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.
FTS awards first two contracts for satellite services
The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service has awarded the first two in a series of satellite communications contracts to Hughes Global Services Inc. of El Segundo, Calif., and John Tidrow and Associates Inc. of Fayetteville, N.C. Each contract is worth up to $50 million in the first year and as much as $50 million more if GSA picks up two six-month options. Federal users can order fixed, mobile, temporary
Beyond.com wins DLA software distribution contract
The Defense Logistics Agency has awarded its second electronic software distribution contract to Beyond.com, formerly software.net, of Sunnyvale, Calif. The latest DLA contract, whose value was not announced, follows a $50 million award to the same company two years ago for up to 70,000 licenses for Microsoft Corp. desktop and server packages plus software upgrades for up to five years.
HCFA begins code checkups
The Health Care Financing Administration has turned to one of the oldest independent validation and verification vendors in the mission-critical software business to ensure that Medicare and Medicaid systems will process claims without disruption after Jan. 1. AverStar Inc. of Burlington, Mass., will work with HCFA's quality assurance teams and outside contractors. The company also provides software quality assurance to NASA's space shuttle and International Space Station programs.
Army firewall contracts near
The Army's contracts for licensing intrusion-detection and firewall software for all its LANs and WANs will be awarded within weeks, perhaps days. Bids were due in early February in the full-and-open competition, said Connie Avallone, a contracting officer at the Army Communications-Electronics Command Acquisition Center–Southwest Region at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The service may award as many as four one-year contracts with four one-year options, she said.
The AF uses license to buy 65,000 copies of Oracle
When the Air Force signed a three-year, $52 million site license for Oracle Corp. database software and development tools last month, it marked a new lease on life for the Defense Department's Integrated Computer-Aided Software Engineering contract. The Air Force also took the lead as DOD's top site licenser. Air Force logistics users, who work in more than 20 programs, will get 65,000 concurrent Oracle licenses at a 74 percent discount from the General Services Administration Information
Ada Lovelace's work created a plan for the future
Her goal was to show how the Analytical Engine could calculate without the intervention of "human hand or head." Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers, by Betty A. Poole, Strawberry Press, Sausalito, Calif., 1998. For women in information technology, Ada Lovelace is the magna mater—a bold visionary who in 1843 was the first to write a program for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a precursor of the modern computer.
Tech transfer begets map app
Working with a small business, the Navy is customizing big mapping applications through technology transfer without shelling out big bucks. "A lot of innovation comes out of small companies," said Carol Van Wyk, small-business innovation research program manager at the Naval Air Systems Command. Through a $70,000 feasibility study followed by a two-year, $750,000 contract, the Navy developed a prototype terrain-following system that uses a file format called GeoTIFF.
Gore backs all-access pilot to bring online services to college students
The Education Department will spearhead a program to let college students find services online beginning this fall. The program, called Access America for Students, is based on Vice President Al Gore's Access America plan and will give students access to both government and commercial services. Federal agencies, academic institutions and vendors will align their resources to serve students and enable complete government transactions online, Gore said.
Agencies should compete to comply with FOIA
Implementing the amendments to the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act is giving some agencies fits. The first example comes from December's release by the FBI of its Frank Sinatra files. The files ended up on the Internet, but the FBI didn't post them there. Who did and why? Journalists routinely make FOIA requests to the FBI for the files of every celebrity and political figure who dies. The FBI is paying for the investigative excesses of
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