This post at Ken Layne's enticed me to buy Roger L. Simon's out-of-print books on the Internet.

The site where you buy offers several formats. I e-mailed Mr. Simon, who graciously responded quickly, about which would be the best format to choose. He replied that any would probably work, but the easiest might be Adobe Acrobat. We googled a bit about other formats, and finally decided on MS Reader.

We downloaded the program as per instructions. We have hit a snag. Before making a purchase the user must "activate" the program. Well and good. The instructions are simple and they flow right up to the point where activation should take place. The Microsoft activation server is down. It has been down since this time yesterday afternoon.

So who handles the server?

And where are my Roger L. Simon books?