Why we aren't hearing about more glitches

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 15, 2000

Answers

Hey Forest, give us a link we can read without downloading something... get more responses that way...

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), January 15, 2000.

Sorry, that doesn't work. Try this.

Why we aren't hearing about more glitches

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 15, 2000.

I couldn't get it to work....glitches indeed.

January 13, 2000

The Truth Isn't Out There

Many resellers won't admit to Y2K problems.

By Mary Jo Foley, Sm@rt Reseller

As software, hardware and services companies rushed to distance themselves from the Y2K "hoax," many quietly labored last week to patch date-change bugs to which few administrators will admit.

"If all goes well, I'll talk to you. But if anything goes wrong, I won't be able to tell you," says one Y2K trouble shooter, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

Another consultant, who spent last week patching an old version of a non-Y2K-compliant operating system for a bank, also was sworn to secrecy.

Most integrators agree that few, if any, serious problems plagued their customers in the first business week of the new year. But a number of them spent a good part of the week applying patches and fixes to users' systems that should have been applied months ago.

Companies that had IT staff and integrator personnel on call throughout New Year's weekend were reticent to talk about any problems they experienced. Some claimed they did not want to be known as a company that was not prepared for the date change.

Still, the bulk of integrators seem to be waiting and watching. As analysts at The Gartner Group note, "The year 2000 problem is not about only the boundary period and therefore must be monitored throughout the year."

Was it all a hoax? In Gartner's opinion, the dearth of reported problems is easily explainable: Companies spent big bucks to fix the Y2K bug last year.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 15, 2000.

The article you posted is right on. Working for an average sized midwestern electrical utility, I can tell you we've had (and have) glitches, but you won't read about any of them in the media. Quite honestly, the important stuff (i.e. what keeps the lights on) was glitch free - our problems have been with business systems, a couple of which we even catagorized as "mission critical". The problems have really been minor, and since they aren't apparent to the general public, you'll never even hear about them. From what I've heard, it's the same all over. I have an in-law that works for a major telecommunications company (nickel nights anyone?) and he's mentioned that they've also had some problems.

But the only stuff you'll read about are the things that can't be hidden. When it comes right down to it, this is SOP, Y2K or Y1.9K.

Was Y2K a hoax? Not by a long shot. We did have some important electrical stuff that would have taken the lights out if we hadn't fixed it. But the guys that keep the lights on seem to take things a little more seriously than the guys who are churing the bills out. 'Tis a good thing too - I didn't have to fire up my generator at all!

naa - cya

-- Not Admitting Anything - CYA (lurking@home.now), January 15, 2000.

Downloading somthing that after you click on it, it doesn't "do anything", is usually a bad sign.

Run your antivirus program, If you have a file called CIH, go to www.symantec.com and download the patch first.

Good luck and remember, I could be wrong.

Love that net!!!;)

-- viricode (viriicode@aopl.com), January 15, 2000.

If I exposed any remediation that I am doing
my career would come to a screeching halt in
this small community. The ability to work and
maintain confidentiality is the reason I have
been chosen. I will not betray this trust. I'm
sure that is the case in most places.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 15, 2000.

Not Admitting Anything made some very good points. The electrical utilities did focus on keeping the generators whirling, and left the administrative systems on the back burner. I work for an electrical utility (nuclear), and I can promise you that had we not done Y2K remediation on a couple of systems, we would have lost both units. In that sense Y2K was NOT a hoax.

I hear they retorts that "well, Russia didn't have problems, and they didn't go the lengths we went to to remediate systems." I think that the Russians did remediate what had to be remediated, but they likely had far less to do than we did in the states. Why? They aren't bound by the same highly restrictive regulations as nukes in the US, and they had less potential for tripping plants because of glitches.

If the Russians, and really, much of the rest of the world were held to the same regulations as the US, we would have seen more problems with the electrical grid abroad, IMO.

-- John Cauthen (johnr@cetlink.net), January 15, 2000.

SYS OPS - DELETE THIS thread (THREAT)! Instant download via LINK is NOT APPRECIATED!

-- W (me@home.now), January 15, 2000.

Forrest......you inadvertedly linked to the .css (cascading style sheet) instead of the .htm web page. The page calls up the .css in order to format the text and links etc. but isn't what we need here. Sometimes Netscape puts the address of the .css in the address line while it's finding it.

OT, but I hate Netscape, long live Internet Explorer.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), January 15, 2000.