PolicePro and Steamboat Data Systems operate out of New York. What's with the Alaska stuff?

Hey, why not? It's not that big a deal, in a state where going to the dentist often means a plane ride. From Albany you hop on a jet, turn right at Seattle, land in Juneau and go from there. And in the new wireless world of the much improved Internet, we find we can service our distant clients from pretty much anywhere, until it comes time for a major new project or upgrade.

So the story is that Dave Lundgren will be in Southeast Alaska during the first part of April this year, and if you are part of a PD in that state that is tired of the system you have, tired of having no system at all, or just curious about PolicePro, you won't get a better opportunity than this to do something about it.

We love Alaska. PolicePro, even though a Lower 48 flatlander program, could not be a better fit for Alaskan law enforcement if we had written it in a tent atop the Denver Glacier. PolicePro will shortly meet every standard of the ALEAAC Accreditation program as well. It certainly couldn't hurt to contact us, especially now since we will be in the (so to speak) neighborhood.

So here we go again with the weblog idea. I had one of these going last year, the Steamblog, attached loosely to the Steamboat Data website. It was done in Six Apart's Typepad product, which was excellent to work with; but I let it lapse as pressures to get other things done slowly pushed it further off my radar.

This new site is a move back to our original PolicePro roots. For several years PolicePro.com was its own entity, and quite successfully. When we incorporated in 2003 as Steamboat Data Systems, I had the bright idea of consolidating everything under one site umbrella. I can't say it was the best idea I ever had, and so this site is the result of recognizing that fact and putting PP (as we call it) back in its own house. The Steamboat Data site persists as well, and will start heading in its own independent direction shortly.

PolicePro.com for the cops and our (favorite) police business, SteamboatData.com for other programming endeavors.

The new site is being done completely in RapidWeaver, just an outstanding web creation product. It ain't the most sophisticated product in the world, but we're not the most sophisticated people either, so it's alright. It is some solid, practical stuff for people who want to get a site up and out there. It is also a Macintosh only product, so Windows users either need to find something else, or buy a Mac mini to use for web creation along with your other computers. Try it, you'll like it!

What Rapidweaver does better than anyone is let me create, manage and update this site by myself without requiring all sorts of technical assistance from anyone else. Since our message is pretty straightforward and our corporate culture is about Relaxed Excellence, it's a great match for what I want to do.

Rapidweaver also lets me run this weblog as an integral part of the site, again a great timesaver and ease of use tool.

So the weblog will (slowly) evolve into the usual self-absorbed ramblings that they all do, but hey - there are people out there who are interested in this stuff! I intend to pontificate occasionally on what is going on with PolicePro, what we see for its future, and how we're going about it all.

With maybe just a little tech talk sort of content in there as well as things appear that impress me - like Rapidweaver.