I want to wish everyone a healthy and happy 4th of July.  Further to that, we seem to be experiencing a rash of car break-ins and thefts.  Please do lock your cars and take a look at the following press release:

 

Precautionary Measures That Can Prevent Vehicle Break-ins

Larcenies from motor vehicles continue to be an ongoing issue throughout the city, leaving citizens deprived of valuable possessions. You must always be cautious when leaving your vehicle unattended with valuable possessions inside, whether it is only for a few minutes for an extended period of time. Many people forget to lock their car doors or simply choose not to. This makes it simple for a thief to gain entry into a vehicle where many valuable possessions can be taken. Be sure to roll up all windows and close your sunroof if you have one.

Thieves act on impulse. If they see something they like and cannot gain access through an unlocked car door, they will usually smash a window, take what caught their interest and flee the scene. This is why it is important to make sure valuables are not visible. Hide your valuables or take valuable items with you whenever possible. Any items that cannot be taken with you should be kept out of sight, such as under a seat, in the glove box, or preferably in the trunk. Owners of station wagons, pick-ups and SUVs that do not have a trunk should consider a retractable cover for their cargo area to keep items out of sight. Any items that could indicate having value such as briefcases, boxes, and electronic accessories should be kept out of sight as well. Cell phone chargers, Ipod adapters, and navigation system windshield mounts are all signs that indicate the presence of more valuable possessions that thieves may be interested in.

It is also important to stow away your belongings before your arrival. Thieves have a tendency to stake out parking lots, where they watch people put bags and other items into the trunks of their vehicles. Stow items away before your arrival rather than waiting until you reach your destination.

Thieves like to work in private. Thus, parking your vehicle in a well-lit area, in a populous location, or in a lot with an attendant on duty can help prevent a break-in. Avoid parking where your own vehicle could become concealed by such things as larger vehicles, dumpsters, and fences. At home, park your car in your garage or driveway. Keep the outside lights on or install motion detectors to hinder any intruders.

A car alarm system is another good preventative measure. If you do have one installed, be sure to respond to the alarm quickly to prevent any disturbance. If you are ever concerned to park somewhere because of suspicious activity then find another spot to park and report the suspicious activity to the police.

 

I wanted to write a little bit about an ongoing experiment that I've been conducting.  In the age of all things electronica and, since I'm an IT guy, I wanted to see how it went trying to conduct City business electronically.  It's always bothered me at least a little bit that the shelf life of the mountain of paper I get from the City each week is about 4 days.  The 200+ page Council agendas go straight into the recycle bin as we finish with each item during the Council meeting.  Committee agends are all gone by Wednesday.  It's always seemed like a waste.

First a little background:

When I was first elected, the city distributed laptops to all newly elected members of Council.  That was interesting and I suppose a little bit useful but since Outlook wasn't configured to work over the internet, I still had to use webmail.  I guess that the main idea behind giving Council members laptops was to help them segregate their life in order to avoid FOIA problems, which can be major (I've blacklisted the city's domain on my business email so that city email doesn't come there).  However, laptops just weren't very useful – we never even made a stab at trying to do business electronically.  That was all about 6 years ago.

So, I've been trying to do the agendas only on my iPad and so far so good.  I have found two recurring problems tho: the first seems to be an artifact of how the agenda is scanned.  Maybe the resolution is too high (guess) as sometimes the ipad will have a hard time rendering the pages and it isn't solely to do with the size of the agenda.  The other is that it I can well imagine non-techies having problems getting the agendas and other media to save correctly.  There are fixes for that which are done on the IT side but it is an issue.  Overall, I think it's probably simple enough that Council members could opt for an iPad instead of a laptop.

The iPhone is a bit of a different story.  I tried to do the agenda thing on it once and that was a failure.  It is just too damn small.  However, at thte last town hall meeting I figured I would try to take notes on it.  This was an abject failure.  It took waaaay too long to get things down and my suspicion was that people in the audience thought I was screwing around on the internet.  That's not useful either: in solving one problem I'm causing a more serious one!

So, the iPhone is probably out of the running but the iPad experiment is still alive.  I'll report back with a conclusion at some point.