ITC News

T-1 circuits were order on February 14th for 2520 field service centers, soil survey offices, and other service center agency offices. Provisioning teams can be expected in offices in early March to convert them to a 20-fold increase in bandwith. The installation will involve new circuits into the office, where applicable extending them to the computer cabinet, and establishing the encrypted tunnel through the Internet to the USDA network. All offices are expected to be completed by mid-September 2003. We will keep you updated on the progress of this upgrade as it proceeds. Contact: Larry Brooks, 970-295-5423.

TechReg On-Line March 1st

The new Technical Service Provider Registry, called TechReg, was brought on-line March 1st. Prospective technical service providers can obtain USDA accounts, get on-line, apply, and proceed through a self-certification process. Via agreements TechReg already contains several thousand qualified providers from other certifying organizations. Roll-out teleconferences were held with the regions February 25-27th. TechReg was officially unveiled by Chief Knight at the NACD meeting in Orlando on February 10th. The link to the application can be found at the NRCS Web Site, http://www.nrcs.usda.gov. Contact: Wendall Oaks, 970-295-5479

Windows XP Migration Roll-Out Underway

Windows XP migration CDs were expressed shipped to states on February 12th. Windows XP is the convergence of Windows NT and desktop Windows 98 into a single operating system. It provides several new security and system administration features. XP migrations are expected to take 2.5 to 4 hours for each computer. The migration involving 46,000 workstations will be accomplished with IT resources internal to the three partner agencies over a seven month period. Additional details are available from several newsflashes posted to the National Help Desk web site in the past several weeks, http://helpdesk.itc.nrcs.usda.gov. Contact: Larry Brooks, 970-295-5423.

Thunderbook Provides In-Field Access to Technical Information

NRCS users of the electronic technical guide eFOTG can now select content for a digital technology briefcase called Thunderbook. It is an electronic version of the paper Thunderbook traditionally used by field conservationists while working in the field, containing seeding specifications, soils information, practice standards, job sheets, and other frequently used technical information and aids. When users disconnect from the network the content in the Thunderbook is available on the laptop while in the field. When the laptop is re-docked to the network, the content is refreshed if it has changed. The Thunderbook works with Windows XP, meaning initially it can be used for training and preparation on Windows NT before the laptop is migrated to XP. Contact: Phil Smith, 970-295-5478.