As hardware value increases, prices go down, down, down
TigerDirect sells fully loaded 200-MHz systems with IBM Corp.'s Pentium-equivalent 6x86 chip for less than $1,000, including monitor and color printer. That's one sign of the price deflation going on concurrently with value inflation now in computer hardware. Even industry giant Compaq Computer Corp., apparently having decided that Intel Inside doesn't matter much in sub-$1,000 PCs, builds them with clone chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., or Cyrix Corp. of Richardson, Texas.
Browse no more for Web analysis tools
What-you-see-is-what-you-get authoring packages make it easier to create Web pages with panache. But agency credibility suffers when site visitors keep tripping over broken links. Unless you do all the Web training and have full control, other webmasters who build pages that link to your agency site probably prefer page development tools other than yours.
Govt. needs more IT workers
As the global market for IT workers grows increasingly competitive, federal, state and local governments can't seem to attract enough of them. And sky-high salaries in the private sector are driving many government IT workers into corporate offices. "This has always been a problem. It's now an acute problem," said Justice Department chief information officer Mark A. Boster. "There's no such thing as DOJ stock options. So what do I offer? I offer a beginning
Vendors are unnerved by GSA's price-pushing
The pressure has gotten so intense that Cisco Systems Inc., the leading networking vendor, reportedly considered withdrawing from Multiple-Award Schedule contracts in favor of selling through other contract vehicles such as NASA's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement II and the National Institutes of Health Electronic Computer Store II. But a Cisco manager denied the company would abandon the FSS program. "We're moving in the opposite direction," said Paul Cantwell, federal channel director for Cisco of
NASA uncovers sites unseen
The Mars Pathfinder mission generated some of the heaviest Web traffic ever seen, but officials checking specialized NASA sites have discovered it takes more than a Web server and a uniform resource locator to get information out to the intended audience. "I'm learning a tremendous amount," said Linda Porter, site curator for the Space Sciences Laboratory at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "It's an extremely complicated problem that we're trying to work through."
Panasonic PanaFlat PF70 is flatter, sharper than the less expensive ToshibaTekBright
Panasonic's PanaFlat PF70 might have a cathode-ray tube, but its 15.9-inch viewable area is almost perfectly flat. The 0.24-millimeter slot pitch makes images quite clear. Red-green-blue controls are bar-shaped, and alignment is tight without distortion. The resolution reaches 1,600 pixels by 1,200 pixels. On-screen controls are the same jagged pictograms as on all Panasonic monitors for the last few years.
It's raining IP
It's good for DOD, and it's good for the IP market [GCN, Jan. 26, Page 1]. In buying a pure X.400 and X.500 system, Defense risked having a critical application set that was slightly out of the mainstream--and would slip further and further into the backwater. In agency after agency--indeed, in corporation after corporation--you find systems managers replacing everything from IBM Systems Network Architecture to Novell IPX with IP and Internet-inspired elements. In other words,
NARA fumbles with e-mail preservation policy
The resulting set of policies has been established largely by the desire of the Justice Department and the White House to prevail in litigation. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is responsible for records preservation issues, but it has played a secondary role, dancing to the tune played by the government's litigators. The rest of the agencies have been left to twist slowly in the wind.
HHS' flood of paper subsides
"We've cut costs by 50 percent from paper storage," said Linda A. Gibson, section chief of the Electronic Document Services Section at HHS in Rockville, Md. "A form is a form. Once you start automating, you need to review them and in some cases combine" or eliminate them. The department and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health all use forms to document internal actions and
Versatile video camera is smooth to use for MPEG video, JPEG images and audio
The GCN Lab got a chance to find out. Hitachi Home Electronics' MP-EG1A, the first MPEG camera on the market, can do compression and full-motion video capture in real time. Nicknamed the MPEGcam, it takes up to 20 minutes of MPEG video, 3,000 high-resolution Joint Photographic Experts Group images, or 1,000 images plus 10 seconds of MPEG audio.
PIM shares project info and databases
There are two broad PIM categories: those focused on contact management and those that help people organize their work. The first group structures data rather rigidly. The other, including Info Select, is more flexible about storing and retrieving information. So-called executive PIMs aren't just for the suits; they're for everyone who deals with a range of information on a nonrepetitive basis--anyone from engineers to technical sergeants to executive assistants.
New IRS chief suggests changes to systems plan
But the monikers--given to IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti, chief information officer Arthur Gross and Bob Barr, assistant commissioner for electronic tax administration--may not entirely reflect reality. A few short months after a speaker praised the three during a meeting on electronic filing, there are signs that philosophical and strategic differences may be arising, especially between Rossotti and Gross, over the multibillion dollar modernization project.
Intel's brand new 333-MHz Pentium II gives PCs a boost
Desktop computers benefit from the clock-speed boost more than notebooks do, according to benchmark scores of two Compaq Computer Corp. PCs powered by the new chips. The 333-MHz Pentium II scored 11.1 percent higher than its predecessor on the GCN Lab's GCNdex32TM integer and floating-point math tests. Its extra oomph comes from the 0.25-micron fabrication process that Intel also uses for its Tillamook portable processors.
Send Sen. Glenn? Why not send all politicians? No sour grapes here
After all, the cyberrodent is a much more interesting biological specimen than Sen. John Glenn. Sure, the Ohio Democrat might have been the first American to orbit the earth. Sure, NASA has a complete physical workup on the ex-astronaut. But when it comes to being a guinea pig, there's no one with more experience than the Rat, except possibly for guinea pigs themselves.
Federal group asks industry for help on EC
CommerceNet, a consortium of systems companies and Internet service providers, got the go-ahead from the Federal Electronic Commerce Program to study making online catalogs interoperable. If the results are promising, a four-month test by vendors and federal agencies will follow. The group will explore the use of registries and examine metadata tagging as a way to make catalogs accessible across platforms.
Digital cameras develop instant results
Well, "instant" might be pushing it for a few of the dozen digital cameras the GCN Lab examined over a two-month period. Most of the seven point-and-shoot, three semiprofessional and two professional cameras had a wide range of features, good image quality and quick image access. But the snail-paced downloads of a few made us think fondly of a one-hour photo shop.
This help desk rescues FEMA
"Information systems are expected to work all the time," said Clay Hollister, FEMA's chief information officer. "When they fail, because we all depend on them, we have a crisis. Some crises are bigger than others, but for the customer, the fix can never be too fast." Trouble calls come from users who installed unauthorized software but want immediate support, officials under congressional pressure to produce last-minute reports, and travelers who need to download e-mail remotely
No shock; sysadmins do better in industry
As an information systems professional working for the government, you're making, on average, about $7,000 more than your systems colleagues in education. On the other hand, your counterparts at a systems integrator are making an extra $10,000 each year. These are some of the findings from last month's Sans Institute annual survey of system administrators and security professionals. The Bethesda, Md., research and educational organization based its figures on 1,600 survey responses, 153 of which
Team leaders do all the work but get no authority
Many now designated as team leaders were front-line supervisors, so we know what supervision is all about. As supervisors, we at least had a bit of authority. Typically, the team leader has the responsibilities of a supervisor without the attendant authority. We are privileged to plan, direct, manage and guide projects, but we can't rate or reward employee behavior. We can recommend ratings and awards, but a real supervisor still calls those shots.
GSA: Buying woes will not delay FTS 2001
An Oct. 31 amendment to the FTS 2001 request for proposals for long-distance services drew more than 400 clarification requests. The service drafted another amendment for release this month, incorporating minor changes. "We don't anticipate any major revisions," FTS deputy commissioner Sandra Bates said. "We need to get on with it. The industry has their top teams working on responses."
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