Things have been on hold for the past three weeks due to some family
crises. I think this illustrates an important point. Begin your plans now, and
build some leeway. What happens if you break your leg next summer, or your car goes
in the shop for some major repairs? A two or three week delay in September of 1999
could be disastrous if you wait until July of 1999 to begin preparing.
Now is the time to begin stockpiling food supplies that will last for two
years. Primarily I mean grains and cereals. Rice, flour, dried pasta,
crackers, and potato flakes are excellent sources of carbohydrate. Most survival
sites agree that you will need about 300 pounds of grain per person per year, or slightly
less than a pound per day for each person in your team. If you are preparing food
for a year or two, that's going to be a lot of grain. Our team is aiming at about
twenty days for about six people, or about 100 pounds of cereals. We'll be
concentrating on rice, crackers, and pasta, with some potato flakes and less flour.
If you think you need long term supplies, you probably have to consider baking your own
bread, so you'll want to concentrate more on flour and baking powder.
It's important to consider where you are going to store your foodstuffs
now that you are purchasing them. A factor in this decision should be what sort of
disaster you are preparing for. Y2K is our number one concern right now, but people
on the west coast also need to prepare for earthquakes, people in the midwest for
tornadoes, people in the east and south for hurricanes, and people in the north for
blizzards. I don't mention volcanoes, because if Kilauea or Mt. St. Helens start
making nasty noises in your direction, you ought to scram and not sit around worrying
about how you will make dinner when the lava engulfs your power plant. Same thing
for floods. If the river rises or the dam breaks, get out! (joke)
I live in Southern California, and even if I had a basement, I wouldn't
store food or emergency supplies there. The biggest threat in an earthquake other
than loss of life is that my house would be unsafe to enter, and my emergency supplies
would be unreachable. We store food in a cabinet in the house near the garage entry
and emergency supplies in a garbage can in the garage. If the garage collapses,
there will be less rubble to dig through to get to our stuff.
On the other hand, if you live in the midwest, it is an excellent idea to
store your emergency supplies in your basement or storm cellar. In case of a
tornado, that's where you should be anyway.
Storing food in the house, if you can find a place for it, is good in that
you generally have a lower insect and rodent population in the house than outside it.
Food stored inside can usually be stored in plastic. Food stored outside,
even in the garage, should always be stored in glass or metal airtight containers.
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This would also be a good time to test your computer(s). There has
recently been another report of possible causes of computer problems based on applications
illegally accessing the computer's Real Time Clock instead of requesting that time and
date from the Windows NT operating system.
Before you begin, make a list of all of the programs that you use on a
regular basis and which are critical to your functioning. Word processors,
spreadsheets, databases, and communications software are good examples. Don't forget
utilities like backup applications, disk management software, etc. Ignore games.
The three primary computer hardware/software combinations out there are
PCs running some flavour of Windows, PCs running some flavour of Unix, and Macintoshes
running some flavour of the MAC OS. Macintosh users can go store some rice:
their hardware and operating systems are fine. PC users running Unix or Linux should
run the hardware and software tests, but their operating system can handle dates until
2037. PC users running a Windows OS are the most susceptible and should
perform all of the following tests.
Test 1
Turn on your computer. If your computer is already on, close all
programs.
Set the date and time for 31 December 1999 at 11:55 pm. (Windows
users, you can set the date and time in the Control Panel--Start Menu\Settings\Control
Panel\Date/Time.) Wait ten minutes and then check the time and date.
If it shows 12:05 am, 1 January 2000, your operating system is probably handling the date
correctly.
Now, reset the computer to 31 December 1999 at 11:55 pm. Power down
your system and shut it off. Wait ten minutes. Reboot your system and check
the time and date. If it shows 12:05 am, 1 January 2000, your operating system is
almost certainly handling the date correctly.
Test 2
Now change the date to 28 February 2000 at 11:55 pm. Wait ten
minutes. If your computer shows the time and date to be 12:05 am, 29 February 2000,
it correctly handles the leap year.
| Caution: If you have software that has a warranty
or contract date built into it (most home and home office software does not) think twice
before starting it with your clock set in the future. Software that is only licensed
or covered under warranty until 1999 could be permanently disabled if started while your
clock is set to 2000. If you have questions, contact the software supplier. |
Test each of your software programs. Create files and
save them while your computer's date is set to the year 2000. Look in the
directory where these files are saved. View the file by date. (Windows
users, right click on My Computer and select Explore. Select View/Details.
Locate the directory in which you saved the files and click on the grey title above the
date column. The files will show up in date order.) How are your
files sorted. Do you see files dated '96, '97, '98, '00, or does '00 precede the
list? If the file creation dates are in the correct order, that software program
probably handles dates properly.
Please note that I said probably. I offer you no
guarantees. These are just logical, commensense tests that will point out obvious
failures of your systems. Subtle failures are harder to spot.
Test 3
While you are at it, test the date handling capabilities of the program.
In Word™ or WordPerfect™, type 
. What date is shown? Test
the ability of Excel™ or QuattroPro™ to calculate date-sensitive functions in
2000 and spanning the boundary. Test your backup program. Does it recognize
files created in 2000 to be newer than a backup done in 1999? Will your virus and
backup program run scheduled tasks?
If your system fails in any way, now you know. You have over a year
to upgrade to programs that are compliant. Start by contacting the manufacturers.
In some cases, patches may be available.
