Software

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Glendale Community College officials are working to overcome problems with new student registration software before the onslaught of the fall semester. The PeopleSoft software installed months ago was designed to streamline and consolidate several college online services, but unexpected bugs have slowed them down. Issues began last spring semester when some students were unable to register properly. The problems are being dealt with as fast as college staff and computer consultants can manage, said Ricardo Perez, vice president of student affairs.

CITY HALL — A new software program will allow the Police Department to better track officer misconduct reports as the command staff continues to carry out Chief Ron De Pompa’s zero tolerance policy. The internal affairs tracking system — part of larger software conversion that also will track work hours and other personnel matters — will establish an early-warning system for problem employees by tracking the number of reported misconducts and notifying administrators so they can intervene, said Capt.

School district left to choose new system or retraining after firm cuts tech support.GLENDALE -- The supplier of the Glendale Unified School District's student information software plans to cut its technical support, forcing district officials to decide on a new version of the software or take up to two years to learn a new program to store grades and disciplinary information. The board will discuss the issue during its 4 p.m. meeting today at 223 N. Jackson St. Maximus, the supplier of SchoolMax 4.1, has notified the district that it will discontinue software support in 18 to 24 months.

Seventeen Glendale middle school teachers this year will pilot new grading software that is designed to help teachers assess their students' performance based on state standards. By using the Edusoft software, teachers will have access to more than 10,000 state standards-based questions for classroom assessments. Teachers who serve on the district's Middle School Grading and Reporting Committee recommended to board members last month that Edusoft's Benchmark Module be implemented in Glendale.

School-vending initiative unveiled GLENDALE -- Nestle USA has introduced an initiative that would have its vending machines in schools nationwide. Nestle USA is based in Glendale. The Nesquick Milk Vending Initiative would provide campuses with machines that would carry Nesquick's flavored milks. The program would provide a beverage alternative to regular school-vending choices such as water, milk and other beverages, officials said. New travel software program touted MONTROSE -- A new software program designed to provide more detailed travel data on corporate credit-card purchases for travel has been created by Montrose Travel.

FileNet buys Canadian software company FileNet Corp., a Costa Mesa business software company, announced Sept. 19 that it has made a deal to purchase Yaletown Technology Group Inc. Yaletown, based in Vancouver, Canada, makes software designed to aid businesses in their compliance with regulatory requirements. FileNet announced plans to integrate Yaletown software into its own product line. FileNet stated it paid about $11 million in cash for all of Yaletown's stock.

  National Night Out takes place Aug. 7 The community is invited to Montrose for the National Night Out at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 7 to show solidarity against crime. The goal of the night is to heighten crime and drug prevention awareness, generate support for local anti-crime programs and strengthen neighborhood spirit and unity of community. The walk begins at the Vietnam Memorial at Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue. Participants will walk east on Honolulu to Verdugo Boulevard, cross to the other side of Honolulu and walk west to the parking lot at the 2400 block of Honolulu Ave., across from Fire Station 29. At the end of the walk, participants can join in a neighborhood ice cream social, thanks to a generous donation from the Nestle Company.

Getting a new computer or a new software upgrade is like getting your cook to learn new dishes or getting married the second time around ("Schools facing software dilemma," Tuesday). Should the Glendale Unified School District upgrade to a new system? This may seem like a distant subject to those not involved with computers directly, but you should know more than you know now. It should matter to you. If you are retired and on Medicare, you know by now the confusion on the prescription drug problem faced by many who could not get their medicine recently.

Buck Wargo CITY HALL -- Glendale will get a $110,000 grant from the state to better track accidents and improve safety at intersections. The Office of Traffic Safety announced Tuesday that Glendale is one of 32 grants worth $8.2 million that are being awarded to promote traffic safety. Glendale applied for the grant, which will be used for a software program to analyze accident information for the Police Department and city's traffic department.

Glendale fire inspectors soon will be swapping their paper and pens for 33 Apple iPads to input data from the field. While officials say the change will increase efficiency, it also will add to the amount the city has spent on a data program, which so far has ballooned from an initially planned $1.2 million to almost $2.2 million. The City Council unanimously approved the project Tuesday. Director of Information Services Department Ed Fraga said all the glitches with the EdgeSoft software, known as City Services Interface, have been fixed, and since Nov. 2009, it has been fully functional.

Glendale fire inspectors soon will be swapping their paper and pens for 33 Apple iPads to input data from the field. While officials say the change will increase efficiency, it also will add to the amount the city has spent on a data program, which so far has ballooned from an initially planned $1.2 million to almost $2.2 million. The City Council unanimously approved the project Tuesday. Director of Information Services Department Ed Fraga said all the glitches with the EdgeSoft software, known as City Services Interface, have been fixed, and since Nov. 2009, it has been fully functional.

CITY HALL — A new software program will allow the Police Department to better track officer misconduct reports as the command staff continues to carry out Chief Ron De Pompa’s zero tolerance policy. The internal affairs tracking system — part of larger software conversion that also will track work hours and other personnel matters — will establish an early-warning system for problem employees by tracking the number of reported misconducts and notifying administrators so they can intervene, said Capt.

A Glendale-based staffing company is expanding its horizons, and that might be a good sign for the economy as a whole. Software Management Consultants Inc., with headquarters on Brand Boulevard, acquired Bay Area staffing firm Partners in Business Systems Inc. on Sept. 1 for an undisclosed sum. The move comes as SCMI President Spencer Karpf reports a 25% increase in revenue this year. Banks, health-care firms and hotels are investing in technology and boosting the need for consultants and IT professionals, he said.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Glendale Community College officials are working to overcome problems with new student registration software before the onslaught of the fall semester. The PeopleSoft software installed months ago was designed to streamline and consolidate several college online services, but unexpected bugs have slowed them down. Issues began last spring semester when some students were unable to register properly. The problems are being dealt with as fast as college staff and computer consultants can manage, said Ricardo Perez, vice president of student affairs.

Monte Iskandaryan, a fifth-grader at Keppel Elementary School, was surfing the Web one night, and after an online chat with his teacher and a classmate, he began re-editing and re-filming his one-minute video entry for the Why I Love My School contest. Monte’s project shows him entering an essay contest and through voice-overs and videos, he explains the drama activities, science experiments and arts that, as he says, make Keppel his favorite school on Earth. It is one of more than a dozen submissions that will come from teacher April Faieta’s class before the deadline Friday.

Executives of the La Crescenta-based computer software company BIS Computer Solutions, Inc. delivered a multi-faceted series of demonstrations and briefings to introduce teenage members of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pasadena to the opportunities and challenges in carving out a technology-focused career. Miro Macho, founder and chief executive of BIS Computer Solutions, and Michael Macho, president of its Mobile Division, personally demonstrated software applications developed by the company.

Larry Hanson was in his Silver Lake home with his wife and 2-year-old daughter when Neil Armstrong made his historical walk on the moon. An aspiring teacher, who instead was poached by IBM because “they needed warm bodies,” Hanson was eventually assigned to an account that would garner a 500-million-person live audience around the world. In 1969, with his eyes glued to the television, he witnessed history that he and his colleagues at IBM helped create. “I had no idea what a computer was before I was hired by IBM,” said Hanson, 74. Ten years later, he managed the creation of Information Management System, a database software that helped North American Rockwell, organize the 2 million individual parts of the Apollo spacecraft.

  National Night Out takes place Aug. 7 The community is invited to Montrose for the National Night Out at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 7 to show solidarity against crime. The goal of the night is to heighten crime and drug prevention awareness, generate support for local anti-crime programs and strengthen neighborhood spirit and unity of community. The walk begins at the Vietnam Memorial at Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue. Participants will walk east on Honolulu to Verdugo Boulevard, cross to the other side of Honolulu and walk west to the parking lot at the 2400 block of Honolulu Ave., across from Fire Station 29. At the end of the walk, participants can join in a neighborhood ice cream social, thanks to a generous donation from the Nestle Company.

Every species has its preferred habitat. And at Clark Magnet High School on Thursday, students were using data about the kinds of homes that sea creatures prefer to build computer-generated maps of where the animals should thrive in the waters near Santa Cruz Island. The students were building the detailed, colorful maps with computer software called ArcGIS, which stands for Geographic Information System. Their teacher, Dominique Evans-Bye, and spatial technologies specialists Adam Barnes and Robin Gregory, who were visiting the school from the University of Arkansas for two days, assisted them.