WEBMASTER - DAMO
officer, Maj. Patrick F. Martin, HHC 49th AD., is one of 49th AD’s
webmaster gurus in BiH.
WEB GURU - WO1 Rodney
E. Hammack, HHC 49th AD, checks out the Task Force Eagle home page, one of
his esteemed creations, in addition to Eagle Vision and ScribeVision.
Task Force Eagle Web
Eagle Vision Intranet
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We’re becoming information
warriors – a new breed of soldiers. So said Maj. Patrick F. Martin, Jr.,
Division Automation Officer (DAMO) for the 49th Armored Division (49th AD)
now deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), concerning the increased
importance of web sites.
Both Martin and WO1 Rodney E.
Hammack, the webmaster for the 49th AD, are the "dynamic duo"
who collectively envisioned and designed the Task Force Eagle (TFE) Web
site.
The combined military and civilian
expertise of both soldiers represents the advantage the Guard can bring to
any tactical situation.
Having degrees in finance and
banking, Martin is a technical account manager for Microsoft. He learned
computer networking skills at the Army National Guard Readiness Center in
Arlington, Va., and applied that knowledge installing networks for the
Division Information Office (DOIM) in New York State.
Martin, tasked with the division Web
site for the 49th’s deployment to BiH – wanted the TFE page to handle
public information, pictures and news stories of the division in country,
and to serve as a "front end" or door for the Web sites of the
49th’s subordinate commands.
Martin also helped design Eagle
Vision; an intranet (or internal net) accessible only to Multinational
Division North (MND-N) personnel.
"(It’s) one-stop
shopping," said Martin of the ease of accessing the intranet’s
latest info — on everything from the weather in Tuzla to the Division
phone book — available to any end user in MND-N.
Eagle Vision even contains all the
49th’s policy letters, which are normally posted on boring bulletin
boards or filed and forgotten in office cabinets.
"We’re going paperless,"
said Martin, and "redefining the way we (the 49th) do business."
On the technical side, Hammack, a
systems designer for EDS in Plano, Texas, designed the TFE front door
(home page) as a template for the other doors or links leading to the Web
sites of the 49th’s subordinate commands.
In other words, the TFE home page
acts as a cover consistent with the individual pages inside, much like a
book or newspaper.
This isn’t surprising since
Hammack’s civilian experience includes the editorship of his college
newspaper.
Hammack designed the TFE home page
to target family members and news organizations with a format similar to a
newspaper’s news, sports and entertainment sections.
Hammack said he designed TFE to have
a high graphics look with low maintenance. As a result, TFE’s
subordinate Web pages are all on the same sheet of music since they all
share the same color scheme and consistency indicative of a well-made
publication.
Hammack said this consistency
provides a sense of familiarity as changes are distracting and can make
the user feel uncomfortable returning to the site.
The key to a Web site isn’t looks
but useful information that is easy to access, explained Hammack.
He said DAMO replaced equipment and
increased maintenance on their server so it would stay "up" more
consistently as deployed members’ families tend to panic when the TFE
lifeline connection is lost.
Perhaps the revolving servicemember photos and daily
news updates on TFE give it a sort of animus, as if it were a living
representation of absent loved ones who have deployed here. But as long as
the TFE Web site is up and running, the distance from here to Texas will
be only as long as the cord on your mouse.
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ScribeVision:
World's Largest Web Page
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Hammack has
earned a name for himself, at least according
to Chris Vaughn of the Fort Worth based "Star-Telegram."
According to Vaughn’s
article, Hammack created a stylish, easy-to-navigate Web page –
Task Force Eagle (TFE) – as well as an intranet page for
sensitive but unclassified information.
Hammack also created what he
calls "ScribeVision", an intranet he designed during
Mission Readiness Exercise (MRE) at Fort Polk, La., that allows
users to put information onto a Web page without having to know
Web page programming.
"Hammack’s work, done
in a matter of days, drew the attention of high-level generals in
Europe and the Pentagon, who summoned him to Stuttgart, Germany,
for lessons on how he did it," reported Vaughn.
At the Eagle Base Battle
Update Brief (BUB), ScribeVision continuously displays information
on a giant computer monitor while presenting updated data in less
than one minute after it is entered.
"ScribeVision is the
world’s largest Web page," said Hammack.
The platform, the Web server
and operating system for ScribeVision, was designed by Maj.
Patrick F. Martin, Jr., Division Automation Officer (DAMO), HHC 49tth
AD.
ScribeVision is an example of how soldiers
in the 49th can come up with innovative means to support our
mission and was a combined effort by the entire DAMO section with
the 249th
Signal Battalion providing the pipeline (backbone of the system),
said Martin.
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