OSNews

I had to patch several Win2K boxes at work, and it was a pain. I have Mandriva 2007 installed at home, and I my clock updated automatically. Maybe it was already part of the system.

It is only for 10.3.9, for anything before that you need to use the freeware that update 10.0.0 through 10.3.9 at http://pss-mac01.unh.edu/howto/DST_fix.html

I've got three cisco boxes running callmanager(2) and unity(1). They run on Windows Server 2000. I'm just going to be manually jogging the time forward on them. I haven't been able to get a straight answer and cisco's docs are a cludge.

Other than that, most of my Windows workstations are updated, my NetWare boxes, my linux servers, and my Server 2003 boxes are all as well. I've done my GroupWise updates. The only thing I have to do is run the DST GroupWise repair utility for calenders and fix on the servers that run it.

Nothing is more kuldge than MS's "fix". I don't know who to be more pissed at......congress for enacting this ridiculous law, or Microsoft for knowing about it for 2 years and yet sticking us with a statement like "apply all patches in rapid succession." What bunk!

I still want it explained to me why a patch for outlook, or exchange's calendar is needed when both the desktop and server OS is patched. That makes no sense. The time of the appointment is relative to the system clock.

I checked Edgy this weekend, and the update had already been applied.

If they are patched yes, if not who knows. In the timezone data for each OS, Java and some applications is information about when DST starts and stops. If you have not patched your systems and March 11 comes around, despite what the NTP server says, your machine(s) might respond with "April 1 is the start of DST" and ingore the NTP update.

The only way to be sure is patch and test.

No, because NTP works on UTC time. Your OS will still make the DST adjustments based on your timezone.

Even if you use NTP, you still need to patch your /usr/share/zoneinfo files (or manually adjust the time on 3/11 and 4/1, then again on 10/28 and 11/4).

Because they were bored and noticed it hadn't changed much in the last 20 years?

Truthfully, they claim its to reduce energy consumption. Some statistic I read stated it is supposed to reduce the US dependency on 150,000 barrels of oil throughout the year. The worst part is there is a footnote in the bill that gives Congress the option to reverse the change in the next year or two if the gain doesn't prove worthy.

I wonder how much of that "gain" is now lost with all the IT departments that have to spend time updating DST files on servers.

I posted a similar response, but they pulled it because of a word I used. But essentially, it's Bush's way of taking focus off the war. They say it will save the US millions in fuel costs, but it's costing businesses billions in lost time, etc...

Wrong. Bush doesn't have the power to make laws, only to pass or veto them.

You are correct, I used incorrect terminology, it should have been "bill" not "law". You are, however, incorrect in your assumption of me being a Republican, although I am likely closer to the right than most people here.

If you read other posts here, some like the change, others hate it, and that's how it is with most new laws. This one is especially annoying because of all the technology changes that must be made, and the reversion clause poses even more of a problem, since the changes may need to be reverted in the next couple years.

However, this could benefit us if it sticks, and that is what this trial run is for.

If they wanted to reduce energy consumption, all they'd have to do is stop subsidizing oil. They say this would raise the price of gasoline to somewhere between $5 and $15 a gallon. Then people would voluntarily conserve. Google "true cost of gasoline" for more info.

I've always found "Daylight Savings" time to be backward. It's never made sense to me why we want it to be light out at 11pm.

We should be pushing the clocks back in the spring (look, it's light out in the morning, and dark at 10pm) and forward in the fall (look it's light out in the morning, and dark around 7pm).

Instead, during the summer, it's light out until almost midnight, and in the winter it's dark when we wake and dark when we leave work. Yeah, great way to save daylight there.

The whole point of timezones is so that the position of the sun is almost always the same at the same "time" wherever you go. So why not implement "daylight savings" to make the "daylight" part of the day the same throughout the year? Makes a lot more sense to me.

We are not an agricultural, daylight-dependent society. It's time to drop these agricultural, daylight-dependent anachronisms.

"We are not an agricultural, daylight-dependent society. It's time to drop these agricultural, daylight-dependent anachronisms."

DST was introduced to conserve energy, as many people on this thread have reminded us, and has nothing to do with daylight-dependment or agriculture. The idea is that during summer, it gets light really early (when most people are still sound asleep), but gets dark when most people are still awake (and thus will turn on the lights). When shifting for an hour, you would save the energy needed for light for one hour. You can't just shift that hour permanently, since during winter, it would get dark even sooner than it does now, so the clock is turned back then. Of course, one could argue whether in a modern time with everyone having computers and other energy consuming home appliences running 24/7, the energy consumption of your average light bulb really matters that much.

It's still backwards, especially in the winter. It's dark when you wake up, it's dark when you are preparing for work, it's dark when you get to work (for those that work at 8 or 9 in most places), it's dark when you leave work (for those that work until 5-ish), it's dark when you get home. Where's the savings there? The lights are on all day.

If we moved the clocks ahead in the winter, then it would still be dark in the morning, but it would be light out for an hour or so after work. Seems we'd save a lot more power that way.

And if we moved the clocks back in the summer, it would actually be dark at night, like it's supposed to be. I can't stand trying to sleep when it's still daylight out after 11pm.