Odd Software Applications Found On City and County Computers (UPDATE)
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 5/22/08 @ 8:38 pm - Filed Under Local Politics
I was perusing the documents provided by the city as part of their IT contract that’s up for bid and I stumbled upon an excel spreadsheet that lists all the software applications running on city computers. Here’s a few of the more interesting ones listed:
Age of Empires III
budbeerdt.exe
BullockSandra2.exe
Carl The Caveman
doolhotcouples1.zip (note: dool = Days of our Lives)
GreyOlltwit’s Mini Golf
Little Shop Of Treasures
Monopoly Here & Now Edition
Star Wars Empire at War
The Dr Laura Media Center
Update (5/24): The JG covered this story today (no attribution of course) and Goldner’s quote is similar to my thinking on the matter:
Giving the entire list to all prospective companies, as well as the public, however, does seem a bit embarrassing.
“It makes the city and the county look a little silly,” she said.
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10 Responses to “Odd Software Applications Found On City and County Computers (UPDATE)”
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Thanks for the Common Sense reporting: as for your idea, let’s trim the budget on local government staff that has too much time on their hands.
Looks like city and certainly county employees have too much time playing games.
Maybe, our local government will find ways to curb Allen County taxes.
Smaller employment of local government is a start.
Whoops - Looks like somebody forgot to scan the spreadsheet. Should give the IT folks something to look for on Friday - which may be somebody’s last day :)
I am not going to cast any stones on this one for a number of reasons. These programs may have been left by departed city employees.
Also, I know first hand I use to do work at home and then copy it to disk or CD and taken to work. I would forget sometimes and copy the entire disk or CD to the server. I would tell myself I would delete the junk programs later. Yet I forgot.
So I am not casting any stones on this subject. Let alone wanting people fired over it!
Nobody should be fired.
I just thought it was interesting that they sent out a list with all this junk (and many, many more) to potential contractors…
Jeff, now I understand your view….
I have cleaned up server files before and it amazes me what you find. I have found letters from people who planned on quiting their job and it was their notice. However, they never quit and one was nearly four years old.
Common sense says - you just don’t turn over a list full of data points and say - ta dah! That’s the applications we need supported (I assume that’s why they included the list to begin with).
If you’re gonna use something like Marimba or other scanning tool, validate the data points, turn it into information people - i.e. what applications you want supported, not what random crap exists and where. Sounds like someone asked for a “report” and they got whatever comes out of the scanning system - with no human eyes ever looking it over.
Actually human eyes did look at the report and warned the City and County before they posted it. They took their normal lackadaisical stance and said leave it as is. I can only assume they did the same thing when reviewing the proposals sent in by the various companies, therefore we probably will not get the best offering.
The kicker to all of this-
The City/County admits that their inventory list of hardware and software is only 70% accurate.
Now that is real troubling….. Wonder how many laptops, printers, and so forth are not accounted for? I am sure we will get a blow off answer like so many other things have happened. I am sure Pat Roller can write a nice letter telling everyone not to worry because she said so.
Kevin,
I’m sure it’s only 70% accurate because you can buy tools to find the generic executables on your desktop/laptops, but it takes some due diligence to identify and incorporate those that don’t come automatically with the package.