February 11, 2008

Grants.gov compatible with Adobe Reader 8.1.2

Just a tidbit this morning: Grants.gov has announced that they have tested Adobe Reader 8.1.2 with their forms and submission process, and all is well. So feel free to upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader (after checking with your…
February 5, 2008

Write Permission Problems with Apache? Check for SELinux…

While trying to install MediaWiki on my CentOS 4.5 box, PHP could not write the Wiki configuration file.  So, I conducted the standard checklist: Figure out what user and group Apache was using (apache/apache), Ensure that the path to the configuration…

OFFM issues new grants management strategic plan

OMB’s Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM) is responsible for all financial and grants management policy in the US federal government. They have just published their new five year plan (here). Here’s what it has to say about grants management.…

9 GMLOB MOUs signed; others appealing

The inimitable Jason Miller at Washington Technology reports that: The policy guidance [issued by OMB as passback language to agencies alongside the FY09 budget request also addressed the Grants Management Line of Business. Agencies were to have chosen one of…
January 31, 2008

Government collaboration nirvana!

If you haven’t already checked out the COLAB wiki, you are a horrible individual and should be ashamed of yourself. Well, okay, maybe you should not feel quite so guilty about it but don’t delay in scooting over there to check…
January 30, 2008

FedRegister notice on SF424 R&R changes coming

On the Grants.gov mailing list yesterday, Vince Sprouls noted that: “The SF424 R&R changes are going forward for the 60-day Notice publication this week and hopefully will be published within about a week after that.” These changes primarily relate to additional…
January 29, 2008

Choosing Between Being Hacked and Accidentally Breaking Services

As is good practice, on internal mission critical systems that are accessible from the Web, we run automatic security patching utilities (like yum and Microsoft Update).  For example, we are currently running (and enjoying) Zimbra 4.5.10 OSS as our mail…

Another great example of online collaboration in government

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Stephen Barr’s Federal Diary column profiled OMB’s MAX Federal Community, a wiki that’s being used throughout government to speed decision-making and help agencies work across organizational boundaries. I love this stuff, primarily because technology is not the object…

Grants.gov now REQUIRES Adobe Reader 8.1.1

This is a very important announcement regarding compatibility of various versions of Adobe Reader with Grants.gov. Please take note! Important Software Version Announcement: Adobe Reader 8.1.1 Required When applying with Adobe Reader applications on Grants.gov, it is now required to download…
January 16, 2008

Grants.gov Winter 2008 Newsletter now available

You can get it here. Although surely it should be “January 2008 Newsletter”, unless they’re way ahead of schedule or I’m way behind. I didn’t make it to the Grants.gov Webcast today. If you did, let us know what happened in…