Error Message - Daylight-saving time comes early this year. Are your gadgets ready? If so, click . . .

Error Message - Daylight-saving time comes early this year. Are your gadgets ready? If so, click . . .
By Mike Hughlett
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published March 9, 2007

You may be set to spring forward Sunday and enjoy more evening sunshine courtesy of daylight-saving time. But your computer might not be.

While humans moved up the start of daylight-saving time this year, millions of machines--cell phones and video recorders, too--were programmed to mark the event in early April.

Techies throughout the country have been working feverishly in recent weeks to fix the glitch. It's a job that will cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.

Experts predict the fixes largely will succeed, meaning most people won't notice a thing.

Still, those who rely on their computer calendars may have to do a little work to ensure their schedules stay up to date. And some folks are bound to show up an hour late for a Sunday brunch or Monday morning meeting.

But the "DST" glitch isn't nearly as portentous as the Y2K bug, which unleashed global fears that computers would crash as 1999 segued into 2000.

"What this is going to be is a minor annoyance for people," said Jeffrey Hammond, a software analyst at Forrester Research. "If you see a device that's not going along with your watch, trust your watch."

Analysts say a lot of fixes are being done automatically by companies with central control over devices.

For example, wireless networks will automatically update the clock on their customers' cell phones. Comcast will do the same for digital video recorders, so no one who intends to record "King of Queens" at 6:30 p.m. Sunday will get a Billy Graham special at 7:30 instead.

But some systems, particularly those that are a little older, will require that owners go to a Web site to download a patch.

Congress decided in 2005 to move up daylight-saving time from the first Sunday of April to the second Sunday of March. The idea: More evening daylight would lead to energy savings.

Computers and other electronic gizmos made since 2005 take into account the switch. For instance, if you have a desktop computer with Microsoft's new Vista software, you need not worry.

However, millions of people have older versions of Microsoft's ubiquitous software. "There will be some challenges with both individuals and businesses," said Jim Desler, a Microsoft spokesman.

Microsoft already has sent automatic time updates to machines running on XP S2. But people using older Microsoft systems will have to go to a Microsoft Web site to download a software patch.

And even if a computer does run on Windows XP S2, Microsoft recommends downloading its "Outlook TimeZone Update Tool" if you use your computer's Outlook calendar.

A messed up electronic calendar is likely to be the average person's biggest headache, and not just on the PC.

Calendars on mobile phones that use Microsoft software could be affected. Ditto for the popular BlackBerry device, which runs on a system proprietary to its maker, Research In Motion Ltd.

For those who got their BlackBerry independently, not through their employer, RIM suggests a manual fix. Directions are on RIM's Web site.

Most BlackBerry users get their devices through their employer, so they probably do not need to worry. That's because employers will likely take care of the problem through a centralized computer system.

The daylight-saving switch has given corporate tech departments a fair amount of work.

t's not been huge, but it's not been trivial," said Steve Betts, chief information officer of U.S. infrastructure at Aon Corp.

The Chicago-based insurance brokerage has 43,000 employees worldwide spread across 500 offices, making for lots of PCs and BlackBerries to cope with.

Betts and others at Aon have been working since the end of January on "a program of patching" to make sure calendar appointments, for one thing, will properly transfer. "We're in pretty decent shape," Betts said.

For industry, if the time glitch is left unfixed, all sorts of time-pegged things could be affected.

Take an example from the cell phone business.

With a wireless plan from Sprint, customers pay less for calls made at 7 p.m. than at 6 p.m. If Sprint didn't patch its internal system, a call made at 7 would be billed as a call made at 6. (Sprint says rest assured; it has accounted for this issue.)

The daylight-saving glitch has forced companies to temporarily redirect their tech departments. That's costly, both in time and money.

A medium to large corporate tech department has probably commissioned two to four people to fix the glitch, said Hammond, the Forrester analyst. Those workers have put in about two weeks on the task--about $50,000 in labor costs on average, he said.

At the nation's publicly traded companies alone, the total cost to patch the glitch is $300 million to $350 million, Hammond estimates.

And those companies may get a chance to do it all over again. If substantial energy savings from the new daylight-saving time aren't realized, Congress can switch back to the old date.

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Staff reporter Eric Benderoff contributed to this story.

mhughlett@tribune.com

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If fix not automatic, Web sites can help

Q. How will the early start of daylight-saving time on Sunday affect my home computer and devices?

A. Many computers, hand-held devices and online calendars are programmed to recognize daylight-saving time as the first Sunday in April. The new March 11 start might throw calendars off by an hour. Daylight-saving time will be extended a week in the fall, to the first Sunday in November.

Q. What do I do?

A. Most software vendors have sent automatic upgrades to computers, home networks and devices. If you are not sure whether you have received them, go to the Web sites of the technology companies and download the software patch at no charge. TiVo and cable companies say they have repaired their technologies.

Q. What if I don't fix everything?

A. People who use online calendars, particularly shared ones, may notice meetings are off an hour. And the display clock on the computer will be off until April 1, when the old daylight-saving time begins. Technology companies predict that everything should continue to operate normally.

Q. Where do I go if I need help?

A. For personal computers, the following sites offer assistance:

Microsoft.com/dst2007

Docs.info.apple.com/article.html rtnum=305056