The road to e-commerce is a long one
Name: Kim Mitchel, deputy associate commissioner of the Office of Telecommunications and Systems Operations Agency: Social Security Administration Length of Service: 28 years Age: 50 Education: Bachelor's degree in science education and mathematics, California University of Pennsylvania; master's degree in numerical science, Johns Hopkins University; doctoral candidate in policy sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Electronic Commerce
The government's advance down the electronic commerce road sometimes seems like Zeno's paradox as agencies strive to go from Point A to Point B without ever getting there. If federal e-commerce appears to be progressing in slow motion, consider this: The Government Paperwork Elimination Act requires all agencies to offer to the public the option of interchanging mandatory documents electronically—including the use of digital authentication systems—by October 2003.
Cyberprotection plan is set for summer release
The Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office expects to have a national plan to thwart cyberterrorism ready by summer. Darwyn Banks, CIAO program coordinator at the Commerce Department, said National Plan 1.0 will have government and private-sector infrastructure components but will be nonregulatory. The federal government does not own the infrastructure of transportation, finance, energy or emergency response services, he said. Banks and Tom Burke, the Federal Technology Service's assistant commissioner for information security, spoke last week at
Air Force signs three BPAs for rugged portables
The Air Force Standard Systems Group last month signed three blanket purchasing agreements for rugged portable PCs. Cytec Corp. of Dallas, Government Technology Services Inc. of Chantilly, Va., and Inacom Government Systems of Fairfax, Va., will supply the rugged portables to Defense Department agencies at 5 percent to 15 percent less than their prices on General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contracts.
Census systems get checkup
The Census Bureau met the Office of Management and Budget's March 31 deadline for fixing and testing 60 mission-critical systems for year 2000 readiness, and now it is within days of completing the scanning of all 6,000 desktop PCs. The ones that could not pass the test likely will get a terminate-and-stay-resident software fix, Gregory said, and Census will "probably replace about 100 PCs." The bureau's 12 regional offices and two telephone centers outside the Washington
Electronic data interchange tools
True or false? A. EDI is a dynamic technology and a trusted standard; keep it handy for electronic transactions. B. EDI is a dinosaur technology and a sinking ship; keep your 10-foot pole handy. Both statements are true. Electronic data interchange can be of great value to your agency, but to get that value, you must tread as though through a minefield.
With a wince, the Rat
Packet Rat R. Fink With a wince, the Rat is rewired, reconnected, perhaps reborn by NT Readers know all about the Rat's technolust for power-sucking, megahertz-pumping multiprocessor machines that run hydrodynamic simulations in the background while recompiling his latest set of homebrew drivers. But now and then something small makes the cyberrodent drool. This time it's the newest road warrior toy: a featherweight PC running Microsoft Windows CE.
HCFA will use ODIN to try seat management
The Health Care Financing Administration plans to negotiate a seat management-like task order by late June, using the Outsourcing the Desktop Initiative for NASA program. HCFA officials last month received bid proposals and heard oral presentations from ODIN contractors. "We wanted to get a feel for [seat management]. We were willing to jump in up to our ankles but not up to our necks," said Marianne Bowen, project manager for HCFA's Desktop Replacement Initiative. "This
Corel offers free WordPerfect 8 version for Linux
The freeware Linux operating system has had plenty of adherents but, until now, few commercial-quality applications. That is changing rapidly, thanks in no small part to Corel Corp. Corel carried on WordPerfect's long cross-platform tradition with Corel WordPerfect 7 for Linux, the most popular productivity application for the upstart OS. Now Corel is jump-starting mainstream interest in Linux by giving away a personal version of WordPerfect 8 for Linux without a manual, clip
WorldMark servers gain speed, cut prices
The WorldMark 4800 and WorldMark 5200 servers that NCR Corp. were set to ship last month are an order of magnitude faster than their predecessors and about half the price, according to NCR officials. The gains come from 450-MHz Pentium II Xeon processors and faster interconnect technology. The WorldMark 5200's Bynet switch connects four-way processing nodes at 80 megabytes/sec.
Brother's mobile units take color printing on road
Road warriors who want color printouts can easily pack the 2.2-pound, 2-inch-thick Brother International Corp. MP-21C or MP-21Cdx mobile color printer in a briefcase. Both printers make a direct PC Card connection to a notebook PC for data and power, eliminating the need for separate AC adapters and battery packs.
Device monitors PC's power supply from USB
Pros and cons: USB, meet UPS. When a Universal Serial Bus port meets an American Power Conversion uninterruptible power supply, the fusion works well. The Back-UPS Pro 350 all-in-one power appliance does a good job, except for a minor glitch in the Microsoft Windows 98 software. The sleek, black box has lost some weight and girth from earlier incarnations, which were beige and elongated like toy 18-wheeler trucks. The new UPS
Professional Calendar
Luncheon address. Washington. Contact Government Computer News; phone: 301-650-2000; Web: www.gcn.com. Conference. Norfolk, Va. Contact the Navy; phone: 757-444-9967; Web: www.it-umbrella.navy.mil/ct/. Conference and exposition. Langley Air Force Base, Va. Contact National Conference Services Inc.; phone: 888-603-8899; Web: www.ncievents.com. Luncheon seminar. Washington.Sponsored by the Association for Federal IRM and the Information Technology Association of American. Contact AFFIRM; phone: 703-715-6701; e-mail: affirminfo@affirm.org; Web: www.affirm.org.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | Beat the Clock
| Beat the Clock "We're saying it's going to be broke, and you got to go fix it," Dave Brumitt told the audience at a recent SAS Users Group International conference. SAS Institute is still reviewing its source code and incorporating minor C language fixes into SAS System Version 8, which will be ready for general release this fall. Officials described the new code as maintenance fixes for "little odds and ends" that most SAS
Axis servers use 100-MIPS chip, browser control
The multiprotocol Axis 5400 and Axis 5500 print servers from Axis Communications Inc. incorporate the company's new Etrax 100 thin-server chip. Both print servers are fully integrated with Axis ThinWizard, a Java management tool for administering Axis ThinServer products via Web browsers. In combination with ThinWizard device management software, the Etrax system-on-a-chip automatically discovers and maps all Axis print servers on a network.
AF makes quick work of patch to B-1 software
The Air Force equipped its storied B-1 bombers with new radar-tracking software in less than four days—a task that usually takes months—so the service could use the aircraft for NATO's Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia. The 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., spearheaded the effort late last month to build what the service calls Emitter Identification Data files that give the B-1 Lancer bomber situation awareness, said 1st Lt. Victor Falsone, a B-1 defensive
Data General designs rackmounted, single-app server
The rackmounted design of the AV 3704R server from Data General Corp. matches what the company sees as a growing user preference for multiple servers running a single Microsoft Windows NT application apiece. The trend away from multiple NT applications on a single box coincides with user desires "to avoid a single point of failure," said Lisa Robinson Schoeller, manager of product marketing for Data General of Westborough, Mass.
Check out free tools that let you make smart use of the Net
Your agency probably has a mandate to use the Internet more that it used to, but the trick is to use the Internet without letting it use you. So much information is there for the mining that users tend to get lost in the jumble. How about a little help in file storage and forwarding?
GCN INTERVIEW | Peter B. Hayes, Microsoft advocate for federal standards
|Peter B. Hayes, Microsoft advocate for federal standards Under Hayes' direction, the federal systems unit has reorganized and started to promote use of more government requirements and standards inside Microsoft products—one of Hayes' priorities. He joined Microsoft in 1991 and held sales and marketing positions before becoming general manager of federal business operations. Before that, he worked for 12 years in sales and management positions at IBM Corp.
BLS applies tough-love policy for Web posting
Twice burned by premature Web postings in recent months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics no longer trusts software scripts or people working alone to publish time-sensitive economic data on the Web. Until the bureau comes up with better automated processes, it will adhere to interim procedures adopted after the premature postings, said Thomas Zuromskis, director of technology and computing services.
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