Digital Government
GPO's Web site muscles up on links to federal documents
I.F. Stone, the legendary Washington, D.C., journalist who believed it was better to read government documents than to interview people, would love the Government Printing Office's site on the World Wide Web. That's because the GPO site (www.gpo.gov) is a point of entry to an increasing mass of raw
Digital Government
Marine Corps' Decker relies on IT to complete missions
Mike Decker, deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence at Marine Corps headquarters, is not your typical cyberwarrior. He gleaned an appreciation for today's information technology from hard lessons learned in places such as Beirut and Saudi Arabia not nestled away in academia or at a job
Digital Government
Peacekeeping battalion crafts comm support
EAGLE BASE, Tuzla, Bosnia No one has written the manual on how to provide communications support to a longterm peacekeeping mission, but the 141st Signal Battalion headquarters here at the main base camp of U.S. forces in the former Yugoslavia has enough experience to write at least a rough draf
Digital Government
Administration ignores federal salary legislation
When the mechanism regulating federal salaries was enacted into law in 1990, readers of this column will recall that I expressed skepticism that the government would comply with it. As it turns out, my doubts were justified. The Federal Employees Pay Compatibility Act, also known as the Pay Reform
Digital Government
NASA's Price dies at age 55
Robert Price, 55, director of the Earth Science Systems Program Office and associate director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, died March 13. Price was the former associate director of the Mission to Planet Earth program, a $1 billionayear project that launches unmanned spacecraft into spac
Digital Government
Big savings sway USDA to switch to GSA pact
The Agriculture Department's National Finance Center (NFC) last month switched from its own contract for disaster recovery services to one awarded by the General Services Administration's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center. Fedsim officials are trumpeting the USDA's switch to its Dat
Digital Government
Gore report seeks more IT reliance
Vice President Al Gore's task force report on improving customer service at the Internal Revenue Service was met last week with criticism and praise by Congress and individuals familiar with the agency's modernization program. The 92page report, 'Reinventing Service at the IRS,' calls for the IRS
Digital Government
Cyberattacks spur new DOD warning system
The Defense Department has created a new alert system to rate the level of threats to its information systems that mirrors the wellknown Defense Conditions (DEFCONs) ratings that mark the overall military status in response to traditional foreign threats.
Digital Government
Senators consider creating separate Y2K committee
Senate leaders are considering creating a special committee that would take a lead role in overseeing agencies' and industry's Year 2000 problem, according to sources familiar with the Senate plans.
Digital Government
Satellite launch marks 'new era for warfighter'
The Defense Department entered a new age of communications this week with the successful launch of a widebandwidth satellite that can zap a total of 96 megabits per second (megabits/sec) of data to small, deployable terminals that are part of a system modeled after commercial, directbroadcast TV systems.
Digital Government
Army to award leasing, peripherals pacts
The Army this month is expected to refresh its PC offerings with two new contracts: one for leasing and the other for a broad range of peripherals. Lt. Col. Mary Fuller, product manager of the Army's Small Computer Program (SCP) at Fort Monmouth, N.J., said Army Leasing1 (AL1) has the potential t
Digital Government
Raines, Young win Eagle Awards
Franklin Raines, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Daniel Young, president of Federal Data Corp., last week won Federal Computer Week's Eagle Awards for outstanding accomplishments in the world of federal information technology. Each year two professional organizations are chosen
Digital Government
Infosec vendors build test bed for COTS solutions
A group of systems integrators has launched an information technology laboratory to allow federal government clients to test the integration and interoperability of computer security products in a hardware and software scenario that mirrors their own computing environment. Called the Infosec Resear
Digital Government
Community Transit Systems
In many cities and towns, elderly, disabled or lowincome residents who have trouble getting to their local fixedroute public transportation system can simply place a call and be picked up at their doorstep. To accommodate such 'flex' requests, transit agencies are turning to a variety of hightec
Digital Government
Wang, Microsoft extend partnership
Wang Global and Microsoft Corp. have greatly expanded a 3yearold partnership to cover an array of desktop solutions and to provide muchneeded Microsoftcertified engineers and solutions developers. Wang and Microsoft first formed an alliance in 1995 to focus on imaging and workflow (which Wang n
Digital Government
Outsourcing decision-making
The only activity of consequence in a publicsector chief information officer's or senior information technology manager's professional life, I believe, is making the right infrastructure decision. Senior managers in very large jurisdictionssuch as major federal agencies and the 10 or so largest s
Digital Government
Roadway Design: Tool Lets You Pick Your Platform
When I worked as a transportation engineer in the early 1980s, our consulting engineering office did its roadway design using HewlettPackard Co. programmable calculators and mylar overlay sheets. Computeraided design software was something we were keeping an eye on, but all we could afford were t
Digital Government
DISA chief says GCCS to shift to Windows NT
The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to fundamentally shift clients for the Global Command and Control System (GCCS) from the Unix operating system to Microsoft Corp. Windows NT running on PCs in order to reduce costs, according to DISA director Lt. Gen. David Kelley.
Digital Government
Industry Watch
CSC acquires ITS Computer Sciences Corp. has acquired Information Technology Solutions Inc., an $88 million information technology services company based in Hampton, Va., that does business with the Defense Department and several civilian agencies. ITS specializes in information systems integration
Digital Government