FRANK'S REVIEWS

for the NJPCUG

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Program:

NORTON 2000

[or My Adventures with Dick Clark]

by Symantec

 The lighted ball fell, right on time - Dick Clark stayed up late enough to show it to us.  The new year, new century and new millennium have arrived and the predicted calamities and disasters did not strike.  The world continues to turn and the trajectory of our lives still is measured by clocks and calendars, using systems dating back to - whenever, it was a long, long time ago.  Did your computer crash?  Did it act up?  Have you lost programs or data or is some of the data not quite correct anymore - and if you haven’t used all your programs and data how would you know?  Well, if you haven’t checked, you probably should, especially with older computers, older operating systems and older programs.  There might be one flaw waiting to catch you. 

Norton 2000 was developed to provide a coordinated, easy way to check our computer systems, find potential problems, fix some and advise of others.  As with all Norton products, the program is set up to do the work with a minimum of our involvement, un;less we want to be involved with the details which it also allows.  I used the program  expecting it to find much wrong with my computer and its software and files.  Instead, it found just a  few real problems which were easily fixed, confirming the information we received at earlier NJPCUG meetings.  Norton 2000 reviewed my computer system and gave me lots of data - generally  indicating most of my setup is OK4Y2K, but identifying those few cases where an update is needed. 

My BIOS is OK.  I have a Gateway 2000 computer with an AMI BIOS, purchased in June, 1996.  [Did you notice I am now using 4-digits to identify the year - better safe than sorry.]  Norton checked the BIOS for various dates and leap year conditions and gave me a clean bill of health.  If it had found a problem it could have fixed it.

  The CPU originally was a 120 Mhz Intel Pentium 1, but in December, 1998, I upgraded the speed with an Evergreen Technologies MXPro Upgrade kit which  replaced the CPU chip. The Evergreen web ite provided no information that I could find, but did offer to sell a Y2K fix-it upgrade.  Thank goodness for Norton 2000, it tested and told me all was OK. 

As discussed at the December meeting I am still using Windows 95, the original program Ver. 4.00.950.