24-Hour Wifi at Robert J. Parks Library and General News

As of today, we have set the wireless hotspot at Robert J. Parks Library to stay on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for public wifi access. The city of Oscoda is aware of and has approved this change and understands the issues involved.

Software maintenance will be completed this evening with Omer Library. All public and staff computers now have compatibility with Office 2007 file formats, as well as current versions of productivity and Internet applications. Notable additions include Gzip for handling other file compression formats, OpenOffice 2.3 with OpenClip art and templates, updated Google Earth and Stellarium 0.9.0.

In the coming weeks, AuGres and Whittemore will each have one additional public access computer; both current model Dell Optiplex series systems. This will also mark the first transition to a minimum of 2GB of RAM and discrete graphics (ATI with 256MB of video RAM). We still do not plan to transition to Vista, but we want to leave the option open if there's some "must-have application" that only runs on Vista or a application that requires a lot of memory or graphics to run. We will continue to use XP Pro well into the future.