Feb. 16, 2006
Location
Overland Park Police Department, 8500 Antioch Road.
Attendance
Chris Audano, Chairman, City of Overland Park
Randy Ellis, City of Overland Park
Barbara Hensley, Mid-America Regional Council
Jim Clarke, City of Smithville
Kelli Behr, City of Gladstone
Anthony Oropeza, Johnson County Parks & Recreation
Bradley Hook, Kansas
School of the Blind
Paul Christos, Kansas City, MO Police Department
Sonya Fendorf, City of Shawnee
Roman Madrigal, City of Shawnee
Rich Lovett, City of Kansas City, MO
Jan Wilkinson, City of Kansas City, MO
Leslie Ensign, Clay County
Welcome and Introductions
The minutes were approved as submitted.
Presentation - Freebies on the Web
Rich
reminded the group to submit items for inclusion on the MAGWeb Resource page.
Rich demonstrated JPEG Compress, a product used to optimize photos in a fast and easy way. A preview of the image is shown as you drag a slider left and right to adjust the quality. The tool is available at www.dreamscapesoftware.com/products/kpegcompress. A similar tool is also available through www.gimp.org.
Roman then showed the group www.csscreator.com which is a layout generator. The group experimented with the tool to see how well it handled the common difficulty of stretching vertical columns as the content grows. Members shared their various hacks to resolve this problem, including using non-breaking spaces to stretch the columns; filling an underlying div with a tiling gif image that is the same color as the columns; and adding empty divs which have a minimum height to the horizontal flow.
The second layout generator shown by Roman actually contained a series of what are known as ‘Holly Hacks’ to resolve the column stretch problem automatically. This product is found at www.positioneverything.net.
A color scheme suggestion tool was shown from www.wellstyled.com. Users could click on the color wheel to have various versions of the hue displayed. The tool also includes the hexadecimal codes that go along with the themes. Roman shared a tip he uses for saving his color schemes; he takes a screen shot of the web page and saves it with his design files so he’ll be able to open it later and use a color-picker to select the colors.
NAGW Conference Update
There was no news to report.
Use of MAGWeb Funds for Training Members
The group discussed
the ongoing issue of attendance. Barbara asked for discussion about the idea
of charging a fee for MAGWeb training sessions based on attendance during the
year. For example, a member who attends monthly meetings regularly
would be able to attend special training sessions free of charge; however,
a member who only shows up occasionally would pay for training.
One member opposed the concept based on the thought that if a person has difficulty attending the meetings, having to pay a fee would be a further deterrent. Barbara said the intent of the fee schedule would be to encourage regular attendance. Additionally, it would help alleviate the concern of limited seating during lab training.
The group agreed that using some of MAGWeb’s budget to conduct specialty training in lab settings is a good idea; however no resolution was reached on the attendance-based fee concept.
The group reviewed how staff changes in some of the non-participating cities may have caused MAGWeb to slip off the radar. Kelli volunteered to be a part of a team that would visit some of these cities to share the benefits of MAGWeb. Barbara volunteered to send out a letter about MAGWeb to the City Manager’s group and IT group at MARC.
Upcoming Topics
Chris reminded members to submit their
topics of interest and possible speakers to the team. The topic for the next
meeting will be determined.
Open Discussion
Chris mentioned that two of our members have changed
employment: Chris Holdman has left the City of Overland Park to work in the
private sector, and Susan Waters is joining MARC. Although she was unable to
attend the meeting today, Susan requested the group join her for lunch after
the meeting.
Rich mentioned that he received an email from former member John Sims; John is living in California and doing well, currently working for a temp agency.
Chris reminded the group of prior discussions on meeting attendance and said Barbara had created a quick survey for the members. (If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do so.) Members reviewed the results entered so far. The group then compared the usage of survey creation software: Opionio, Surveyor and Absolute Poll Manager.
Barbara explained how some changes to the MARC building will present challenges for the upcoming meeting schedule. MARC is adding staff and remodeling its facilities. The end result will locate all of the meeting rooms on the street level. Additionally, another level will be added to the parking garage to help alleviate the shortages. MAGWeb may need to meet at other locations while this construction is going on.
Next meeting
Thursday, March 16, 2006, 10 a.m. at the Overland Park Police Department,
8500 Antioch Road. The meeting is at Overland Park rather than MARC because
of a scheduling conflict.
Minutes submitted by Kelli L. Behr, City of Gladstone, MO