Dateline: 9 December 1999 All Day Edition
Read Yesterday's Edition
Editorial
Y2K Bug Bites The NZ Herald
First there was fear and dread -- then the magic 9/9/99 date passed without
problems and an increasing number of organisations started crowing about
how they were ready for the big Y2K.
In recent months we've all become rather complacent and I've even heard
that some viewers have been emptying their cans of Raid at the TV
whenever that nauseous cockroach with the New York accent appears on their
screens.
But New Zealand's largest newspaper which, just to keep things in a Net context,
has an online website at
www.nzherald.co.nz
has already run foul of the Y2K bug.
An unknown, but probably quite large number of customers have received a bill for
their paper deliveries covering the period through to early
January next year -- and guess what?
Yep, right beside the "Total Amount Due" is the encouraging note:
Due date 19 Jan 1900
A quick follow-up letter was sent out early this week which reads:
|
Unfortunately the Y2K bug has surfaced early. We apologise most profusely
for supplying your recent invoice with the year 1900 instead of 2000 being
the due date."
|
|
Coincidentally, the Herald's website still shows Wednesday's edition this morning
at 8 am when it's normally updated to the current day by well before 6:30 am.
I'm not bitching, or even suggesting that the Herald's encounter with the Y2K
bug is in any way significant -- but it does make you wonder whether we've perhaps
become just a little too complacent about the risks.
So... before you send out those December invoices -- just check that the
Due-by date is accurate. This is particularly important if you've had to provide
your bank with a statement of Y2K readiness and you've assumed you're okay.
Heaven knows what your legal liabilities are if you'd stated you
were ready but they got ahold of an invoice or statement that proved you weren't.
The Big List Comes Tomorrow
Thanks for all those leads on good e-tail sites. The definitive list will
be published tomorrow so you can start that e-Xmas e-Shopping e-arly.
General News & Current Events:
TODAY'S KEY NET-NEWS HEADLINES
Andover Strikes It Rich
The parent company of Slashdot.org
raises US$72 million by auctioning off IPO
shares directly to the public...
Wired
eisa halt linked to OzEmail
Shares in eisa were suspended yesterday amid
speculation that the internet access provider was
vying with News Corp to buy OzEmail's consumer
customer base...
AFR
Auctioning an Auction Site
Auctionportal.com wants to close up shop,
so what better way to sell the business
than to auction it off to the highest
bidder? And on eBay, where else?...
Wired
Shockwave.com brings South Park back to the Net
Shockwave.com, the entertainment Web site run by
software maker Macromedia, today said it has signed the creators of the hit
animated TV show South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to create original
content for its site...
CNet
Yahoo Shares Plunge On 1st S&P 500 Trading Day
Shares of Internet
portal/e-commerce/media concern Yahoo Inc.
fell by as much as 10.6 percent in
Wednesday morning trading, as the issue made its
debut on the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index...
CNet
EU Unveils Plan to Get All Its Citizens on the Net
Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, on Wednesday unveiled far-reaching plans to
transform Europe into a computer-savvy society where every European would have access to the
Internet...
Yahoo/Reuters
NetTrends: Internet's Builders at the Choke Point
Anybody can put up a home page on the Web in a matter of minutes, but that doesn't mean that
e-commerce systems are going to be built with do-it-yourself kits...
Yahoo/Reuters
Self-Updating Virus Spreads on Web
A new breed of computer virus spreading through Internet chat rooms this week could let its creator
effectively control infected computers remotely...
Yahoo/Reuters
Digital Music Will Cost You
Distributing music over the Net costs
companies more, not less, and consumers
can expect to absorb the difference.
Record labels will start to let the music
flow in 2000...
Wired
Harvard seeks rights to own name in cyber suit
Just a week after the federal government outlawed trademark
"cyber-piracy," Harvard University is using the law to sue a Jamaica
Plain man who is accused of trying to reap a small fortune by selling Harvard
the Internet rights to its own name...
Boston Globe
More Domainz News
| 
27 August 99
