Time's A-Wastin'

Are you ready for daylight-saving time? Unless you're living in a cave, you know that the new, improved schedule for daylight-saving time begins on March 11. So, you and your business will spring ahead two weeks earlier than last year, which will result in an extra hour of light at the end of the day. Maybe we'll save some energy in the process.

Jennifer Bosavage, Editor In Chief, Solution Providers for Retail

March 1, 2007

2 Min Read
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Are you ready for daylight-saving time? Unless you're living in a cave, you know that the new, improved schedule for daylight-saving time begins on March 11. So, you and your business will spring ahead two weeks earlier than last year, which will result in an extra hour of light at the end of the day. Maybe we'll save some energy in the process.The media attention this is getting is widespread; all of it seems to imply that this is coming upon us all of a sudden. For example, according to a statewide poll in Oregon, agency heads on average gave their departments a rating of 3.59 out of a possible 5 in terms of readiness for the daylight-saving bug. And we hear, too, that enterprise applications are likely to trip on the daylight-saving change. Talk about procrastination: President Bush signed this bill that extended daylight-saving time into law in August 2005.

But despite all the hoopla and instances of waiting until the last minute, we're not facing anything close to the scale of the notorious Y2K crisis. While the Y2K problem threatened to shut down computers completely, this problem is a low-level frustration that could cause computers to have the incorrect time. Calendaring and manufacturing systems could cause confusion and chaos in an organization if nothing is done to resolve the problem.

Of course, it's in the best interest of companies to just make the appropriate adjustments, rather than manually change the dates on every computer four times a year. Any time-sensitive documents could fail if the changes aren't made. I talked about the problem recently with David A. Milman, CEO of Rescuecom. "There's an easy fix for Windows 2K and XP; Vista is ready with the new updates already," he said. "For Windows 2K and XP, just turn on automatic updates in the control panel...this does require some savvy user to accomplish this task, but it doesn't require a technician." Seems it really requires the ability to read a calendar.

For other information on how users are approaching Vista in the trenches, check out today's top story, The InformationWeek Windows Vista Roundtable: Part One.

About the Author

Jennifer Bosavage

Editor In Chief, Solution Providers for Retail

Writing and editing from the IT metropolis that is Fairfield County, Conn., Jen is Editor In Chief of Solution Providers For Retail. In her role, she oversees all editorial operations of the site, including engaging VARs to share their expertise within the community. She has written for IT professionals for more than 20 years, with expertise in covering issues concerning solution providers, systems integrators, and resellers.

Jen most recently was Senior Editor at CRN. There, she was in charge of the publication's editorial research projects, including: Solution Provider 500, Fast Growth 100, Women of the Channel, and Emerging Vendors, among many others. She launched the online blog, "Channel Voices," and often wrote on career issues facing IT professionals in her blog, "One Year to a Better Career."

Jen began her tech journalism career at Electronic Buyer News, where she covered the purchasing beat. (That was so long ago that blue LEDs were big news.) Starting as copy editor, she worked her way up to Managing Editor before moving to VARBusiness. At VARBusiness, she was Executive Editor, leading a team of writers that won the prestigious Jesse Neal award for editorial excellence.

Jennifer has been married for 22 years and has two wonderful kids (even the teenager). To adults in her hometown, she is best known for her enormous Newfoundland dog; to high schoolers, for her taco nights.

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