THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 19, 1994 TAG: 9409170026
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE GATEWAY
EXPLORING THE COMPUTER WORLD
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
TIRED OF wandering the continents on the Net? Do World Wide Web sites for Slovakia and Antarctica (we are not making this up) leave you footsore?
Come home, bunkie. Come to Virginia Beach, where you can download a history of Virginia Beach, a City Council agenda or a text file explaining the city manager form of government.
Easy, there. Don't faint from excitement.
This is pretty practical, actually, if you're a Beach resident who likes to keep up with local current affairs.
The city of Virginia Beach runs the Service Information Directory, or ``SID'' as employees commonly call it, a smorgasbord of municipal information.
In fact, the Beach launched SID in 1988, practically prehistory when you're talking about the public's awareness of online services.
``The city was running an internal bulletin board for city departments to communicate,'' said SID's mom Pam Ford, more formally known as the citizen services coordinator. ``I just took the initiative to say, hey, let's do this for the public. It's another way to disseminate infor-mation.''
The city uses SID to send out current news releases, the agendas for the City Council or any city commission, job postings and requests for proposals or bids from the purchasing department.
She estimates that 1,500 people use the bulletin board regularly every year.
The tricky part is getting in. As in all dealings with city governments, you need to be patient with this. The bulletin board number is often busy.
``We're still running off an old AT&T computer with a 20-megabyte hard drive and one port,'' Ford said. The modem runs at 2400 baud, a slow speed for most modern personal computers.
Also, it is somewhat complicated once you get in. If you don't give just the right answers to configure it for viewing on your computer, you tend to get a lot of gibberish.
The same is true if you want to download one of the files. Before you call, be sure you know exactly what protocol your communications software uses, so you can give the right answers for that.
Nationwide, Virginia Beach was ahead of its time but has fallen behind technologically. In the past year or two, cities from Blacksburg to Palo Alto, Calif., have put a new door to city hall on Internet. Their offerings are more diverse and much easier to use.
The good news is that Ford hopes to upgrade the Virginia Beach system within a year to feature more ports, a high-speed modem and up-to-date software. She also would like to let users send messages to individual city departments; now they can only message her or one of the other system operators, who pass on the message.
``I think we do lose users because they call several times and it's busy and they give up,'' Ford said. But, she pointed out, all the information is available by phone, mail or in person at City Hall.
Another goal for the Beach is to get a connection to Internet. Right now, the only way to connect to SID is by dialing it directly.
As far as local cities go, Virginia Beach is pretty much out front in the cyberspace field. Norfolk, which is otherwise highly automated and computer-friendly, is still exploring the possibility of an online presence. MEMO: Virginia Beach SID can be reached at 427-2470. Make your system
setting N-8-1. There is no charge.
If you have any ideas or comments for The Gateway, contact Rob
Morris, robm(AT)infi.net or call 446-2362.
In Hampton Roads, access to the Internet is offered through InfiNet.
For details, see page A2.
by CNB