Y2K07 disaster approaching

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Chizip

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The Race to Update Tech Gear by 3/11/07

Does Your Computer Know That Congress Changed Daylight-Saving Times?

By VAUHINI VARA and ROBERT A. GUTH

Lawmakers have lengthened daylight-saving time so that it will begin three weeks earlier this year than it used to. The idea is to shrink the hours between sunset and bedtime so that people will reduce the amount of electricity they use at home, thereby saving energy.

Now try explaining that to your computer.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005, meant to improve energy efficiency, included an item that called for "springing ahead" earlier than usual and "falling back" later than usual starting in 2007. That means daylight-saving time will now begin on the second Sunday of March instead of the first Sunday of April.

But the programs that run on personal computers and handheld devices such as BlackBerrys were built assuming that daylight-saving time would always kick in on the same weekend. The upshot: To avoid broader time-related troubles, some computer users will now have to scramble to update their software programs' internal clocks.

we all know the disaster that occurred last time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8az6m8qgYeI

hopefully it doesnt happen again :(
 
Does my computer know?

Hell, I didn't even know until we got an email from IT about the approaching change.

Was it on the news at all that daylight savings time was changing? I would have thought that would be big news.
 
We're working on communication materials for a major issue that is most likely going to affect our campus. We use Novell GroupWise for e-mail and calendaring. Once we implement a certain Windows DST patch on our servers, all calendar appointments made before the time the patch goes live for the dates that the new DST affects (2 in March and 1 in Nov) risk being 1 hour off. Not that big of a deal for someone like me, but for our admin assistance that do all the calendaring and scheduling of our VPs, Deans, Provost, and President that could mean a LOT of extra work.
 
martha said:
My Mac software update had something for this. So I said yes to the download and install.

:heart: Mac :heart:


:yes: Same here. I also had no idea about DST being moved up...:shrug:
 
onebloodonelife said:
I also had no idea about DST being moved up...:shrug:

I did. :mad: Apparently no one in Congress is old enough to remember when they tried something similiar to this :cough: 30+ :cough: years ago. I walked to school in the dark because some nimrod thought that extending DST all year might somehow "save energy." All it made us do was turn on more lights in the morning. :rolleyes:
 
martha said:


I did. :mad: Apparently no one in Congress is old enough to remember when they tried something similiar to this :cough: 30+ :cough: years ago. I walked to school in the dark because some nimrod thought that extending DST all year might somehow "save energy." All it made us do was turn on more lights in the morning. :rolleyes:

:hug: This isn't going to turn into one of those "I walked to school, it was 35 miles, in 10ft. snow, in the dark, uphill." stories, is it? :wink:
 
corianderstem said:
Does my computer know?

Hell, I didn't even know until we got an email from IT about the approaching change.

Was it on the news at all that daylight savings time was changing? I would have thought that would be big news.

It was semi-big news when congress passed it, but then I suppose some celebrity died and it all got pushed aside.

If congress would stop trying to manipulate time by playing Einstein, they could effect some real energy savings by not only mandating more compact fluorescent use, but also mandating some recycling programs for the used bulbs. I take for granted that people don't have access to places to recycle the used CFL bulbs (since they contain some Mercury).

Mark
 
onebloodonelife said:


:hug: This isn't going to turn into one of those "I walked to school, it was 35 miles, in 10ft. snow, in the dark, uphill." stories, is it? :wink:

:shifty:

It was only one mile.

But there were no sidewalks, and we weren't allowed to wear pants to school.

And it did to snow.


But all of that was when I was in Omaha in 196:cough:

The whole daylight-savings time BS was out here in Cali in 197:cough:
 
martha said:


:shifty:

It was only one mile.

But there were no sidewalks, and we weren't allowed to wear pants to school.

And it did to snow.


But all of that was when I was in Omaha in 196:cough:

The whole daylight-savings time BS was out here in Cali in 197:cough:

:lol: I live in Minnesota...so I understand the snow :)
 
So we had our morning dept meeting today and everyone goes around the table briefing everyone else on current issues. When the whole "DST throwing off calendaring" issue came up, people were either laughing (anticipating how annoying this will be for us) or quite pissed. This is going to be a royal pain in the arse.

And it WILL affect Macs. It's not a problem with our GroupWise system b/c it also affects MS Exchange and Outlook.
 
martha said:
I know it'll affect Macs, but I've already downloaded the software update. :)

This is different. The upcoming DST patch itself is actually what causes the calendars to be incorrect. The patch that Apple distributes is just for the computer, but these patches affect the mail servers and computers. For our Mac users that use these applications, the Apple-issued patch won't help, just as any Windows patches won't help PC users, since all their mail and calendar items are stored on servers.
 
Last edited:
:lol: I don't think mail will be missed, I just think that the time sent next to it will be an hour off :shrug: Not a big deal to me.


Y2K was a huge underwhelming experience, wasn't it? I was hoping for something big to happen, but it didn't :grumpy:
 
onebloodonelife said:
So, okay, what's the worst that's going to happen? Times will be an hour off?

If you use Novell GroupWise (and we are told MS Exchange and/or Outlook, though we don't use or support these) and your IT administrators apply the DST patches to the servers and computers, any appointment you've made until the time of the patch, for the weeks between the old and new DST dates may be an hour off. This will also through off PDA devices that use sync apps to sync w/ your GroupWise or Outlook calendars. To my knowledge it has no affect on e-mail, only calendaring in these applications.

It's going to be bad for us b/c I work for a college and now tons of people will be complaining about this or not read the instructions on avoiding the problem and then waste our time later on. We have people in academic and administrative offices whose jobs exist mainly for calendaring and scheduling (the assistants to the VPs, academic Deans, college President, human resources, etc).

I doubt this will affect you or Martha; if it did you'd already be told by your IT people. I was simply stating that if you DO use these systems, just installing the Apple-issued patch is not going to help b/c this is a larger issue than just adjusting for DST on an OS X Mac.
 
My understanding is you should be fine. The network operations guys said nothing about e-mail. I really don't use calendaring more than I'm required to so I'm not even sure why it matters, but if you don't either than we should both be ok.
 
I dont care I'm excited about this. I LOVE when it stays light out longer :drool:
 
onebloodonelife said:
We use Outlook for our online email access, but not for calendars or appointments.

I take this back, we got an email today from the IT department about some update that will fix calendaring and appointments in Outlook. I've never even noticed a calendar feature in there anyway :shrug: but apparently, somebody's using it.
 
Sicy said:
I dont care I'm excited about this. I LOVE when it stays light out longer :drool:

:yes:

I hate going to work in the dark and then going home in the dark, especially since we have no windows at work.
 
I hadn't heard anything about this time change. Glad to see congress taking care of the important issues

:angry:

More daylight :drool:
 
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