Despite technological hardships responsible for a delay in posting the revamped Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Web site, the site should be available online soon.

USG President Galen Foulke said he expects the site will be active within the next two weeks.

"Our new IT (information technology) guy [Matt Burnett] is really making something wonderful," he said. "It puts to shame some of the official Web sites."

Foulke said the new site will contain updates about USG-related events, as well as information about specific departments within the organization.

Burnett, USG co-IT director, said he had to rework parts of the site because Penn State's club server does not support a script that would automatically transform files containing information like member contact data into Web-ready pages.

"A simple extension needs to be enabled, and then you can perform those transformations in real-time," he said.

Burnett said he contacted the university's Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET) department but was told the scripting function would not be enabled this semester.

"They said they'd put it on a wish list for future semesters," he said.

In the meantime, Burnett has chosen an alternative method of merging the information to the site.

"I kind of accepted our fate, and we're just going to go for the long and tedious way," he said.

Burnett said the new site would be ready to go online shortly after he receives information from different branches within USG. He said he hoped to have the information today.

"I don't want to put up a partially done Web site," he said.

The site will include some new features aimed at students who want information related to USG.

"We have a platform goal to try to get webcams for the gyms, and if that would go through, we would put that on there," Burnett said. "We also want to make it very easy to contact anyone in USG."

Burnett worked on Foulke's campaign Web site last year, and Foulke said he is excited about Burnett's work.

"This guy is to Web sites what Michelangelo is to marble," he said.

At last Tuesday's USG Senate meeting, East Halls Sen. Matt Ritsko expressed concern over the currently defunct USG Web site. He said Senate bylaws require the Senate secretary to send meeting minutes to the webmaster to have them published.

"I think we should try getting the minutes up there if anyone wanted to see them," he said.

Ritsko said the Senate voted last year to have all roll-call votes included in the minutes and placed online.

"You had a count on the legislation, but you didn't know who voted which way," he said of the old system. "The idea was that this should be public information."

Burnett said meeting minutes and other branch-specific information would be included when the site goes online.