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Harford County officials have settled a lawsuit over the handling of a residential growth study by paying $25,000 to a lawyer who was denied a copy.Frank F. Hertsch, a Bel Air attorney, filed suit against the county in Circuit Court last summer after he requested a copy of the Legg Mason study, was told that all copies had been returned to Legg Mason and then was given one with portions blacked out.Hertsch -- who was seeking $200,000 in punitive damages in...

"SHAME ON the Baltimore County Public Library system," Pat Ercolano wrote in "Gallimaufry" on this page on Nov. 6.He was upset because the BCPL did not have a copy of "A Heartbeat Away," the 1974 Richard Cohen-Jules Witcover book about the investigation and resignation of Vice President (and former Baltimore County Executive) Spiro Agnew.By coincidence, on Nov. 3, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James Schneider had come up to George Beall at a legal function and informed him that he had just read "Heartbeat."

My Hewlett Packard DeskJet 2000C stopped printing, giving this error message: "Your black ink cartridge has expired." I installed a spare ink cartridge, but got the same message and could not print. HP software apparently reads a date code on cartridges and blocks their use after a set length of time. HP support said I could not bypass this. The best way to defeat such a software scheme that uses a computer's internal clock to enforce software copy protection or check expiration dates is to set the computer to a past year when the days of the week for every month fall on the same dates as this year.

Yesterday, winter arrived in Baltimore, with the sun shining and temperatures in the middle sixties. I really should have gone outside to rake up the remaining oak leaves from our neighbor's trees and do something about all those damned Higgs bosons, but I had holiday preparations to do. And today dawns Festivus. The aluminum pole is up in the living room. I am putting off the Feats of Strength, because later I will go to the paragraph factory to sit as the supervising editor on the news desk and shepherd through (and do a goodly amount of primary copy editing on)

Effective Sunday, Nov. 4, the suggested price of the Sunday editions of The Sun will increase from $1.25 to $1.50 for both single copy and home delivery customers. This increase is the first Sunday price change in almost four years.

An article in yesterday's Howard County edition of The Sun incorrectly stated that the county's Zoning Board charges $5 a page to copy a transcript. That rate is applied to the original transcript, and all other copies of that transcript cost 25 cents a page.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 12/18/98

"Sparking Brunches" is a free booklet room Codorniu, makers of methode champenoise sparkling wine, with menu tips and beverage serving information. For a copy, send a stamped, self-addressed, business-size envelope to: Codorniu Brunch, Department NS, Suite 1001, 400 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.* "Bananas. . .Nutrition by the Bunch" is a free brochure from Chiquita brands. For a copy, send a stamped, self-addressed, No. 10-size envelope to: Chiquita Nutrition Brochure, Myers CommuniCounsel, 11 Penn Plaza, Suite 1000, New York, N.Y. 10001.