GSA Web site offers Dolch portable PCs
Ruggedized Dolch Computer Systems Inc. portable computers are available for online purchase through the General Services Administration's Advantage Web site at http://www.fss.gsa.gov. Dolch of Fremont, Calif., makes Intel Portable Add-in Computers, DataView and SmartView flat-panel displays, and other computer products. The Defense Department used the multislot PACs in Somalia and Operation Desert Storm. NASA's space shuttle program has used Dolch flat-panel displays. Other federal users include the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, Marines
Marines plan barrage of tests to check systems for 2000 readiness
"The close fight that we're dealing with right now is the year 2000," said the commander of Marine Forces-Pacific at the recent Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet Asia-Pacific '98 conference. The Marine Corps' Pacific units have more than 26,000 PCs, ranging from 286s to Pentium II machines, said Fulford, who commands more than 80,000 Marines and sailors at 12 installations in the region.
App spots PC flaws, tells you how to fix 'em
TEST DRIVE Pros and cons: + Free + Simple Web and client-based interface + Low resource requirements – Can't download updates for every product you might have Real-life requirements: Win9x or NT, 386 or faster processor, 8M of RAM, 2M free storage, Internet access for updates
Alchemy system can convert PC files into Web gold
Information Management Research Inc. has Web-enabled its document database manager, which handles large volumes of public records at several government sites. The Englewood, Colo., company designed the Alchemy Web Server and Alchemy 6.0 to be set up quickly without custom coding for relational database and storage devices. The Alchemy Web server is compatible with Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Internet Information Server and Microsoft Active Server Pages. Alchemy 6.0, the document database manager, runs under NT.
ViaGrafix's CAD software makes drafting easy to learn | GCN PRoduct Review
Throw away the T square and plastic triangles. Stop drawing lines that are too thick or thin, too dark or light. I used to commit all those errors in a single drawing. That's why I turned to computer-aided design software. DesignCAD Pro 2000 from ViaGrafix is a vector-based, 2-D and 3-D CAD package with nearly a decade of development behind it, and the system requirements are quite modest. When I
IP gains support as sole network protocol
Network traffic is shifting from mostly voice to mostly data. The Internet Protocol is on the verge of communications dominance, based on the product demonstrations and sessions at the ComNet conference in Washington last month. As John Chambers, president and chief executive officer of Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., said: Who wants or needs any network protocol except IP?
Translation app lets DOD, South Korea talk shop
HONOLULU—Handheld PCs running a translation application are helping U.S. and South Korean forces deployed in Korea bridge a language gap. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory developed the software that lets users speak either English or Korean into a microphone-equipped PC, which then produces a translation. The translation app is put to good use, Defense Department officials said late last year at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet Asia-Pacific '98 conference.
VHA shaves data storage costs with CD-ROM
The Veterans Health Administration's decision to store monthly accounting information on CD-ROMs instead of paper will save taxpayers $420,000 a year, a VHA official said. VHA began sending CD-ROMs to 146 VHA sites nationwide in October. The CD-ROMs let the agency's financial management employees access end-of-the-month accounting reports on their desktop PCs instead of sorting through boxes of paper.
Calendar date has naysayers seeing nothing but nines
Year 2000 hucksters lately have begun proclaiming Sept. 9, 1999, as a day of doom. They say computers will read the date as 9999—the hexadecimal code for "end of file." Will 9999 prove to be a computer's equivalent of 666? No, said Intel Corp.'s Doug Steffen, who works on the chip maker's PC motherboard team.
Too cheap to meter
You've seen funny lists of wrong predictions made long ago by famous people, such as IBM Corp.'s Thomas Watson's on how few computers the world would need. One of my favorites is that of a champion of nuclear power whosaid in the 1950s that electricity so generated would be too cheap to meter.
Desktop Computing | New Products
| New Products Kenwood Technologies' Multi-beam CD-ROM drive can transfer up to 7 megabytes/sec, which means users can load and run applications from CD-ROM nearly as fast as they can from hard drives. The IDE drive splits the laser beam seven ways to read seven tracks at once, then combines the data and sends it to the computer, said Grady Tucker, federal sales manager for the Kenwood USA Corp. subsidiary.
Agency outsources imaging and mapping duties via $600 million omnibus project
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency plans to do away with much of its in-house mapping and imagery work, handing it over to vendors through new task order contracts. NIMA recently awarded contracts to 15 vendors under its $600 million Omnibus Geospatial Information and Imagery Intelligence Solicitation program. The vendors will get access to national reconnaissance information to create the maps for customers throughout government.
Microsoft posts year 2000 info, tips about real-time clocks
After several months of revising, Microsoft Corp. has reposted a white paper about year 2000 readiness that it pulled off its Web site late last year. The new document, at http://www.microsoft.com, is the company's official readiness disclosure about a topic that is giving PC managers heartburn. Microsoft's paper grew out of several months of discussions with Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Gateway Inc., Greenwich Mean Time-UTA L.C. of Arlington, Va., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp.,
As new IT chief at NPR, Hirning will push public access
The new computer chieftain of Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government said she wants to continue the work of her predecessor by using information technology to streamline government. Katie Hirning succeeds Greg Woods, who left the post in December to take a new chief operating officer post in the Education Department's Office of Student Financial Assistance. He had been NPR's deputy director for IT, customer service and regulatory reform since 1993.
Message manager routes, responds to site visitors' e-mails... EnterpriseComputing
The GTE Web Solutions Group has built an e-mail response system that manages e-mail sent by Web site visitors. The Java application and related consulting services are available on General Services Administration schedule contracts, said James Kane, an information systems division vice president with GTE Government Systems of Chantilly, Va. The $59,950 inResponse system acknowledges messages, routes e-mail for response and creates reports. It runs on top of an Oracle7 Release 7.3 database server and any Web
NIST eases restrictions on use of RSA-encrypted signatures
The National Institute of Standards and Technology last week approved a modification of the federal Digital Signature Standard that will let agencies use encryption algorithms from RSA Data Security Inc. of Redwood City, Calif. Federal Information Processing Standard 186-1 will now support ANSI X9.31, which allows for the use of RSA-encrypted digital signatures.
Network Storage Buyers Guide
Tuck these tips away DVD technology will drive down prices for standard CD-ROM optical systems. Tape autochangers are good entry-level systems for budget-conscious information systems managers. Automated storage systems can save an organization up to 50 percent annually in personnel costs. Next-generation tape cartridges will store more than 100G per cartridge. The main tradeoff between tape and optical systems is capacity vs. media durability.
Here's a telling tale of voice recognition gender-bending
When I first reviewed Voice Xpress Plus software from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products USA Inc. of Burlington, Mass. [GCN, June 22, 1998, Page 27], it performed poorly even after hours of training in my voice patterns. It changed the sentence, "There were no oranges, apples, grapes or pears in the snack bar" into poorly punctuated gibberish: "There was no Oranges, Apple's, rapist were pairs in back bar."
As PC prices fall, feds are shopping for name brands
When SMAC Data Systems added Compaq Computer Corp. products to a Navy blanket purchasing agreement late last year, the move represented more than just a contract modification. It signaled a general shift in government contracts away from clone PCs and toward top-end, brand-name products. "We have to adapt," said Roland Hua, vice president of corporate development at SMAC, a Gaithersburg, Md., 8(a) manufacturer that made a name by selling its own no-name systems to agencies. "There are
Intel takes inside track to faster chips
Intel commands nearly 80 percent of the worldwide CPU market, according to MicroDesign Resources Inc. of Sebastopol, Calif. Intel's 21-year-old x86 architecture is the standard for almost all PCs and workgroup servers. Last this month, Intel will introduce new chips to extend the life of that architecture. The Pentium III, formerly code-named Katmai, will be the newest member of Intel's P6 family, which includes the Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Celeron and Xeon. The Pentium III has
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