Tech Note | Daylight Savings Time

Thanks to changes enacted by the U.S. congress in 2005, Canada will be observing new Daylight Savings Time rules this year.

Daylight Savings Time will start three weeks earlier than usual on the second Sunday of March and end one week later than previously on the first Sunday in November.

Any electronic device programmed to change automatically for the old rules will have to be updated or manually adjusted. Without the change, your computer may have the wrong time stamp on mail, may schedule meetings at the wrong time, and may even have problems logging in to secure corporate networks.

Apple has implemented the change in Mac OS X 10.4.6 so if you are running this version or higher you will not be affected. (You can find out what version you are running by checking "About this Mac" under the Apple Menu).

As of February 15, 2007 Apple has patches for earlier versions Mac OS X 10.3 & 10.4 available.

Those running Mac OS X 10.2 or earlier will have to make the change manually FOUR times: Twice for the start of D.S.T. and twice for the end of D.S.T. e.g. They will have to change the time on the second Sunday of March and again on the April 1 after their older software automatically tries to adjust D.S.T. for the old rules.

For some of you however, dealing with Mac OS X may not be enough. If you use Entourage you could have some real problems scheduling meetings. Microsoft has updated Office 2004 for this in the latest update version 11.3.4. If your Entourage ties into a corporate Exchange Server then this update may have to be co-ordinated with your network administrator. And if you use an ealier version of Office like Office v.X you are out of luck since Microsoft will not be updating that product for the new rules.

Likewise, there can be timetabling issues in your future if you sync your computer calendar to a PDA or smartphone.

If you or your company are already a Precursor Support Customer it is likely that these changes have already been implemented on your computer.

However, if you have any questions or concerns we encourage you to contact Precursor Systems at your earliest convenience.