SBT editor
While the year 2000 computer bug issue may pose gloom and doom for millions of businesses, it’s comforting to know that those of us in the publishing business are pretty much immune from the problem – at least the majority of us who rely on Apple computers.
Apple computers will not die when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. The company’s Macintosh computers have always had the ability to transition past the year 2000, Apple reports.
Apple says its Mac operating systems can correctly represent dates through the year 2040, and that its date-and-time utility covers dates to the year 29,940.
Owners of some older, non-Macintosh Apple II models who use old operating systems, however, will have to update their operating systems.
A further advantage of Apple computers is their ability to recognize that Feb. 29, 2000 does exist. The year 2000 is a leap year and, apparently, many computers aren’t programmed to accept Feb. 29 that year as a valid date.
While the Mac operating systems are basically free of the year 2000 problem, some software Mac operators use may be affected. Those include the popular Microsoft Word and Excel programs. Excel, for example, doesn’t realize that Feb. 29, 2000 exists. And, depending on the version of Word being used, that software could force your computer to lock up or fail to locate files dated beyond Dec. 31, 1999.
One of Microsoft Websites, at www.microsoft.com/CIO/articles/Y2K_issues&solutions.htm, has more on the problems and what to do to correct them.
Uhen’s Eppstein Uhen architectural firm is working on the new Miller Park to replace County Stadium. Like its predecessor, Miller Park is expected to be the marvel of Major League Baseball. One impressive factor will contribute to that: the retractable roof. The process of putting up that roof will be a marvel, too. Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi, which is building the roof, will bring in what is believed to be the largest crane in the world. When assembled here this summer, the crane will rise more than 400 feet. For people familiar with downtown Milwaukee, that’s as tall as the 1000 East building on North Water Street.
“It has been my experience that various competent business and management personnel forget to listen to their own physical and emotional stress clues and do not receive help until they start feeling overwhelmed or physically ill,” Sanderson says on the issue of physical disasters striking businesses.
That stress can express itself in gastro-intestinal pain, muscle aches and spasms, headaches, depression and other systems that, Sanderson says, are ways the body is telling you “get help.”
So when Illinois businessman Neal Borkin informed us that he’s developing a 1,320-acre parcel with 2-1/2 miles of frontage on a lake just north of Eagle River in the Upper Peninsula, our eyebrows rose. Who has and who is willing to sell such a sizable property? It was the Angeli family which operates grocery stores in the Iron River area.
Borkin’s Iron Hills Resort will be a mixed-use development, with a KOA campground, Country Inn hotel, individual homes for rent and sale, health-club facilities, golf, a sports village. A number of lots will also be sold for home building. For all that, he expects to employ about 150 people.
April 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
