Have lengthy files you want to view on a single screen?
The 15-inch ViewSonic VPD150 digital LCD monitor will turn your perceptions upside-down, or at least sideways. ViewSonic Corp. understands that many Web pages are designed as if on paper—longer top to bottom than side to side. Especially at higher resolutions, the viewing is better and easier with the monitor turned on its side. To reverse the 12-inch side-to-side and the 9-inch top-to-bottom viewing areas, simply rotate the VPD150 on its swivel base.
What to have—and have not—in 1999
Technology developments never cease. So, how do you figure out what you must buy and what you really don't need? To help you out, reviewers in the GCN Lab came up with a list of what to buy and what to pass on. You're hungry for the fastest computer out there, and, at 500-MHz, the Pentium III looks prime. But don't rush to get it. At present, Intel Corp.'s newest processor delivers only a few extra megahertz
Lab Notes
Susan M. Menke smenke@gcn.com Humvee stand-in. Panasonic Personal Computer Co. did not drive a Humvee over its ToughBook CF-25 notebook computer at the FOSE show in Washington last month, as the vendor has done in the past. Instead, Panasonic's booth crew set up a mechanical arm to drop the notebook repeatedly a distance of 2 feet onto a metal surface.
GCN INTERVIEW | Jerry Edgerton, driver of MCI WorldCom's FTS 2001 bus
| Jerry Edgerton, senior vice president of government markets for MCI WorldCom Inc. and its forebear MCI Communications Corp., has overseen work on a broad range of federal networks, although his company was frozen out of FTS 2000 long-distance business for the last decade. In January, MCI WorldCom won a share of the General Services Administration's FTS 2001, the largest government telecommunications contract ever awarded. MCI will compete with Sprint Corp. for an
USDA plans 21 city networks
Who will share nets? The so-called Group 1 cities probably will become concentration or hub nodes on a new nationwide backbone Agriculture is planning. The idea is to consolidate traffic in cities with the highest traffic volumes and the most facilities, said Gordon Durflinger, leader of the business services team for USDA Telecom Services and Operations.
HUD aims to raise its public profile with computer kiosks nationwide
The Housing and Urban Development Department this year will finish installing 95 computer kiosks—including five traveling units—across the nation to provide housing information to the public. Through the HUD Next Door program, the kiosks let users pull up data about agency services and topics such as affordable rents, housing discrimination and home buying.
HUD systems upgrade to improve services
The Housing and Urban Development Department wants to improve its image, and senior staff members figure one way to do that is by upgrading HUD systems to improve access for department users and the public. Fairly or unfairly, HUD has become the poster child for what's wrong with the federal bureaucracy, department officials said. It's an image HUD Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo wants to erase.
Two agencies see future in NetWare 5
Countering a federal drift toward Microsoft Windows NT Server on departmental networks, the Customs Service and the Postal Service have made major commitments to the Novell NetWare network operating system. Customs has installed NT Workstation 4.0 on its desktop PCs. But the service last year decided to postpone a planned network migration to NT Server 4.0 in favor of a NetWare 5 upgrade, said Luke McCormack, acting director of Custom's Infrastructure Services Division.
App helps NSA speed-clean U.S. secret documents
When President Clinton signed a 1995 executive order to declassify government documents after 25 years, the National Security Agency faced the task of sifting through tens of millions of pages much earlier than it had expected. Prior to Executive Order 12598, classified documents had to be held 50 years before NSA would declassify them.
Campbell: Army won't limit product choices
The Army's chief information officer wants it clear that the service will not standardize on specific products, such as Microsoft Exchange, for messaging and other applications. "All products have a future in the Army," said Lt. Gen. William Campbell, director of information systems for command, control, communications and computers. "We don't standardize on products; we standardize on standards. That's the driver."
Network diagnostic tools
Tips for buyers Sidebars & Related Stories The term network diagnostics evokes an image of engineers crawling in overhead wiring ducts and carrying hardware and software probes to measure cable signal parameters or wielding protocol analyzers to record and display network traffic data.
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
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