Digital Government
Bell Atlantic upgrades WITS users to Sonet
Bell Atlantic Federal Systems last weekend began to move users of its Washington Interagency Telecommunications Service (WITS) to a Synchronous Optical Network (Sonet) ring offering connections to federal sites of up to 155 megabit/sec. The upgrade to fournode Sonet represents a recognition by Bel
Digital Government
Inconsistent criteria hurt fed disability claims
You'd think that if someone met the stringent eligibility requirements for disability benefits under the Social Security Act, that individual would also qualify for disability benefits under the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS). However, a recent court decision says the two are not necessa
Digital Government
Budget cuts, culture hurt NASA systems
Despite an increasing number of hacker attacks, NASA's computer and communications systems remain critically vulnerable to outside manipulation because of budget pressures and cultural bias, agency officials concede. Hackers have already attached password sniffers to NASA systems and used the space
Digital Government
FEDERAL BYTES
What Would the Red Baron Think? Federal Aviation Administration bashing has resumed, but evidently the baton has been passed from latenight talk shows to the comics pages. Dilbert, a strip about a software engineer and his hightech company, devoted most of last week to a story in which his compan
Digital Government
No consensus on rewrite of Part 15
Reforming federal procurement means, in part, redefining key concepts in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, according to one former contracting law professor. "Almost all operative words are not defined properly or need redefinition," Ralph Nash, a professor of contract law who is retired from T
Digital Government
Lotus Notes 4.0 provides conversion challenge
Federal users looking to migrate from earlier versions of Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes to Notes 4.0 are in for a challenging task. That is the opinion of a number of resellers and consultants experienced with Lotus' groupware product line. Accordingly, vendors are offering Notes 4.0 seminars and
Digital Government
DGPS sets new course in navigation
The Coast Guard turned on its nationwide Differential Global Positioning System network last week, launching what Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena called a "new era in navigation." The 47 sites in the Coast Guard DGPS network provide complete coverage of all U.S. coastal waters, includin
Digital Government
IG report: AWIPS not ready
The Commerce Department is rushing its troubled automated weather system into production by October and deploying an incomplete system with serious holes, according to a report due for release today by the department's inspector general's office, a persistent critic of the National Weather Service'
Digital Government
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
After the Shutdown: Part 1 I must take exception to the Jan. 22 column by Bureaucratus. He says that Congress is blackmailing the president by refusing to appropriate funds to operate the government. He says that Congress should not try to achieve its political goals by jerking federal employees ar
Digital Government
Traveling Software debuts LapLink for Windows 95
Traveling Software Inc. last month introduced the latest version of its remotecontrol software, a welltimed announcement considering that January's foul weather stranded many federal workers at home. Traveling Software's LapLink for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 is the most recent addition to a se
Digital Government
Air Force's upgrade decision could resonate industrywide
The Air Force's threat to hold Desktop IV contractors in default if they do not supply Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 operating system and Office 95 free to users could have broad ramifications for buyers and sellers of federal information technology. Prime contractors Government Technology Services
Digital Government
Intercepts
Staying The Disn Course. Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds Does Not Buy The Central Argument Of At&T's Disn Protest That It Be Allowed To Submit An Integrated Bid For One Simple Reason: He Never Again Wants To Face The Possibility Of "Turning Dod Upside Down" When Faced With The Expiration Of A Single MegaCon
Digital Government
IT is the glue to hold effective government together
The pressure on our government has never been greater. Never in our history has there been so much public scrutiny and secondguessing of every decision, and the urgency to reduce spending at every level only turns up the heat on government to try to do more with less. Adding fuel to that fire is t
Digital Government
TDA I, II snagged by GTSI, Win
Government Technology Services Inc. is the apparent new winner of Treasury Department Acquisition I (TDA I), a twoyear contract to supply desktop systems to Treasury users. The Internal Revenue Service, which ran the procurement, selected GTSI over Electronic Data Systems Corp., which originally w
Digital Government
Flood data rides Internet wave
As the East Coast battled record floods last month, the U.S. Geological Survey used the Internet to distribute minutesold data about rising rivers to federal, state and local agencies responding to the emergency. The availability of USGS' satellitederived river data on the Internet's World Wide W
Digital Government
National Computer Center preps for mainframe facelift
The Social Security Administration Last Month Issued A Request For Proposals To Upgrade Mainframes The Agency Uses To Process Everything From Social Security Benefits To Administrative Programs. Under The Mainframe Acquisition Project (Map), The Cost Of Which Should Reach Well Into The Tens Of Mill
Digital Government
Editorial
Budget brownout We hesitate to beat a dead horse and we're grateful the third government shutdown has been averted but we think putting off decisions is a poor way to manage the disagreement. Congress has funded the highvisibility programs whose shutdown caused a public furor and left the ot
Digital Government
Feds tap work flow to manage business processes
Federal agencies, seeking to streamline such operations as making engineering changes, fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests and processing employee promotions, are turning to workflow automation tools for help. A variety of software packages offer users the capability to map their busine
Digital Government
Vendors aim ATM at lower-speed nets
WASHINGTON D.C. Many of the Asynchronous Transfer Moderelated products announced or demonstrated last week at ComNet reflect a vendor push to bring ATM to users outside the scope of the highspeed highbandwidth applications typically associated with the technology. ATM was initially billed as
Digital Government