Re: y2k reflections -- MIDRANGE-L

Jim:
I appreciate your story.... don't misunderstand me... I was not trying to
imply that there were no issues, of course there were.  Most MIS
professionals understood the risks and what needed to be addressed and what
did needed to be done.
 We did some Y2K work for some of our clients that really needed work.  But
I did have one client who insisted that all their Vanguard Routers have an
"Official" Motorola approved Y2K OS release loaded.  These routers could
care less what the date is, and the person who installed some of them before
I got involved in the project did not even set the date.  I explained that
the only purpose for the date was for the error/alarm log and we could cold
load new code "the next time" we visited the facility.  (I generally get to
most of the facilities in a given year).  But the media put so much fear
into the public about the big bad Y2K bug that the client insisted that I
fly to all 9 locations in the week before Xmas to load new code.
(Unfortunately with the Vanguards you need to physically attach to the
serial port to load a new OS version).  In my opinion, that was a waste of
time and money, but it is what the client wanted.
I tip my hat to everyone who did all they could and worked many hard hours
to avoid the Y2K problem.  But as with most things, the media blew it out of
proportion and as usual they did not have a clue.  I kind of felt sorry for
Peter Jennings on New Years, he looked rather disappointed that there was no
big story with team coverage, and on site reporters........ can't even count
on a good disaster these days!
IMHO.
CJG

Carl Galgano
EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
540 Powder Springs Street
Suite C19
Marietta, GA  30064
770-422-2995
mailto: cgalgano@ediconsulting.com
http://www.ediconsulting.com
EDI, Communications and AS400 Technical Consulting

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Langston <jlangston@conexfreight.com>
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: y2k reflections


>I wouldn't quite agree with "no big deal".  We have a Nortel
>Meridian I phone system that has voice mail.  While checking
>on Y2K compliancy on everything, I found out that the phone
>system, bought in 1992, was NOT Y2K compliant.  I told my
>boss that we needed to upgrade, and that it was going to cost
>him $10,000.  He wasn't too happy about this, since when he
>bought it he asked them if it was Y2K compliant, and they
>said yes. The phone system is Y2K compliant, it's just the
>Meridian Mail that isn't.
>
>He went off to talk to his lawyer, and never got back to me.
>I kept telling him he needed to upgrade, he kept putting it off.
>Finally, I pick a date and put the date on the phone system to
>January 1st, 2000.  Disaster strikes.  Everything going to voice
>mail gets routed to the receptionist.  Everyone dialing a number
>with no answer, everyone checking their voice mail, etc.. gets
>routed to the receptionist.  I tried to log back into the system to
>set the date back, but it refused to let me back in.
>
>At this point the receptionist starts answering the phone, "The
>voice mail doesn't work."
>
>Finally, after half an hour or so the phone system decides to let
>me log back in, and I set the date back to the real date.  Another
>10 minutes goes by before it starts accepting voice mail again.  I
>decided to try setting the date back to 1972 to see what would
>happen, same thing.  This time I was smart enough to not log out
>of the phone system, so set the date back quickly.
>
>I go to my boss, "we need to upgrade our phone system, 2 months
>ago".  He finally decides to approve it, but now it's too late to get it
>upgraded in time before the roll over hits, so I waited 'til the last
>week of December, then set the date back a month.  Everything was
>perfectly fine, 'til 2 days ago.  Then the voice mail system thinks it's
>memory is full, and no one can leave a message to anyone.
>
>I called the people upgrading our system, and then have a technician
>dial in, she sets the date to December 31st at 11:00 and has everyone
>delete all their voice mail.  Then sets the date back a month again. Now
>everything is fine again.
>
>Still waiting on the upgrade, but, what if I hadn't showed my boss it
>would not work?  What if we thought there would be no problems at
>all?  January 3rd would of hit and no one would of gotten voice mail
>at all. The receptionist would of been induated with voice mail phone
>calls and become next to worthless to us for actually answering incoming
>calls.
>
>By no means was Y2K all hype.  There were definite problems that
>had to be addressed.  Most businesses were smarter than my boss,
>however, and actually paid to get them fixed.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jim Langston
>
>Carl Galgano wrote:
>
>> Nina:
>> I usually don't pile on with "me toos", but you are so right.  Lots of
hype,
>> some application problems, but for the most part no big deal.  I have
some
>> older PCs at my office and they did fine.  I also had to use the old DATE
>> DOS command, but after than things are fine.  I feel sorry for John
Rocker
>> of the Atlanta Braves.  Since the media doesn't have Y2K to report on ad
>> nauseaum, they are beating him to death.  Idiots and ignorant people say
>> stupid things, end of story.... time to get on with life.
>> CJG
>
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