Sparkz Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 I read an article in the paper about something that completely caught me off guard, and I don't think many other people know about it so I thought I would share. In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which changes the dates of daylight saving time. Reasons are that energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up. Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day. Here's a summary of the changes: Previously DST started on: First Sunday of April (4/1/2007) With the new law, DST will start on: Second Sunday of March (3/11/2007) Previous DST ended on: Last Sunday of October (10/28/2007) With the new law, DST will end on: First Sunday of November (11/4/2007) This will most likely get more press as March 11 gets closer, but I thought I'd put it out there in case anyone didn't know. Apparently, the airline industry is NOT happy with this change, as they are having to make a lot of IT updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whooter Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 The question is: Will Windows know that DST has changed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris F Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 At my hospital we're having to patch all of our servers to be compliant with this change. We've done most already, but some of our vendors will have to take care of their own servers, and some of them aren't even sure what they're planning on doing yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnemaEms Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 The question is: Will Windows know that DST has changed? MS already sent us an update about this. And by Update I mean they are working on it. -Dean- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisBardon Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 The question is: Will Windows know that DST has changed? I remember hearing at one point that XP will, but 2000 won't (since it's end of life). Needless to say, there are a LOT of W2K installs out there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelley Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 The question is: Will Windows know that DST has changed? OS X already does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whooter Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 OS X already does. Great, so all six of you will have the proper time when it happens... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenMonkey Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I remember hearing at one point that XP will, but 2000 won't (since it's end of life). Needless to say, there are a LOT of W2K installs out there... I seem to recall an email out in our IT group about working out a fix for all the NT 4.0 servers. There's a lot of 'em still. I'm confused on the net gain/loss here. Is it more hours of darkness when you're home, or less? :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James T Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 And it only took me 20 years to remember that DLS occurs on the last Sunday of October/first Sunday April. I guess the only solution is make sure I have nothing planned for every Sunday for the next 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 Or move to someplace that doesn't bother with Daylight Savings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisBardon Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I seem to recall an email out in our IT group about working out a fix for all the NT 4.0 servers. There's a lot of 'em still. Really? Wow, that's pretty surprising. I can see sticking with 2000, but NT4?I know that a lot of Government is still on 2000 though, and there are still people out there running 98 (or 95) so I suppose anything is possible. If the time is really that critical, can't you just use a domain based time sync app (which you probably have anyway) and have the change propagate out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 The thing that bugs me is... if this is going to cause such a great savings... why the hell wasn't it this way before?!!? And why don't we just turn the clocks by half an hour and leave it there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PackFan Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I live in Arizona so - who cares!?! Actually, it affects calling friends and family out of state - because of the time difference changing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weremichael Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I live in Arizona so - who cares!?! Actually, it affects calling friends and family out of state - because of the time difference changing. I'm glad my wife graduated from Grad School so we could get out of Tucson. I hated it when the sun would rise at 4:00 am and you have to be at work at 9:00. We lived in a 1920s apartment that had a ton of windows facing the north (great view of the Santa Catalinas) and the east so as soon as the sun was up, so was I. Couple that with being a bike commuter, by 8:00 am it's already hot so you just don't catch a break. Give me Daylight Savings Time any time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Monkey Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I'm against clock touching. Down with DST! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsrunner Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 Daylight Savings Time sucks. I'm so glad I moved to Arizona six years ago. Its so nice not having to change the clock. Of course, oddly enough I had the opposite problem people usually have with DST. I bought a new alarm clock at Wal-Mart, one of those self-setting ones (and by the way, that creeps me out, how does it do that?), and it just so happened to automatically adjust for DST. I found that out on Monday (don't use the alarm clock on Sundays) when the clock had jumped ahead an hour, making it 9, but it was really still 8 in Arizona. Now why the hell did they sell that clock in a non-DST state? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James T Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 I'm against clock touching. Down with DST! The funny thing is that I didn't change my wall clock last spring. I'd see my sister probably once a month. So it took her until October to get used to the clock. When November came around, she got so used to clock that it screwed up her schedule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cathartic Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Yeah - my company is going through a major effort to deal with this change as well. Patches for Unix, Windows servers, Windows desktops, Sybase and Oracle databases, JRE, Citrix... you name it, they've got a patch for it. I really wonder what the bottom-line cost to my company is for the entire effort. We have been having Daylight Savings Time meetings at least twice per week for the past 3-4 weeks. Each of those meetings involves no fewer than 50 people (in-person and via conference call) - probably more. The cost of the time spent by resources in the meetings alone, (assuming you figure the low estimate of 50 people at 2 hours per week and a conservative average salary of 60,000)... is over $3000 per week just for meetings (and that doesn't count the cost for the conference call itself). Now granted, that's not a lot of money for a company the size of mine, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. That doesn't include the countless hours that people spent: analyzing their applications, determining whether a DST snafu would have a critical impact on their applications; testing/certifying the patches provided by the various vendors, documenting everything in Quality Center for audit purposes, etc. Then - multiply this by all the companies across the country that had to deal with this - all for a couple extra weeks worth of DST? What was the cost to the entire country? I'm sure someone has estimated it, and I'm sure the figure is huge. To me, it's like a mini Y2K all over again - only stupider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenMonkey Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Really? Wow, that's pretty surprising. I can see sticking with 2000, but NT4?I know that a lot of Government is still on 2000 though, and there are still people out there running 98 (or 95) so I suppose anything is possible. If the time is really that critical, can't you just use a domain based time sync app (which you probably have anyway) and have the change propagate out? Well, I dunno. Microsoft stuff is supported by IBM instead of inhouse support. I dunno what precisely they're doing. Not my problem, I guess When you work for a multimillion dollar mega-corporation there tends to be a lot of old computers always lurking around. I work VMS support (ancient OS). A lot of our boxes our 90mhz with 64MB or 128MB RAM, whoo hoo! I'm moving across the street to be higher level Tech Management next week so I'm sure I'll hear about it. I know VMS has a daylight savings time mechanism, but IIRC some time-sensitive plant applications require manual shutdown and time changing. I hear that Y2K for VMS was a joke because VMS has always done 4-digit years (VMS time format: 02-FEB-2006)- there was almost nothing that needed changing. I doubt this will be that bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparkz Posted February 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 I received an interesting corporate wide note from our CIO this morning warning that there is a potential risk that some Outlook calendar notices could be off by an hour between March 11 to April 1. They are patching all desktop computers before DST begins, but the patches will not fix meetings already on calendars prior to patching. Don't know how many of you depend on Outlook for your work schedules, but if you do, I thought I'd pass on the warning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris The Rock Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 I received an interesting corporate wide note from our CIO this morning warning that there is a potential risk that some Outlook calendar notices could be off by an hour between March 11 to April 1. They are patching all desktop computers before DST begins, but the patches will not fix meetings already on calendars prior to patching. Don't know how many of you depend on Outlook for your work schedules, but if you do, I thought I'd pass on the warning. The place where I work did this too. We use Lotus Notes. They suggested putting the Time and time zone in all the Subjects of meeting notices that are / were created before the patch goes out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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