ROCKNET MEETING MINUTES
September 11, 2003
The meeting was called to order at 7:35 pm in the City Manager's
Conference Room in Rockville City Hall.
Present were: Bob Ekman, Betsy Robbins, Stan Klein, Jonathan Walker,
Mike Cannon, Jim Beller, Brian Pierce, Ben Pauwels,
David Hill (arriving around 8:30pm)
1. Minutes of prior meeting accepted with minor revisions.
2. Betsy Robbins reported on Rockville and Rocknet web sites. Daily
visits to Rockville web site were down from 2610 in July to 2442 in
August. Historically, August has been a slow month.
The City has gone live with their new URL www.rockvillemd.gov. Their
web pages are now being dynamically created by a new content management
system. They are using Site Executive from System Alliance. It is a
ColdFusion MX application running on Red Hat Lynux 7.2 and Apache web
server.
3. Bob Ekman reported on the state of the RockNet servers. Visits per
day to the web server are down from 455 in July to 385 in August.
A new account has been established for the Alliance of Rockville
Neighborhood Associations (ARNA). They have been given a set of web
folders and a Lyris email list server. David Hill is the
administrator.
Work continues on getting the domain name connections for the New Mark
web site. We need to set up a domain name server.
RockNet was approached by Jim Coyle (past mayor) to provide services
for GROWS (Grass Roots Organization for the Well-being of Seniors).
4. Rocknet will participate in the Neighborhood Network presentation on
October 11. Bob Ekman and David Hill will make a joint presentation on
the RockNet services and how citizen groups can take advantage of them.
5. Jim Beller reported that we have received a letter stating there is
no tax due in 2003, and hopefully properly recorded for future years.
6. Bob Ekman and Roald Schrack have discussed the possibility of
RockNet support for the election machines with Doris Ecelbarger.
RockNet could observe and help with setup and takedown of the machines.
Brian Pierce and Bob Ekman agreed to help.
7. Intel is promoting a Wi-Fi day on September 25, with wireless
hotspots in Rockville.
8. Jonathan Walker gave a presentation on the rise of Wireless Internet
(Wi-Fi) and the possibilities for Rockville. He showed videos on how
other communities took advantage of Wireless Internet access. He will
be conducting two classes on Wireless Computer Networks through the
City's recreation program. He would be willing to advise citizen
groups on establishing a wireless hotspot in their neighborhood.
The meeting adjourned at 9:30 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Ekman
524 Carr Ave.
Rockville, MD 20850
