Navy site and DOE lab retreat from Mac support
Users at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division in China Lake, Calif., are waging the latest federal PC-vs.-Macintosh battle. At both sites, users can buy Apple Macintoshes only if they justify their requirements and win management approval. Employees of the NAVAIR Weapons Division in China Lake must obtain permission from the vice commander level to buy any machine other than a Pentium, said Steve Boster, a division spokesman.
Tally's flash-fusion printer handles odd sizes of paper and heavy stock
Tally Printer Corp.'s T9230T Continuous Form Page Printer accepts card stock, heavy labels and plastic-coated paper, among other media. The printer from the Kent, Wash., company uses flash-fusion technology to print on forms as long as 16 inches, and the wide tractor feed can handle a 141'2-inch print line. The duty cycle is 250,000 pages per month.
GSA stays the course on Seat Management
GSA, NASA prepare first seat orders. Boeing Information Services Inc. may have won its protest of the General Services Administration's Seat Management Program contracts, but in the end that win may not get the company anything. GSA's Federal Technology Service last month responded to the agency-level protest ruling by deciding not to give the Vienna, Va., company a contract.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
On behalf of the Coalition for Federal Financial Accountability (CFFA), I would like to point out that the GCN editorial, "Bullish on reforms" [GCN, Aug. 24, Page 24], inaccurately represents our organization. Furthermore, there are substantive omissions in the editorial about the true impact of eliminating the General Services Administration's Financial Management Systems Software Schedule.
State will refute report that says its efforts to correct date code are lax
The State Department this month plans to tell the General Accounting Office that it has its date code fix-it efforts well in hand, despite a recent GAO report that concluded the department badly needed to improve its year 2000 program. "I think the GAO report sends out an unfair message," said Dave Ames, deputy chief information officer and chief of State's Year 2000 Problem Program Management Office.
Defense wipes sensitive data from its Web sites
What DOD agencies must ditch Plans or lessons learned that reveal military operations, exercises or vulnerabilities Information on troop movements Personal data such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, home addresses and home telephone numbers Any identifying information about a DOD employee's family members A scramble is under way at Defense Department offices worldwide to remove information posted on DOD Web sites that might compromise national security or put Defense personnel at risk.
Study says 2000 systems projects remain top concern for agencies
When the Electronic Industries Alliance surveyed agencies on their five-year systems spending plans, it turned up an unsurprising fact: Date code work is king. Year 2000 efforts are eclipsing spending on many federal systems as agencies face increasing pressure to meet readiness deadlines, agencies told the Arlington, Va., association. "They see Y2K as a sea anchor" that is stifling creativity and other information technology projects, said Sara DeCarlo, director of marketing for Bell Atlantic Corp.'s federal division
Navy app unites commanders
The Navy has developed a tool that will help the services plan and coordinate joint theater air and missile defenses against ballistic and tactical missile attacks. The Area Air Defense Commander module is designed to provide a single, integrated picture of the battlespace so that a joint commander can quickly gather data on air and missile attacks and defend against them. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is developing AADC for the
NARA gets more time to set archiving policy
A federal district court judge is giving the government some breathing room in finalizing a policy on preserving electronic records. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman, in a Sept. 29 ruling, modified his April decision that ordered the National Archives and Records Administration to have new electronic records guidelines in place by Sept. 30.
State buys portables for classified data processing
The State Department has awarded four contracts for extra-secure portable computers from Cycomm Secure Solutions Inc. of Sebastian, Fla. Because of the products' sensitive nature, department officials cannot discuss how the products work, said John Arbin, State's information systems manager. Dulles Networking Associates of Chantilly, Va., Intelligent Decisions Inc. of Chantilly, MegaByte Business Systems Inc. of Richmond, Va., and Office Solutions Inc. of Alexandria, Va., won the State contracts.
To ensure system security, set priorities
"It was always my intention to be an artist," Van Dyke said. Then a job with Rand Corp. spinoff Systems Development Corp. showed him that art, logic and music skills worked in programming, too. Later he joined Informatix Inc., since acquired by Sterling Software Inc. of Dallas, and in 1978 he founded J.G. Van Dyke & Associates Inc. of Bethesda, Md., where he is president. The company assists prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. in developing the
LAB NOTES
Novell's novel ways. As Microsoft Corp. promotes Windows 98's out-of-the-box 2000 readiness and patches Windows NT for the century change, Novell Inc. is taking a more low-key approach on date code preparations. The LAN software vendor expects to complete testing all its products by mid-1999 as part of its own audit of internal infrastructures, computer-related and otherwise.
Oracle sees the future of client-server in an Internet architecture
Agencies that rely heavily on Oracle Corp. databases can kiss their client-server architectures goodbye. Oracle is moving to a strictly Internet architecture, using a Web browser as the single interface to all data. "We will never again build for client-server," Oracle chairman Larry Ellison said at the Planet '98 supply chain conference in Dallas recently. "It was a bad idea."
Microsoft seeks certification for cryptographic module
Microsoft Corp. has submitted a cryptographic services module for federal certification as part of an ongoing drive to fit its Microsoft Windows NT into agency network environments. Certification under the Federal Information Processing Standard 140-1 Cryptographic Module Validation Program could be completed late this year, said Karan Khanna, Microsoft lead product manager on the Windows NT security team in Redmond, Wash.
Optical jukeboxes
Optical technologies have cut deeply into the M-O jukebox market. Sidebars The measure of a jukebox varies with type of data and how it is used Difference between M-O and CD-ROM is in the details Magneto-optical disk jukeboxes, once the darlings of big-time mass storage, have fallen on hard times. Network managers in search of large-capacity data storage are instead turning in droves to tape libraries and CD-ROM jukeboxes.
Portables deliver noteworthy flexibility
After checking them for shipping damage, the staff categorized them by processor and speed, weighed them and examined components. The lab staff powered up each system with AC current, installed an operating system if necessary and looked for conflicts. The GCN Lab then loaded test applications and files and ran them in the same sequence: Symantec Norton Utilities 3.0 for Microsoft Windows 9x with appropriate updates, GCNdex32TM benchmark suite, year 2000-readiness tests, multimedia files and an
Leasing options offered for Aviion servers sold on the IT Schedule
Data General Corp. offers leasing options for all Aviion servers listed on its General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contract. The AV 3700 and AV 3700R departmental servers each have four 400-MHz Pentium II Xeon processors. The AV 8600 enterprise server has up to eight 200-MHz Pentium Pros. All run Microsoft Windows NT. The largest Aviion, the AV 20000, has up to 32 200-MHz Pentium Pro processors running DG-UX.
ThinkPads replace astronauts' proprietary computers
Astronauts on four space station flights will use space-ready notebook PCs for command and control beginning this December. On the first of a series of missions during which astronauts will construct a space station, they will carry two IBM ThinkPad 760ED notebooks running SunSoft Solaris 2.5, said Linda Uljon, office chief for portable computer systems at Johnson Space Center's Mission Operations Directorate in Houston. NASA tested ThinkPads on a shuttle flight this summer.
Tax agency selects a standard messaging system
The IRS last week chose Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 and Outlook 98 as its standard messaging products and awarded a $4.3 million installation contract to Telos Corp. The tax agency selected Exchange and Outlook because they best matched its requirements and offered the most value, IRS chief information officer Paul Cosgrave said.
Agencies need to ponder Web's long-term role
This is not an easy question. Just identifying all the legal requirements is a significant challenge. The need isn't in dispute. Several long-standing laws, including the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Freedom of Information Act, call for proactive dissemination of federal information. Printing laws direct agencies to make information products available to federal depository libraries. The Federal Records Act imposes requirements for preservation of agency records. Agency-specific laws regulate other aspects of dissemination.
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