Don’t Be Late For Daylight Savings Time

I am not sure if everybody is aware of this, but I learned about it by coincidence a few weeks ago and learned since then that it is a big deal. Maybe even bigger than the Y2K issue.

Meaning that the issue is there, solutions too and everybody who booked a ticket to the Y2K end of the world show can cancel the tickets for this event as well.

What am I talking about? The annual changing of time to daylight savings time and then back again to standard time.

In areas of the United States that observe Daylight Saving Time local residents will move their clocks ahead one hour when Daylight Saving Time begins.

As a result, their UTC or GMT offset would change from UTC -5h or GMT – 5h to UTC -4h or GMT – 4h.

In places not observing Daylight Saving Time (Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa) the local UTC or GMT offset will remain the same year round.

Background

On Monday August 8, 2005 President Bush signed into law a broad energy bill (Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. 109-58 / Sec. 110.)) that will extend Daylight Saving Time by four weeks in 2007. For everybody who the original write-up of the bill is a bit too heavy and prefers it a bit more light-weight, see the Wikipedia article to the bill.

Previously, in the United States, Daylight Saving Time began at 2:00 a.m. local time on the first Sunday in April. On the last Sunday in October areas on Daylight Saving Time return to Standard Time at 2:00 a.m.

The names in each time zone change along with Daylight Saving Time. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and so forth.

The provisions of the bill call for Daylight Saving Time to begin three weeks earlier on the second Sunday in March and end one week later on the first Sunday in November.

In 2007 when the provisions take effect Daylight Saving Time will begin on Sunday, March 11 2:00 am local time and end on Sunday, November 4, 2007 2:00 am local time instead of Sunday, April 1st (ironic) and Sunday, October 28th.

Short Version

Until 2007 (excluding 2007): DON’T DO anymore
Time change: +1h on the 1st Sunday in April (4/1/2007) and -1h on the last Sunday in October always at 2:00 a.m. local time (10/28/2007).

Starting 2007 and after: DO and continue to do so
Time change: +1h on the 2nd Sunday in March (03/11/2007) and -1h on the 1st Sunday in November always at 2:00 a.m. local time (11/4/2007).

Here are some interesting Pros and Cons to the extension of the Daylight Saving Time, which I found on the Internet.

Pros

• Energy Savings – will possibly save 100,000 barrels of oil daily. People will turn interior and exterior lights on later in the day which will save electricity. Lighting for evening sports events can be turned on one hour later.
• Recreation Time – people will have more time to enjoy outdoor activities such as golf, tennis and theme parks.
• Farming – many farmers work part time and will have an extra hour to work after they arrive home. Full time farmers may not benefit.

Cons

• School Children – will possibly wait in the pitch dark for the school bus. Example, in Louisville, Kentucky sunrise will occur at 8:01 on March 11, 2007, however, Louisville schools currently begin classes at 7:40 for middle and high school.
• Business – the airline industry claims it will cost millions of dollars to adjust schedules.
• Computers, Clocks and Gadgets – many electronic devices automatically adjust for day light saving time. Some of these devices will show incorrect times. Some computer software will have to be reprogrammed

Talking about Computers. I also received this week an Email from the Microsoft MSDN team that alerts developers to make sure that their software is ready for this unexpected time changes this year.

Applications that use .NET Framework classes, Visual C++ functions and the Windows API are affected. More information for Microsoft Developers here.

You can also find a very detailed support article titled: “Preparing for Daylight Saving Time changes in 2007” at the Microsoft Support site.

I actually recommend to visit that site first before your visit the special DST2007 site from Microsoft. If you are in IT, also download the MS Assessment Checklist here.

Following Microsoft products are affected:

• Microsoft Windows
• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft Office Outlook
• Microsoft Office Live Meeting
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Microsoft SQL Server Notification Services
• Microsoft Entourage

Microsoft created a special website with specific tips and Q&A to how this time change affects the individual Microsoft products. The Website is located at microsoft.com/dst2007

The IT magazine Computerworld did a poll beginning of this months asking their readers if their companies computer systems are ready for the new DST start date this year.

The results of the poll are:

• Yes – 41.5%
• No – 23.9%
• Not sure – 19.5%
• What change? – 11.3%
• Not in a DST zone – 3.8%

Total # Votes: 159

Not very promising. I would like to know if the people that voted “NO” or “Not Sure”, did read the Computerworlds featured article to that subject from a week earlier or not. That question can be answered with “no”, they did not for the people that voted “What change?”

If you are a normal computer user and not doing anything in IT, just make sure that your computer (operating system and applications, such as MS Office) have the latest updates installed. I would check that manually on Friday, March 9th. Go to http://update.microsoft.com/ and follow the instructions.

Don’t panic if some applications or tools act a bit strange after March, 11th. Keep looking for news and software updates.

Same for April 1st. It would be a nice April Fools Day joke if something would set the clock another hour forward because it believes to be time for it.

I think that the issue with 2nd switch on April 1st is much more likely to happen and see the running jokes about it already in my head hehe.

I have some unanswered questions though.

1. How does this affect Linux and Unix Systems?
2. Are updates available for the different distributions and apps?
3. How ready do you feel?

And here some more facts to Time Zones and time standards like UTC and GMT in general. I spend a bit time researching it and want to share the IMO most interesting facts with you.

Fact 1.
The United States uses nine standard time zones.

From east to west they are Atlantic Standard Time (AST), Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), Pacific Standard Time (PST), Alaskan Standard Time (AST), Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST), Samoa standard time (UTC-11) and Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10).

Fact 2.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used as the official world reference for time. Coordinated Universal Time replaced the use of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in 1972.

You will often see time zones represented similar to UTC – 5h or GMT – 5h. In this example the (-5h) refers to that time zone being five hours behind UTC or GMT and so forth for the other time zones.

UTC+5h or GMT +5h would refer to that time zone being five hours ahead of UTC of GMT and so forth for the other time zones.

Fact 3.
The usage of UTC and GMT is based upon a twenty four hour clock, similar to military time, and is based upon the 0degrees longitude meridian, referred to as the Greenwich meridian in Greenwich, England.

Fact 4.
Coordinated Universal Time is based on cesium-beam atomic clocks, with leap seconds added to match earth-motion time, where as Greenwich Mean Time is based upon the Earth’s rotation and celestial measurements. Coordinated Universal Time is also known Zulu Time or Z time.

What are your thoughts? Are you concerned or are you looking at this pretty cool and don’t see much problems coming up?

About Carsten Cumbrowski

Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur and Blogger. To learn more about me and what I am doing, visit my website and check out the “about” section.

Website: http://www.cumbrowski.com/

Twitter: ccumbrowski