FAA, foreign delegates discuss, share date code fixes
Federal Aviation Administration officials are working with their international counterparts to help make their systems year 2000-ready, an FAA spokesman said. But some industry observers don't think FAA is moving quickly enough to ensure that data interfaces between the United States and foreign air systems will be ready for 2000 and beyond.
Medics go online for consults
In July 1996, a general surgeon aboard the USS Enterprise examined a 35-year-old sailor and diagnosed the man as having a malignant melanoma. But instead of calling for a medical evacuation, the medical corpsman reached for his digital camera. He e-mailed the National Naval Medical Center, attaching a digital photo of the infected area. After consulting with Capt. Dennis Vidmar at NNMC, the surgeon removed the growth the next day. The Navy estimated that by performing
SitePro database aids agency in cleanup of wetlands
The Fish and Wildlife Service is using information technology to bring paradise to a polluted California coastal wetland. The agency is using a database of scientific measurements taken from the Bolsa Chica Lowlands over the years to create a cleanup plan for the 880-acre site. The Southern California coastal marsh is home to endangered plants and animals.
CIO Council at odds over goals
Infighting in the federal Chief Information Officers Council has led at least one member to charge that the council is failing to show leadership on information technology issues. A division among council members over mandating agency use of the Information Technology Investment Portfolio System (I-TIPS) mirrors a broader debate over whether the council ought to set IT standards governmentwide.
Navy command awards contract for suite of tactical support apps
The Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command recently awarded CACI Inc. of Fairfax, Va., a five-year $48 million contract for software, training and troubleshooting services for the Naval Tactical Command Support System. NTCSS is a suite of tactical support applications that provide shipboard systems users with administrative data management, maintenance resource management, supply and financial management, and automated medical systems support.
IG confirms: DMS will need AUTODIN for backup
The Defense Department inspector general this month confirmed what DOD officials have been saying for months: The Defense Message System will not fully replace AUTODIN by 2000. In a report, Readiness of the Defense Message System to Replace the Automatic Digital Network, the office of the IG concluded that DMS won't be ready on time to replace some critical AUTODIN messaging functions, including classified message processing and emergency action messages. The AUTODIN contract expires December of
White House sets up systems protection plan
The Clinton administration by year's end will complete its plan for protecting the nation's infrastructures from cyberattack, administration officials said. Clinton last month issued Presidential Decision Directive 63, which called for a national plan for infrastructure protection. The directive established the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program, which calls for interim security capability by 2000 and full infrastructure security in five years.
Successful IT planning goes well beyond 2000
With all the attention on the year 2000 and its urgent but short-lived—and overhyped—software repair issues, are agencies thinking enough about the real future, the one beyond the next 18 months? A number of scholars and writers think agencies need to think further ahead if they are to effectively serve a changing population.
PhoneJack shows upside of full-duplex call quality over Internet
Pros and cons: +Free phone calls with good to excellent sound quality – Works with most Internet telephony software and PBXes – Inherent delays from nature of Internet Real-life requirements: Open half-height ISA slot, Win95, 16M RAM, CD-ROM drive, 2M free on hard drive, telephone handset or speaker and microphone.
New chief NSF engineer says key to job is consensus
The National Science Foundation has named Eugene Wong its new assistant director for engineering. Wong replaces Joseph Bordogna, now acting deputy director of NSF. Wong was one of the designers of Ingres, an early relational database management system now sold by Computer Associates International Inc. He comes to NSF from a position as chief scientist at Vision Software Tools Inc. of Oakland, Calif.
TECH REFRESH
Indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts are shedding their reputation for cumbersome technical refreshment practices. That often means the prices drop fast. On its Army PC-2 contract, Government Technology Services Inc. has replaced a 266-MHz Pentium II PC with a 300-MHz Hewlett-Packard Co. Vectra VL7 Pentium II system, priced at $2,399 from the Chantilly, Va., reseller. That's $231 less than the older system, said Marlene Harold, PC-2 program manager at GTSI.
98 tips for using Windows 98
Windows 98, the Microsoft Corp. update to its popular Windows 95 operating system, may be an unavoidable upgrade for government users, especially for portable PC buyers. Why? Most computer makers began installing Win98 earlier this month, although Microsoft officially released the OS only last week. Some makers have said they will continue to offer Win95 for a time. But like OSes before it, it will likely slip into oblivion.
SiteSweeper can do the chores that keep your site tidy
The special problems inherent in maintaining a smoothly functioning Web site demand special tools. SiteSweeper 2.0 from Site Technologies Inc. is a valuable arrow in any Web site manager's quiver. SiteSweeper provides a quick and, after configuration, virtually automatic means of testing a Web site for technical problems. It checks and reports on seven quality areas:
It's curtains for the Ada Joint Program Office
The Defense Information Systems Agency is closing its Ada Joint Program Office, leaving the future of the Defense Department software language in doubt. The office, which employs about 10 vendors and has an annual operating budget of approximately $4 million, will close in late September. The decision comes a little more than a year after Emmett Paige Jr., then-assistant secretary of Defense for command, control, communications and intelligence, killed a long-standing mandate that DOD programmers use Ada
HP's Network ScanJet5 aspires for midrange
Hewlett-Packard Co. is touting its charge-coupled device Network ScanJet 5 as the first of a new class of scanner. In function, the scanner falls somewhere between conventional photo-grabbing personal image capture scanners and imaging systems that use workgroup scanners for archiving large volumes of paper-based information, said Nolan Sundrud, workgroup scanner product manager for Hewlett-Packard's scanner division in Boise, Idaho.
GAO: Army needs to improve its 2000 program
Inaccurate data, incomplete interface agreements and poorly defined testing requirements are hampering the Army's year 2000 date code repair program, a General Accounting Office report said. Last month's GAO report, Defense Computers: Army Needs to Greatly Strengthen Its Year 2000 Program, warns that the service's mission-critical systems could become disabled if the Army doesn't better manage its year 2000 efforts.
David L. Black, Web scientist
As chief scientist for Internet strategies at the Open Group Research Institute, Black leads the IT DialTone program. In his job, he sets standards to unlock the Internet's potential. Working with hot technology and having a view of the big picture is fun, he said. Black's articles on computer and communications architectures and distributed computing have appeared in academic publications such as IEEE Concurrency, the Journal of Information Processing, IEEE Computer and Distributed Computing.
Govt. IT managers call for united systems front
IRVINE, Calif.—Cooperation among government organizations is essential because technology is leading citizens to demand a single government face, information technology managers said. IT managers at the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils' annual Management of Change conference this month pushed for more intergovernmental cooperation. But federal chief information officers ranked intergovernmental relations low on the list of concerns in a recent survey.
Ugh, word processors make most common jobs the hardest to do
My wife once said complaining is my hobby, but I straightened her out. A columnist complains for a living. Arguing with her is my hobby. In this column, I plan to complain about modern word processors—Corel WordPerfect specifically, because I don't have the latest version of Microsoft Word. When it arrives, it's sure to get a fair share of complaints.
SSA's Ne result provides good lesson for us all
@INFO.POLICY Robert Gellman What has happened to the Social Security Administration's Web service? Last year, SSA tried to give people access to their personal account information through the Internet. SSA's Web site let individuals order an earnings and benefits statement. The service attracted a high level of publicity following a USA Today story suggested that personal records could be obtained improperly by someone who knew a few of your personal pieces of information.
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