BSMS Journal article - Autumn 1998

For the initial article I was provided with a few technical queries to answer:

As a newcomer to 'Windows' - will you please explain what Windows are

Windows actually relates to both a specific product name and a general term, much as the word Hoover has now effectively become a verb in its own right. In product terms Windows is a program produced by Microsoft that allows you to perform tasks on your computer by manipulating graphical images. For example if you use Windows 95 (or the newer Windows 98) you are presented with a series of 'icons' on the screen and a button with the word Start written on it. If you click the mouse while it is over the Start button then it will display a menu from which you can start specific programs such as a word processor. Each program is displayed in a window - that is it has a border around it and may only occupy part of the screen display area. This window can be stretched, shrunk, minimised, maximised and closed. The advantage of displaying applications within windows is that you can have several tasks running at the same time. You could, for example, have a word processor, a diary, and a spreadsheet open simultaneously. When you click on a window it is immediately brought to the front of the other windows so you have a full view of its contents.

What is the difference between an email network and the Internet? How confidential are they?

To the user, the means by which email is sent and received shouldn't really look any different whether it's through a private (e.g. hospital-wide) network or through the Internet. Security can be a concern in either case, but probably more so via the Internet. Not only can malicious hackers peek at mail that is being sent from one person to another but they can also send false mail i.e. mail that looks like it comes from a genuine other party. A knowledgeable network administrator can circumvent both of these problems by implementing additional security software.

What is a web page? What is involved in setting one up and how much does it cost?

A web page is a screen of information that is displayed from the Internet. To access the page you need to enter an Internet address into your browser, such as http://www.bbc.co.uk (which is the BBC). To create a simple web page you can use Microsoft Word for Windows, but the more sophisticated web pages that display changeable data (e.g. price lists) are usually written with professional development tools such as Microsoft FrontPage. In terms of costs you pretty much get what you pay for. At the cheaper end of the market you could open an account with CompuServe and pay about �8 per month, but for this price you do not get an address that is more cumbersome and that is less obvious at identifying you (for example, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/~fredbloggs). To set up your own site (e.g. http://www.fredbloggs.co.uk) you would need to pay to register your domain name (the fredbloggs.co.uk part), and this will cost about �80 per two years. To hire space on an Internet Service Provider's computer will cost approximately �100 per year, and to create an associated email account that uses your domain name will probably cost somewhere in the region of another �80. Prices vary greatly, and access times to different Internet Service Providers can vary greatly so it is worthwhile to shop around for prices and performance figures before you decide which company to go for.

What is the millennium bug, and how could it affect me?

In the early days of computing (i.e. up to about 4 years ago!) programmers were faced with the problem of trying to fit in as much data into as small an amount of computer memory as possible. It's easy to forget that computer memory was very expensive up until the last couple of years or so. One of the ways in which this memory requirement was reduced was to write a year value as a two digit number e.g. 98, instead of 1998. The key to this shortcut was, or rather still is, that the computer will always assume that it is the twentieth century. Therefore when the year 2000 comes round many of the older computers will assume that it is 1900 and act accordingly.

A simple example of the kind of problem that could occur is a pensions company. If a client was born in 1925 then the computer will deduce that the person is 73 years old (98 minus 25) and therefore qualifies for his/her pension remuneration this month. However when the year 2000 comes around the computer will calculate that the client is 0 minus 25, and is therefore minus 25 years old. Because the client is not yet older than 65 he/she cannot have retired and so does not qualify for the payment this month (or indeed for another 90 years). This example is a bit of an oversimplification but it demonstrates the point.

Most software and computer manufacturers have only really addressed this problem in the last couple of years, and so many of the computer programs currently in use around the world will not take the new century into account. The result will be that businesses (and surgeries) could suddenly find themselves with an unworkable computer system. To make matters worse the widespread nature of the problem will mean that the demand for computer technicians/programmers will be so great during the first few months of the year 2000 that it will be very difficult to get hold of anybody who can come in and fix your problem. If you know that your workplace has not addressed the problem yet then you should sound the alarm bells as soon as possible. If your computer is more than 2 years old then there is a good chance that it is not millennium compliant, and while Windows 95 is moderately compliant you are strongly advised to use Windows 98 or Windows NT. Anybody still using Windows 3.1 or, worse still, MS DOS will be almost guaranteed to have software that will fail.