Firelands real estate agents bitten by Y2K glitch

Saturday, January 8, 2000

By ALAN GUY

Special to the Register

SANDUSKY -- With the New Year now past and the first working week of the new millennium coming to a close, small instances of Y2K noncompliance have begun to crop up in nonvital computer systems around the area -- and a small outbreak of finger-pointing has resulted.

The Firelands Association of Realtors has discovered problems within the computerized system, Kinnexus, which it uses to catalog houses for sale. The system, called a Multiple Listing Server, is used by real estate agents to maintain an online directory of homes for sale. Since the Y2K date rollover, local real estate agents using the system have found it difficult to make computer connections.

While the system has not suffered a catastrophic failure, according to Firelands Association of Realtors Executive Officer Ruth DeHenning, "It certainly is a glitch, and it certainly slows down the Realtor," in providing service to the customer.

Yet difficulties with the server, inconvenient as they may be, have not managed to seriously affect the real estate operation, and the malfunctions have not caused any loss of data, DeHenning said. Any problems with the system, "I think we are managing to overcome," said Dehenning.

Telescan, the company that manufactures Kinnexus, has been distributing software to correct any problems within the system since malfunctions began to occur following New Year's Day. Through the Internet, users of Kinnexus can download files designed to resolve any New Year glitches associated with the system.

The fact Kinnexus was a problem at all was a surprise to some users because it was believed to be Y2K-compliant. Telescan, in spite of the recent problems, maintains the problem is not within its system. "According to our vendor, its a Microsoft problem," said DeHenning. The problem, said Telescan technical support, is with a Microsoft program within some versions of Windows 95 that manages the date in some applications. The program called a "class foundation file" is included in most programs and is used in the operation of systems ranging from word processing to networking.

"If we do not have it installed and Y2K compliant, the system is not Y2K-compliant," said Zelda Christensen of Telescan technical support. While Telescan maintains it is not responsible for the problems within Kinnexus, if the foundation class file responsible for the malfunctions is made by Microsoft and is as widely used as Telescan technical support alleges, problems would have already arisen in a wide variety of systems.

When asked about the Kinnexus situation, Steve Potonic, of Advanced Computer Connections, Norwalk, said on the whole Kinnexus is a poorly written program.

"If they have problems it is probably in their operation," Potonic said. He said he was not aware of any problems within the Microsoft operating systems, and that among the several thousand systems that ACC services, none reported problems of the sort described by Telescan.

"I can't point any fingers at Microsoft. I think were very thorough in this," Potonic said.

Microsoft technical support could not be reached for comment, but Dan Leech of Microsoft Public Relations said he was not aware of either the problem or the software distributed by Telescan to solve it. The software solution MSC40.DLL distributed by Telescan and allegedly based on a Microsoft file, could not be found within the Microsoft Y2K search engine and was not recognized by Leech.

"Obviously this has been a really smooth transition, and I am not aware of any problems of this sort."

Leech described Y2K compliance as more of a process than a status. Like all systems, calendars and date-related computer programs must be continually updated and upgraded. The Gregorian calendar, the one we use today, was not put into use in America until 1752 and until the last several centuries the calendars used by most people were based on the seasons and the cycles of the moon.

The problem, in Leech's opinion, was one more of people than of systems.

"A lot of people want to push the blame off of themselves, when what they really need to do is uncover the problem," Leech said.

Source: Sandusky Register Online; Sandusky, Ohio

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=24847?search

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 16, 2000