there was a glitch in the network thingie and I found these peektures of a hot girl.
wait a minute, that's....JENNY COME DOWN HERE NOW!!!! AND WHEN DID YOU GET THAT TATTOO?!@?
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
I work for a tax software company. Last year the IRS and many state governments were forced to remove their free online tax services because they competed with private tax software providers.
How is it that the state of Indiana can provide a free product that competes directly with everyone from yahoo mail to wordperfect and get away with it. I'm guessing this site won't be up for long - the courts will shut time down in a hurry.
Find coupons in Greeley
From the system requirements:
"TCP/IP (Internet Connection required for installation); 56 Kbps or higher modem (128 Kbps ISDN or better recommended)."
Considering most of Indiana is rural and those living in those areas with internet connectiions are still using 56K dial-up, this could be a big stumbling block to geeting SimIndiana off the ground.
My parents and MIL live in a rural area of Indiana and even though they have 56k modems the phone line quality is so poor that 29.2kbps is the best they can get.
This State of Indiana and STI have a three year contract for STI to provide the Services and Software to city residents; however, the State of Indiana has the right to terminate this contract earlier. Therefore, any data, files or other information You store on an STI server may be deleted if the contract between STI and the State of Indiana is terminated or when it expires, if not sooner. STI cannot guarantee that You will be warned before Your data, files, email, content, or other information is deleted. (emphasis mine)
Let me get this straight: after they've got the citizens of Indiana using this system for 3 years, they'll be able to blackmail the state from ever terminating the contract. Wow....
I've seen some of the things people are doing with HTML, CSS and JavaScript these days. We aren't that far from having powerful office tools that are used via a web browser. Heck, we may already be there.
Maybe the state of Indiana wants to get in on the offshore outsourcing business anyway. It wouldn't be the first time somebody confused North America with India.
Have you read my blog lately?
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I have experience with this company and this product and my experience was that they are far from perfect.
They came into my daughter's school about a year ago promising the same thing - free applications, email and file storage. And the software seemed really nice - there is a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email client, etc.
But there were also major issues with how the software worked (or, in some cases, didn't work). People had problems installing the software, performance problems after it was installed (the sim software ran as a memory-resident application from that point forward, which was a huge problem for older machines), crashes, and no one seemed to know how to uninstall the software once it was on the machine. Emails were not getting through, people had trouble retrieving files they thought they had saved (or perhaps the files were not being saved at all).
After a 6 month pilot project we scrapped the program due to complaints from parents. The group participating in the program were some technically savvy parents, most of whom are capable of dealing with routine issues like file management and email. I wonder what will happen when a whoel state comes online and trys to use this stuff.
M
Going the public library route is pretty smart -- a lot of people who can't afford computers were already going to the library for information so this gives them easy access to a personal workspace and productivity tools. It also has the possible added benefit of increasing library use and hence funding. That said, I don't use it and nobody I personally know use it. No doubt because we all have computers at home and the fact the city hasn't done a great job of promoting it.
Oh yeah, did I mention not wanting to keep all my email, wordprocessing, spreadsheet and contact information on a government server? I like knowing my data is on a computer I control. Before I seriously consider signing-up for any roaming desktop product I want all my data kept in an encrypted data store that I alone have the key for. Requiring a search warrant to access my data is a good procedural requirement but like the lock on my front door I want a physical barrier to keep out the curious and opportunistic.