Drop anchor at Navy's Y2K site

Anyone wrestling with the Year 2000 problem in the federal government would do well to drop by the Navy Department's Year 2000 World Wide Web site (www.doncio.navy.mil/y2k/year2000.htm).

The site offers a cornucopia of general links to Year 2000 information as well as links specifically related to the computer date code problems of the Navy and the Marine Corps and to organizations working on the solution.

The site, hosted by the Navy's Office of the Chief Information Officer, provides one-stop shopping for Year 2000 information.

The categories on the crisply designed home page include Plans, Policy and Guidance— from the Defense Department and the Navy— and Reporting Requirements— from the Office of Management and Budget and DOD.

The site provides a wealth of information that includes points of contact throughout the military for people doing the grunt work in Year 2000

solutions. It also serves as a launch point for people working the date code problem in a number of specific categories, such as telecommunications, facilities, electric utilities and biomedicine.

Powerful and intelligent links are the hallmark of the Navy's Year 2000 site. The Navy folks smartly determined that they did not need to duplicate efforts, and their site steers users to the best places on the Web for information and answers to problems.

Have a PC clock problem? Click on the "Personal Computers" link under the "Testing and Tools" bar on the Navy's Year 2000 page and then on a link to a page titled "Year 2000 Compliant PC Internal Clock and BIOS," which is operated by Mitre Corp. It offers a rough grading sheet indicating how likely a manufacturer's PC is to be Year 2000-compliant.

Another destination from the "Personal Computers" section is a site operated by the Army Technology Integration Center, which offers some of the best advice for anyone grappling with Year 2000: "Don't panic."