Digital Government
Sometimes We Need 'Big Brother'
In the 1960s citizens became aware that intelligencegathering agencies such as the FBI CIA and various military intelligence agencies were infiltrating 'bad guy' organizations to learn as much as possible about threats to our government and our way of life.
Digital Government
Two firms craft solutions to date-fixing dilemma
A small womanowned business and a large integrator have stepped forward with nontraditional approaches to fixing the Year 2000 problem. Resolve 2000 Inc. Columbia Md. has developed a method for making legacy data Year 2000compliant without expanding date fields or heavily modifying software progr
Digital Government
A taste of its own medicine
The General Services Administration's multibilliondollar governmentwide information technology procurement program for 8(a) companies is turning out to be a real eyeopener for GSA. Leaders of GSA's Federal Acquisition Services for Technology (FAST) program last week announced plans to increase th
Digital Government
FAA officially awards IT upgrade pact to Harris
As expected the Federal Aviation Administration last week officially awarded Harris Corp. an estimated $120 million contract to replace a system that supplies generalaviation pilots with weather briefings and flightplanning services. Harris will replace the 15yearold flight service automation p
Digital Government
Visio offers software upgrade, pursues federal customers
Visio Corp. last month upgraded its Microsoft Corp. Windowsbased business diagramming and technical drawing software which is available through federal resellers. Visio Seattle unveiled its Visio 5.0 product line which includes Visio Standard Visio Professional and Visio Technical. The products fe
Digital Government
International Banking Goes Local in Florida
International banking may not be in overwhelming demand in say Kansas or Idaho but in Florida it's big business. And until recently international banking consumed significant amounts of time and materials in the Florida Office of the Comptroller.
Digital Government
Telcos dispute capacity-shortage claims on DTS-C
Although the Defense Information Systems Agency blamed an 'industry shortage" for AT&T Government Markets' inability to meet schedule and technology requirements for a new domestic communications network rival vendors disagreed. These firms also disputed statements by AT&T that it sought to but co
Digital Government
Workflow technology buries business processes in applications
Now that most federal agencies have developed a firm network infrastructure many are building applications that marry their business processes to that technology. The concept is what is loosely labeled workflow in which software automates a business process and allows for tracking and control of th
Digital Government
Sperry Marine, NIMA team on ocean chart project
Nautical electronics company Litton Marine Systems Inc. last month began work with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency to develop a commercial computer program that will read and display information from a vital NIMA database housing information on maritime features. The relationship between th
Digital Government
Vendors build on 440LX chipset
PC vendors last week unveiled desktops and servers featuring Intel Corp.'s newly released chipset that gives the Pentium II processor a graphics and throughput boost. The 440LX AGPset chipset features Intel's Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) a technology designed to optimize Pentium II systems for h
Digital Government
EdgeMark inks BPA with NIH
The National Institutes of Health has awarded EdgeMark Systems Inc. Silver Spring Md. a blanket purchase agreement for highperformance workstations servers and scientific visualization software. Julia Kiraly a business development analyst with EdgeMark said the company will supply hardware from Si
Digital Government
SBA proposal would promote joint ventures
The Small Business Administration last month proposed waiving the rules that apply to small companies that form joint ventures in order to enable more of them to compete for large contracts. The plan included in proposed rules revamping the SBA's 8(a) minority business development program would app
Digital Government
A Lesson Plan for Educational IT
To read the literature on the state of U.S. educational technology you would think teachers had become one of the biggest stumbling blocks to a perfectly digital interactive elementary and secondary school system technology primitives barring the door to classrooms from young shining faces year
Digital Government
Grading Educational Information Technology
Students at California's East Bakersfield High School run a computerized business office as part of a schooltowork program that educators say has improved graduation and job placement rates.
Digital Government
NIH probes options for opening governmentwide contracts to D.C.
The National Institutes of Health is exploring whether it can allow the District of Columbia to buy information systems from NIH contracts after Department of Health and Human Services lawyers advised the agency it could not legally shepherd such purchases. The district wants to buy from at least t
Digital Government
Fortner fine-tunes gear for federal data mining
Fortner Software formerly Fortner Research has revamped its federal strategy and is launching a new datamining product aimed at helping researchers at NASA and other agencies tap into large amounts of stored information. Fortner which has supplied data visualization applications and Fortran develo
Digital Government
Fed employees can test career skills online
A new system developed by the Office of Personnel Management would let federal employees and those who want to work for the government evaluate their skills and identify job opportunities in government agencies. Launched late last month USA Careers (www.usacareers.opm.gov) offers users online tests
Digital Government
DOD orders info-assurance review
With electronic information playing an everlarger role in Defense operations Secretary of Defense William Cohen last month formed a panel to look at how DOD manages its critical data and protects against information warfare and system vulnerabilities. DOD is tackling a concept called 'information
Digital Government