DOD COMPUTING BRIEFING BOOK | GCN
On target for 2000. The Air Force's premier air superiority fighter aircraft and air-to-air, radar-guided missile successfully completed a year 2000 test. The service last month conducted a live-fire demonstration of an Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile from Raytheon Co. and an F-15C fighter from Boeing Co. at a test range near Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The Air Force launched an AMRAAM missile from an F-15 against an MQM-107 target drone after computer clocks were
SNEAKER.NET | GCN
Q. I was sending an e-mail in Microsoft Outlook the other day, and suddenly a box popped up and called me by name a "big stupid jerk." How can I find out who on my network sent that to me? A. No one sent it to you. What you're seeing is the noxious work of a Microsoft Word macro virus. Apparently you've chosen Word as your e-mail editor while composing Outlook messages. On the 14th of
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | Beat the Clock
| Beat the Clock Will e-mails fall through the Net? In spite of some incorrectly dated transmissions, the Internet will not collapse after midnight on Dec. 31. The Internet Engineering Task Force has studied the matter and concluded, after a systematic review of protocols, that the Net will survive the century rollover.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | NEW PRODUCTS
| NEW PRODUCTS Data Mover optimizes backup The Extended High Performance Data Mover optimizes tape backup operations by interleaving blocks of data from multiple disk drives onto a single tape. According to Storage Technology Corp. of Louisville, Colo., the technique can reduce the time required for backup by more than 40 percent.
Software recreates network environment on the road | GCN
Nobody wants to pack up and lug around a network server, but mobile users who forget an essential server file have probably thought about it more than once. Network Unplugged from Mobiliti Inc. does well at backing up needed files for road use and at maintaining the same look as on the host network, as if the mobile computer is still docked at the desk.
'99 has its priorities | GCN
At this writing, Washington is in a paroxysm of worry over politics. But for most people, what's been happening on Capitol Hill is more a cause for watercooler bickering than concern over the future of the republic. We all have work to do. For federal information technology managers, 1999 will have several themes.
Civilian agencies replace servers, install software upgrades to be 2000-ready
Yost said he expects a more homogeneous PC environment. With three months to go, increasing numbers of civilian agencies are confident their PCs and servers will be year 2000-ready by the Office of Management and Budget's March deadline. Besides replacing old servers, they are installing software upgrades and vendor-supplied patches.
Navy refines its IT-21 plans
SAN DIEGO—The Navy has drafted a message that will further define the standards for its Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative. To confirm its support for the IT-21 program, the Navy will spend $298.9 million this fiscal year and $476.9 million in 2000 to install IT-21 systems aboard ships, Navy officials said.
App gives Customs a gauge | GCN
Customs' Michael Raithel and Sandy Koncir collaborated on the CMAS intranet application, which has been nominated for a Computerworld Smithsonian Award. Using the Customs Measurement Analysis System scheduled to come online this month, Customs Service officials for the first time will see how well they are doing their jobs compared with peers at other ports and Customs Management Centers.
Government printing has a centralized problem | GCN
Over the years, Congress has occasionally tried to rewrite federal printing laws. The just-concluded 105th Congress tried and failed again. As always, there are many contributing factors. One was the attempt to preserve a dinosaur. Keep reading, because you may be surprised which dinosaur I mean.
NWS creates systems bridge
The network makes the weather data available to multiple PCs simultaneously. Delays in the Commerce Department's long-planned, $520 million Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System presented a National Weather Service field forecast office with an operating system quandary in 1995. The field office in Wichita, Kan., needed a multitasking operating system that could run MS-DOS applications linked via PC serial ports to minicomputers hosting the Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS)
GAO report prompts HCFA to take battle stations
HCFA in November set up the war room and assigned employees to do nothing but track year 2000 progress and solve renovation problems. The agency has also stationed employees at sites run by contractors to track their progress preparing Medicare systems, said Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, HCFA administrator. "Ensuring that Medicare beneficiaries will continue to receive services after Jan. 1, 2000, is my No. 1 priority," DeParle said. "To achieve this goal, we are doing whatever it
In the market for adapter cards? Be in-the-know before you go
To make an informed purchase of a PC Card modem/LAN adapter card, you need to know some basic terms and facts about them. Both versions of Ethernet are shared-media LANs, where all nodes use the same bandwidth. Most desirable are modems that support the Group 3 standard, offering various levels of fax processing.
BREAKING NEWS | GCN
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service is mismanaging some of its information systems, the Defense Department inspector general reported last week. In the report, Management of Defense Finance and Accounting Service Mid-Tier Systems, the IG found poor communication between the Directorate for Technical Infrastructure and the service's seven Financial Systems Activities, which prevented the activities from having adequate input on policy decisions related to DFAS midtier systems.
Red Cross opens military communications center
The humanitarian service organization transmits more than 1.4 million messages every year to DOD personnel and their relatives. The new center will change the way the Red Cross administers its Armed Forces Emergency Services, officials said. "This center will provide one-stop, emergency communications services to all military installations, from Maine to Florida, and to overseas, fleet-based and operationally deployed destinations, utilizing the latest available computer and telecommunications technologies," Red Cross
Crystal ball reveals lots of activity on the communications front
I'm looking forward to the next millennium, although most people plan to celebrate it a year early. Astute readers know the start of the new millennium, strictly speaking, is Jan. 1, 2001, about two years from now. Within a few years, the only way phone companies will be able to hang onto their profitability will be to offer high-speed Internet connections everywhere and at much lower prices.
NARA backs DOD electronic records storage policy
The National Archives and Records Administration in November endorsed the Defense Department's standard for electronic records management as a helpful aid for agencies governmentwide. Although widely anticipated—a NARA official helped write the DOD regulation—the standard is a tool agencies can use now while they await a final policy from NARA. The agency has been working on a policy on archiving electronic records since November 1997, when U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled NARA's existing
Not a desktop replacement, lightweight Vaio 505 is a traveling machine
The guard behind the airport X-ray machine opened my bag suspiciously and pulled out a slim silver computer no bigger than a 300-page spiral notebook. "That's a PC?" he demanded. I brushed the switch on the ultralight Sony Vaio 505, and the 10.4-inch thin-film-transistor screen lit up. The guard balanced it on his palm as the line came to a halt behind me.
DOD supports Unix messaging with user agent
Nexor Inc. has released its Messageware Defender for Motif, a military-grade user agent for Unix platforms that are part of the Defense Department's Defense Message System. Defender now is the only mail client that supports military messaging standards on Unix workstations, company officials said. Nexor's Messageware server is already certified for DMS use, but the Defender client has yet to undergo interoperability testing, said Tony Roadknight, senior technical consultant for Nexor of Gaithersburg, Md. He said Defender's
Connecticut outsources its systems to EDS for $1 billion
In a milestone move for government outsourcing, Connecticut has hired Electronic Data Systems Corp. to run most state systems under a seven-year, $1 billion agreement. The plan is the first of its magnitude among state governments and follows a politically charged two years since the state accepted proposals, including a bid from the state's union of information technology workers.
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