Koskinen stands out
Political appointees rarely seem to understand the challenges faced by the career federal managers they oversee. Sometimes appointees aren't at an agency long enough to do much, or they stay removed from the day-to-day routine. One example: Steve Kelman. Before returning to his Harvard University teaching post last year, Kelman ran the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. He had a real feel for the concerns and frustrations of lifelong federal managers.
Maryland vendor sets up routers for network managers to test drive
World of Routers of Rockville, Md., has set up an array of Cisco Systems Inc. routers that networking professionals can experiment with in a controlled, real-world environment. "As far as I know, it's the only one of its kind," president Thomas W. Graham said. Some companies and government agencies maintain in-house test facilities, but Graham said World of Routers is the first place anyone can pay by the hour for hands-on experience with live network routers.
Transportation funds date code repairs for state systems
The department has created a Web site to help state and local governments prioritize year 2000 repairs. The Transportation Department will let state and local governments use federal highway and transit funds for year 2000 repairs in their intelligent transportation systems, a department spokesman said late last month.
New modules diversify use of network simulator for engineers and planners
The modules can model traffic over satellite and circuit-switching networks. CACI Products Co. has introduced a suite of new modules for its flagship Comnet III network simulator. The modules can model traffic over satellite and circuit-switched networks, as well as predict application behavior. The Satellite and Mobile Module is targeted to the government market, said Chris LeBaron, vice president of strategic marketing for CACI Products of La Jolla, Calif.
Breaking News | NSA outsources IT work | GCN
For the first time, the National Security Agency has awarded a contract to outsource its systems operations. Under its NSA Breakthrough Program, the agency awarded Computer Sciences Corp. a five-year, $20 million contract to maintain its computers and provide software enhancements, configuration management, installations, and hardware and software upgrades. More than 50 CSC software engineers and computer specialists will handle the project from CSC's Maryland Intelligence Center in Hanover, Md. CSC subcontractors include Data Procurement Corp. of
IRS awards contract to develop public-key infrastructure
The IRS has awarded a contract to VeriSign Inc. to create and test a public-key infrastructure, a key piece of the service's future systems security architecture. Under a two-year contract, the Linthicum, Md., company will test whether a PKI will provide secure transmission of employee e-mail within the IRS. If the test is successful, the IRS will extend the contract for another year to test the PKI for the electronic filing of tax returns by IRS employees,
Microsoft will beef up product security for feds
REDMOND, Wash.—Microsoft Corp. is raising the ante in the competition to sell secure operating and messaging systems to the federal government. Company officials last week said that their client-server messaging and browser products would meet Level 2 of the Federal Information Processing Standard 140-1 for cryptographic security, rivaling that of Netscape Communications Corp. products.
SNEAKER
Q. OK, I know the Good Times virus was a hoax, but it sounds as if fiction has become fact. I keep hearing about weaknesses being discovered in many e-mail clients. How can I protect myself? A. Good Times is one of those urban legends that rose out of the collective paranoia of an increasingly wired world.
Will ODIN give the Macs at NASA another nudge?
As NASA officials gear up for the first orders under the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA program, they acknowledge they are sending a somewhat mixed message about the future of Apple Macintoshes at the space agency. "We ultimately don't know the outcome" regarding long-term support for Mac users, said Don Andreotta, NASA's deputy chief information officer for operations. Business decisions by ODIN contractors will determine the outcome, he said.
Beat the Clock
Test and verify. Maybe it's not too late to automate regression testing of code fixes. Officials of Mercury Interactive Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., say mainframe regression testing can proceed an order of magnitude faster with QuickTest 2000, which is sold on the General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule. Running under Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT, QuickTest 2000 simplifies and accelerates the creation of test scripts to verify the proper functioning of online transaction processing (OLTP) systems
U.S. Transportation Command uses Web as a gateway to logistics data
A Web-based logistics system developed by the U.S. Transportation Command has only been in operation for a year, but it has already changed the way the Defense Department tracks and moves troops, equipment and supplies around the world. The Global Transportation Network, headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., integrates command and control, transportation and logistics data so commanders can track the identity, status and location of cargo and passengers. The network also gives commanders airlift,
House report rebukes HHS, Treasury on year 2000
The report said that Treasury has made inadequate progress. Jan. 3, 2000, will more likely see a disruption in Medicare payments than in Social Security checks, according to a House Ways and Means' Subcommittee on Oversight report. The report evaluates the year 2000 status of agencies under the committee's purview.
Programmers say knowing process is fundamental to their art
Even the world's best programmers get no help from automated test tools until they have first worked their way manually through the software processes in question. John Woodruff, lead software architect for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's $1.2 billion National Ignition Facility and Integrated Computer Control System, said automation tools are useful "only after the process is so well understood that you can be confident of what is going to happen."
Notebook PC power boosts silently lap those of desktop PCs
If you haven't taken a serious look at notebook computers lately, you may not know that their power has risen even faster than that of desktop systems. A year ago, you would have paid about $4,000 for a 150-MHz IBM ThinkPad. This summer, 266-MHz Pentium II notebooks with 13-inch screens commonly cost less than $3,000.
Users get best of two OSes on a Power Mac G3
Box Score B Power Macintosh G3 Apple Computer Inc.. Cupertino, Calif.; tel. 408-996-1010 http://www.apple.com GSA price: $1,863 with 32M RAM, 4G hard drive, 24X CD-ROM drive and Zip drive; no monitor Pros and cons: + Fast performance for optimized apps + Moderate performance for PC software – Very slow for some PC apps and Java
Call it a comeback for 2000 crackerjack
Kathryn "Kitty" Guion took an early retirement from her federal job in 1995. Now she is back at full salary, helping her former colleagues meet their year 2000 project deadline. Guion downplayed her new role, which is to manage the entire mainframe code validation effort at the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center in New Orleans.
Emergency funding for 2000 remains uncertain
Replacing the money in the House bills during a Senate and House conference is out, Morra said. The House Appropriations Committee hasn't moved to create a separate year 2000 funding bill after House conservatives stripped emergency year 2000 money—needed for date code repair—from three appropriations bills.
CAD use helps AF bodybuild
An Air Force hospital is using computer-aided design and manufacturing to create 3-D models of human body parts so surgeons can practice complex surgical procedures before cutting real patients. Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, isn't the only medical facility to use stereo lithography, a CAD process of producing physical models from medical imaging. But it is the only medical center in the world, military or civilian, that has its own in-house
New Communication Products
A suite of five virtual private networking products from Check Point Software Technologies Inc . of Redwood City, Calif., can be mixed and matched to secure communications over IP networks. The VPN-1 family works with Unix and Microsoft Windows NT servers, routers, switches and other networking devices. The suite includes VPN-1 Software, which combines Check Point's VPN with its FireWall-1; SecureRemote client-side encryption software; RemoteLink, a plug-and-play standalone product that integrates VPN-1 Software with high-speed IP
AF unit gets long-awaited mobile access to manuals
After 13 years of trying, the Air Mobility Command finally has a system that lets flight-line technicians read manuals on their mobile terminals. "This is the first time we've been able to field it across AMC," said Capt. Stan Griffis, chief of logistics integration initiatives for the Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Previous systems provided data or voice access at only one point, Griffis said.
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