Life outside of work is still work?

So, it’s technically illegal for an employer to discriminate in their hiring practices based on race, creed, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, gender, age, etc. Ever since the employers became savvy to social networking, there has been an ongoing debate about whether or not they can discriminate based on an applicant’s life outside of work. I’mRead… Read more »

SBA to Amend Business Eligibility Rules and NAICS Code Procedures http://bit.ly/hIZwhu

In a move to prevent large businesses from claiming set-asides meant for small businesses, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is changing a number of its regulations. The changes include: Clarifying the effect of eligibility decisions on procurements Increasing the amount of time the SBA has to issue formal business size determinations and file North AmericanRead… Read more »

Creating Accessible Flash

Do you need to make a Flash video for your website? If you do, it needs to be accessible to people with disabilities. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs recently created a on-line course called, “Creating Accessible Flash” to help you apply Section 508. It is available for free on the VA website.

Green IT – What’s Next?

Greener Computing recently published an article about what to expect from the green IT sector in 2011. Of course specific predictions are difficult, but the graph at right shows you where Greener Computing and Forrester Research think the green IT sector is at the moment. As you can see, if past cycles continue into theRead… Read more »

Using Prizes as Innovation Engines

President Obama said he wanted to spur innovation, in his State of the Union address. Actually, this effort started in earnest last year through the use of prizes and contents as a complement to traditional research and development. As promised in an earlier blog post on this topic, the IBM Center now has a report,Read… Read more »

Azure Open Government

In this blog David Chou provides an excellent synopsis of the core mechanics and fundamental value of Cloud computing. He focuses on Microsoft Azure naturally, and so does this other recent white paper. Business elasticity – As a service In a nutshell these articles describe that the primary business benefits of Cloud computing is thatRead… Read more »

John Boehner’s Tech Innovation Wave Into The Speaker’s Chair

Stan Freck (Park City, UT) – The pace of technological change and adoption is increasing rapidly, and even relatively traditional fields like politics and government are not immune from such evolution. Here, I briefly review how the Internet has impacted modern high-profile political campaigns, and take a special look at how in 2010 Rep. JohnRead… Read more »

New Calif. policy puts department heads on hook for IT purchases

The state of California is trying to build more accountability into their information technology purchases. In a policy letter, circulated by the newly renamed California Technology Agency, department-level directors will have to personally certify IT products and services previously approved at lower levels. According to IT Policy Letter (ITPL) 11-01, Department Directors will have toRead… Read more »

Thought for the day

When did a multi-million pound operation like a Council become reduced to ‘an organisation which provides libraries’? Some damn expensive libraries. And some abandoned other issues. Telling issues. Like youth centres. Like SureStart. Like all the voluntary sector funding gone. Like rural bus routes disappearing. I’m guessing some complaints might start appearing when the ‘10,000Read… Read more »