You know what? Who really cares about your liberal invention, the so-called "Impending Energy Crisis"? You think we're gonna see anything like that in our lifetime? No, probably not. But if the sun is going to hang around a little longer a little sooner, and all the day's sunshine isn't wasted staring at my computer, then I'm a very happy camper. Don't steal the joy of sunshine arguing about numbers. Who cares about your silly numbers? Not me. I'll be too busy basking in my long-lost sunshine after work to worry about such nonesense.

Whos' staying up late patching OS's. I found this great DST utility that does it in a single click for windows 2000, and NT 4.0 for which there are no patches.
Saved me loads of time and I donated $20
Way to go !
http://ezpcsoft.esitehosting.com

Thank you for your comments, Lola. I do think you should know that the notion of an "impending energy crisis" isn't simply a "liberal invention." I picked up that particular phrase from a group called The Green Grid, which comprises large companies like Microsoft, IBM, HP, Intel, AMD, and other technology heavyweights. I do believe their interest and investment in working collectively toward developing greener, more energy-efficient technology is driven by research and based on an actual need.

Thank you also, Rob A., for the link. That may prove handy for some folks, but IT admins working in shops running multiple platforms and apps will indeed have their work cut out for them, and I don't think there's a simple silver bullet, judging by today's column by my colleague Oliver Rist.

I just googled this article because I got an email from my IT department discussing about 20 systems that are going to be negatively affected by this change, including phone auto-attendants, appointment scheduling software, cell phones, etc. I think we should have a comprehensive energy policy in this country and not try to manipulate the clock for modest (if any) savings. We are grownups and we can save energy without disrupting our fragile sleep cycles. I'm buying more coffee stock.

That first poster must be off their rocker. Nothing like passing the buck: "You think we're gonna see anything like that in our lifetime". C'mon now, the world doesn't revolve around any one person, so stop being a part of the "Me" generation. Consider your kids, or your kids kids.

I work in the IT world, and have for quite some time. Electricity is the lifeblood of computers. And we're only getting more and more of them (I swear they grow on their own in the datacenter) and forever expanding them (getting more powerful, etc). Our electricity bills are going through the roof.

Man, what people will do for a little bit of sunshine. :) Why not take a vacation, retire, start working at night, or change your career? :)

Anyhow, enough of that first poster. Being from the IT world, the adjustment to the new DST time will have little impact. I mean, I saw mention of it being equated to the ramp up to the year 2000. Bah! And that was a nothing event if there ever was one. Many core systems run on GMT, and the applications running on them do the conversion to the individual's time zone. Many other systems that do run on a local time zone are typically sync'ed back to a centralized host (Unix/Windows hosts in corp environments sync time via NTP, or, with Windows domains, they sync their time back to the domain controller). Individual home setups will be tweaked as the individual needs to do it.

Will the new adjustment to DST make any energy difference? I doubt it. I think previous administrations already altered it enough to get it to its "sweet spot". This is just an attempt to squeeze a little more out of the idea of DST (energy savings) that probably won't show any substantial benefit.

Bad title for your little blurb here. "Not so bright" makes it sound like it was a silly idea. When really its not so silly. So maybe according to your article we won't save as much as was predicted or enough to make a sizeable difference in our energy consumption, however the increased daylight hours sure do make people a lot happier and a lot more likely to get their overweight selves (another problem for Americans) outside and doing things. When it gets dark early people are much more likely to remain inside, whereas if it's still light people will venture out, therefore using slightly less engergy in their homes and burning more calories off their butts.

Sounds like increased Daylight Savings is a Bright idea! But don't pop a lightbuld--that will use more energy!!

I realize this is a REALLY novice question... I understand that the logistics of getting all the clocks to change in all our computers running on multiple platforms and in multiple countries is a logistical nightmare.

What I want to understand is: what is the impact on our systems, software, etc. of this issue aside from the inconvenience of our clocks being off by an hour for a month if we just let the system update when it's programed to do so? I hear our IT guys saying this is "worse than Y2K" and that we should "print copies of everything for a month." What's the deal?

"what is the impact on our systems, software, etc. of this issue aside from the inconvenience of our clocks being off by an hour for a month if we just let the system update when it's programed to do so? I hear our IT guys saying this is "worse than Y2K" and that we should "print copies of everything for a month." What's the deal?"

Elizabeth, that's a perfectly good and valid question. It's unfortunate that this DST change has gotten less attention than the Y2K issue. Granted, a lot of people said the Y2K issue turned out to be a lot of hype because nothing really happened -- but at least part of that had to do with the fact that people were prepared.

In answer to your question, I suggest you check out this article from NetworkWorld. It goes into some detail as to what the impact of the DST change might be if your systems aren't prepared.

Either way, I feel glad to know that we bow down to letting others tell us what "time" it is.

At first, I was creeped-out by this DST change-- like big brother was adding more duties to his job, duties that belong in the hands of white winged fairies and such. Ah, but no, its the energy crisis. I approve. It'll keep March from becoming its usual drab-wish the month didn't exist-self.

Well, I'm not exactly in IT, but I manage the calendars of some very busy people and this change in DST has completely mangled their Outlook calendars. Some meetings are *already* bumped an hour, other meetings on the same day are fine. Which means me and others who have the same kinds of responsibilities are going to have to go through calendar entries for every day until the end of DST, making corrections. That means more hours at work. And that means more energy usage.

By the way, has it occurred to anyone that with the shift in daylight hours, those of us in states with brutal summers will be running our air conditioners longer?

love the idea of extended DST ! it will help people feel better & be more active! that alone is good enough for me ...

I think what Kevin said was right. I would also like to add to what he said by saying the more sunlight the less you need lights to be on and sun creates warmth so less heat. Also when people start opening there home windows and curtains the stale air that carries germs can escape so there will be less colds earlier in the year.

I received an email from a friend who sails in the summer months. She said the the change in the DST is causing serious problems in the sailing world because of its impact on tide tables calculations.

Are the people saying that the extra 3 weeks of sunshine is worth it working in the IT dept of their company?! I would prefer the whole world go dark for the month of March rather than deal with this nightmare.

i think they should do away with it all together.

Who's going to buy me a new watch. My Timex Ironman automaticaly changes for DST. Last time I check they was no way to flash the firmware.

I am one of the IT people patching all the systems for DST. We have basically completed all of our patches - at least to the systems that we can find patches for. I just wonder if we will save enough engergy to offset the cost of compliance?

Saying daylight savings time gives 'more daylight' is like making a blanket longer by cutting a foot off one end and sewing it on the other. Want more daylight? Get up earlier! There is no reason companies/schools/etc couldn't have summer schedules. Farmers and carpenters have been basing their work schedules on local dawn for years.

IntelliAdmin also has a nice, easy-to-use patch that can be used in an unattended fashion (has command-line switches). The software is freeware. They have one patch for NT4/2000/XP/2003 and another for Win98/ME. Get it from http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unofficial-windows-2000-daylight.html . BTW, I'm not affliated with IntelliAdmin...

Ted--you may want to point out that Microsoft has already updated their first DST patch. KB928388 has been superceded by KB931836 for several reasons...

The response about relying on NTP has me slightly concerned, if I remember correctly (and at my age its not as reliable as it used to be), the NTP timestamp is an 64-bit unsigned number representing the seconds relative to 0 hour on 1 January 1900 UTC. Since the NTP time stamp is in UTC time, the machine will convert it to local time using the offset it is aware of for that point in time. Almost all the patches I know of, are to change the range of what offset is used when. So an unpatched machine will continue to represent time as it always has, even with NTP.

I agree with the previous poster. Take an extreme example and start DST Mar 11 but end it much later - ie- March 10 the following year. Its a self negating adjustment and its pointless in the first place.

A company of any size will have dozens of systems that need to be updated. This is going to hit IT departments hard ....

Expanded DST is a great idea and will allow us to continue doing what it was intended for - working in the fields to bring in the harvest. No, DST was never intended to save energy and as one person has already pointed out, it doesn't actually increase the number of daylight hours. And for those of you who support it, remember that fact when your DVRs miss your favorite show.

I appreciate the various comments and insights, everyone. Thanks for chiming in.

Saving energy has indeed been one of the arguments behind DST, whether or not that was the original purpose of the clock change. DST has been extended in the past in the name of energy conservation, including this most recent extension, which was part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

From a leisure standpoint, sure, it's nice to be able to savor more daylight. But from a business perspective, given all the work needed to accomodate it and considering how little it will save energy-wise, I still maintain it's not worthwhile.

What is this "Daylight Savings Time" you speak of? We in Arizona know you can't make a blanket longer by cutting off some from one end and sewing it on the other end, so we leave our clocks alone. Anyway, why would we want our 100+ degree Summer days to extend longer into the evening?

The DST thing is so all the gas bags in Washington can break their arms patting themselves on the back. WOW Look what I did! Saved 1000 barrels of oil a day. Not worrying about the 10 billion dollars corporate IT will spend cleaning up their mess. IT already has its hands full keeping Windows from crashing....

Please keep "you get what you pay for" in mind when selecting tools for patching Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 in your environment. Many of those tools were prepared by junior level programmers and they don't do key things like properly configure all 35+ time zones that need updates, create the required Dynamic DST keys, work properly on non-English builds of Windows, and actually work on NT 4. The most comprehensive and well supported DST patching tool is available from www.sharpebusinesssolutions.com/dst2007.

I agree with Bob from AZ, that DST is silly. I think it's nothing but a waste of time. I think we should leave our clocks in "expanded" DST forever, but I'm from the "radical" left/west coast (CA)...

This has been an IT nightmare. And to the idiots that keep recommending "free patches", the scope of these changes go beyond your home computer.

Thinks like cell phones, alarm systems, all kinds of hardware, etc. will all be thrown off by this. Even my freaking scheduling thermostat is going to be off by an hour unless I manually adjust the time 4 times a year now or my heat will kick on for an extra hour, there goes the savings at my house...

Congress is a bunch of idiots.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070307_daylight_savings.html

The Department of Energy issued a report that also predicted relatively small energy savings for the country as a whole, and will issue another report in the fall detailing the actual savings, said Department of Energy spokesperson Tom Welch. If Congress deems the energy savings too small, they might even revert back to the old start and end dates, he told LiveScience.

"It might be a one-year deal," Welch said.

If it was me trying to "make up" things to do I think the notion that we should just abandon DST everywhere would rule! I think that would save me energy. I wouldn't have to figure out what time to get up 2 times a year and adjust a bunch of clocks. I wouldn't have to arrive at work an hour late (early) and all the anxiety about that or miss some thing on 2 Sundays because I wasn't paying attention to the clocks again on Saturday night.

I think I should move to Arizona or Saskatchewan.

I think this DST thing is a government plot...I don't know exactly what, but something.

They say that Canada should follow the US with this early daylight savings scheme, which it has done as of yesterday. One of the rationales for it is that the US and Canadian stock exchange should operate at similar hours to avoid costs. Is that actually really necessary? Don't stock exchanges in other countries in totally different time zones operate just fine, even though they are not open when the U.S. one is. Anyone?

People in the south will be turning on their air conditioners when they come home from work an hour earlier and using even more energy. Am I the only one who objects to going to work in the dark in the morning and for the school kids to have to wait on their buses in the dark? DST should be abolished entirely. Ben Franklin's only bad idea.