Route Fifty

No long-distance bills? Maybe not this year, but soon

With Internet telephone connections now bidding to make the long-distance phone bill obsolete, have you ever thought how convenient it would be to use other computers over the Net? I don't mean simply connecting to a server's Web page, but using that server remotely, accessing database software and chatting in real time by e-mail, as though the other machine were hard-wired to yours.

By GCN
March 18, 1996

RFC 1855 is a great base netiquette policy for your agency

Ever get criticized or ""flamed'' for sending an e-mail message that violated some unknown rule? Ever reply to an e-mail message and discover that a couple thousand people mistakenly received your personal chatter? Do you have something interesting to announce to the Internet but don't know how to do it without getting flamed? Do you wonder for how long your messages can be read after they've been sent? And who can read them?

By Walter R. Houser, GCN
March 18, 1996

Web traffic invades, occupies DOD's NIPRnet

World Wide Web traffic has commandeered Defense Department data networks over the past year, pushing once-reclusive organizations into the Internet limelight and gobbling up bandwidth. In late 1994 there were only a few dozen DOD servers hosting Web sites and home pages. Today, more than 1,000 military organizations have established home pages.

By Paul Constance, GCN
March 18, 1996

Bosnia to base: Stop shipping computers!

Two months into Operation Joint Endeavor, U.S. troops in Eastern Europe are struggling with a severe case of computer overload. "Don't send us any more boxes!" one harassed field commander recently told his superiors at the Pentagon. PCs and workstations are piling up inside U.S. command centers in Bosnia, Croatia and Hungary, according to field reports.

By Paul Constance, GCN
March 18, 1996

Winnowing your list of suitable bidders just got a lot tougher

There are now five things you might not want to do: Tug on Superman's cape. Spit into the wind. Rip the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger. Mess around with Jim. And, now, throw anyone out of the competitive range--ever. The law of unthought-through consequences has reared its ugly head again.

By GCN
March 18, 1996

PC era finally dawns at the patent office

This month, 100 patent and trademark examiners will get Pentium PCs with which they can search documents and images at their own desktops. It's a big step in the Patent and Trademark Office's longstanding attempt to create an efficient electronic search environment. By the end of the year, about 700 examiners will work at 133-MHz Pentium PCs with at least 64M of RAM and 21-inch monitors, all running Microsoft Windows NT.

By Lisa Finnegan, GCN
March 18, 1996

Schools flock to the Net; Win95 gets stuck in a holding pattern

After sticking his head out of his burrow and detecting temperatures above absolute zero for the first time in what seems like eons, the Rat picked up on a spring-fever mood swing. Maybe it was all the goodwill floating around in conjunction with NetDay '96, the "Internet barn raising" that recently took place in California schools.

By GCN
March 18, 1996

This PDA could change your opinion of tablet computing

I'm not ready to join the cult of pen-based computing. But after spending a few days toting around the stylish Stylistic 1000, I think there's definitely a future for tablet computers. You can buy this one with a color screen and a slick Microsoft Windows 95 interface. However, using an electronic pen instead of a mouse is awkward enough that I'd never make it my only interface. Fortunately, there's a keyboard port.

By GCN
March 18, 1996

Govt. urged to perform triage in two-digit date field repairs

NEW YORK--Year 2000 software glitches will halt systems in most agencies, experts are saying, because there won't be time or money to fix every two-digit date field lurking in billions of lines of computer code. Some experts are urging government officials to decide now which systems they can reasonably allow to fail.

By Florence Olsen, GCN
March 18, 1996

Combined Internet and CD-ROM format will update Web data

On line or on disk? It's one or the other for government agencies that want to make data available digitally. But new tools are appearing that let you combine the best of both formats. Data published on the World Wide Web can be updated at any time. Unfortunately, most users don't yet have high enough bandwidth for multimedia, so the best you see at most government sites is a static page with color graphics.

By GCN
March 18, 1996

Agencies have the final say in wage determinations

The last few nails are poised atop the coffin of the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals' future adjudicating information technology bid protests. Nonetheless, an area of continued dispute will likely just shift locales from GSBCA to the General Accounting Office. Specifically, decisions from both bodies consistently afford agencies the upper hand in the application of base labor rates.

By GCN
March 4, 1996

DOD moves to rein in NIPRnet's high user fees

By fielding an interim 10-node asynchronous transfer mode backbone, the Defense Department expects to cut usage fees for its unclassified global data network by as much as 29 percent beginning in October. Rear Adm. John Gauss, deputy director for interoperability engineering at the Defense Information Systems Agency, said the new plan recognizes that the Non-Classified IP Router Network (NIPRnet) is too expensive and slow for many service organizations.

By Paul Constance, GCN
March 4, 1996

Microsoft aims to fix up NT for buyers of Posix

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft Corp. has enlisted Softway Systems Inc. to make the Windows NT operating system comply with open systems mandates of the Air Force, NASA and other agencies. Softway Systems, of San Francisco, will deliver a Posix command shell and utilities for NT by April 3, when the Federal Information Processing Standard for Posix.2 takes full effect for federal procurements.

By Florence Olsen, GCN
March 4, 1996

In law's aftermath, don't expect rash of new telecom bidders

When waiting for my car at the service station, I often peruse outdated issues of People and other magazines. Then I start eyeing the familiar posters on the walls. One shows a car with a foreign name plate. The poster says that many of the parts came from domestic suppliers and that the car was assembled at a U.S. factory by American workers. The poster asks, Is this an import or a domestic car?

By GCN
March 4, 1996

This one enormous chair sounds loverly for at-home workers

Working late one night, I fell asleep and dreamed that Oracle Corp. announced it would merge with the leading recliner chair company, in a bold move to launch the "work at home" revolution. I immediately realized this could eliminate the office as we know it and erase the line between workaholics and couch potatoes.

By GCN
March 4, 1996

FASA does away with Walsh-Healy vendor certifications

In a previous column I pointed out an obsolete procurement statute, the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. Finally, Congress has done away with Walsh-Healey's antiquated certification requirements. In the 1930s Congress passed Walsh-Healey to establish a minimum wage for workers manufacturing goods for the government. That role has since been taken over by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The minimum wage set under the later act is the only minimum wage applied under Walsh-Healey. Of course,

By GCN
March 4, 1996

EDI by '97? No way, agencies tell Clinton

With agencies now doing only limited buying on line, the goal of eliminating most of the paper from federal procurement by year's end seems less and less attainable. In just 10 months, agencies are supposed to meet a White House deadline to handle all routine procurements electronically. But administration officials now acknowledge that most agencies remain unprepared.

By Kevin Powers, GCN
March 4, 1996

Direct satelline TV technology boosts Bosnia communications

The Defense Department last month unveiled plans to deploy a powerful new communications technology for U.S. troops in Bosnia, and you could find most of the parts at your local Radio Shack or Circuit City. Most consumer electronics outlets stock the TV decoder boxes and pizza-size satellite dishes that the Pentagon will field, with some modifications, to command-and-control units in Europe and the former Yugoslavia this spring.

By Paul Constance, GCN
March 4, 1996

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Farewell, FACNET?