HIGH TECH CORNER: DID YOU GET BIT BY Y2K?

I hope that no major Y2K issues have affected your life at this start of the new Millennium. But I have already had calls from friends whose BIOS in their computer were not Y2K compliant. Consequently, some boxes were not booting while others were driving their applications mad. Now it is possible to upgrade your bios if you really need to save a dollar. The Web site www.bios.com sells BIOS upgrade chips that could refurbish that older computer. The only other solution is to get a new computer. The advantages of a new computer will include newer, faster, and fewer parts, plus the addition of connectors like USB (Universal Serial Buss), which is the direction that all new external devices are going. With USB you can plug in scanners, CD Recorders, Video Capture devices and more.

Even more scary than hardware problems is all the new viruses that have been released on Jan 1. This does not mean that all these new viruses started going out over the internet on Jan 1, but that they have been lying around on your computer sleeping waiting until the big day to hit your system with all kinds of nasty results. This can be anything from deleting all your files on your hard drive to sending virus to any contacts in your e-mail list so please update your virus protection weekly.

The number one new electronic toy under the Christmas tree this year was the DVD player. DVD's are copy protected which was thought to be a very tough code to break. Well, some Norwegian hackers, calling themselves the Masters of Reverse Engineering, recently released DeCSS a program that will allow you to copy on your PC any DVD including the new DVD Audio CD's that will start shipping this summer from pioneer. The reason that this program was initially created was to create a DVD playback application for Lynix, which until now had no way to play DVD's on its OS. The application with its full source migrated the net to become a DVD copy application for Windows. Naturally, a lawsuit has followed to prohibit any Web page from having the DeCSS application and its source on its server. A Superior Court Judge currently has a restraining order out to prohibit forced removal of the software from web-based servers at the current time.

E-commerce took a big jump this Christmas with people shopping on the web. I did all my shopping this year on the web with no problems. The most common question that I hear is; is it safe to use your credit card on the net? The answer is YES IT IS. You can dispute any misuse of your credit card by someone on the net. Simply call the card company and let them know that you dispute the charge and don't pay on the charge. The worst case is a maximum of $50 liability, which I have never had, happen. When shopping keep in mind that the bigger the company you are shopping with, like Amazon.com, the fewer potential problems you will have. Be sure that when you shop online that the WebpPage is SSL secured. You will see the little lock in the lower right corner of your browser. This encryption method from VeriSign encodes all data between your computer and the web page you are shopping on, allowing you to shop with confidence that all your credit card data as well as personal data is secure. As always if you have any comments or questions please contact me at rich@digitallabs.com

Rich Comeau is a electronics scientist and owner of Digital Labs of Cape Girardeau.