SNEAKER.NET
Q. I want a Zip removable-media drive for my computer. Since there's a printer already connected to the parallel port, I need another port for the Zip drive. Does anyone make parallel ISA or PCI cards? A. Yes, but you don't need one. Iomega Corp. of Roy, Utah, realized that folks like yourself might hesitate to buy, so it put a passthrough port in all its parallel-based Zip drives.
Network Solutions is still in the driver's seat for domain names
Will the federal government ever find a way to extract Network Solutions Inc. of Herndon, Va., from the center of the Internet Domain Name System? Just when we thought the company's control over .com, .net, .org and .edu domain registration was coming to an end, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration cut a deal to extend NSI's contract for another two years [GCN, Oct. 12, Page 61].
Rat spies hidden truths in Microsoft's send-up of Volkswagen TV ad
Packet Rat R. Fink While fellow attendees fought altitude sickness in Denver at Microsoft Corp.'s professional developer conference, the cyberrodent collected tchotchkes to line the walls of the burrow against the coming cold weather. He sipped bottled water bearing the Windows logo and pondered the eternal question: Just what is Microsoft's enterprise strategy?
IBM plans a price cut for OS/390 software products
"Our plan depends on higher volumes at competitive rates." IBM Corp. plans to cut prices for its OS/390 mainframe software products by more than 20 percent a year. The company's nine OS/390 pricing models will shrink to two as IBM moves away from traditional capacity pricing and adopts use pricing.
CIOs mull plan for IT pay scale
RICHMOND, Va.—To keep the information technology workers the government has now and attract new recruits, the Chief Information Officers Council is weighing the creation of a separate pay scale for government IT employees. Council officials said they think that offering better pay will attract IT employees and retain existing staff members, many of whom leave government for more lucrative private-sector jobs.
Army, VA speed approval processes for technical refreshment
VA and Army officials want to close the competitive gap between IDIQs and GSA schedule contracts. One knock against indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts has been that even their newest products are often out of date. But some agencies are trying to do something about that. The Army and the Veterans Affairs Department have whittled to within a month and a week, respectively, the time it takes them to approve engineering changes to IDIQ buys of PCs.
Lawmakers push FAA officials for progress on year 2000 fixes
Senate lawmakers last month questioned why the Federal Aviation Administration paints a rosier picture of its year 2000 progress than do the General Accounting Office and others. "Why are GAO and the Air Traffic Controllers Association more skeptical about your ability to be prepared than you've indicated here in your testimony?" asked Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) during a hearing of his Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem.
How to spend that free (i.e. unpaid) time on your hands this fall
It's fall again, and the smell of unpassed budget legislation is in the air. While Congress debates whether lying about sex is an impeachable offense—depending on how you define "is"—the Rat is finalizing his fall shutdown vacation plans. Do the math: Impeachment plus budget impasse equals gridlock. After last fall's abortive effort to take an extended vacation without burning leave, the cyberrodent has adopted a more scientific approach to fiscal brinkmanship—especially in view of the amount of
Corps works to ensure a Net-friendly environment
Sites with hacking information, explicit sex and bomb-making recipes are off-limits at all times. The Army Corps of Engineers' district office in Huntington, W.Va., wanted a handle on its Internet use. "We were having some slowdown in traffic going outside the district office," said Ken Shaffer, the district's information management project manager.
Casahl software synchronizes, replicates databases
Its flagship product, Replic-Action for Lotus Notes, replicates data between Lotus Domino/Notes groupware and relational database management systems. The Replic-Action 5.1 release supports real-time event logging and remote administration from a Web browser. Several server replication and synchronization products for Microsoft Exchange groupware are new this year. Replic-Action Interchange complements Exchange's data synchronizing functions by doing cross-domain and field-level replication between Exchange servers.
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.
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