Melissa spreads virus through innocuous e-mail attachments
The Melissa virus exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook, Word 97 and Word 2000. The virus is transmitted via an attachment to innocuous e-mail messages with a subject line that starts "Important message from … " Melissa activates when a user opens the infected document. The virus then executes a command that lowers the security settings in the program. With the security turned off, the application software will recognize and execute macro commands.
Tech Refresh
Brand-new 450- and 500-MHz Pentium III processors are showing up in systems sold on General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contracts. Gateway Inc.'s schedule contract prices a 450-MHz GP7-450 PC at $2,348 with 19-inch monitor, 128M of synchronous dynamic RAM, 512K cache, 16M Accelerated Graphics Port graphics accelerator and 13G hard drive.
Microsoft reorganization leaves federal group intact, official says
Microsoft Corp. announced last week it has finished an internal reorganization, breaking into five new units: the business and enterprise division, consumer Windows division, business productivity group, developer group, and consumer and commerce group. Microsoft's federal interests will fold entirely into the business and enterprise group, so contacts for federal customers will be unchanged, Microsoft federal spokesman Keith Hodson said.
Early alerts, quick action prevent state and local systems disasters
Quick thinking and virus protection software spared some state and local governments during the Melissa outbreak. Denny McGuire, an analyst at the North Carolina IRM Division, said the division sent out alerts to agency security managers on Monday morning, March 29. The state General Assembly network was hit, but system administrators worked hard to bring the situation under control, McGuire said.
Rapid tools add new dimensions to Web page development
One of the most interesting frontiers today is in rapid application development tools for the Web. If your agency wants to respond to the president's call for electronic government, or if you're working to carve out a niche for delivering specific public services, take note of these specialized tools. They can put high-flux databases online and enable browser-based administration.
NASA puts Logicon in the cockpit at Ames center
NASA has turned over the operation of the flight simulation facilities at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., to Logicon Syscon Inc. under a six-year, $91 million contract. Under the contract, awarded late last year, the Falls Church, Va., company is running the simulation systems that support the center's Crew-Vehicle Systems Research Facility (CVSRF) and the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS).
Olicom delivers a fast switch
Agencies with aging token-ring LANs can plug them into the Fast Ethernet world with the CrossFire 8730 Translation Switch from Olicom Inc. The Richardson, Texas, company puts four Fast Ethernet switch ports and 20 token-ring switch ports into the device. Bundled software translates between the dissimilar frame sizes and topologies at a claimed near-line speed. Also included is Olicom's ClearSession high-availability software, which has a spanning-tree algorithm to detect transmission faults and reroute within three
Interior ponders seat management but will let other agencies try it first
The Interior Department may try seat management at its headquarters to see if it reduces the burden of running desktop PC operations, an Interior official said. The concept has appeal because it allows an agency to issue a request for proposals and lets vendors decide how to meet the specifications. Then the agency picks the best proposal to meet its needs, said Daryl White, Interior's chief information officer.
Fuji's MX-500 camera is the real deal
At $479 on the General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule, the MX-500 from Fuji Photo Film USA Inc. may be one of the least expensive megapixel digital cameras around. As with any bargain, the MX-500 has a few drawbacks, but I know of nothing comparable in imagery and resolution. Its inexpensive FlashPath adapter makes the
Novell NetWare users keep the faith
User views Old loyalties die hard. Despite owning a sagging share of the government market we surveyed, Novell Inc.'s NetWare network operating systems still captured the hearts of feds GCN surveyed. "I've worked with NetWare since early 1992, and I'm just really familiar with it," said Charles Pickles, an Army information management officer and a LAN administrator at Fort Carson, Colo. "It's a good, stable, reliable platform,
Letters to the Editor
This letter is in response to your article, "CIOs mull how to compete for IT talent" [GCN, March 8, Page 50]. The Chief Information Officers Council's objective to lure information technology talent is impressive but unrealistic. For what the Office of Personnel Management considers the average computer applicant, the basic requirements are a degree in computer science or a certain amount of semester hours in calculus, statistics and mathematics with some equivalent computer usage.
Don't just listen to users, watch how they work
"You can see a lot by looking." So said the inimitable Yogi Berra. Unfortunately, too few systems analysts do enough looking. The rest hold meetings where the users chant, "This is what we need." Dutiful note-takers, the analysts design a software application that meets the stated requirements but is rejected by end users as incompatible with reality.
Most agencies dodge Melissa
Federal agencies rallied their computer security forces last week to keep the Melissa virus in check. But the pesky mail-traveling infection nevertheless caused trouble for some agencies, including Defense Department organizations participating in the NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia. One DOD base was "pretty well wiped out," in a technological sense, March 26, said Col. John Thomas, chief of the Defense Information Systems Agency's Global Operations and Security Office.
Briefing Book
Storage oasis. The Air Force's 99th Civil Engineer Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., bought and installed a Netforce 100 storage device from Procomm Technology Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif. The 99th has 500 users on a LAN with seven servers holding 222G of data. The addition of the Procomm network-attached storage device made another 67G of RAID Level 5 storage available. The squadron plans to add three more of the $9,569 Netforce 100 systems.
NARA wants archiving plans in place by 2002
Agencies will have until 2002 to set polices on preserving e-mail and other electronic documents deemed to be federal records, the National Archives and Records Administration said in a recent bulletin. The bulletin is the first guidance on dealing with such records since federal District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled in 1997 that NARA's previous policy was null and void. That regulation, General Records Schedule 20, let agencies print out electronic documents and then delete
Army arms recruiters with 14,000 notebook PCs
"How can we be the high-tech Army if we're filling out forms with a pencil?" asked Lt. Col. Gary A. Minadeo, functional director of the Army Recruiting Information Support System at Fort Knox, Ky. The recruiting command initially selected Vanstar Government Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., to preload special software on IBM ThinkPads, but the contract was canceled within four months because of software integration problems, Minadeo said. Mark O'Donnell, vice president of Vanstar, now known
DOD expects help as it cuts over to FTS 2001
In moving its switched voice and other nondata services to the FTS 2001 program, the Defense Department will rely heavily on MCI WorldCom Inc.'s experience in shepherding DOD network transitions over the past several years. "We negotiated with MCI WorldCom to handle the lion's share of the transition work," said John C. Johnson, DOD's FTS 2001 transition manager.
Training need not be taxing
If any agency faces a training nightmare, it's the IRS. As part of its year 2000 readiness efforts, the tax agency acquired about 50,000 PCs last year and plans to buy an equal number by midsummer. As employees move up from Microsoft Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS to later versions of Windows, they will have to learn to use them on a schedule that does not interfere with tax work, said Patricia McCormick, employee development specialist at
With new wave of CD-ROMs, spin speed varies on disk locale
CD-ROM speed claims remind me of the childish taunt, "My daddy can beat your daddy." I have complained before that 24X, 32X or faster drives don't operate in real life much better than old 2X or 4X drives [GCN, July 27, 1998, Page 49]. That's because the new drives are variable-speed and spin slowly near the center. They only reach the top rate at the outer edge. And because
A trip to Utah becomes a glimpse into a novel Novell NetWare world
Packet Rat R. Fink A trip to Utah becomes a glimpse into a novel Novell NetWare world The Rat went to Novell Inc.'s BrainShare fest in Salt Lake City late last month expecting nothing hotter than the Novell employees' chili cook-off. But the crowds were huge and the passion palpable.
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