Pavlov Scope

A little under the radar in 2005, the U.S. Congress extended the Daylight Savings Time (DST) rules for the United States (and some parts of our friends to the North adopted the same changes). The summarized version is that DST for areas that observe it is 4 weeks longer than before. It will start 3 weeks earlier (2nd Sunday of March – this year, March 11), and end 1 week later (first Sunday of November – this year, November 4). Here is the Wikipedia page explaining the specifics of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and how it affects DST.

Personally, I would have preferred to have DST extended on the back end – up here in New England when we go off of DST in the late fall, it starts getting dark @ 16:00 and in the dead of winter it is pitch black by 16:15.
However, I won’t look this gift horse in the mouth – which leads me to the problem for computing.

IT folks like myself have a unique issue similar to dealing with Y2K - for as long as PCs have existed, DST rules have been the same. However, unlike Y2K, this one should be less of an issue and most applications and operating systems allow for customized DST settings (locales throughout the world often observe non-standard rules based on borders with countries, other states, etc.).

For users like the “rest of the world,” this also presents some usability concerns of which everyone should take note. Professionals, students, etc. are increasingly reliant on their electronic calendars for keeping appointments, ToDo lists, meetings, etc. Those that “live by PIM” will need to note that when making appointments in March and April, the new rules will apply – and many people are already planning (or have planned) their Spring calendars which means this is a problem now (not just in March).

However, many IT shops have not yet deployed all the necessary updates / changes required to accommodate the new rules. Some systems are harder than others to update and this will take some time, especially in medium to large organizations.

Advice to users: Check with your IT staff about the status of the DST2007 changes in your environment now.

Advice to IT types: Begin your updates now if you haven’t already – To those that have already done the job, good job.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 and higher has been updated by Microsoft through the standard Windows Update methods. If you have turned off Automatic Updates or haven’t applied everything, please apply the patches now. If you are unsure, simply go to the Microsoft Update site and run the scan.

Windows XP SP1 and lower – Update your machine to Service Pack 2 for gosh sake – you are vulnerable to all kinds of ugly things.

Windows 2000-based machines and lower are currently unsupported by Microsoft (some larger organizations might have purchased “extended” support for these older operating systems). There is a big ugly method detailed and supported by Microsoft (referenced below for the obligatory link), but it is certainly not for the average user. Thankfully, a company named IntelliAdmin (a company that makes professional Windows administration tools) has published a free tool that updates your “older” Windows operating system for you with quick clicks.

• Click here for the link to the download page (the relevant download is about halfway down the page, first entry under the “Freeware” section).
  
• Click here for more information about the tool itself.
  
• Click here for Microsoft’s wonderfully painful workaround for older computers (ignore this if you wish to retain your sanity and just use the IntelliAdmin tool above ;-)
  
• RedHat Linux users should update your OS accordingly
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 users must update glibc
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 must update the tzdata package.
• Click here for information on updates for Novell SUSE Linux.
  
• Click here for Cisco’s Daylight Savings Time 2007 document.—- For most IOS-based systems, simply update the “summertime” command as follows:
  clock summer-time EDT recurring 2 Sun Mar 2:00 1 Sun Nov 2:00
  
  - where EDT above abbreviates Eastern Daylight Time (adjust accordingly for your Time Zone).
  
• For Lotus Notes / Domino shops, most versions now rely on the host operating system’s time source, but some platforms (e.g. AS/400 – iSeries) still must be manually adjusted. The easy workaround for Domino admins is to update the DSTLaw parameter (Notes.INI) using manual methods or a configuration document.
  • Manual method: Open a Server Console and type:
    SET CONFIG DSTLaw=3, 2, 1, 11, 1, 1
  • Configuration document: Open the Servers/Configuration view and open the Configuration document that applies to your server(s). Goto the NOTES.INI tab of that document and click the “Set/Modify Parameters” button at the bottom of that page. Choose (or add) the
    DSTLaw
    parameter in the Item field, and make the value:
    3, 2, 1, 11, 1, 1
    Press Add, then OK, then Save & Close that document.
    
• Click here for Microsoft’s full page of information of all DST2007-related changes required. For you Exchange and Outlook types, pay specific attention since updating the underlying OS is not enough.
  
• Click here for Sun’s Java updates and information affecting Java programmers, users of Java-based applications, etc.