As buying season nears end, it's a PC bargain bonanza
Desktop systems with 166-MHz Pentium MMX processors are in the clearance bin at just more than $1,000 each, including a monitor. Fast 233-MHz Pentium II PCs start at less than $2,000, in striking contrast with last fall's baseline $1,500 for a 133-MHz Pentium PC. Government buyers can choose from agency-specific contracts as well as governmentwide acquisitions such as the Air Force's Desktop V and the Veterans Affairs Department's Procurement of Computer Hardware and Software contracts
Fine-tune its settings and Stylus Photo will print with photo-quality perfection
The Stylus Photo can do all the things other high-resolution color ink-jet printers can, but it's designed to make high-fidelity reproductions of digital photographs on plain and ink-jet papers, glossy stock and transparencies. It prints at 720 by 720 dots per inch, not at 1,440 by 720 dpi like some of Epson's other high-res printers. It uses six colored inks instead of the standard four. Besides cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the Stylus Photo also
Sequent stretches SMP limits
As chairman and chief executive officer of Sequent Computer Systems Inc., Casey Powell is pushing Intel processors into high-end markets where computers have to be big and fast. In his last job, Powell was general manager of microprocessor operations at Intel Corp. Sequent's distributed shared-memory servers are opening the door for nonuniform memory access (NUMA) technology based on Intel's four-processor chip sets. Sequent of Beaverton, Ore., supplies computers to the Veterans Affairs Department, Internal Revenue
XML prepares to fight HTML for universal language supremacy
Can anything topple the Hypertext Markup Language as the universal language of the World Wide Web? Don't bet your career on it, but don't ignore the rumblings about the Extensible Markup Language. XML holds great promise for the Web's future because HTML--even Version 4.0--isn't extensible. It's just not easy enough to integrate straight HTML documents into other programs and information systems.
Imperial notebook's weight reduces its portability
The CPU is a Pentium MMX, which substantially drains the lithium-ion battery. Intel Corp. does not yet make a power-conserving 233-MHz processor for the mobile market. On the GCN Lab's maximum power drain test, the Imperial's battery lasted barely an hour. In normal use, it probably would run about two hours.
Apple sees open Gates, raises Jobs' status and accepts Microsoft's cash
Those poor, poor billionaires. Microsoft Corp.'s $150 million infusion of capital to keep Apple Computer Inc. afloat had the Rat's paranoia meter registering off the scale. He suspects most of the Macintosh faithful were freaking out, too. The Mac-heads saw a hidden agenda--some dark compact between Steve Jobs and the company that's fondly known in Seattle as "the mother ship."
Not far from the tree
For federal Macintosh users, the paltry $150 million investment Microsoft Corp. recently made in Apple Computer Inc. is hardly the deal of the century. Initially, there was an emotional reaction to the news, perhaps sparked by the weird image of a gigantic, grinning Bill Gates peering out from a large-screen monitor over Steve Jobs and the crowd attending the MacWorld trade show.
Feds try to ease grants process using Java app
Brad Smith, manager of the Electronic Grants Pilot Project, has been testing products but said he's concentrating on packaged integration services coming into the World Wide Web marketplace. Active Software Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., makes the Active Web software that Smith's project is testing in conjunction with 200 state governments, universities, and nonprofit and other organizations that apply for federal grants.
Prepare for the DVD onslaught with DynaTek kit
Although there are few DVD titles, the drives are beginning to appear on the market after years of wrangling over standards and copyright protection for DVD movies. A DVD looks like a CD, but its data is recorded more densely by a shorter-wavelength laser beam. The shorter wavelength means that smaller data bumps are detectible, and the bumps are closer together.
Listen up, Microsoft et al--quit giving us upgrades that aren't
A lot of people still use Microsoft Windows 3.x. I do, given a choice. But I'd really rather go back to DesqView from Quarterdeck Corp. of Marina del Rey, Calif., running under MS-DOS 6.20. DesqView and MS-DOS are both simple and versatile, and by now I know every bug in both. There are good reasons why DesqView is still selling a decade after its introduction.
Just vend and bear it
For most people, the anticipation of going to the dentist is worse than going. The same logic seems to apply to life without the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals. Vendors fretted over the loss of the protest venue, a casualty of procurement reform. Instead, they must face the General Accounting Office or federal court, where, it was assumed, agencies always would have the upper hand.
Vivid bidders cut teeth on Navy's fictitious air base
That's why the service encouraged Vivid bidders to max out their creative talents on a fictitious naval air station called NAS Anywhere. "NAS Anywhere does not exist, but its characteristics are everywhere," said Nikki Isfahani, head of the Navy's information technology umbrella contracts group. "We tried to put an umbrella contract into place that would meet diversified needs, but we didn't want to inhibit the imagination of the solutions," she said.
Security gaps mar Exchange Web access
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0, in conjunction with Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0, lets users log into e-mail accounts from any current World Wide Web browser. That's mighty convenient for Webbed users on the road. They need only Web access from a local number to read and reply to e-mail without paying long-distance charges or carrying specially configured notebook computers.
Encryption software ensures messages are for your eyes only
For the security-conscious, PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 has better key distribution features and a better graphical interface than its previous incarnations. Earlier versions of the encryption package are in use at NASA, the Treasury Department and some Defense Department offices. You can now encrypt through the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT system tray or the Microsoft Internet Explorer file menu. Also, you can directly encrypt or decrypt messages from within your mail
Library digitizes theater pics
The Library of Congress recently finished digitizing 2,000 images from its Federal Theatre Project collection, using IBM Corp.'s Digital Library software suite and a special scanning network. Visitors to the World Wide Web site at http://www.loc.gov can view scripts, set designs and posters from federally sponsored Depression-era theater productions of Macbeth, Dr. Faustus and Power.
NWS turns a cold shoulder on AccuWeather copyright
A National Weather Service complaint has compelled AccuWeather Inc. to stop copyrighting NWS meteorologists' forecasts that the company uploaded to its World Wide Web site. Personal AccuWeather subscriptions, available on the Web at http://personal.accuweather.com, distribute weather forecasts based on NWS data. Until Aug. 6, the site's Nowcast had verbatim short-term forecasts from local NWS offices along with the words "Copyright 1997 AccuWeather Inc., Redistribution Prohibited."
Round 1 decision goes against Java standard
Despite Defense Information Systems Agency backing for fast-track approval of Java as an international standard, the Sun Microsystems Inc. language has lost the initial round. DISA computer scientist Jerry Smith, a principal on the U.S. Joint Technical Committee considering the matter, called Sun's case a watershed that will determine the future of voluntary standards for global information and communications technology.
Don't be fooled by 16X CD drives--they may be slower than 12X
In the dim, distant past when we began using CD-ROM, all drives worked the same way and had the same 1,000-millisecond access times. As faster drives arrived, the originals became known as single-speed or 1X drives. 1X drives turn at constant linear velocity, or CLV. This means that the drive will always read the same length of track in the same amount of time, no matter whether it's reading on the outer edge of the
Does MAS have limits anymore, or is it an anti-competitive tool?
The Federal Supply Service has become a major player in the field of innovative procurement. But perhaps its Multiple-Award Schedule has become too innovative. Originally, the schedule was a system of governmentwide discounts negotiated by the General Services Administration for small purchases of simple commercial items. Buys in excess of $50,000 had to be advertised in advance, in the Commerce Business Daily, to make sure competition wouldn't yield a better value. And orders were subject
Congress attacks OMB for lax GPRA oversight
Last month, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Science Committee, voiced his concerns about OMB oversight of GPRA implementation. He chastised OMB for not reviewing agencies' strategic plans carefully. Earlier this year, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) threatened to halt funding for agencies that did not meet the Sept. 30 deadline for submitting the long-term strategy reports mandated by the 1993 law [GCN, June 30, Page 1].
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