Cell phone

Most cell-phone networks use local time when they communicate with customer phones. Since they don’t use Greenwich Mean Time, there’s no conversion. As long as the companies make the switch, every phone on the network should, too.

Palm or Treo Smartphone

There’s no problem for users of the newer Treo Smartphones. They automatically use local time from the cell-phone network. If the network updates, your Smartphone should, too.

Users of other Palm machines, including early Treos, Palm Zires, Tungsten, Lifedrives and early Palm and Handspring PDAs, can update the DST rules by hand in the CityTime or WorldClock application. Select the city list and choose “Edit List.” Select your home town and change the settings for daylight-saving time.

Blackberry

Research In Motion, makers of Blackberry wireless devices, has created an informational page at www.blackberry.com/dst2007. Patches are available for download to fix any DST problems.

Macintosh

Users of the newest version of Mac OSX, version 10.45, should have no problem. Support for the DST change was included. Apple Computer is urging users with older versions of Mac OSX to upgrade to the latest edition.

Microsoft Office for the Mac 2004 users can download a patch from www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx.

Microsoft

Microsoft has created a Web page at www.microsoft.com/DST2007 to help its users keep up with the DST change. It includes links to patches for Windows XP, Vista, Outlook and Windows Mobile. Users of older systems – Windows 95, Windows 98 and the Millennium Edition – need to disable automatic switching and spring forward by hand:

1. Click the Start button and then click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Date/Time in the Control Panel.

3. In the Date/Time window, click the Time Zone tab.

4. If checked, click to clear the “Automatically adjust clock for daylight-saving changes” box.

4. Click the Date/Time tab and manually adjust the system time to the correct day and time. Click OK to finish.

5. Repeat twice a year, prior to the second Sunday in March and on the first Sunday in November.

Taking the simple out of daylight-saving time
Computer users should be looking for patches to fix DST bug

Daylight-saving time used to be easy: Move your clock hands forward an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall.

It got even easier with whiz-bang clocks and computers designed to make the seasonal shift on their own. You didn’t have to think about it.

Until Congress created a glitch.

Lawmakers passed an energy bill in 2005 that expands daylight-saving time by about a month, beginning this year. It comes three weeks earlier in the spring, moving from the first Sunday in April to March 11, and is extended one week in the fall.

Those changes effectively break many of the systems designed to make the switch automatically. Users may have to download software patches or simply go back to springing forward by hand.

“My big concern now is making sure the state’s e-mail system is patched,” said Dan Walters, director of enterprise computer applications for the state of Maine. “Once we patch the main server, it should fix all the desktops as well, so none of our state users should have to worry about it.”

Smaller-scale users – including home computer owners – shouldn’t fear, he said. Computer-makers are aware of the problem and have created software patches that fix the glitch.

Systems that automatically update – wall clocks, watches, digital weather stations and desktop computers – usually get some sort of signal tuned to Greenwich Mean Time. It can come over the Internet, through a cellular network or via the National Institute of Standard’s microwave signal.

Getting the signal is the first step. Next, the computer or clock must convert that signal to local time. The user never has to worry about it unless the clock or computer is moved to a new time zone.

Switching for daylight-saving time is supposed to be just as automatic. Clocks and computers keep track of the date as well as the time and move forward or back an hour depending on the time of year. It happens smoothly, unless the definition of daylight-saving time changes.

The solution could be as simple as flipping a switch or changing a setting to make everything spring forward on March 11.

One example is the AutoSet wall clock manufactured by Seth-Thomas. It uses a lithium-powered clock and calendar to keep track of daylight-saving time, but early versions have the date permanently set to the first Sunday in April.

The company began selling updated clocks, with a switch in the back, late last year. People who bought clocks two years ago are being told to disable the automatic DST feature and change the time by hand every six months from now on.

Rival La Crosse Technology claims its radio-controlled clocks and weather station will still adjust automatically.