Silicon's 'Survival Kit' offers Millennium blues relief

NEWS IT workers forced to work New Year's Eve now have the perfect way to pass the lonely hours while the rest of the world celebrates. Silicon.com's online 'Y2K Survival Kit' Web site went live today to cater for those of you who will spend the last hours of the century maintaining the UK's IT infrastructure and fending off the millennium bug. The site incorporates a range of services and features, including Yak2K - a chat forum allowing those with a similar fate to commiserate with others missing the party. There is a facility to order champagne, download music and play games - for example, the exclusive Y2K Excuse Generator. The now legendary Silicon.com Round-Up is also available - offering a festive rendition of this year's favourite IT news and issues. Jon Bernstein, editor of Silicon.com, said the site was designed after a Silicon email survey asked users what they'd like from a millennium Web site. "We wanted to make life a little more bearable for the 37 per cent of our viewers stuck in the office - so we came up with a Y2K survival kit with a difference." To add to the festive spirit, Silicon.com is running two competitions. Three winners will be selected to win £2,000 from 50-word entries titled "Why I deserve £2K", and there is a prize crossword to win 20 Sega Dreamcasts and tickets to the March Millennium Ball. The site can be found at http://www.silicon.com/millennium and will remain active until January - assuming the catastrophes predicted for the date change do not materialise.