Push is on for data broadcasts
Push-pull technology made quite a splash last year and still has momentum for agencywide broadcasts. For example, it can be used to standardize every user on a particular version of software. Although some federal sites forbid subscribing to outside push channels that monopolize network bandwidth, push technology can effect change at thousands of desktop PCs better than broadcast e-mail attachments or simple pointers to an intranet site.
Feds' changing tastes mark '98 surveys
This year's GCN surveys resulted in power plays among some of government's big contractors. IBM Corp. drew the highest overall ratings for quality in two GCN Product Preference Survey hardware categories: notebook computers and PC Card modems. Corel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. Corel's WordPerfect and Adobe FrameMaker tied for the top honors in desktop publishing software. Adobe Illustrator 7.0 and CorelDraw 7 were first and second, respectively, among six contenders in the graphics and illustration software
FAA pulls tracking app from two radar centers
The Federal Aviation Administration has hit some turbulence in getting aircraft-tracking software ready for 2000. At radar centers serving major airports in Chicago and Dallas, FAA in recent weeks reverted to an old version of the Automated Radar Terminal System—one that is not 2000-ready. Complaints from air traffic controllers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport led FAA early this month to pull the plug on the latest ARTS version there. Last week, air traffic controllers at the Dallas-Fort
No question, Survey Select helps ease the circulation of surveys
Most agencies that circulate surveys have learned that answers are meaningful only if you ask the right questions. Survey Select takes much of the headache out of conceiving and formatting survey questions. It distributes surveys on the Web or by e-mail and analyzes the results. You can draft a survey from scratch or work from the package's templates, which give valuable guidance in designing questions to draw usable responses.
Videoconferencing tools
Some people love to travel, and there's no denying that a face-to-face meeting affords a depth and subtlety of communication unavailable by other means. But if you're getting on an airplane just to hold a half-hour meeting, chances are you can find more productive ways to spend your time and your agency's budget.
SPAWAR contracts go netwide
A document imaging system lets the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command post on its intranet 100,000 documents and 750,000 pages that represent 125 active contracts and $2 billion in Navy funds. The command's contract paperwork tripled in 1993 when four East Coast naval engineering activities consolidated, said Randy Bryant, an electrical engineer in SPAWAR's Advanced Technology Branch.
Controversial dissemination bill comes up short
A bill criticized for creating a new bureaucracy for publishing government information died as Congress adjourned last month. There were last-minute attempts to attach the Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Reform Act, S 2288, to the fiscal 1999 omnibus spending bill. The efforts failed after facing strong opposition from Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who said he was concerned the bill would negate provisions of the Information Technology Management Reform Act.
SNEAKER.NET
Q. I'm buying a digital camera to take photos for the newsletter circulated at my office. Which camera should I get? A. Any model with megapixel resolution will do. Megapixel means 1 million pixels or more. If a camera can capture a 1,024- by 768-pixel image, or 786,432 pixels, it's close to the megapixel range. If it can capture 1,280 by 1,024, you're getting 1.3 million pixels.
PC managers seek the real deal on real-time clocks
Year 2000 project teams have gotten conflicting advice about real-time clocks from two powerful partners in the PC industry: Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. The topic is more than academic for managers who worry that even brand-new PCs might not be fully year 2000-ready [GCN, Oct. 19, Page 1]. At issue is how far they must go in testing their PC hardware to guarantee it will work properly after Jan. 1, 2000. Some operating systems, including
NIST upgrades to faster, more accessible backbone
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is upgrading its campus network in Gaithersburg, Md., to do all things for all users. NIST will maintain its old Fiber Distributed Data Interface backbone while migrating to asynchronous transfer mode, installing Gigabit Ethernet between switches, and accommodating a growing number of requests for adding switched Ethernet and Fast Ethernet to desktop PCs.
RealNetworks sees intranets as streaming media venue
When President Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony was released in September, an estimated 2 million people watched it on desktop computers using viewers from RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle. Web news outlets such as ABCNews.com, Fox News, CNN and National Public Radio used the company's RealVideo to distribute the video over the Internet, giving RealNetworks what executive producer Mark Hall called its first near-cable-sized audience.
Persistence pays off for agencies seeking electronic copyrights
Two things the Internet has always lacked are a standard system for establishing who owns a digital copyright and an easy way of contacting the copyright owner. The federal government, unlike most other publishers, gives much of its data away for free. But it still claims a copyright on many computer files, including Web pages, data collections, artwork, sound files and video.
It's a smart lesson
Few stories in GCN over the last year have produced as much reaction as our coverage of the Smart Ship USS Yorktown. Back in July, GCN reporter Gregory Slabodkin uncovered the fact that on at least one occasion, the systems aboard the Navy's model fly-by-wire ship had crashed, leaving the vessel partially disabled. It took two hours for the crew to reboot.
3Com introduces high-speed storage network
3Com Corp.'s StorageConnect family, announced this month, joins an emerging market for storage area networks, or SANs. A Fibre Channel SAN works behind a LAN, connecting external storage devices to servers. The most common external storage configuration at present is a SCSI connection between a storage device and a single server. SAN will make a high-speed link among multiple servers and multiple storage devices, in effect creating a virtual data pool.
Revised FAR widens avenue for contract discussions
The revised Federal Acquisition Regulation is filled with opportunities for vendors and buying agencies to discuss real issues before the awards are granted. The opportunities stem from the greater flexibility in contract terms and conditions than existed in the pre-reform days. The new FAR represents best prospects for novel approaches when you're buying commercial items. Luckily, most information technology products fall into this category.
Beat the Clock
Second opinion. The number of civilian and Defense Department agencies seeking a second opinion about their year 2000 readiness is likely to rise sharply, judging by the fact that several large agencies have already hired compliance auditors. The IRS and Postal Service have brought in year 2000 auditors from SRA International Inc. of Fairfax, Va., to check their readiness. The Health Care Financing Administration also has hired SRA to do independent verification and validation that will
MAS audits irk vendors
The petition, authored by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association of Arlington, Va., and believed to be the first use of a little-noticed provision of the OFPP Authorization Act, contends that the pricing and audit clauses are inconsistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The group plans to submit the final petition next month.
With LCD monitors, big is in at Comdex trade show
LAS VEGAS—LCD flat-panel display makers were touting the biggest LCDs on the block at the Comdex trade show here last week. Officials of ViewSonic Corp. of Walnut, Calif., which makes both LCD and CRT monitors, said buyer interest is shifting rapidly toward LCD monitors. ViewSonic's newest LCDs have a 160-degree viewing angle, which means images stay sharp at the sides. The top-end, 18-inch VG180 can show 16.7 million colors in native mode and suits almost every
Shareware welcomes users to a new world of PC opportunities
Although Microsoft Windows' decade-old graphical interface has made life easier for most users, anyone who could write a .bat file in MS-DOS still feels betrayed. One of Windows' shortcomings is that it won't let users cut and paste in advanced ways as they could in MS-DOS environments such as DesqView from Quarterdeck Corp. of Marina Del Rey, Calif.
New Energy CIO brings IT skills to job
The Energy Department's new chief information officer said he believes his diverse background in information technology acquisition, architecture and policy at the Air Force has prepared him well for the federal CIO ranks. "I view my job as providing a focus and coordination in IT across the department," John H. Gilligan said.
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