Comments on: Week in review: Spring forward, fall flat

Thanks to a decision Congress made two years ago, daylight saving is starting early--and causing headaches for IT pros and consumers.

[unigamer69]

Vista: Piracy paraphernalia detected...

<satire>
For all we know, it may not be a bug, when Vista corrupts an iPod plugged into it.

Perhaps deep down in a kernel-level process, this is what's happening, translated into plain English:

"Piracy paraphernalia detected on USB port 0. Engage sanitization routines.. starting with the directory sectors... done."

Or perhaps alternatively, there's the "can't stand 1-bit of competition" angle:

"Music device detected on USB port 0, scanning manufacturer ID.. Apple. Player is not a Zune.. true. Player is from our arch-rival.. true. Engage sanitization routines.. starting with the directory sectors.. done."
</satire>

/ Yes, I woke up too early today - without coffee. =;o)

[Fil0403]

Apple: non-Apple product paraphernalia detected...

For all we know too, it may not be a bug, when iPod refuses to work with Vista. Perhaps deep down in the core of the iPod OS, this is what's happening too, translated into plain English: "Non-Apple OS detected on PC. Engage incompatibility routines... starting with plugg-in I/O... done." Or perhaps alternatively too, there's the "can't stand that market-leading Windows" angle: "Unknown OS detected on PC, scanning manufacturer ID... Microsoft. OS is not from Apple... true. OS is from market-leading arch-rival... true. Engage incompatibility routines... starting with plug-in I/O... done"
You see, you can say it the other way around and it makes as much sense as your ignorant vision of the problem, because software should be developed in order to work with an OS, and not the OS that should be developed to work specifically with a device called iPod - or even more sense. :P

[Jeffhs]

It's the same old thing we heard seven years ago about Y2K

"Spring forward fall flat"? I don't think so.

Seven years ago, the Y2K issue was blown well out of proportion, no thanks to the news media's habit of sensationalizing everything--sometimes to the point of being utterly ridiculous. Nothing much happened at midnight December 31, 1999 as far as the world's computers were concerned; only a handful of systems were actually affected by the so-called "millennium bug", with most systems taking the change in stride. Now, in 2007, we are hearing about something that is being called "the next Y2K". I don't think the early DST change will cause nearly as much trouble as the news media told us Y2K would cause, if indeed the change wreaks much havoc at all. For PC clocks in home systems, a simple workaround for the new DST would be to simply disable the automatic DST update by removing the check mark from the box marked "automatically adjust clock for daylight savings time change" and changing the time manually. Schedulers for anti-virus and other automatically-triggered programs in PCs can be adjusted manually as well for the change. Businesses that depend on calendars may be affected somewhat by the change, but there is always the old technique of mentally adding one hour to the time on a a clock which still shows EST--or have we as a nation become so dependent on computers to do our bidding for us that we have become too lazy even to do that?

[davejyd]

For those who are running older PCs, a simple fix

If you are running older PCs with older versions of Windows (yes, they are still out there!), here is the most simple fix ever - no patched, downloads, or updates needed! Just go to the "set date/time" screen (double-click on the clock) and turn off (uncheck) "Automatically Adjust Clock For Daylight Savings Time Changes"Then set your clock manually. Yes, you will have to do it again in the fall, but most of us are running around our houses resetting clocks anyway - what's one more? This will even work on XP or Vista machines - again, no downloads required. For those who were able to download and install Windows Daylight Savings Time patch - Great! it Worked!! But for those who didn't or couldnt, or the old-timers out there - here you go! And if the Govt. goes back to the old way after this "experiment", just turn the auto-change back on! Simple!

[JEfromCanada]

Wished it had worked

I advised all my clients running older copies of Windows operating systems about the TZEDIT.EXE patch that updated the TimeZone tables within the computers. The TZEDIT.EXE program worked perfectly. Just one hitch... despite the tables being updated, I've had several reports that the clock itself did not change over today (mine included).

I'm going to be dealing with lots of disgruntled customers, and will be spending significant time trying to figure out what went wrong.