Federal e-gov initiatives to benefit state, local health care programs
If the Social Security Administration's vital statistics reporting and searching pilot programs are any indication of what is to come, state and local governments can expect significant help from Uncle Sam over the next two years in improving electronic information sharing.
Funding, IT aimed at aviation safety
Establishing public trust in the nation's airways isn't only a matter of national security, it's critical to the nation's economic recovery from the terror attacks. State and federal officials are pursuing the effort with IT, using new and existing funding sources to improve safety.
Three states gain CIOs
New CIOs took charge in Arkansas, where Randall Bradford took over, Maryland, where Linda Burek was named, and Nevada, where Terry Savage will oversee IT activities.
Terrorism spurs law enforcement cooperation
The nation's defense against terrorism starts on the local level. And its success could depend on law enforcement officials embracing the idea of information sharing not as an intrusion into bureaucratic fiefdoms, but as a large piece in the puzzle of combating international crime.
THE 50 STATES
ALABAMA. LIQUOR CABINET INVENTORY. Officials at the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board have released a request for proposals for a new enterprise financial and purchasing system, which will integrate an existing inventory supply subsystem. The board aims to replace its 24-year-old system that was developed by state workers.
Editorial Cartoon
Look for must-read product reviews in the pages of Government Computer News, according to the schedule below. To apply for your free subscription to GCN, visit www.gcn.com. Next year, state and local IT news will appear as a section in every issue of GCN'30 times a year.
MaxAttach can make snapshots of disk volumes
Maxtor Corp.'s new MaxAttach NAS 6000 storage appliance scales from 1.9T to 5.7T in capacity.
Good wireless pick depends on service
A cell phone is simply an advanced two-way radio, and about 40 percent of the U.S. population now carries one.
Online, On Time
The phones at the Fairfax City, Va., Transportation Department are quieter now. Residents no longer deluge agency workers with questions about when the next CUE Bus will arrive at the Vienna subway station.
A SAN with a plan
Data is the grist of any application. The trick has always been getting that data from where it is to where it needs to be without causing bottlenecks in application performance. Today, with the mushrooming storage requirements of distributed applications, managing performance is one of the biggest headaches for system administrators.
Device stacks up to 12 units to supply RAID Level 5 storage
A host-independent, disk-based storage appliance uses an Ultra 160 SCSI channel to link enterprise networks to RAID Level 5 storage on 16-bit ATA drives.
POWER USER
By next month, Microsoft Windows XP will be the only operating system shipped on most new PCs. It works better with legacy software than Windows 2000 did, and it is every bit as stable.
CIO is never bored in city by the Bay
San Francisco CIO Liza Lowery has survived earthquakes, economic downturns and organizational change. But there's one thing she can't stand: boredom.
Spreadsheet server spreads Excel data with a browser
Microsoft Excel spreadsheets can be shared by browser with Actuate Corp.'s e.Spreadsheet Server. Users can do their own data analysis of the browser-delivered spreadsheets, said Michael P. Thoma, vice president for marketing strategy at the South San Francisco, Calif., company.
EDITORIAL
Just as the war against terrorism has thrown together some unlikely countries as allies, so has it thrown together state and federal governments, two groups often at odds.
CIO OUTLOOK
Since the terrorist events of Sept. 11, I have observed a disturbing lack of cooperation, collaboration and understanding among federal, state and local governments. Problems also have arisen among agencies at each level of government. Whether this is due to office politics, real politics, clashing egos, turf battles or whatever, we need to restore the spirit of unity that prevailed in September.
CYBER EYE
Your mother probably told you to dress in layers for protection from the winter cold. It was good advice then, and it still is for those who must protect a network against malicious code.
States help out in search for assets
Still waiting for your ship to come in? A publicly-funded Web site lets people send a digital dragnet for missing money. Didn't know your eccentric uncle made a fortune on his perpetual motion machine patent and you are his only heir?
PDAs cut social workers' paper
Bill Duffy, chief of the Information Management Office for the Cecil County, Md., Social Services Department, jump-started social workers' productivity when he bought 40 personal digital assistants.
Device keeps passwords from going to the dogs
Only a few mathematically inclined folks can remember long strings of random numbers and letters, let alone several of them. Yet the best security practices call for changing alphanumeric passwords on a regular basis for every network device.
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