Electronic software distribution is a hit at Defense
Some estimates put ESD sales as high as several billion dollars per year by 2000. Defense Department employees are at the head of the line for installing Microsoft Windows 98 on their desktops, because electronic software distribution (ESD) lets them download it immediately.
Two offices TRIM archiving
The Center for Army Lessons Learned and the Office of Thrift Supervision both have archiving projects under way using a Defense Department 5015.2-Std-certified software application called TRIM. The Tower Records and Information Management package, from Tower Software Corp. of Fairfax, Va. [GCN, June 29, Page 1], is a C++ client-server application originally developed for the Australian government.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
New-generation System/390 complementary metal-oxide semiconductor servers from Amdahl Corp. can execute up to 686 million instructions per second when configured with the maximum 12 processors. The Millennium 700 Series CMOS servers have a single-processor speed of 80 MIPS. They accept up to 16G of memory and 15 logical partitions, and they can be reconfigured online.
DLA swats at E-Mall's bugs
E-Mall items can be bought using IMPAC credit cards or via the Military Standard Requisitioning and Issue Procedure, a DLA official says. The Defense Logistics Agency's E-Mall is running into technical problems on the user side, a DLA official said. E-Mall, a Web site that gives military personnel worldwide access to more than 2.4 million parts and products in vendor and government supply databases, needs minor engineering improvements, DLA analyst
Clean up Net files before they are demanded
Here is a question: Can a Freedom of Information Act requester obtain a copy of a federal employee's cookie file stored in the employee's Web browser? A cookie file lets a Web server operator tell a browser to store certain information and to give it back on subsequent visits to the same server.
All synonomous reform programs are not the same
Procurement reform in the 1990s has been a crazy quilt of programs, lacking consistency and coherence. With each round of reform, buying was supposed to be simpler than before. But because the recent procurement changes don't form a single, unitary program, we can judge each one on its own merits. With the first data coming in, it may soon be possible to decide which new reform programs are worth keeping and which are failed experiments.
Tool kit keeps mobile notebook PC users on the ball
Pros and cons: + Easy to use and not overly technical + 24-hour phone support – Settings can be overwritten on shared notebook Real-life requirements: 8M RAM and 10M free on hard drive Sometimes the simplest things work best. The utilities in Norton Mobile Essentials are surprisingly low-tech, but they throw out a lifeline to frustrated notebook computer users.
DESKTOP COMPUTING | New Products
| New Products IBM Corp.'s InfoPrint 20 workgroup laser printer prints 20 pages per minute and uses the Adobe PostScript page description language for graphics handling. The printer's installation CD-ROM has a networking wizard to set up the proper management tools and drivers for Microsoft Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Novell NetWare and Unix.
Television-quality Web display is possible, but browsers must catch up
Will government webmasters be SMILing in the months ahead? Probably only a few. The World Wide Web Consortium this month recommended adoption of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language 1.0 as a standard after six months of debate. But federal administrators won't be integrating SMIL into their sites for months yet. Championed as the first big effort to control the display format of Web multimedia, SMIL likely will find its first government use at training sites.
Date code fix bollixes predictions on federal IT budgets, analysts say
The cost of fixing date code is still a wild card when predicting federal spending on information technology, an industry analyst said. "It's obvious the government estimate is below the actual cost to fix this problem," said Michael D. Groneck, an analyst with Input Inc., a Vienna, Va., research company. The Social Security Administration, for example, started fixing its systems in the late 1980s and still isn't finished with date code remediation, he said. Agencies that
Choose SurfSaver if you need to save Web pages for reference
Pros and cons: + Easy to use + Powerful enough for professional use + Competent search tool – Works only with Microsoft Internet Explorer Real-life requirements: PC running Microsoft Internet Explorer A problem with the Internet is that there is no guarantee that the information you tapped into one day will be in the same spot the next.
Software will test PCs, servers for 2000 readiness
New releases of PC asset-management software will include BIOS and real-time clock testing utilities that could help agencies avert PC failures in 2000. Some of the integrated suites can monitor for year 2000 readiness after they distribute fixes. Periodic monitoring almost certainly will be necessary to ensure that PC desktops and servers on a network remain year 2000-ready, said Chris Jesse, president of Tangram Enterprise Solutions Inc. of Cary, N.C.
Army tests a new hospital net | GCN
"The medical community is changing faster than a lot of industries." The Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon, Ga., is headquarters for the Southeast Regional Medical Command and for a pilot to improve networks in hospitals servicewide. The 13-story, 176-bed hospital has almost 15,000 inpatients a year and more than 60,000 outpatients. It provides consulting and referral services for the Army's medical service in the Southeast.
Today, everything comes down to the same thing: Are you ready for 2000?
The Rat continued to ply the summer trade show circuit, taking a fast train to Beantown for Database/Client-Server World, Focus on Windows NT, the Knowledge Management Conference and other assorted sideshows. He soon began wondering if it wasn't time for vendors to drop the term "client-server" entirely. Good thing the cyberrodent had other business in the Boston area, because his strong moral fiber would have prevented him from trying to justify the jaunt just for the conferences.
News Roundup
The Census Bureau has awarded Oracle Corp. a five-year, $12.17 million contract to help the bureau expand its financial, administrative and survey databases. The company will make Census databases and other applications available on the Internet so the bureau's field offices can share data. The bureau is licensing Oracle's enterprisewide software, including Oracle Database Server, Oracle Parallel Server and Oracle Application Server. The company will also provide Oracle Developer, Designer and Discoverer tools, company spokesman Michael Sperling
Martin takes over as Air Force CIO; Muellner retires
Lt. Gen. George Muellner, the Air Force's chief information officer and acquisition executive, retired late last month after nearly 30 years of military service. Lt. Gen. Gregory Martin replaced Muellner. Before becoming CIO, Martin was a major general and director of operational requirements for the deputy chief of staff for air and space operations at Air Force headquarters in the Pentagon. Martin, whose nickname is Speedy, is an accomplished pilot and master parachutist who has little
VA creates new chief information post
Keep the focus on veterans, says Harold F. Gracey Jr., VA acting assistant secretary of information and technology. The Veterans Affairs Department has created a new office to oversee systems and telecommunications. The head of the new Office of the Assistant Secretary of Information and Technology will also be VA's chief information officer. Current CIO D. Mark Catlett, who is also the department's chief financial officer, will become the assistant deputy
Gen. Hartzog, digital battlefield backer, to retire
Gen. William Hartzog, commander of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, will retire in October after 35 years of military service. Lt. Gen. John Abrams, deputy TRADOC commander, will receive a fourth star when he replaces Hartzog. Hartzog has been the chief advocate for the Army's Force XXI battlefield digitization effort.
BDM will modernize EDGAR for $49 million
Under a three-year, $49 million contract, BDM International Inc. will modernize the electronic filing system it built for the Securities and Exchange Commission. The McLean, Va., company built the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system, one of the government's first expansive electronic filing systems. "The EDGAR modernization will substantially improve the presentation, quality and structure of SEC filings," said Mike Bartell, SEC chief information officer. "Filers will realize reduced costs and effort associated with the preparation
Major HUD Programs
Major Programs HUD 2020—Information technology plays a big role in Housing and Urban Development Department Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo's management reform plan. The plan relies upon significant technology improvements in HUD information systems and expanded use of electronic communication with clients and companies that conduct business with the department.
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