I have set up a collection of live-coverage and alert pages at
http://www.ironic.com/y2k/now.html
And will be at work and posting any events that I learn of at that page. The page does not require frames, tables, javascript, or java, and thus should load very, very fast assuming the 'net is up.

Here's an interesting question posed by Wade Ramey, a former professor of Mathematics yesterday:
Can you demonstrate an Excel spreadsheet that works in the 90's but does not work in the 00's? He has a Mac with a version of Excel which some claim is non-compliant but no one can demonstrate the non-compliance!

    --bks

-- Bradley K. Sherman (bks@netcom.com), December 28, 1999

Answers

Greetings BKS. Thank you for posting the link to the coverage site. I'm sure many folks will find it useful and informative.

Since I am not a techno-geek, I cannot answer your question.

Regards,

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 28, 1999.

Has he tried to sort it with cross turn-over data??

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 28, 1999.

I have several. How do you want me to get these to you? My company (name withheld) sells a Y2K product. We use these spreadsheets as examples. The one I used with the best success was a pension plan spreadsheet.

-- Me (here@yougo.com), December 28, 1999.

Bradley

I don't know about the Mac version, but in the un-fixed 97 Excel if you typed in 01/01/00 in a cell, the default date was 01/01/1900. This will cause numerous calculation errors if the date is used in the calc. The latest patch from Microsoft fixed this, although I now understand I need a patch for a March 29th issue.

-- Polly-Morphic Doomer (greenem31@aol.com), December 28, 1999.

Me, Can you just describe the problem, or put the spreadsheets on the Web, or anonymous FTP? Attachments are evil.

    --bks

-- Bradley K. Sherman (bks@netcom.com), December 28, 1999.

Sorry, Polly-Morphic, but that is definitely not a bug. There is no agreed upon standard for what year 01/01/00 is in. Excel allows you to use 2-digit dates as a convenience. If you want to make use of the convenience then you have to know the rules. If you typed in 01/01/00 and it used 01/10/1900, that would be a bug, as would e.g. 10/10/2000, but how can Excel know what century you mean?

    --bks

-- Bradley K. Sherman (bks@netcom.com), December 28, 1999.

I just put in 01/01/00 on excel spreadsheet. Date reads correctly but the first time I did it the Microsoft startup sound played. Somebody else try this. Put it in the first cell. Then click on it to see what comes up in the Window. Excel version was '97 SR1

-- howard (roark@not.now), December 28, 1999.

Brad: just guessing here, but ah, maybe that's why its called the Year 2000 problem?

-- a (a@a.a), December 28, 1999.

That is not a bug.

Vintage Bradley Sherman. Look, people make mistakes in utilizing software. If those mistakes relate to a two digit date they are y2k problems.

All the happy b***s*** on the planet won't change that, and the company that goes down the toilet because a software error relating to the CDC nuked their business won't be around long enough to sue anyone!

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 28, 1999.

Here is an ongoing list of links to sites that are watching the rollover around the world.
 

 *****Rollover links*****

-- Brian (imager@home.com), December 28, 1999.

let's see, bradley, CNN will have, what, one newsreader in each of about 30 countries at weeks' end? That ought to be sufficient to uncover all those Y2k failures, right? I mean, in China, where there are 1.2 billion people in a communist regime where the news is censored, some CNN smiley face in Shanghai or Beijing ought to be able to get the straight story in realtime to be able to report it, right? Russia, too, right? Yeah. The whole story will be covered by CNN in a matter of hours. It makes me so proud of American media omniscience that (sniff sniff) I gotta go kiss Old Glory and cry.

-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), December 28, 1999.