Capitalization

[G S C]

Relative to the recent discussion of the use of capital letters in
software documentation, I thought that the following might be of
interest.  In an update patch from Microsoft, the EULA for the software
includes the following notes.  It is interesting that the statement
about capitalization follows a paragraph that is in all caps.
---------------------------------------------
"NOTE:  IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID EULA FOR ANY 'OS PRODUCT' (MICROSOFT
WINDOWS 95, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION
VERSION 4.0, AND/OR MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT SERVER VERSION 4.0), YOU ARE
NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

"Capitalized terms used in this Supplemental EULA and not otherwise
defined herein shall have the meanings assigned to them in the
applicable OS Product EULA."
-----------------------------------------------

BTW, Microsoft recommends that you consider installing the requisite
patch on your computer, if you are running either Windows 95 or Windows
98.  It is a 'buffer overrun' situation.  Quoting the bulletin from
Microsoft:  "Simply displaying the web page or e-mail message is
sufficient to cause the buffer overrun to occur."  There are other
details which might affect your decision.  For me, it was simply
download (a less than 200k file), install, reboot.

Information on the situation at:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/MS99-049faq.asp
Patch availability at:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-049.asp

The focus of this note is the issue of capitalization.  Other comments
are merely of an informative nature.

George S. Cole   gscole at ark.ship.edu
Shippensburg University