[Katrina-IT-Volunteers] Friday night notes

[Glenn Meter]

* The center is noticeably less crowded than when I was last at the  
Center, on Wed night. This is good. More folks were playing games  
this evening, and we had some times when a bunch of machines were  
unattended. We may need to ramp down the staffing a bit. But, if more  
evacuees come in this could change....

*** One of the Red Cross folks told me this evening that when folks  
call into the Center to find loved ones, for privacy/safety reasons  
they can't say whether a person is in the shelter or not. So, it  
means that it's especially important for us to setup voicemail and/or  
e-mail for folks trying to locate and be located by loved ones. We've  
been doing this anyway, but it's important. Once the information's in  
the Red Cross site you can't update it.

* It would be good to start advertising Free-Net to the evacuees. I  
had a gentleman ask me this evening where the libraries were around  
town so that he could check his e-mail after he moved into an  
apartment. Glad I checked out the Free-Net site today so I could  
point him in the right direction.

* In case it hasn't been covered before on the list, there's a built- 
in Mail program on the public machines. It's not uncommon for folks  
to get into the Mail program instead of web mail. If you see it  
happening, just redirect them. We can't pull the Mail program from  
the machines since they're solid-state.

Glenn