The benefits of past performance have been oversold
The jewel in the crown of contracting reinvention is the widespread use of past performance information in vendor selection. Some say that past is prologue; the reinventors agree. They believe that rating the quality of performance for completed contracts will predict the quality of future performance by the same contractor.
Voice Power lets users vocally guide commands on their PCs
It's handy for surfing the Internet and customizing application launches. You control browser features in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator by speaking your commands. The package also has value for users with mobility problems or who are keyboard-illiterate. The package for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 comes with a comfortable headset, microphone and speaker. Providing a Sound Blaster- compatible sound card is up to the user.
Make GPRA requirements high-level activity
Remember the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993? It is supposed to be one of the drivers of improved program management in the federal government, but we don't hear much about it these days. Either programs are already being managed effectively, other things have become more important or no one is doing anything particularly dramatic.
Ruling poses questions about electronic records
What is the status of deleted e-mail messages under the Freedom Of Information Act? That is, can a deleted e-mail message be obtained through a FOIA request? That is one of many problems presented by the still-new institution of electronic mail. British Columbia information and privacy commissioner David Flaherty's decision of December 1995 is instructive, if somewhat unsatisfying.
Dream up your perfect PC, and perhaps have your dream come true
When users ask me which PC to order, many think they have to take whatever they can get for a certain price. Federal buyers who specify dozens or hundreds of office PCs know better. But others who occasionally order a few PCs from a General Services Administration schedule contract do need advice.
OMB documents pave the way to explore electronic commerce
Agencies working to clear a way for electronic commerce via the Internet have good starting points in a pair of Office of Management and Budget reports to Congress. The documents, An Assessment of Current Electronic Commerce Activities and Procurement and Electronic Commerce for Buyers and Sellers: A Strategic Plan for Federal Electronic Purchasing and Payment, appear in hypertext on the World Wide Web at http://policyworks.gov/epic.
Canvas delivers crisp technical drawing tools
The package can do basic desktop publishing or photo editing, but its strength lies in technical drawing tools you sometimes don't get even in computer-aided design software. The program comes on multiple CD-ROMs with 20,000 images, 5,000 symbols and hundreds of pages of documentation. It is a technical graphics publisher in the same sense that Adobe PageMaker is a text publisher.
GSA: Contract out IT work if it makes sense
Whether government employees like it or not, federal agencies are turning increasingly to vendors to manage their information systems. A new report from the General Services Administration's Information Technology Management Practices Division concluded that for many projects, outsourcing is a good idea. By relying on contractors, the report said, agencies can focus on the regulatory tasks for which they were created.
PC MacLAN unites the two big-name OSes
Microsoft Corp. may have defeated Apple Computer Inc. in the war for the business desktop, but there are refugees on both sides. All-Macintosh offices go into painful contortions when they add PCs to their mix, and vice versa. The neglected issue of cross-platform networking has become critical. Last fall, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs finally promised to bring their operating systems closer together, but someone beat them to the punch.
The complex Mathematica now comes with a friendlier interface
Did you hate math in school but now need it at work? Mathematica is for you as much as for engineers and scientists who feel at home with numbers. Users have come to regard their PCs as word processors, database hosts or graphics generators. Most of us forget that computers were designed to be number crunchers. Wolfram Research never forgot. I would not have recommended Mathematica for mainstream professionals until this version.
Fixing date codes is no game, but one can help you prepare
The year 2000 problem is no game--except in this case. Future Media's Uh-Oh, programmed like the text-based, dragon-chasing adventures made famous by the now-defunct Infocom in the early 1980s, pits players against a different kind of monster: the year 2000 software crisis. Although federal employees are not supposed to play games at work, Uh-Oh is so precise and so sprinkled with year 2000 information, that it is a potential training tool. It's just a
Using the Web for agency, public forums is smart
A new World Wide Web site devoted to a single regulatory action gives evidence of a major shift in thinking about how agencies communicate with the public. Recently the Agriculture Department solicited public comments via the Web on proposed new organic food regulations. The response was a remarkable average of 200 e-mail messages a day. The messages, combined with written comments, the proposed regulations themselves and Federal Register notices, formed a voluminous database on Agriculture's
Ride the next big wave: server clusters
Network administrators might as well get ready now, because there's no sidestepping the next big server trend: clusters. From the workgroup server under the desk to the mammoth workhorses in the data center, clustering soon will be everywhere. Microsoft Cluster Server software, code-named Wolfpack, is already part of Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition. Expect a more robust version in next year's release of NT Server 5.0 (see story, Page 32). That event will
Navy urges use of the Net for most data comm
Though security concerns recently led the Air Force to limit Internet use, the Navy is encouraging online data exchange for most communications. A joint message issued late last month by the Pacific and Atlantic fleets established an Internet policy promoting the widest permissible use of systems to access the Internet, surf the World Wide Web and communicate through Internet e-mail.
Council eyes better federal IT training
The Chief Information Officers Council wants to improve technical training so agencies can retain systems workers, improve skills generally and train nontechnical employees to use systems. To assess the current level of information technology education and training, the council last month distributed a 12-page survey to its 30 member agencies.
USPS techs go back to school
The Postal Service late last month began using a new multipoint videoconferencing system from C-Phone Corp. to train technicians at 24 remote centers around the country. The system from the Wilmington, N.C., company is an inexpensive, off-the-shelf alternative to face-to-face classes, said Don Clemenceaux, maintenance field support specialist at the Maintenance Technical Support Center in Norman, Okla.
Internet management packages make sense of server traffic jam
Administrators of government World Wide Web sites have their work cut out for them when they try to explain server traffic. If you think it's tough telling the boss how a server hit differs from a page impression or a site visit, it's tougher to paint a clear picture of the different traffic types overloading your servers.
JPLwashes hands of PC work
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is turning over its client-server management to a prime contractor after putting up for years with spacecraft designers spending agency time as systems managers. Interplanetary space exploration just isn't the same as managing service levels on client-server networks, said Richard Green, deputy manager of the Institutional Computing and Information Services Office at JPL.
Smart change of heart
Accountability often gets mangled in complex or bureaucratic organizations. That's why Defense Secretary William Cohen was smart to restore the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence and to keep the ASD(C3I) as the Defense Department's chief information officer. Cohen initially had recommended breaking the Office of ASD(C3I) into two pieces and shifting CIO responsibilities to the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and technology. He reversed the decision, although
FBI's crime net to get a face-lift
The FBI plans to spend $430 million over the next five years to modernize its global information gathering and analysis systems. The buy is one of the FBI's largest procurements in recent years, bureau officials said. And the bureau plans to move fast on it. The FBI this month released a draft request for proposals for the Information Sharing Initiative and plans to release the final RFP in May. Plans call for the bureau to
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
Manage Consent Preferences
Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.
Cookie List
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Functional Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Performance Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Social Media Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Targeting Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.