White House sets up task force
The government will increase its efforts to use information technology to improve training for government employees. To that end, President Clinton this month signed an executive order forming the President's Task Force on Federal Training Technology. Clinton and Vice President Gore announced the training initiative this month at the two-day Global Forum on Reinventing Government in Washington.
Readers expound on copyrights, telephony and security threats
Some of the most interesting bits of information I see come via e-mail from readers who challenge or elucidate on products and issues mentioned in this column. Here are some that recently fell out of my e-mailbag: Section 105, however, does allow the holder of a copyright to assign ownership to the government. Prue Adler, assistant executive director of federal relations and information policy at the Association of Research Libraries, told me this occasionally happens when
MCI takes 2nd FTS 2001 pact
The General Services Administration this month awarded its second and final FTS 2001 long-distance networking contract to MCI WorldCom Inc. of Jackson, Miss. The contract will slash voice rates to less than 1 cent per minute in its final year. "We think we achieved the lowest prices in history, even lower than what we talked about in December" when Sprint Corp. won the first-round contract, said Dennis J. Fischer, commissioner
Domino 5.0 will have secure PKI components
ORLANDO, Fla.—The successor to Lotus Domino Server 4.6 will have secure public-key infrastructure components and a standard interface for synchronizing with other vendors' PKIs. Although Lotus Development Corp. officially launched Domino Server 5.0, Notes 5.0 and Domino Designer 5.0 at the LotuSphere trade show here last week, it has held back their release a few weeks for "last-minute polishing," chairman Jeff Papows said.
With deals like these, who needs RFPs?
What's "in" in procurement? RFP avoidance. To satisfy needs not easily met by schedule contracts, agencies are turning to big existing requirements contracts rather than drafting requests for proposals for midsize buys, said Bob Dornan, senior vice president of Federal Sources Inc. of Vienna, Va. "Everybody pretty much accepts that as the trend," Dornan said.
New Congress needs to revisit patent reform
Along with the poisonous hangover of partisan politics that the 105th Congress left for the 106th are pieces of decidedly nonpartisan high-technology policy. One leftover is of particular importance to anyone who buys or uses technology, or anyone who invents and markets it. I'm referring to the last-minute demise of patent reform. The House bill, HR 400, had flown through in 1997, pushed by Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.)—both
Interim systems will tide IRS over as it modernizes
The systems switch will change how the IRS processes checks. Side bars & related Snapshot stories The IRS' new Integrated Submissions and Remittance Processing system can capture scanned images of tax payment checks and vouchers but not tax returns.
Transportation looks to repeat success with ITOP II
26 vendors will sell services on ITOP II The Transportation Department this month awarded 34 contracts that add up to a jumbo governmentwide acquisition vehicle. Transportation awarded the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, worth up to $10 billion over seven years, under its Information Technology Omnibus Procurement II program, a follow-on to its successful ITOP program.
CIO says goals are achievable
Cosgrave joined the IRS in July as an expert consultant and became CIO in August. He left a consulting start-up in New York to join the IRS. Before that, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Claremont Technology Group Inc., a systems integrator in Beaverton, Ore. Cosgrave has bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Defense's forecast of 2000 repairs spending is increasing, report says
The Defense Department continues to push upward its cost estimate for preparing systems for 2000. In its most recent report to the Office of Management and Budget, DOD added about $600 million to its estimate, bringing the total to more than $2.5 billion. In the fall, DOD had estimated it would spend about $1.9 billion on date code fixes.
Emergency funds will make the difference for Rural Development
Emergency year 2000 funds will help the Rural Development Agency buy the new desktop and notebook PCs it needs to process single-family housing loans. The Agriculture Department agency uses software created and maintained by USDA's National Finance Center to process loans through its Single-Family Housing Program in St. Louis. But NFC had to upgrade the software and make it year 2000-ready, said Joe Perez, Rural Development's chief information officer.
Picture this: A business card with real impact
Mark A. Kellner I was recently at a conference hosted by a technology company. The participants were experienced businesspeople, and we all had gone through that basic ritual, exchanging business cards, hundreds if not thousands of times. Yet when I gave my card to people, their eyes lit up, their expressions changed, and I was questioned about it.
No need to strain your memory | GCN
This list can help you find out where and when a product was reviewed and how well it performed. Products reviewed in Jump to: A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Jump to: A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W X
Digital Lava offers agencies another option in video publishing
Digital Lava Inc. of Los Angeles is aiming a new release of its video publishing software at the federal market. The first version of its VideoVisor desktop viewer, released in 1996, found few federal customers, chief executive officer Joshua D.J. Sharfman said. But he expects the new release, called vPrism Publisher, to do better, especially in the Defense Department. He said DOD has "a huge training burden" to deliver to many locations over various kinds of
The Rat knows how to sell—or buy—almost anything in Washington
Packet Rat R. Fink The online auction mania has captured the Rat's respectful admiration. It's his kind of business: no inventory, no shipping, no fuss, no muss. Just keep the site up, and the money rolls in. It's like selling air. Of course, some people do sell air on the Internet—or at least air derivatives. One enterprising wannabe e-business figured out how to capitalize on the narrow window of opportunity presented
TECH REFRESH
TECH REFRESH GCN January 25, 1999 Contracting officers kept busy adding new notebook computer products to federal contracts during the first quarter of fiscal 1999. Memory and storage upgrades for Dell Computer Corp. Latitude notebooks are now available on the company's General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contract. A second 6.4G hard drive to double the Latitude's internal storage is $466.
Computerized valet kept tabs on astronaut Glenn
When John Glenn donned a wired vest and head gear for a sleep experiment on his recent space shuttle mission, he had a helper, a kind of computerized valet to make sure everything was properly connected and activated. Glenn's helper was an artificial intelligence system called the Principal Investigator in a Box, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. PI in a Box acts as
SGI debuts its new multiprocessor systems for NT 4.0
Using its own graphics accelerator and architecture, Silicon Graphics Inc. has ventured into the Intel-powered PC market with 2-D and 3-D graphics-oriented systems running Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0. The dual- and quad-processor 320 and 540 systems can handle four streams of uncompressed video, said Cliff Apsey, director of product marketing. They transfer up to 3.2G of graphics and video data per second, he said.
Do not pass Go, do not collect 2000 without the dating game rules
If you think your agency's year 2000 problems are licked, here's a quick quiz. What's important about Sept. 9, 1999, Feb. 29, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2000? Some experts say certain database applications are going to parse the first of the dates as 9/9/99, which database users will recognize as common dummy date code.
Verity makes a plug-in that works as a file translator
Verity Inc. has developed a client package through which PC users can exchange and review files without having the native applications installed. The company also has a server product that can convert proprietary documents for viewing by Web browser. The $65 KeyView Pro 6.5 handles 225 application formats including Applixware Office, Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, Lotus SmartSuite 97 and Millenium Edition, and Microsoft Office 95, 97 and 2000. Users also
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