It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari!

[thewiseguy]

If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past.

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012104249.html?wprss=rss_technology

Six year old versions of Microsoft software? :wtf:

[villager]

1. Time for open source!

;-)

[mwooldri]

12. Open Source Government? Will that be with a GNU Public License?

Feel free to copy and redistribute, but any modifications must also be made freely and be distributed too.

[my2sense]

2. Wow

I guess the old admin didn't use technology much.

[sofa king]

14. Oh yes they did, they just broke the law doing it.

Watch MC Rove brandish his illegal Blackberry here.

Rove's emails were routed through the same server which counted Ohio's votes in November, 2004.

The emails were then "lost," in clear violation of the NARA Act.

And the person most likely to be able to recover them was also "lost," a few days before Christmas.

My concern is that the Obama Administration will also perceive the value in extra-legal communications, adopt them, and consequently drop the attempt to recover the trove of Republican-era data, thus virtually guaranteeing the early return of those criminals. I hope instead that they push to rewrite the rules so that modern communication of any sort is logged and saved for posterity.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Humorous

but them are the rules

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Koind of sad.. The WhiteHouse should be the most up to date technologically.

[bdamomma]

17. you would think it would be, the bush staff stripped everything out

[Maru Kitteh]

5. I'm sure they'll get to work on it. I can't really see them just going "Oh well."

I guess we'll just use the technology from the Reagan administration, that's o.k.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. "Six year old versions of Microsoft software?" - that would be Windows XP, then

which is widely preferred as more stable and less memory-hungry than Vista. As long as they keep it up to date with patches (which you have to do with Vista too), I wouldn't fault them for that.

As for using Microsoft v. Apple - I don't intend to get into a Holy War here.

[backscatter712]

7. Clearly, the rules need to be updated.

Obviously, there need to be rules in place to ensure compliance with the Presidential Records Act and stay on top of security issues, but at the same time, the White House needs a technological makeover, and the rules need to be updated so White House staffers can use current technology - they should be able to use Facebook to communicate with supporters and have modern computers.

[Clio the Leo]

8. The Man got his Blackberry......

..... and he will solve this problem too.

Probably on Thursday.

And then on Friday, he'll find the cure for cellulite.

[smalll]

9. Look, even this old Hillarite is an Obamabot now, but these kind of latte-liberal talking points ...

will get you nowhere. He's the President of ALL of us now. Those of us without cell-phones (gasp!) Those of us without cable (Why Do We Hate America?) Those of us without iphones, ipods or i-anything, (mostly because we can't afford things that are "virtually indestructable unless hit or dropped" as per The Onion piece on the new keyboard-free iWheel.)

"SIX YEAR OLD VERSIONS OF MICROSOFT SOFTWARE" ?!?!?! ---

[babylonsister]

10. Hey, I don't have a cell phone or iphone, but do get the drift.

He's attractive to all of us, and not because of technology. I 'get' it, too.

And Blackberry? :shrug: Not a clue.

[dbmk]

13. Yes!

Really! Whats wrong with pen and paper, I ask you? And there are plenty of people out there that don't have cars, let alone airplanes. Obama is president for those people too. He can walk where he needs to go.

I want a president I can have a beer with!

[PVnRT]

15. Huh?

Hate to tell you this, but all that fancy technology allows them to work more quickly and efficiently. Not to mention that it helped them run an enormously popular and effective ground organization.

I fail to see how them wanting the technology that they relied on to win the White House somehow makes them latte liberals, and the fact that you use the term....well, is not surprising.

[Norrin Radd]

11. Nothin' wrong with retrogaming. ;-)

[SIMPLYB1980]

16. I like retrogaming but,

I like to play them on my computer, or PS3. I get tired of blowing air on my Atari cartridges to make them work.

[moggie]

18. "No outside e-mail log-ins"

Why is that a bad thing?