The federal government has unsuccessfully promoted the idea of e-government for years, but a confluence of events may give the idea--and the tech industry--a significant boost next year. Under the concept of electronic government, all internal processes and dealings with citizens would be streamlined, efficient, cheap and, ideally, paperless. Dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, for example, would be as easy as buying a book on Amazon.com.
While the vision is well ahead of the reality, next year could mark a significant advance. A decline in corporate spending has forced many tech companies to aggressively pursue Uncle Sam and his deep pockets. And the government is making a renewed push to streamline its operations.
It's holiday time and your spouse just gave you the Microsoft Windows XP software you've been eyeing for your home computer. Or the two of you gave the kids a new Xbox or one of the new PC games out this year, like Flight Simulator 2002, MechCommander 2 or Zoo Tycoon. Now comes the moment of truth: On the off-chance that your family needs some help installing or using any of these gifts, how are you going to get that help over the holidays? How are you going to keep frustration from spoiling the family festivities?
Intel provided PC buyers with some new options on Monday, as double data rate memory quietly made its debut alongside the Pentium 4.
Dell Computer, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and other PC makers have started to sell Pentium 4 PCs containing DDR SDRAM, a faster version of standard memory, via their Web sites. The combo is made possible through a new version of Intel's 845 chipset. The chipset and the PCs won't be officially released until January, but Intel has allowed manufacturers to market them early. The release will coincide with new, high-performance versions of the Pentium 4.
Thaink to ActiveWin for this link
As you've seen in XPTV, Windows XP makes it easy to experience new things with your PC. The following video clips will show you Windows XP in action and help you get started.
Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of the Microsoft Server Appliance Kit (SAK) 2.0 Add-On Pack, which delivers a comprehensive set of management capabilities for fixed-function server appliances such as Web servers and Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances. Designed for IT administrators, the new capabilities are the Multiple Device Manager (MDM), which enables the management of many physical server appliance devices from a central console, and the Role-Based User Interface (RBUI), which supports delegated management of the Web UI. In addition, industry-leading original equipment manufacturers including Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Maxtor Corp., RLX Technologies Inc. and Transtec AG announced their plans to ship Windows Powered server appliance products based on SAK 2.0 with the Add-On Pack.
Maybe because of its catchy, musical name, C# is getting most of the attention during the ECMA ruminations. But remember that the common language infrastructure (CLI) is part of this deal--and maybe ultimately the more significant part. The programming language is, of course, the key element for application development, but the CLI holds the key for running those applications on diverse platforms.
As something of a sideshow to its ECMA endeavor, Microsoft also enlisted the aid of Corel to develop a "shared source" implementation of C# and the CLI that will run on FreeBSD. This, Microsoft hopes, will demonstrate that C# and CLI are not only industry standards, but can also deliver on the write once, run many paradigm.
Microsoft announced .Net and C# around the same time, in late June of last year. They volunteered both C# and parts of .Net (the Common Language Infrastructure or CLI) to the same technical committee in ECMA. Since the pasts of .Net and C# have been intertwined, one might think that their futures will be too, but this isn't necessarily the case. C# could fail as a language and .Net could still succeed, but if .Net fails in the market as a platform C# will certainly fail.
This is a good thing, even as Microsoft sees it, although I doubt they would put it quite that way. One of the central characteristics of .Net is that it supports multiple programming languages. Maybe C# is an especially good programming for .Net, but it doesn't matter; if you don't want to use C#, you can still write code for .Net using almost any other language.
Microsoft on Tuesday issued a second application compatibility update for Windows XP, and announced upcoming support for USB 2.0. The 1.5MB compatibility package, currently available for download via Windows Update, increases support for over 40 older software applications. Notable inclusions on the list are Easy CD Creator 4.02, Norton AntiVirus 2001, Corel Draw, and RealPlayer 7.0. The software giant is also finalizing support for USB 2.0, and expects to provide an update by early 2002. USB 2.0 increases the available bandwidth for high-speed devices from 12Mbps to 480Mbps, making the technology ideal for video cameras and storage devices.
Microsoft has joined a diverse set of leaders from industry, academia, the non-profit sector and government selected to assist the administration of President George W. Bush with some of the difficult challenges the United States faces in the realm of science and technology.
The council will assist the administration by developing recommendations on a wide range of issues -- from utilizing technology in the war on terrorism and investigating new ways to reduce energy consumption to reducing barriers to broadband availability
Who should read this bulletin: Customers using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Impact of vulnerability: Run code of attacker's choice.
This patch, when installed, eliminates all known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6.0. In addition to eliminating all previously discussed vulnerabilities affecting these versions, it also eliminates three new ones:
- A vulnerability involving the handling of downloads that can lead to automatic code execution.
- A newly discovered variant of the the "Frame Domain Verification" vulnerability discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-015.
- A vulnerability involving the display of file names in the File Download dialogue box.