Reader Mail: Books, Numbers, 2000 August 4, 1998February 6, 2017 SUCCESS! “I did a book search today with www.mxbf.com, which I got from one of your columns a while back, and saved over $150 on a used book order.” – Bill Nagler If the Postage Is Exorbitant, Just Fly There “I was so pleased to find an out-of-print book that I was looking for at Powell’s on-line (which you had alerted me to in an article on Amazon) that I wrote to tell you. Unfortunately, the thrill was short-lived — the book had been sold and Powell’s database had not yet been updated to reflect that sale. Because you published my response in a follow-up column I feel duty bound to tell you the happy ending. That same follow-up column also included a reader’s response touting www.bibliofind.com. There I found the book available at a single store in Sydney, Australia. The price in Australian dollars, $22, was about $14 in U.S. currency (better than Amazon, worse than Powell’s) but the shipping would likely have been too much. Luckily for me I was travelling to Sydney later that month. I e-mailed the store, they held it for me, and I picked up the book a couple weeks ago.” – Gilman Miller TELENUMEROLOGY “Here’s some additional information on your ‘700 Club’: Toll-free 877 numbers (not 887) are already available, they were released on April 4 of this year. There is a plan to continue with that type of numbering (866, 855, etc.) as numbers are gobbled up. 700 numbers, by the way, are defined as special use numbers and would be charged based upon the type of call that is being made. This is why you are seeing various stories from people who have used 700 numbers. One of the more common uses for 700 numbers are [sic] for high speed digital dial up data applications which may be video. It seems rather odd that a local carrier would block a 700 number, there have not been the same problems with 700 numbers as with 900 numbers because they are not the same type of call.” – Kevin C. Johnson, AT&T, Omaha, NE And from Dave M: “Bellcore no longer runs the North American Numbering Plan (NANPA). Now it’s Lockheed-Martin. They’ve got a website at http://www.nanpa.com/. It’s interesting if a bit jargon-y. They do have good area code maps, as well as a list of all the codes in numerical order and by state.” COMPLIANT AND COMPLACENT? From Brooks Hilliard, who I finally realized was not principal of a prep school, but principal in a consulting firm: I’ve written a report on the Year 2000 which I am hoping you will find helpful. To tell, ask yourself this question: suppose you had to shut down all your company’s computers for 24 hours and your competitors didn’t. How much business would you lose? How many critical deadlines or deliveries would you miss? How many of your best customers would desert you for more reliable suppliers? How about a week? … or a month, or six months? Well, Year 2000 is worse than that. Most of what’s out there on this issue is heavy on warnings and light on solutions. But this report contains practical advice on what your businesses must do NOW to keep operating and continue your cash flow. This means more than just making sure your PCs have the right chip in them. Check it out at http://www.bizauto.com/y2k.html for the whole story. Helping businesses cope with major computer and technology challenges is what we do for a living. A.T.: Yeah, yeah … but wouldn’t Brooks Hilliard make a great name for a prep school? Or a military academy? (“My kid’s at Brooks Hilliard. We are hoping he will get into Yale.”)