Daylight Saving Time - Board Reminder

Today, 4/03, is the day in the US that most of us set out clocks ahead an hour to Daylight Saving Time.

There is no automatic function (that I know of) to set the board time to do that, so even though Bill Gates and Microsoft may have fixed your little clock in the lower right, you might be an hour off on your Board Time (upper right corner of the main index page).

To set it, go into the Profile link at the top of any Forum page, scroll down to the option to adjust your time zone and pick the correct one.

For me, on the East Coast, I picked GMT -4 hours. That means that I'm four hours behind the Standard world-time in Greenwich, England (London time).

During our cold weather months, in the States we go back to Standard Time, setting back our clocks one hour to restore some daylight to the morning hours when kids are going to school. During that period, I'll set the Board time to GMT -5 hours to have it be correct.

Your posts will work whether you set the time or not, it's just that it might not be as easy to tell what time posts were made.

Harry
...and don't forget to check the batteries in your smoke detectors too, online...

If the gang at phpBB ever gets the new version up and running, it will have a "lookup table" so you can set your time zone and it will show the correct time when we change from standard to daylight, and back again.

So with the exception of those of you in Arizona (Juan O), Hawaii and parts of Indiana, you're all an hour closer to me as of today! Hope you enjoyed the move.

--Mr Bill

Actually, Indiana started a new change in their time. ALL of Indiana now had to change time, which seemed to have upset quite a few people. I talked with my cousin who lives in southern Indiana and it's going to take time to adjust. They never had to physically change their clocks before. They just switched from the Central Time Zone to the Eastern Time in the winter, then back to Central in the spring. The big joke is that no one remembers how to change the clocks on their VCR's!



Capt. Bacardi

Reminder for this year: If you have your computer or VCR etc set to "automatically reset" for DST, you'll need to disable that function before DST kicks in next year, because from now on DST will start earlier and end later to "Save Energy." You'll have to change the time on your vaiorus devices manually. Computers and other "connected" devices like cellphones and TiVos etc. may adapt to the changes with no problem, but be aware...be very aware!

It's possible that Microsoft will adjust the time zone properties of XP and their other currently-supported operating systems. I believe the Windows XP uses a registry key to work with DST time changes, so I'd imagine that Microsoft will send out an update to our computers with one of their automatic patches in the upcoming months.

Certainly Windows 98 and before won't have that luxury, so any old computers will have to be adjusted manually for an extra three weeks in the spring, and one extra week in the fall.

How Linux, Apple, and other OS's handle it is beyond me.

VCR's as Mike suggests, being "old technology" will have to be adjusted manually. Some VCR's and DVD recorders work on time pulses that come from (mostly) PBS stations, so they may still set properly.

Many cell phones get their time from the provider's signals, so they should continue to operate properly.

Harry
NP: Richard Carpenter's TIME

MS will probably push out an update to XP to change the DST parameters. I know that with my time synchronization software, the clock will be adjusted even if XP were to miss it (which it hasn't yet).

Cell phones will update from the cell towers. We watched for our cell phones to change when we drove out to Colorado--they change when you hit the first cell tower in the new time zone.

Of course, our atomic clocks will update by themselves. I don't think I can stay awake that late anymore.

I guess what I should have said is, be sure to CHECK your devices next year when the changes go into effect.