Navy: Calibration flaw crashed Yorktown LAN
PASCAGOULA, Miss.—Human error, not Microsoft Windows NT, was the cause of a LAN failure aboard the Aegis cruiser USS Yorktown that left the Smart Ship dead in the water for nearly three hours last fall during maneuvers near Cape Charles, Va., Navy officials said. The Yorktown last September suffered an engineering LAN casualty when a petty officer calibrating a fuel valve entered a zero into a shipboard database, officials said. The resulting database
Advances in Layer 3 switch technology are boon to LAN security, load balancing
Layer 3 switches are beginning to ship to folks other than beta testers. Now there's a much newer technology on the horizon trying to eclipse them: Layer 4 switches. But unlike the obvious role that Layer 3 plays in building faster, more cost-effective networks, the benefits of Layer 4 aren't as clear.
NOAA computer modeler stays step ahead of El Nio
Ming Ji, a native of China, says science has always come easy to him. He now uses complex weather models to predict El Ni'o's patterns. Ming Ji has a reputation for burning the most computer time of any scientist at the National Center for Environmental Prediction. The meteorologist, a U.S. citizen born in China, works 50 or more hours a week running climate models on a Silicon Graphics Inc. Origin2000 server. His job: predicting
FTS 2001, warts and all
Should the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service bother to award the FTS 2001 contracts on which it has toiled so long? Some are asking this question as the delay-plagued program appears to be headed for awards, possibly by the end of this month. Isn't there a better way? Although its popularity isn't proven, wouldn't GSA's Seat Management Program, with its eight contracts, be a better model for future governmentwide contracts? Maybe the Multiple-Award Schedule program,
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
TECH REFRESH GCN November 9, 1998 The Veterans Affairs Department Procurement of Computer Hardware and Software contract now lists Compaq Computer Corp. Deskpro EN systems. After purchasing Digital Equipment Corp. earlier this year, Compaq has been replacing the Digital PCs sold on most of Digital's government contracts, including the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity PCHS.
LAB NOTES
The pen is mightier than the PC? Weary users of 8-pound notebooks who want something lighter should take a look at a computer pen that claims to replace mouse and keyboard. British researchers developed the Smartquill, a literally handheld pen that records text as you write on paper—or air—by processing changes in pen position.
Education awards CSC four task orders for consolidation of financial aid systems
The Education Department last month awarded four task orders worth $150 million to Computer Sciences Corp. to consolidate and operate systems that support five of the department's financial assistance programs. Education awarded the task orders under the General Services Administration Virtual Data Center contracts. The department previously awarded a $71 million VDC task order to CSC to run the National Student Loan Systems, which tracks loans after students receive them.
Senate official rallies troops to tackle year 2000 fixes
What's Bennett's plan? Buy eight new year 2000-ready PCs Upgrade four PCs Buy two new servers Buy or upgrade nine software packages Remove or make contingency plans for four other applications What he has ready 26 workstations: 10 ready 9 printers: 1 ready 2 network servers: None ready 26 applications: 16 ready, but not WordPerfect, Windows 95, Excel and cc:Mail
SSA tests system for employers to file wage data electronically
The Social Security Administration is testing ways to electronically gather wage information from employers. SSA is running a limited pilot with about 5 percent of employers, each of which file their data electronically using dedicated circuits, deputy associate commissioner Kim Mitchel said. The nation's 5.2 million employers must annually submit wage information for each of their employees, whether they employ one person or thousands.
BRIEFING BOOK
Digital photography. Holloman Air Force Base in Alamagordo, N.M., is the service's first base to eliminate wet processing by digitizing photography operations. The 49th Communications Squadron's Visual Information Center has moved its photography unit away from using chemicals and paper to electronic imaging using state-of-the-art digital technology. Photographers at Holloman are using high-resolution Kodak Professional DCS 420 digital cameras, film and flatbed scanners, a Kodak Digital Science 8650 color printer, as well as a CD-ROM writer and
SBA creates virtual class to teach 2000 lessons
The Small Business Administration is finishing work on an online virtual classroom to help small businesses deal with their year 2000 problems. The virtual classroom is part of an overall effort organized by the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion. The Clinton administration last month spearheaded a National Y2K Action Week to get year 2000 information out to the public, and, especially, small and medium-sized businesses [GCN, Oct. 12, Page 8].
Howard, the first CIO of FTS, to retire after 35 years in government
Steve Howard, the first chief information officer at the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service, will retire from his post at the end of the year, completing 35 years of government service. "I decided to retire because I've had a full, rewarding and satisfying career," he said, and this represents an "opportune time to move on to new challenges."
Goal is to make exchanges easy
Patricia Watkins Lattimore was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at the Labor Department in November of last year. She is also Labor's chief information officer. Lattimore has worked in the public sector since she was 18. She has held several positions at both Labor and the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, Philadelphia and Atlanta.
Well-planned seat management sits well with users
Consider this: Once upon a time, turning off the computer was clearly a hardware function. But with recent PCs and with Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98, it's both a software and hardware operation. Or this: Many users are so accustomed to using network drives that it's easy to forget that these drives are on another computer, possibly in another building or another state.
AF matches posts, personnel
The Air Force last month approved a system that could help it better assign the right officers to the right jobs. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan and the service's other top brass gave the new assignment system a final review early last month at Corona, the quarterly meeting of senior service leaders in Colorado Springs, Colo.
EPA overhaul calls for a new systems office
The Environmental Protection Agency will reorganize its information management organization, according to an internal Oct. 14 memorandum from EPA Administrator Carol Browner. A task force of senior managers that Browner created in August has recommended that the agency establish a single program manager for information management and policy, and Browner has agreed. The head of the new organization will not necessarily be the chief information officer, Browner said.
INS gets reprieve on gathering entry and exit data
INS plans to build on existing systems to gather entry and exit data. The Immigration and Naturalization Service missed its Oct. 1 deadline to develop a system to track foreign visitors as they enter and leave the United States, forcing Congress to give the agency more time. Congress, under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, originally gave INS until the first of this month to implement an automated entry-exit control
Former Microsoft contractor Ed Curry says that the company deliberately misledgovernment buyers
A Texas software engineer gave the Defense Department documents that he said prove that Microsoft Corp. is conducting a campaign to mislead the government about the security certification status of Microsoft Windows NT. Ed Curry, whose now-defunct company worked with Microsoft to obtain the National Security Agency's C2 certification for NT 3.5 during the mid-1990s, met earlier this month with Richard Schaeffer, director of information assurance in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
FTS hustles to replace its long-distance service
FTS' Dennis Fischer says an FTS 2001 award is possible by "maybe early December." As the General Services Administration last week celebrated the FTS 2000 contract's 10-year run with representatives of AT&T Corp. and Sprint Corp., the agency's Federal Technology Service was scrambling to award an FTS 2001 long-distance replacement before FTS 2000 runs out Dec. 7.
Betting on voice over IP? It's your call.
01 Communiqu' Laboratory Inc. 1450 Meyerside Drive Mississauga, Ont., Canada L5T 2N5 905-795-2888 http://www.01com.com Communicate 8.0 is Microsoft Windows software, requires 15M to 18M hard drive space and is compatible with most fax modems. It has a user-friendly telephone look-and-feel and is a full-function data and fax communications program with strong voice-over-IP capability. Price: $79
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