Thought you might like to see this.

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Results of a large Y2K test from Washington State. County is about 1/3 completely done, rest due by April.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/22/060l-122298-idx.html

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998

Answers

Old news, Paulyanna. And this article is talking about Montgomery Co., Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC, not Washington State.

You might want to consider a couple of details about this great news:

"the clocks on four computer systems were turned ahead"

Wow, 4 whole systems out of 288!

"Montgomery has been tackling the Y2K problem for the past three years. County officials say that they have spent half the $34 million set aside to debug the county's 288 computer systems and that 36 percent have been deemed good to go come Jan. 1, 2000. The rest are scheduled to be ready by April..."

Let's see... in 3 years, they've spent 1/2 their budget and fixed about 1/3 of their systems. But by April '99 they're going to have the other 2/3's fixed and ready. Must be they saved the easiest systems to remediate until the end, huh?

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.


No Nabi, you do them pretty much all at the same time. Once you have the 'core' done - the systems everything else reports to or plugs into or is controlled by - you can finish the rest really quickly. And they probably won't spend all their money by April - anyway I would not have budgeted the job that way - you have to expect some problems and budget to fix them as they occur. If the programs all worked all the time and never failed in any way - the IS and CS fields would not need a tenth of the people that work in them now. OK now - we don't do it delibratly - it isn't a job security thing (well at least not for most of us ;^) ).

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 31, 1998.

paul: tisk tisk....

nabi: damn man, use the Vaseline next time!

-- a (a@a.a), December 31, 1998.


Ironically, Gary North actually accepted this slip-shod half-a$$ed Y2K "drill" without raising the slightest question!! Of course, part of his Y2K claims is that the counties may be able to pull through, but there is no way that he would have accepted 4 out of 288 systems from any federal, state, or Fortune 5000 entity. Here is the link to North's gushing and glowing commentary....

Good News from Montgomery County, Maryland

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 01, 1999.

And here is another article that covers not only Montgomery County, but other suburban counties to Washington, D.C. It appeared in today's Washington Times.

Washington Times article

What a contrast! Montgomery, which is ahead of just about every other county anywhere, still has a lot more work to do. Others (like Alexandria) are simply assuming that whatever contingency plans that they already have in place will be adequate for Y2K.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 01, 1999.


Yeah jack - I noticed that too. Two pieces of good news about this "test" - it was close to DC, so somebody is working up there. and most of what they had already "bench-tested" worked in an integrated test. Also, they did check their emergency center comms and responses, with observers from other nearby counties present.

Shows other areas are worried too. But not ready to test their systems yet. Not finished yet, not started yet in many cases.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 1999.


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