Letters to the editor
Regarding the story, "Federal 2000 emergency funds are going, going, halfway gone" [GCN, Jan. 25, Page 1]: Excuse me? Lawmakers are complaining that the Y2K funds are going too quickly? I would be much more concerned that there's still so much left. If the funds aren't obligated yet, knowing the work will take months to do and check out properly, when do the lawmakers expect us to use it? Granted, perhaps 10 percent of the funds
State and USIA integrate their e-mail for overseas offices
The U.S. Information Agency and the State Department in the next few months will roll out a common e-mail system that will serve as a model for all USIA and State overseas offices. "E-mail historically has been unreliable and slow between the two agencies," said Jonathan Spalter, USIA's associate director for information and its chief information officer. "The e-mail system is an important first step that shows federal agencies can work together."
AF flies with the times
If you don't think times have changed, the Air Force's latest PC buying move just might convince you. The service's numbered Desktop procurements have come to an end. Now the Air Force will use blanket purchasing agreements to buy PCs and related gear [GCN, Feb. 22, Page 1]. At one time, the Air Force made big news awarding the laboriously crafted indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity Desktop contracts.
White House wants WebGov to be gateway to all agencies
The Clinton administration is moving ahead with development of a general government Web site. WebGov will not provide content but be a starting point for the public to search all the federal information contained on the Internet, said Rich Kellett, emerging IT policies director in the General Services Administration's Office of Information Technology.
Blocking applications can help protect your identity while surfing
You're not paranoid. On the Internet, they are out to get you—or, at least, find out who you are and what you do. First it was client-side cookie spies. More recently came a public outcry about the new Intel Pentium III processor's automatic broadcast of an identification code. Some cookies under development can even record Web addresses you've visited—something that's supposed to be impossible.
FOSE will star tech editors at GCN Lab Live
You read them every week; isn't it about time you met them? Meet GCN's own technology gurus at Lab Live, a showcase of hot products and cool technology, every day during FOSE 99. March 16 through18 in the lobby of the Washington Convention Center, GCN's technology editors will interview the managers of some of today's top products. Don't miss our sessions on Lotus Notes Release 5 and Microsoft Windows 2000.
OMB's DeSeve will move to private sector
OMB's acting IT boss G. Edward DeSeve has taken a position with KMPG Peat Marwick. G. Edward DeSeve, the top management official in the Clinton administration and stand-in information technology boss, is leaving his post at the end of the month to join the private sector.
HP promises a V2500 server with downtime of five minutes per year
Hewlett-Packard Co. has replaced its HP Visualize Model C240 graphics workstation with the Visualize C360, which does mechanical computer-aided design processing up to 77 percent faster, according to HP officials. The 367-MHz PA-8500 RISC chip in the C360 does better branch prediction and has 1.5M of four-way associative on-chip cache, said Barry Crume, product marketing manager for the HP Workstation Systems Division.
SQL Server 7.0, better than 6.5, stands up well to Oracle
In my tests, SQL Server 7.0 stood head and shoulders above SQL Server 6.5 and acquitted itself well against Oracle running under Microsoft Windows NT. Furthermore, SQL Server has a lower price structure and features that can match or surpass Oracle's. The standard edition of SQL Server 7.0 works with NT Server 4.0 and Service Pack 4. The Enterprise Edition requires NT Enterprise Server 4.0 and Service Pack 4. Both come with a third, desktop version for
DOD still buys switches that are not ready for 2000, IG says
"It sure would be nice if the things that we bought were Y2K-compliant," said Army Col. Janet Hicks, who is also commander of the 516th Signal Brigade at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. "That sounds kind of insane to say that because we're already into fiscal 1999," Hicks said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet Asia-Pacific '98 conference. "But we had a switch that was fielded since I arrived 17 months ago that is not
Army opens up PC-3 buys governmentwide
The Army's latest PC contracts—awarded last month to Government Technology Services Inc. and IntelliSys Technology Corp.—are open to users governmentwide. "It's nice not to have to turn away anyone who wants to buy" from the PC-3 contracts, said Linda Cook, a product leader at the Army Small Computer Program office at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
NASA awards systems work to Raytheon
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded a $55 million contract to Raytheon Co. for systems integration work. The company began work under the five-year contract, which has two five-year options, late last year. Raytheon is helping JPL's Earth and Space Sciences Division implement and run science data systems, said Marty Scarbrough, a JPL contract negotiator.
GSA predicts smooth cutover to FTS 2001
The government's telecommunications chiefs are predicting a smooth transition from FTS 2000 services to new long-haul communications providers, despite delays by many agencies in setting plans for new comm services. "I'm very confident we'll get through this in good shape," Federal Technology Services commissioner Dennis J. Fischer said last month.
NIH lets agencies tap vendor performance system
The National Institutes of Health has created a database that agencies can use to help manage vendor past-performance evaluations. NIH's Contractor Performance System is one of the first government databases that lets agencies evaluate a vendor's performance on multiple contracts, agency officials said. "We're the only game in town that has been up and running," said Diane Frasier, director of NIH's Office of Contracts Management.
Drop the desktop model for handhelds, users say
PALM DESERT, Calif.—What users want in a handheld computer is toughness and ease of use, a Marine Corps officer said last month at the Mobile Insights '99 conference. It is time for users such as the Defense Department to stop retrofitting systems for the field, said Marine Maj. James C. Cummiskey, Camp Pendleton's mobile computing specialist. He spoke to an audience of mobile product users about an Army plan to buy 100,000 Nino 300 handheld devices.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTINGNEW PRODUCTS
Informix Dynamic Server, Linux Edition Suite, is available for a free, 30-day trial with technical support by e-mail from Informix Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif. Downloadable from the Informix Developers Network at http://www.informix.com/idn, the suite includes a complete database management system plus programming interfaces for client-server and intranet applications. It comes with guidelines for Apache Web server freeware, Java Database Connectivity and Open Database Connectivity.
E-commerce office will blend Defense's online catalogs to create a singlee-mall
The Defense Department's Joint Electronic Commerce Program Office is moving forward with plans to integrate all the department's electronic catalogs and create a single DOD-wide electronic mall. In the 1999 Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed JECPO to have the integrated system running by June. The Web system will connect disparate electronic catalog systems such as the Defense Logistics Agency's EMall and the Navy Electronic Commerce Online.
Feds turn Y2K corner
The pendulum has begun to swing back, if only slightly, on opinions as to whether the government's systems will be ready come 2000. The latest report from Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.), a report from the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem and General Accounting Office testimony about the Defense Department's efforts were relatively optimistic compared with earlier assessments.
Is it possible to build software free of defects?
CHANTILLY, Va.—Software quality experts are a demanding bunch. They see the nation's infrastructure being put at risk by poor software quality—and they are not even talking about year 2000 vulnerabilities. But even the experts at the International Software Assurance Certification Conference here last week could not reach a consensus on the root cause of poor quality.
SNEAKER.NET
Q. After reading your article on year 2000-readiness testing tools for PCs [GCN, Jan. 11, Page 1], I decided to try the free YMark2000 utility you mentioned from National Software Testing Laboratories Inc. I booted up a 133-MHz Pentium PC from now-defunct EPS Technologies Inc. in MS-DOS mode and ran YMark. It reported that the computer could not perform a real-time progression from 1999 to 2000.
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