Friday, March 29, 2024

Goodies To Go! ™
January 10, 2000 — Newsletter #62




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Goodies To Go! ™

January 10, 2000 — Newsletter #62

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Please visit http://www.htmlgoodies.com

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Many of you are writing me saying my JavaScripts are showing incorrect years (19100 is the most common incorrect display).
The problem is easily fixed.


To repair the year problem, go to the script and replace
getYear() with getFullYear() in all cases. That should solve
the display. getYear() used to return the two digit year, but
in a fun twist of fate, it now returns 100. Go figure. Note
also, if the script added 1900 or put 19 in front of the
getYear() display, then you’ll need to eliminate that code as
getFullYear() will return the full four digit year.


Thanks. And when you run into a problem like this on the
Goodies site, tell me so we can get it fixed straightaway.


>>>>>>>>>>>>


Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,


Waiter!


Yes, sir?


Some Crow and a side helping of Humble Pie, if you don’t
mind…


Well, Y2K came in like a media lion and went out like a
reality lamb. Most of the weekend I’ve been receiving email
from friends and fellow workers giving me some not-so-gentle
ribbing about my bug predictions. They were as follows:


My first prediction, that there would be a bunch of “see I
told you so” events, didn’t go completely bust. A few Y2K
burps happened around the world.


1. A credit card scanning system in London crashed a couple
days before the new year because it looked ahead four days
and the bug bit it.


2. Some meat was sent out with a “sell-by” date of January
1900.


3. Some cash registers in Norway stopped working.


4. A baby was born in South Korea and given the birth date
January 1, 1900.


5. A video store customer was given a late fee charge of over $19,000 when a computer showed his return to be 100 years late.


6. A few Web sites dedicated to telling users the correct time showed the year 19100. Basically the “99” just flipped right
over to 100. It was fixed right away.


7. Finally, the U.S. lost satellite visuals for 15 hours
thanks to the bug. You didn’t hear much about this on Jan 1st, because it probably wouldn’t have been a good thing to tell
everyone.


My second prediction of theft might still come true, but it
remains to be seen.


Thankfully my third prediction of problems in the medical
field was a total bust. The only problem with a hospital
machine (other than the baby’s birth date) I could find was
the failure of an X.ray machine in Norway.


Now the banner headlines across the tech web sites are
warning that January 3, 2000 is the big date to be watching.
Today (I’m writing this on Jan. 3) is the day we all go back
to work and start using the computers we left last year.


Just as was shown on ABC and CNN, the European and Asian
markets got first crack at the new year’s business and they’ve reported no problems whatsoever. I think we’ll be just fine.


Now the question is…was there really a bug to begin with? The answer is simple – yes. There was quite a bug and the many 1999 benchmark tests proved it. We may have overstated its power,
but it was there nonetheless. The U.S. spent $100 billion alone
to go after the problem. Apparently we got it.


As midnight December 31st approached here in U.S. Central
time, I went on line to see what was being reported. One news
source asked if the lack of Y2K bug errors was due to hard
work or lack of a bug altogether. Happily, most people voted
that it was hard work rather than Y2K being an adult boogie-man.


I say “happily” because I don’t want the fizzle that was Y2K
to allow computer user to become complacent about media
warnings regarding future viruses and possible errors. Keep
updating your virus software and be wary of attachments. Just because it didn’t blow up in your face this time, doesn’t mean
it won’t the next.


I was asked what will become of all of the Web sites that
were created to deal with the Y2K problem specifically. It
would seem they’re out of date. Well, maybe some are, but
the domain “year2000.com” just closed bidding at 10 million
dollars on eBay. If the sale goes through, this would be the
highest amount of money ever paid for a domain name. In case
you’re wondering, the current record belongs to the domain “business.com”. eCompanies paid 7.5 million for the domain.


So the New Year celebrations came and went. I ran to my
television set every hour to watch how the world was ringing
in the year 2000. The celebrations were just wonderful. I
especially enjoyed Paris and Hong Kong. Each hour I watched
and waited for something, anything to go wrong with the
world’s computers. Nothing. An hour after I watched Moscow’s
Red Square celebrating the year 2000, I pretty much knew that
the millennium bug had been squashed. If it didn’t hit the
former Soviet Union, it sure wasn’t going to hit here.


Dick Clark said “Happy New Year”. My Micron flipped to 2000
without a blink and I went to bed.


The New Year is here, and everything seems to still be
standing. I think the next 100 years will be good for us
chip heads. Webster’s Dictionary publisher John Morse has
named “Internet” the word of the century. Mitch Maddox
officially changed his name to DotComGuy and plans to live
for a year never leaving his Dallas apartment. eCommerce is
through the roof. AOL is now at 20 million subscribers. All
the signs point to 2000 being a banner year for all things
silicon.


Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I bought one of those
little plastic digital clocks that countdown to the new
millennium. When it got to midnight, it blinked 2000.
That’s it. Apparently it was Y2K compliant.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s that. Here’s to the new year and 52 new newsletters.


Joe Burns, Ph.D.


And Remember: School is getting underway for many of you out
there. Have you ever heard the phrase “bone.up for an exam”?
The phrase comes from the early 19th century when a publisher
named “Bohn” published crib sheets (then called trots) to
help students study for Greek and Latin exams. If you used
the sheets, you Bohned.up. It changed to the more phonetic
spelling sometime in the early 1900s.

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