Author Archive

Gerald Lazar

Digital Government

IT Shops Weigh the Pros and Cons of Linux

The Linux operating system, once virtually unknown outside a small community of loyal users and developers, is making a lot of people take a second look at their information technology strategy. The operating system has been around for about a decade and has been quietly gaining popularity among IT

Digital Government

The dawning of Linux

Linux, the Unixlike operating system that has been a computer scientist's plaything for the better part of a decade, is beginning to get some serious attention from federal agencies. The Defense Department, intelligence agencies, the General Services Administration and other organizations are runn

Digital Government

Unix servers: Mainframe redux

In computing, the pendulum has swung between the poles of centralized mainframe environments and distributed client/server computing. Right now, it is swinging back toward a centralized environment. Urged on by costofownership and personnel issues, some agencies, such as the Defense Information S

Digital Government

The XML factor

A new World Wide Web tool has emerged that promises to revolutionize the way federal agencies do electronic commerce while protecting investments in such technologies as electronic data interchange (EDI). Extensible Markup Language is a way of defining the content of a document, similar to the way

Digital Government

Getting a good grip

Although the handheld computer industry seems to lurch from year to year, with vendors and products coming and going, the market has generated enough business to foster continued development of the technology. Today, the concept of handheld has expanded from the original personal digital assistants

Digital Government

Network Computers: Still a hard sell

A year or two ago, some people thought the Network Computer (NC) would revolutionize the computer industry, offering an alternative to the PC that could be fielded at a substantially lower cost. While no one today claims that NCs can replace PCs, there does seem to be a market for the systems to a

Digital Government

CD-ROM technology approaches a turning point

While industry vendors continue to up the ante with CDROM drive performance, many users realize they are seeing diminished returns as the technology nears the limits of its performance and new disc solutions enter the market. The romance of speed always has been part of the PC business; processors

Digital Government

SGI opens new Reality Center

Silicon Graphics Inc. last week officially opened a new Reality Center in Orlando Fla. The new facility dedicated to virtual reality and simulation demonstrations and development is the first such domestic center outside the company's Mountain View Calif. headquarters. Its location is strategically

Digital Government

Agencies grapple with complexities of disaster recovery efforts

Disaster recovery plans once were simple: Back up the mainframes' data overnight onto magnetic tapes and toss the tapes into a closet. That might have sufficed 20 years ago but not today.Although disaster recovery has been around for decades the job has changed over the last few years. What is cons

Digital Government

New applications, technology expand world of virtual reality

Virtual reality once the domain of science fiction books and Hollywood blockbusters is becoming a more viable and increasingly affordable solution for many federal users. The books and movies in fact have created remarkably high expectations for virtual reality. People outside the industry expect V

Digital Government

ALERT, THE NEXT-GENERATION PATROL CAR

In police work time and technology are often partners in the game of criminal pursuit.

Digital Government

Agencies scan biometrics for potential applications

The concept of biometrics linking a person's identity to a fingerprint or other physical feature that is digitized and stored on a computer has been around for years but it has been associated most closely with law enforcement applications. That is changing.