Rep.'s site offers floor info; NASA sells online

When Congress reconvenes next week those interested in keeping up with the flurry of new legislation action can do so by pointing their browser to Majority Whip Tom DeLay's (R-Texas) home page.

DeLay's home page on the Web (majoritywhip.house.gov) has been quite popular of late according to DeLay's staff. The site received nearly 590 000 hits in July a level never reached by a member committee or leadership office of the House of Representatives according to a statement released by DeLay's office.

Users can skip the rhetoric-laden section detailing DeLay's speeches and his schedule and head straight to the "on-the-floor section " which provides access to real-time blow-by-blow descriptions of proceedings in the House chamber along with a live video image that is updated every 20 seconds.

To dig deeper on specific issues being discussed on the floor click on the "Whipping Post" section to read the anticipated schedule of floor votes. The legislation listed as a possible candidate for a floor vote is linked to Thomas the Library of Congress legislative database which allows users to delve deeper into the legislative history.

For users who want to keep tabs on the House while not on the Net click on "Whip Ticker" to download a ticker that will spill across your computer screen with all the latest "intelligence" information from DeLay's office legislative updates from the floor and other news provided by Reuters.

NASA Revamps Acquisition Site

NASA's Acquisition Internet Service (NAIS) site has undergone a recent facelift to make it easier to navigate to create a more consistent look and to quicken the process of downloading pages that can be read by a variety of browsers and browser configurations.

Go to procurement.nasa.gov to take a look at the metamorphosis of the site which is designed to be a clearinghouse for procurement information. NAIS has consolidated at its own site all of its services that were on individual NASA center home pages. To provide quick access to the site's most popular features NASA Webmasters have placed a navigational toolbar at the top of each page.

Click on "Business Opportunities" to search all NASA procurements by center. Searches can be narrowed by specifying date or classification code. Users also can search contract awards and can register to receive personalized business opportunities based on specific preferences. Also at NAIS are NASA acquisition forecasts a procurement reference library a NASA-wide personnel directory and other agency home pages.

NASA Goes Commercial

NASA's Kennedy Space Center is the latest entity to begin selling its wares via the Web. Point your browser to www1.viaweb.com/nasa/ to access the offerings of Kennedy's Space Center Visitor Complex Shop.The goods are available through ViaWeb Inc. an online software company in Cambridge Mass. which has helped build more than 210 online stores for various commercial products. At the company's ViaWeb Store - the virtual entrance to its mall of vendors - some of the hottest items available via electronic commerce were being highlighted last week. Among the rock 'n' roll compact discs and silk summer blouses was a NASA T-shirt.

Other items included frozen food identical to what the astronauts feast on. These delicacies such as chocolate chip space cookies ice cream sandwiches and whole strawberries are frozen to minus 40 degrees Celsius vacuum dried and sealed. Shoppers also can purchase space flight suits paper weights stuffed animals post cards and T-shirts.