Falling back is a lot more fun.
Time to Reset
By John Roach, special to MSN Tech & Gadgets
Daylight-saving time starts early this year. Are you and your gadgets ready?
Congress extended daylight-saving time by three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall as part of a broad energy savings bill passed in 2005. The changes go into effect this year and may catch many of us unprepared, experts warn.
Potential problems range from missed school buses and dentist appointments to botched stock trades and operating room procedures.
Some people simply are unaware of the pending change and will fail to advance their watches. Others will encounter glitches due to our growing dependency on time-sensitive gadgets.
So make a note—of the pen and paper sort—and stick it on the fridge.
Then check if your computers and other devices are ready for the change. Many will not be, so action and awareness are advised.
This isn’t Y2K all over again. Still, software developers have been overly lax about the pending change, explains Ray [censored], a Forrester Research analyst in San Francisco who has studied the potential impact of the new daylight-saving policy.
"People think ‘Oh yeah, we went through Y2K, it was no big deal so why should we worry about this?’ " [censored] says. "And instead, because we have been less strict about watching for these kinds of issues, it's more likely that something could be left out the wayside."
Crossed Schedules
Some software applications are aware of the impending time shift, but others aren’t, according to Dave Thewlis, executive director of CalConnect, a McKinleyville, Calif.-based organization that focuses on making calendar and scheduling software from different technologies work together.
For example, Thewlis says, some computer operating systems have already fetched patches, but they may not apply to applications such as desktop calendars, which need their own fix.
"The ultimate impact is that events are scheduled an hour off,†he says. “It's not as though computers are crashing or the heavens are falling."
Still, though, the consortium advises people who use a digital calendar system to double-check any events scheduled between March 11 and April 1, especially teleconferences with colleagues in foreign countries.
For example, London will be four hours ahead of New York, not the usual five, for two weeks beginning March 11. But when London springs ahead on March 25, the normal time gap will return.
Closer to home: Even if your desktop calendar works properly, is your dentist aware of the change? Call ahead and ask.
If the security system at work is programmed to automatically unlock the doors at 9 a.m., will they be locked when you arrive? Bring a book, just in case.
Time-regulated stock trades could go awry. Check in with your broker.
You could miss the end of an online auction. Log on an hour early.
More worrisome: Unaware medical equipment could note the incorrect hour for a time-sensitive procedure in the hospital operating room.
"If those things don't get shifted for whatever reason, the impact could be big," Thewlis says.
Get Ready
Many gadgets such as cell phones, cable TV boxes and DVRs (like TiVo) are tied into a network with a master clock that already has been updated with the new daylight-saving rules. When time springs forward, they won't miss a beat.
Other devices have internal clocks that are pre-programmed to automatically adjust for the start and end of daylight-saving time. But many of these, such as Microsoft operating systems prior to Windows Vista, obey the old rules.
Microsoft and other vendors have issued patches to update some software versions with the new rules, but unless you get the updates automatically over the Internet you'll need to download them from the vendors' Web sites.
According to [censored], even people who have updated all their different products with the appropriate patches may experience glitches if their applications need to work together.
There is no standard way applications track time and adjust for changes to the clock, he explains. "The key thing is to make sure you have a good patching and testing strategy."
Some gadgets, of course, have no fix.
For example, automatic coffee makers pre-programmed to follow the old daylight-saving rules will brew an hour late unless the clock is manually adjusted. You'll need to reset the clock again the first Sunday in April.
And then there are all the gadgets that always need a manual adjustment when daylight-saving time starts and ends—your wristwatch, clock radio and VCR, for example. This year is no different. Remember to set them forward on March 11.
Thewlis of CalConnect recommends people conduct an inventory of all their time-sensitive gadgets. Are they daylight-saving time sensitive? Are they updated for the new rules?
"Keep a close watch on it," he says.
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