Thomas is not a tool for reforming Congress
@INFO.POLICY VIEW FROM INSIDE By Robert Gellman Thomas, the Library of Congress Internet service for legislative information ( http://Thomas.loc.gov ), opened last year to glowing reviews. More recently, it has been criticized for failing to live up to House Speaker Newt Gingrich's promise to provide citizens with key information about Congress at the same moment that the information is available to the highest-paid Washington lobbyist.
Will Cohen changes improve government buying IT practices
As everyone knows by now, the 1996 National Defense Authorization Act has repealed the 30-year-old Brooks Act. In its place, we have a new law for information technology projects and procurements. Perhaps we should continue tradition and dub the changes the Cohen Act after their champion, the retiring Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine.)
AF will get 64-bit computing on Sun, Digital workstations
The Air Force last month awarded contracts worth up to a total $956 million to Hughes Data Systems Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. for an estimated 37,000 workstations. Over its five-year life, the Air Force Workstations (AFWS) contract is expected to pull 64-bit computing off its pedestal and push it onto ordinary Air Force desktops supporting everything from battle management and scientific research to mundane logistics applications.
Microsoft's tool name change? Machiavelli, Michelangelo or flu?
The Rat managed to avoid catching the Michelangelo virus this year, but one of the ratlings brought home a potent case of the Rodent Flu over the vernal equinox. Apparently the Rat wasn't the only one in a decongestant haze, judging by what came out of Microsoft's developer conference in San Francisco last month.
Is AT&T's sole-source DCTN song, to a tune of $1.5b saved, valid?
My friends at AT&T Corp. thought I really bollixed it up when I wrote that the Defense Information Systems Agency should go ahead and break up its Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) procurement into about a dozen contracts [GCN, Feb. 5, Page 31]. AT&T folks complained that I got a couple of facts wrong. I said that AT&T estimates a winner-take-all integrated approach would save DISA at least $100 million. No, AT&T said--by permitting vendors
Federal Government should flow down sense instead of dollars
A recent Washington Post article pointed out a serious problem in flow-downs and block grant programs between federal and state and local governments. The federal government is flowing down billions to the states for various social purposes (in this case, child support programs). The states' performance in implementing those programs has ranged from good to poor. Some of the needed computer systems have been completed; some have not. Time lines, scope and quality of systems
Defense Department Briefs
Budgets may be tight, but Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady does great PR. That appears to be the logic behind an eye-popping $187 million addition to the Defense Department's command, control, communications and computers budget to buy 27,000 "improved" combat search and rescue radios starting in 1998. The radio unit O'Grady used after his plane was shot down in Bosnia last year was celebrated and written up in hundreds of mainstream media reports following his
Their goal is to post spatial data for Web and Giles users
Doug Nebert and his staff at the U.S. Geological Survey want to make it easier to serve up spatial data on the World Wide Web. With agencies up to their elbows in Web construction projects, Nebert said, the ones that collect spatial data are wondering when they'll find time to provide Z39.50 servers, too.
A good, fast plan of action will keep virus contained
A Word virus struck my personal computer recently, and I'll confess the experience was even more disconcerting than previous virus attacks. Typically, viruses insinuate themselves into the boot sector of your disk drives and diskettes or attach themselves to executable files. But the Word viruses are Microsoft Word macros. When you open an infected Word document, they slip into your Word macro library, where they can replicate into every document you open and save.
Windows NT beta rolls along, despite some driver problems
It might take the patience of Job to install the first beta release of Microsoft's Windows NT 4.0 operating system, but perseverance is worthwhile. NT 4.0 Workstation grafts the popular Windows 95 look and feel onto a powerful, true 32-bit environment. I found that CD-ROM installation went almost flawlessly on some test machines but failed even to begin writing to the hard drive on others. The problem, it turned out, was drivers and confusion between
IRS testing asks taxpayers to sign on the on-line dotted line
IRS is conducting a three-site test of electronic signatures for paperless tax filing. Ordinarily, each taxpayer who files an electronic return must sign and mail a separate paper form to the IRS. But filers at the three test sites can simply sign on-screen to authenticate their returns. IRS spokesman Steve Pyrek said the tests, known as DigEST, for digital electronic signature tests, are going on at one H&R Block tax preparation office and at two
Where exactly does Microsoft want to go today? The Internet
Microsoft Windows 95's motto is "Where do you want to go today?'' Users have been asking Microsoft Corp. the same question and not getting a compelling answer. As a company, Microsoft has seemed a bit unfocused--except for trying to cram Windows down our collective throats. But when I attended the recent Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco. I heard a better answer. In a word, it's the Internet.
Here's how to find the needles in haystack
It's not too late to think of how innovative software tools hinder communication rather than improve it. Take the flood of information being published electronically in Adobe Systems' Acrobat format. Sometimes this is just a waste of time, money and hard-drive capacity. Yes, hypertext publishing can improve readability and content. It's wonderful, for example, with a page full of complex charts and tiny print that you couldn't even distribute by fax because of the resolution.
IT mostly a winner in '97 budget
In the budget he proposed to Congress last month, President Clinton declared computer investments integral to ending the 1996 budget stalemate and setting priorities for fiscal 1997. Next year, Clinton wants to spend more on the IRS' Tax Systems Modernization, the National Weather Service's forecasting systems, law enforcement systems, and high-performance computing and communications. Although the budget seeks some new money, it would cut IT budgets for the Federal Aviation Administration and the Patent and
The sun is setting on claims for recovery of bid protest costs
Vendor petitions that seek reimbursement for the costs of waging successful General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals protests soon will become a thing of the past. But in the meantime, some protesting bidders are trying to claim the last pennies available before the sun sets on the board's information technology jurisdiction this summer.
The new law will cannibalize IDIQ contracts
It's time for the federal government to reconsider its indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract policies, particularly when the government will not obligate itself to buy reasonable quantities of goods through these contracts. The government just loves IDIQ contracts. From the government's perspective, the key feature of an IDIQ is that the awarding agency is obligated to buy only a limited volume of goods, even if it has led would-be sellers to believe it might buy much
Farewell, FACNET?
Is it time to pull the plug on the Federal Acquisition Network? That may be premature, but clearly the government needs to rethink its approach to meeting the Dec. 31 deadline for agencies to be conducting procurement electronically. FACNET is another example of where fast-moving events and technology have overcome a questionable method for achieving a worthwhile goal.
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.
Defense Department Briefs
The Air Force's Electronic Systems Center has picked the companies it considers best qualified to bid on the $300 million Integrated Maintenance Data System (IMDS). They are Andersen Consulting, Loral Federal Systems Group, Lockheed Martin Corp. and TRW Inc. ESC evaluated statements of qualification submitted by vendors and interviewed executives from 17 companies interested in bidding on IMDS. Those companies not tapped as the most competitive based on initial ratings still can bid.
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?
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