Michael Lawrence Morton's

Bulletin #4

Make a Date for Y2K

In a message dated 11/2/99 12:06:16 PM Pacific Standard Time, agpope@phonetech.com writes:

Date: 11/2/99 12:06:16 PM Pacific Standard Time From: agpope@phonetech.com(Alan G. Pope) To: milamo@aol.com

Starting at midnight on new years eve there will be massive mess-ups on the nationwide electrical power grid. These computer failures can and will cause BROWNOUTS, BLACKOUTS...and SEVERE POWER SURGES on your power line. None of this is predictable as to where or how long, or anything else except that these things will happen all over the place.

To prevent the power surges from DESTROYING your electrical appliances, you should UNPLUG THEM prior to midnight, and NOT plug them back in until you get SOLID reassurances from the power companies that the surges are past... There's no telling when or whether such reassurances will be forthcoming. Keep a portable battery operated radio handy to get newscasts.

One of my old Y2K'ers sent me this. Seems it might be useful to us. I have changed mine already, never hurts to be prepared...right?

You may think your PC is Y2K compliant and some little tests may have actually affirmed that your hardware is compliant, and you may even have a little company sticker affixed to your system saying Y2K compliant...but you'll be surprised that Windows may still crash unless you do this simple exercise below. I know that I had not thought of this, and my computer would have failed Jan 1,2000. Easy fix, but something that Microsoft seems to have missed in certifying their software as Y2K compliant. Print the following and follow instructions:

Click on START. Click on SETTINGS. Double Click on CONTROL PANEL. Double Click on REGIONAL SETTINGS icon (look for the little world globe) Click on the DATE TAB at the top of the page. (last tab on the top right)

Where it says,SHORT DATE SAMPLE, look to see if it shows a two digit year format (YY).

Unless you've previously changed it (and you probably haven't) - it will be set incorrectly with just two Y's.... it needs to be four!

That's because Microsoft made the 2 digits setting the default setting for Windows 95, Windows 98 and NT. This date format selected is the date that Windows feeds *ALL* application software and will not rollover into the year 2000. It will roll over to the year 00.

Click on the button across from the Short Date Style and select the option that shows MM/dd/yyyy.

Then click APPLY. Then click on OK at the bottom.

Easy enough to fix. However, every "as distributed" installation of Windows worldwide is defaulted to fail Y2K rollover.... Pass along to your PC buddies... no matter how much of a guru they think they are .... this might be a welcome bit of information!

MLM

Milamo@aol.com Michael Lawrence Morton ~ArchaeocryptographerTo contact Michael please e-mail above or telephone: 412-819-0202 Pittsburgh, PA, USA.==