 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 | ||||
Japanese schoolgirls driving the toy rev... Score on the field; rock the hous... Video game for next millennium ... Here's what you should ask Santa fo... New web site drives quick deals on wheel... Prune your backyard doodlings into shap... Bank from home and stay aliv... Mini notes break into the top of the mob... Rand's recovery cuts prices... |
Y2KIs YOUR computer safe? GREG GORDON WHAT's going to happen to your PC at home when the calendar rolls over to January 1 2000? Much has been written about corporate computers and what's being done to ready them for the date change but many consumers are in the dark about what Y2K means for their PCs. "There is a lot of fear," says Marc Myburgh, general manager of the Upgrade Connection, "but the good news is that the millennium bug is not likely to affect most home computers." South Africa will spend about R30-million to squash the bug on the country's 3,2-million PCs but home computers are low-risk candidates. Small business computers are far more likely to be affected.
"People who use their machines to write letters or play games should get an off-the-shelf software program to check their PCs for year 2000 compliancy as a precaution," says Myburgh. "Most machines sold today are Y2K compliant, with the exception of those with early Pentium boards," he says. "Computers bought after 1996, running current applications, should generally be compliant. "It is, however, advisable to confirm compliancy before the inevitable Y2K." Myburgh says people running up-to-date releases of standard Windows applications shouldn't have a problem with the looming millennium. But he warns people with "homegrown" applications - for example, running customised spreadsheets or home-business applications - that they could face disaster. On the first day of the next century, this data could become useless and there is a chance computer databases could be corrupted. All data that contains date fields must be checked to ensure that the year is not referenced by two digits (for example '98) at a data level. Any other applications that are not date-reliant will work perfectly. "If a user is typing letters on an ancient machine, it's not really going to affect him," says Myburgh. If you don't have Y2K tools, you can check if your hardware is compliant by running an application where you are using dates - like in accounting packages. Set up a dummy database of entries for 1999 and 2000 that require calculations between the two dates, like interest calculations, change the date in the computer's bios to 2000 and have a look at the result. "The problem could also be with the software. With out-of-the-box application software, upgrading to the latest version is the solution. With specifically developed software, your options are either to call your software supplier to check if it is compliant or to get developers in to make it compliant," he says. If the motherboard is not compliant, it can be upgraded, along with the processor, at a cost of around R2 500. The alternative is to buy a new computer. There is also software that can test and fix Y2K problems on PCs.
|